The Epstein case - how many famous men had sex with young children?

[Annasgirl]

Is anyone else horrified at the men involved in this? I mean I thought having sex with young girls / boys (I mean very young) was a proclivity of a very small number of men (mostly, before any but women do it too people come on to correct me).

Is it that men who succeed in something are so inured to their own invincibility that they think they can get away with anything or is there a correlation between the ruthlessness needed to succeed in these areas and sexual attraction to younger people?

I'm just musing to myself here - but if even half the names mentioned are involved then this really is not a proclivity of a small number of men, it is endemic.

@CoolCarrie yes I'd heard that too about Natalie Wood, but Frank Sinatra was also "involved" with her when she was 15 and he was in his late 30s, or so I read.

@sakura184 wow, that is so patronising and reactionary, you’ve come full circle to be alt-right! I, for one, have agency and can do good and bad, for which I’m fully responsible.

You seem to think women are all pathetic weak-minded children. I don’t want to live in your world, thanks.

I live in Asia and it is shocking how often you will see older white men with young Asian girls who do not even look 18. The men don’t look ashamed at all. And that’s what I’ve seen just walking around in public areas, I don’t spend time in the nightclubs and other locations where it’s even more brazen.

I don’t believe what Epstein has done is rare sadly and for rich men who “have it all” they see it as a thrill. When in reality it is rape abuse and exploitation.

I hope he’s locked up and the conspiracy of powerful men who’ve protected him comes crashing down too.

We live in a peadophilic culture.

www.feministcurrent.com/tag/pedophile-culture/

It's everywhere, we often don't even notice.

edgeofheaven
It isn't just the conspiracy of powerful men who've protected Epstein that need to be brought down but the whole web of politically powerful men from whom he's bought influence by providing them with 'entertainment' (sc. opportunity to indulge fantasy of raping young girls).

This Daily Beast Cheat Sheet has more background articles, starting with a riveting 2015 piece by Vicky Ward about researching a feature she did for Vanity Fair in 2003, which shows something of Epstein's character and reach. It is still a mystery how Epstein came by his fortune.

www.thedailybeast.com/i-tried-to-warn-you-about-sleazy-billionaire-jeffrey-epstein-in-2003?ref=scroll

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363444/Jeffrey-Epstein-Robert-Maxwells-daughter-Ghislaine-hired-girls-paedophile.html

"At the Mar-a-Lago Club where (Roberts) was recruited..."

Ring a bell?

And re Natalie Wood:

<a class="break-all" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0Q27Rw7uF8MJ:www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2001-07-08-0107080329-story.html+&cd=22&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0Q27Rw7uF8MJ:www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2001-07-08-0107080329-story.html+&cd=22&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu

This is why radfems always advise women to stay the fuck away from men

No they don't, sakura184. You're thinking of lesbian separatists perhaps.

This guy is like the villain in a John Grisham novel come to life

I really dislike the implication that when women are involved in this stuff it is because they are dominated by men.

Yes, there are people who go on to be victimisers after they were victimised themselves, its quite common. And sometimes they don't have much agency, because of their actual situation under the power of others, or because they have been too mentally messed up and they aren't really capable of making choices or seeing what is right and wrong.

But women are just as likely as men to be exploiters of other people, and if that means benefiting in some way from the sexual exploitation of young women or girls they are as happy to do so as if they were exploiting women in a sweat-shop or men working in a mine or anyone else.

People who don't feel human solidarity aren't going to feel it based on a common sex either.

Anyway, Epstein is a particularly nasty bit of business, in every way. I would say he is sociopathic which may well be more common among billionaires than it is among the general population. For one thing it's helpful to do well in the financial industry, and even among normal people the effect of having so much money tends to shift your sense of what is normal. Then if for some reason you are spending a lot of time with certain people that shifts your sense as well.

I don't know that there is a lot of limit to how many men might be attracted to the group that seems to have been involved here, mainly teenage girls (though I think maybe that's less the case for Epstein himself but they seem to have been the ones at his parties.) From a purely physical biological perspective, sexual attraction seems to be triggered by secondary sexual characteristics in adults with normal sexual development.
Whether or not it's seen as socially acceptable to act on that in young women is down to what we teach people.
I don't hold out a lot of hope because to be frank our society talks out of both sides of its mouth. Teen girls are sexualised like crazy, and even when talking about this with women who consider themselves feminists it seems pretty common for them to think this is ok, and in fact I've been told that I'm a sexist more than once for supporting things like dress codes in schools mean to limit that. If you present young women and girls as sexual objects in the media, and in their daily lives for that matter, it will affect men and boys, it is crazy to think it won't.

My DSD and her DH have both been horrified by the overt sexual attention given to their DD, a very slight 13 year old, even when wearing her school uniform.

My DSD says men did the same when she was that age but she didn't register how wrong it was. This was partly because of her DM, who insisted she lost her virginity as soon as she was 16 because otherwise she'd "dry up".

This was partly because of her DM, who insisted she lost her virginity as soon as she was 16 because otherwise she'd "dry up".

Who told you this?

Your post is anecdotal. Like mine is going to be.

My son has said to me his father's female partner has hugged him when he specifically said no to it within his bedroom at their house. He felt most uncomfortable with this. She ran her fingers through his hair and told him he was gorgeous. There is not a lot I can do about this. He does not think of her as his step mum. He loves to be with his dad though as he doesn't see him often. If we told this to his dad he would not believe it.

How many? Many.

I'm sorry to say.

My son is 17 btw, so above the age of consent.

My DSD told me. She is a very truthful woman who wants her own DD to have a very different childhood. It also tied in with a number of other things her DM did and said during her childhood and adolescence.

Prawn for your stepdaughter and my son. Truthful people are always believed by those who wish to speak the truth.

I just read an article on this in the Guardian by a US writer and all she seems to want out of it is for the Republicans to suffer. Really, I am very political and can be quite partisan in my own country but if the party I support had people who acted like this and the opposition did too I would want all of these men (and women) to be held to account and I would not want any party to get a "win" from it. This is too serious and, frankly, too all-encompassing to make it about Republicans and Democrats or one pop star or another - I want them all named, tried, shamed and ruined. And I want us all to acknowledge that even people who share our political views can be immoral (can I say that without sounding like a prude? If not, I will take being called a prude).

Also, I want to know who in the judiciary is involved since they seem to treat rape and sex offences so mildly throughout the world.

Her DM did some horrible things when my DSD was young but that's a long time ago now and she's mellowed to an almost incredible extent in recent years.

She must have had a very traumatic childhood. My DH said he never got the same story about her childhood twice and my DSD says the same. She arrived in England from Serbia and became a stripper at 16. Her attitudes stem from her own sexual exploitation as a teenager.

This is too serious and, frankly, too all-encompassing to make it about Republicans and Democrats or one pop star or another - I want them all named, tried, shamed and ruined. And I want us all to acknowledge that even people who share our political views can be immoral.

I'm with you 100%. And no, you're not a prude.

My son is a happy lad and will only now go to his dad's if his sister is there. I told him to put a chair up against the door and if anyone questioned it he was to say it was to stop his younger half brothers coming into the room. It works. His sister knows.

Oh Prawn you have given your lovely step daughter an anchor in life that is invaluable.

Prawn and Placemats - you have shown that all of us or are children are / were vulnerable to this. The most important thing you can do is believe and be proactive. Could your DS have an excuse not to go there?
TBH, I am super sensitive to it since I was very young and I hope and pray my children escape - it is only through luck most of us escape this throughout our teen or even preteen years. When I hear the stories of abuse that went on in Ireland when I was a preteen and a teen, right under our noses. So I believe every child, everywhere, is at risk.

Calling out sexual abuse is not being a prude. Nor is helping those who have or are now living in a home where sexual abuse is either ignored or encouraged.

The word prude was invented by those who love to do the above to vulnerable humans. It has to stop. It has to be revealed. I bet there are a few many people twitching tonight on the Epstein case.

And I want us all to acknowledge that even people who share our political views can be immoral

I'm entirely comfortable with making that immoral and depraved and echoing the rest.

This has been happening in plain sight with no attempt to counter those who destroy the boundaries of others.

We do not have to keep learning lessons - we need to implement the solutions - such as respecting safeguarding and taking it seriously.

I'm not even sure I understand why it would be bad for Republicans specifically? A lot of the people involved have closer ties to the Democrats.