What do you think about Prince Andrew?

[theilltemperedclavecinist]

Sexual exploitation of women and girls used to be saucy (think Carry On movies, the Playboy Mansion or seaside postcards) and no-one wanted to think about the power imbalance apart from hairy feminists.

Now we know that Epstein was a sex trafficker, the media and the public think that every man who met him must have known about it and is therefore equally vile.

It's not as though misogyny has gone away though. Daily Mail articles about teen pregnancy for example attract highly rated comments about those slutty girls.

Why the discrepancy? Everyone seems to suffer the same kind of magical thinking - that every individual has perfect knowledge and perfect autonomy. The hard-of-thinking celebrity who gropes a pretty girl (or worse) and thinks its all good clean consensual fun? Definitely a p@#£do.The devious fourteen year-old, plotting her way to a cushy life on benefits? Definitely couldn't be a victim. Always think the worst of everyone.

Not sorry for Andrew, except insofar as he's a careless wielder of unconscious privilege who probably still doesn't get what he did wrong. But frustrated by the portrayal of misogyny as a parade of pantomime villains rather than the everyday menace that women all know about.

He’s a venal, self-delusional, arrogant serial sex offender who will never think he’s done anything wrong because to his mind, he’s great and infallible.

Why waste time on such insignificant man?

He's hardly unique though: misogyny is rife, but gets blamed on a few bad apples whilst, in other contexts, women continue to get victim-blamed.

I don't suffer from any of that magical thinking but I still think he's a cunt. I broadly agree with all your points and don't think he's more of a villain than countless other exploitative creeps.

I differ from your conclusion- don't go easy on Andrew, treat them all just as harshly (worse, if we can, all he's faced is embarassment) and hope the example reduces the number of of perpatrators.

I think he is stupid. I think he is entitled. I think his background ensures he doesn't see people as people but things that make his life easier or more enjoyable. He's has had a lifetime of yes men. I think he is a typical very rich, privileged, white man. I do not think he has any brains to have deliberately done anything but has accepted whatever others give him rather than say no, it's wrong.

I think others are pushing him forward as a sacrificial lamb. The real question is - what are they trying to hide?

He's a spoiled arrogant snob. Liz's favourite but now she's no longer protecting him, Charles should take a leaf out of the Queen of Denmark's book and chop off every branch of the family from being HRH who don't belong to the direct line.

Of course he’s not unique. That is what makes him such an insignificant man.

The lot of them, not worth thinking about.

Further to my previous post- I've changed my mind. I don't think we should treat Andrew harshly at all, we should just stop giving him priviledges and treat him like any other citizen accused of sleeping with trafficed, minor prostitutes.

• Remove every title, award and rank.
• Stop any access to public funds, public building or special treatment from public services like the police.
• Send him to the US and let him face a fair trial.

Nailed it

I think he's been caught out by a change in our culture. I think he was always a sleaze and suspect a lot of Royal men of being similar in attitude. They expect that despite not being the best looking and neither pleasant nor intelligent they will attract women, they believe themselves to be 'the catch' and the women lucky.

I think it's disgusting behaviour for (as Andrew was at the time of the epstein/ guiffre business) a family man of 40 something in a position of representing the UK. Apparently a thick, libidinous, unattractive, overprivileged man in what was considered worthy of representing our interests abroad.

He was a bloodsucker getting to leach expenses paid jaunts overseas on the taxpayer's dime.

He's never done anything worthwhile in his whole life.

I think they should exile him to Scotland and no longer inflict him on the British public ever.

This 100%.

FWIW my former boyfriend met PA in a professional capacity. He was quite enthusiastic and pleased to meet PA and very excited about it. He came home absolutely spitting with rage at how disrespectful and dismissive PA was towards them. That made a big impression on me because ex was a committed monarchist.

I think he is dim, rich and lives in a bubble.

He is also not as rich or as important as he thinks he should be.

So he absolutely would go to a party and think teen girls there were desperate to have sex with him. He's probably never bothered to find out that trafficking is a thing.

And he is too thick to spot when he is being groomed by a sex trafficker who surrounds himself by rich and influential men as cover for his trafficking business.

As to how he came to be a trade ambassador, have a look at the Mitchell and Webb comedy Ambassadors on YouTube, the Prince Mark episode.

It's clearly written by someone who saw Prince Andrew in action.

Arrives in former Soviet state, behaves like a complete knob, disaster is pending but the Head of State loves meeting royalty.

After a night of boozing and watching porn together the trade deal is done.

He was effective as some heads of state want to meet an idiot entitled bloke as that's exactly what they are too.

Loved that episode @AnnaMagnani but i thought they watched last of the Summer Wine all night. (At least, that is how my whiter than white brain remembers it!).

It felt bang on the money too. (That is the sort of environment my ex met PA.)

I don't think he's especially dim or thick or stupid. He was perfectly capable of learning to fly helicopters and taking part in full-on live war missions. I think treating his behaviour as a symptom of lack of intelligence is too lenient on him.

What he is, is wilfully blinkered to his privilege as a wealthy white man with the huge weight of a super privileged organisation behind him. He has chosen to remain isolated from the general population and have no awareness of the lives of the majority of people. To me, it's that he just fundamentally doesn't care about people who aren't like him, and sees them as props in his life rather than people with their own lives that he could empathise with. Like a lot of wealthy privileged men do.

I agree with you OP. Was thinking about this the other day. When I was young (late 80s into 90s) there were plenty of films, TV programmes, computer games, posters etc etc where men would pose surrounded by beautiful young models. That was just the thing you were supposed to aspire to as a young man.

Did people think the models were all having a great time? Maybe - but also that they were dim and easy/slutty.

I think a lot of it goes back to the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll ethos - being a wild child and not asking any awkward questions. Losing all inhibitions. It was sold as a kind of freedom but actually it was oldish men exploiting vulnerable young girls, very often.

I'm pretty sure that someone like Prince Andrew, in 80s/90s, would think a supply of sex was just their right as a celebrity. Wouldn't have thought about it much more than that. I'm also fairly sure that you could trace royal men back to the year dot and most of them would have a trail of Virginia Giuffres behind them.

I mean, at that time no one would have asked about it in the same way they wouldn't have asked about where plastic would be disposed of or whether their clothes were made in a sweatshop. For most people it wasn't on the radar and you'd seem weird for asking.

Yes, I am afraid this is my opinion.

To add, I also remember when he was referred to everywhere as a heart throb. 'randy andy'. As an eligible Prince he probably had women throwing themselves at him - maybe thinking it was because he was as handsome and charming as the press made him out to be and not because he was an actual Prince, who are really rare and exceptionally eligible.

I think this treatment in his formative years led him to believe he was irresistible, and he probably did not realise that he was cavorting with trafficked girls.

Which does legally mean he is not guilty., because you have to know that the girls are trafficked. And epstein was much smarter than Prince Andrew, he would have known how to manipulate a rich, arrogant idiot.

It doesn't look great but it doesn't look criminal.

@ZenNudist you do know Scotland is part of Britain, don't you?

@PurpleSparkledPixie

I agree.

As odious as he is, some will be beyond delighted that most are concentrating on PA and the truly rich and truly powerful are still out of the intense glare of the media.

As a whipping boy/sacrificial lamb he was perfect.

And I can’t help but feel that the sex trafficking of vulnerable girls and young women is but the tip of the iceberg.

Nonetheless PA deserves the scrutiny.

But you can get to fuck with exiling him to Scotland Zen. We don’t want him and last I looked we are British too.

It just sickens me that he seems to be the focus of attention while others are permitted to lurk in the shadows.

It also sickens me that the only person doing time for this whole despicable affair is a woman. Deserved as it is.

What I think of him cannot be written on this forum.

Cross post @EmmaGrundyForPM

Thank you.

As odious as he is, some will be beyond delighted that most are concentrating on PA and the truly rich and truly powerful are still out of the intense glare of the media.

As a whipping boy/sacrificial lamb he was perfect.

My thoughts exactly. He is definitely being used as a scapegoat and whilst I think he's a vile man, I think there are lot worse out there that we are not being told about and that in itself is more worrying to me.

This is exactly what I think too. He probably had no idea of the existence of something like sex trafficking.

I think he's being made a scapegoat..

I think he's been caught out by a change in our culture. I think he was always a sleaze and suspect a lot of Royal men of being similar in attitude. They expect that despite not being the best looking and neither pleasant nor intelligent they will attract women, they believe themselves to be 'the catch' and the women lucky.

^This. And not just royals. Male celebrities and men in positions of authority in loads of companies and organisations. Public recognition and rejection of this kind of behaviour has been a long time coming. Men who carry on regardless, thinking the culture change doesn't apply to them, deserve to lose everything.