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.

if the women were minors, sounds like they were at the time, he is guilty of statutory rpe.*

I understood they were young but NOT below the relevant age of consent. The issue was more around ability to consent.

No, the age of consent is 18 in Florida (and much if not all of the US). They were underage.

100% this.

There are women who also have a transactional view of sex, and I suppose there always will be. People can be taken advantage of, and choosing to damage themselves, and selfish, all at the same time. Just as there are men who will offer women things in hopes of pushing them into sex, there are some women who will willingly offer sex for the things they want, without caring about what it means for other women, or their own health.

He is all tge things others have said. But what really angers me is that he's been allowed to do all of this whilst we paid for his protection.

I am AMAZED how well the royals have kept their reputation over this. Presumably whoever protects the royals and most likely mi5 or similar organisations must have to vet/ have a dossier on all the people the royals associate with. Presumably they know where and what they are up too. I do t believe for a minute that no questions were raised about the appropriateness of Andrew hanging out with Epstein. Even before his conviction he had a reputation. Surely this was flagged? Surely the royals were (if not fully £ aware of the company he kept?

Yet nothing was done? Boys will be boys? There's misogyny right there! Fergie has her ties sucked and she's out the form for life. Andrew is meanwhile enabled to allegedly sleep with young girls. Disgusting.

Does Andrew still go hang onto the Falklands war hero image ?
If so he’s dined on that ever since. So did thousands of other less privileged people.

He was part of a paedophile network. He should be stripped of his diplomatic immunity and face a proper trial in the USA.

I think he’s a fucking disgrace.
As is his ex-wife.

I think that he is a paedophile. I think that he slept with girls knowing that they were being trafficked. I think he is sleazy, and I think that he is the face of what's wrong with this world.
We can all know who, and what he is, YET he is still parading around events of the RF. He borrowed money off the Queen to pay Virginia off didn't he?
He has seemed to make more appearances since his brother became king. I am appalled.
I think that it just goes to show, men can do whatever they want and be unaccountable. It isn't just him, there are so so many just like him.
But nothing will change, will it? These types never really face the music. Someone always makes excuses for them

Andrew was born into a life of privilege, surrounded by creeps and yes men.

He could have just left the navy, and lead a very quiet and wealthy life in the background. But instead chose the lifestyle he did…

He is a knob.

I have met several people who have worked with him and other members of the Royal Family and have yet to hear anyone say anything positive about him.

In contract Princess Anne commands real respect for her professionalism.

It happens. Within the same family you can get all sorts, and knobs exist in all social classes. The difference with Andrew was that he had more opportunity. People, including Epstein and Maxwell, sought him out and put up with him because of his title. And he was more protected and for longer.

Scotland is in Britain.

He isn't a paedo, and he hasn't done anything illegal, so far as I can see. It's perfectly possible that he did not carry out an investigation on Epstein before accepting hospitality from him. He may have been naive when faced with a setup where young ladies were "ready and willing", but then again sex for money is not illegal, so even if he knew they were being paid he's no worse than the other millions of men who pay for sex.

I think an awful lot of people are using him as a scapegoat to express their disgust at us having a monarchy and/or very overprivileged people who have enormous amounts of unearned wealth.

If he was just a working-class Joe (but everything else was the same) there would not be this level of venom being spat at him.

I am AMAZED how well the royals have kept their reputation over this.

It has just occurred to me that there could well have been deliberate deflection via stoking up anti Megan rhetoric. It certainly serves them well. There was clearly other stuff going on there too but it wouldn't surprise.

@WarriorN I always assumed that 95% of the Harry and Meghan stuff was put out to deflect from shit Andrew/William/Charles were up to.

It's worked brilliantly.

Agree. Remember Rotherham? The police didn't just turn a blind eye because the perpetrators were Asian. It was also because both they and the victims were working class, and the victims were 'troublemakers', many of them neglected or in care or with other problems and needing help. The police assumed they were choosing what happened to them, because they were bad girls.

I can't think of one member of the RF I would think was 'a sleaze'.
Charles
Edward
William
Duke of Kent or his sons
Duke of Gloucester or his son
Prince Michael or his son
The late Prince Phillip

I'm not their greatest supporter but would consider none of them 'a sleaze'.
Harry- possibly but even then in his much younger years.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12931925/Four-women-Ghislaine-Maxwell-dock.html

(One) woman who has been under suspicion is Nadia Marcinkova. According to police documents from the 2005 Palm Beach inquiry into Epstein, the shamed financier once bragged she was his 'sex slave' he had bought from her family in the former Yugoslavia when she was 15.

Ms Marcinkova is alleged to have taken part in sexual encounters with underage girls.

She visited him 67 times in prison while he was serving 13 months in jail in 2008 for having sex with children. Her lawyers insist she was a victim and not an abuser or a recruiter.

Daily Mail determined to bring to justice the woman who was bought as a sex slave at fifteen.

Mountbatten

much worse than a sleaze

Having sex with 17 year olds is not being a paedophile. It’s not against the law in the uk.

In Florida yes, and I wonder whether anyone on his team took the trouble to find that out and tell him?

As for the women Epstein bought and groomed, they need help not prosecution. And I might even include Ghilaine Maxwell in that. I’m not sure.

There was someone who was extremely close to Prince Charles in particular,
who he saw as a cofinandate,

he was from S.Africa a explorer Lauren's something?

I can't remember his name proberly,

He got away with being a Paedo too,

didn't have have a relationship with an underage girl or had a love child with her?

Laurens van der Post en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurens_van_der_Post#Posthumous_controversy

Laurens van der Post en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurens_van_der_Post

Mountbatten was a paedophile.

Wondered if anyone else would mention this about Charles.

Laurens Van der Post
Mountbatten
Peter Ball
Jimmy Saville

It's like anyone he's ever been mentored by since childhood has been a paedophile.