Brilliant article on Epstein by Helen Rumbelow in the Times TW Distressing content

[Shockhorror22]

I studied the latest Epstein files. As a woman, this is what I felt

www.thetimes.com/article/3c43b881-0f36-43bf-a32b-66fcba2b44ac?shareToken=b062e64ca800a9fb4a31da2ea933ee14

I really can’t get over that email. You like girls but you fantasise about “sucking cock”? I have just the thing for you!

Oh, and the little add-on about pushing interventions on 3-yr-old boys with “trans tendencies” was vomitous.

It’s the fact that it’s so normalised and routine that is so disturbing. This is what women and girls are up against. It doesn’t matter how clever or strong we are, how hard we work or what we achieve. We are just commodities.

WTF was Noah Chomsky doing there? Talking dialectics with Clinton and Gates as they were going down to...lunch?

Exactly this, it's just depressing and awful.

We all have the potential to dehumanise others, but this particular take on that tendency reveals the very worst aspects of masculinity - in relation to women, certainly. Powerful men ( and women) in history have always treated people, especially women, as chattel.

Just finished reading Simon Sebag Montefiore's history of Jersualem. One long story of violence, destruction, degradation, brutality, slavery, torture and cruelty by each successive new leader and new empire.

I know if may make no difference to many women here, but not all men feel this way.

It takes a certain man to resist the force and pressure of male/masculine group think, though.

If you look at the gay male clubbing/sauna scene....males have a far greater propensity to the process of objectification for sexual gratification - even of other males, ( when free of feminine influence or caution). It's full on testosterone.

I'm certainly not immune to male power structures and objectivation tropes, any man who claims otherwise is deluded. But I never took to locker room banter, certain kinds of parties, hobbies or work with large groups of alpha men, as a solitary therapist I've always worked with female clients, and I've never been "connected" to upward mobility in my profession which could easily mean fitting in with male group dynamics.
It means I've seen the female side more as I've become an older man, leaving behind any terse attitudes I might have had, and my isolation from groups of men means I've viewed all that with more and more disdain.
I once considered joining the police, but knew even then that the locker room and bonding down the pub, would not be me.
Maybe this is why unlike a lot of people I can criticise Epstein Island AND the apparent civil rights movements of TRA. I already know a woman who is quite rightly driven mad by Epstein and cis men (her words) aggressors, but sees any extrapolating to narratives on trans grooming of vulnerable youth, anti trans women in women's spaces, as wholly unrelated and punching down a vulnerable minority.

Same.

I don’t find it surprising at all.

It was ever thus.

But yes, agree, I am glad it is out in the open.

There have been many mentions in the coverage about children fathered by Epstein. Sarah Ferguson apparently even congratulated him on the birth of a new baby boy. These children appear to have been removed from their mothers- at least there is the account of one young woman who is devastated because GM was present at the birth and the child removed. Who are they? Where did they go? That e-mail talks about a little boy of Epstein's apparently displaying 'trans tendencies'.

Also- mandelson is gay and was in it up to his neck. So far we are only hearing about young women being exploited- it seems far fetched to think it was only young women. I think there is still more and more and hope the remaining 2 million files are revealed also.

Oh yes we mustn't forget NAMALT at all times, thanks awfully for reminding us. 👍👍👍

Not sure I know the answer but I do think there is an element of both social grooming and coercive control involved. I suspect some women are persuaded/attracted by the higher moral virtue/power they think is conveyed by being TRA. Then of course it is a bandwagon that it is almost impossible to leave .

Marina Hyde's view: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/03/jeffrey-epstein-powerful-men-women-girls

No one seems to want to talk about the ethnicity of the girls who were abused; I think that is a large factor in why they were chosen.

Not unlike the ethnicity of the girls chosen by and abused by the grooming gangs.

So when do all the arrests start? Everyone is hand-wringing and sadness and 'oh why didn't we listen?'

I'm telling you, start picking at the threads. Some accountant or driver knows he's on the hook for prison if he's implicated, so he'll tell and then that larger fish will tell and then a larger and larger fish. Even if all the aiding and abetting men get a slap on the wrist, there is a groundswell of evidence if you get the little fish on the hook. The FBI and police need to do their job. These men need to be in the dock.

The culture has to be 'if you were at a party, we're assuming you knew, and that's a crime in the trafficking legislation. Tell or be arrested'. They need to perp-walk every single one of these arseholes.

Yes, Mrs T. Exactly this.

Well said @MrsTerryPratchett

I hope Wes Streeting reads this. Wtf does he think the future will hold for the poor kids who participate in his trial?

Eta I think this is part of what Helen Joyce was getting at when she said tp are a problem for a sane world(? I'm paraphrasing). The jaded Epsteins think 'novelty', think only of themselves. HJ tries to think of a future for these poor kids.

This is Roger schank, who says in an email to Epstein that he could have any girl he wanted on his own terms.
Let me tell you Rog, I don't know any females who'd want you or your terms.

The only one on this side of the pond is being investigated for financial reasons. After all, money matters more than we do

Is Rog's name pronounced Shank or Skank?
Just asking

I'll hold my hands up and admit I'm not always right, but I've never liked Richard Branson.

From Marina Hyde's article:

''...they all knew what Epstein went to prison for. They overlooked it. As evidenced by their continued association with him, it wasn’t remotely a big deal to them.''

Yep.