This is interesting because it reflects ‘our’ attitudes towards a number of things: sexual activity and what it is; the relative power structure and relationships between the sexes, adults and children; morality versus legality when they are not necessarily the same; ‘us’ vs ‘them’ and the personal vs the ‘distanced’.
Overview over with.
We were all teenagers once: I assume few of us were too concerned with the law, more with what we (as tycho adults) thought of ourselves and what we felt given what opportunities presented themselves to us.
As adults we tend to quite quickly grow away from teenagers seeing them predominantly as ‘unfinished’ although I suppose there may be a long-tail with the ‘sexual attraction’ that is felt because people like sex (with a few exceptions) and probably the associated elements of ‘feeling wanted’ and so forth that can go with it.
Plainly that AJ decided to pursue that particular avenue indicates he is a somewhat ‘peculiar’ person although from what I’ve read I didn’t get the impression that his accomplice was innocent although she perhaps was naiive - perhaps switch those two words - (it’s hard to tell as they’ve both probably been rehearsing their stories for some time now) as I doubt the liaisons were kept wholly to herself and I think it’s undoubtedly true that that scenario is being repeated often each day across the world.
Very lazily, I discovered this link:
which of course tells us nothing that we didn’t know, but does raise the question particularly in line with what SOG did (which prompted me to make the obvious search above) which is what determines ‘adulthood’ and (perhaps) why do we have it as we do (see Pap’s comment about differing requirements for sexual conduct, driving, voting, etc).
An interesting read Burp. It is interesting that there is such a diversity across the planet in opinions of when it is seen as okay to let someone determine when they are mature enough to have sex. I agree that children need to be protected but struggle with at what age that legal protection should end. You do need a benchmark but how do you decide when that should be when every person is different and girls mature physically and emotionally at different times. We say 16 is ok but I am sure there are plenty of girls who are not emotionally ready to have a sexual relationship at 16 just as there are plenty who are ready at 15. To me 15/16 makes sense. Anything younger seems to young and 18 seems way too high, but that is just my opinion and clearly there are completely different legislative ideas elsewhere.
I should add though the obvious, where ever you are on the planet, you have to adhere to the local laws no matter what is acceptable elsewere, which leads me on to this…apparently now it is illegal to have sex with a prostitue in N Ireland, but not just N Ireland. If you live in NI you are not now legally allowed to have sex with a prostitue anywhere in the world!!!
sex is proper demonised in Society innit. It would be better all round if ppl stopped treating banging like it’s a bad thing. Like i.e. if when this bird told ppl she’d banged Adam Johnson ppl had just been like, oh, congrats, I hope you had a nice time, i bet she’d be a lot less traumatised. They could still have quietly dragged Adam Johnson round the back & given him a solid kicking IMO, that would be more helpful than big tabloid court case.
I’ve not read an enormous amount about this case, partly because I find the whole commentary around it pretty repellant. But from what I have read, I think I agree with you, Bearsy.
I think the issue most people had with it was not that two people had sex, it was that an adult man was getting involved with what he knew full well to be, in the eyes of the law, a child that cannot consent.
Which, given some of the cases of the past few years, grooming gangs, all the people at the BBC, politicians etc is something of a hot topic at the moment.
To try and remove that aspect of the story is a gross distortion of people’s issue of what has occured.
Footballers (like people, generally) are always cheating on their partners. It rarely ends up in papers (yes, tales of footballers playing away does occasionally hit the press, but compared to how often it actually happens - what you see is a drop in the ocean) and even less rarely in court.
i dunno that footballers are constantly cheating on their partners. That’s not a nice thing to say + sounds v.prejudice. Which members of the Southampton squad are always cheating on their partners?
The jury are out. Not sure which way it will go. He sounds guilty of the further charges to me but the defence have worked hard on damage limitation and he may feel that by pleading to the lesser charges the jury will believe that he didnt take things further. Is there enough evidence for a conviction?
Being made Example Of innit. Hopefully it will deter some Nonces, but I wonder if it would’ve ended up like this if he wasn’t Famous? Do ppl often go chokey for fingering 15yo’s? What would he get if he banged her?
Being made Example Of innit. Hopefully it will deter some Nonces, but I wonder if it would’ve ended up like this if he wasn’t Famous? Do ppl often go chokey for fingering 15yo’s? What would he get if he banged her?
The courts are not there to make examples of people, they’re there to hand out sentences that are consistent with the crime. 4 years for fingering a 15 year old? I didn’t even realise fingering was illegal with U16’s, I thought it was only sex. If you’re 17, are you allowed to be noshed off by a 15 year old? If not, I know of hundreds of should be pending cases…
This case is not about fingering, it’s about a carefully planned campaign to groom a child by an adult who knew her age.
The social media defence started with a ‘oh, she looked like she was 18 in a club’ and then the details of his strategy to groom the girl emerged and it became a different case to ‘there for the grace of god…’
Google “sentencing for sexual offences” you will see what length sentences there are for different crimes. I found that often the original sentence was halved. As Rallyboy said it was more than the act. He knew she was 15 (apparently he had been interested since she was 14) and groomed her. I did share the sexual offences act on here somewhere that helpfully let’s you know what is an offence. Happy reading peps.
i ain’t google that shit, intiniki, if we’ve learned one thing from all this, it’s that the Feds use ur google searches against you. I always sign into google as my Dad now, to be on safe side. If things turn sour, he’s gonna have some proper Explaining to do, srs.