@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
I agree, especially with your second paragraph. Wonder why that’s the case though. We’ve seen plenty of times before how a victim can also be a perpetrator e.g. some victims of child sexual abuse going on to be abusers.
The entire state of Israel is, arguably, a psychological example of the abused becoming the abuser. What the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews do to the Palestinians, right down to the walled ghettos and ritual humiliations.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
I agree, especially with your second paragraph. Wonder why that’s the case though. We’ve seen plenty of times before how a victim can also be a perpetrator e.g. some victims of child sexual abuse going on to be abusers.
The entire state of Israel is, arguably, a psychological example of the abused becoming the abuser. What the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews do to the Palestinians, right down to the walled ghettos and ritual humiliations.
Poignant and sad.
2/3 of the Jewish community in Europe were murdered in the Holocaust or died in the labour camps, it is no surprise they felt they had to create a new country specifically for Jews in their ancient homeland and will do whatever it takes to protect and advance its interests.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
I agree, especially with your second paragraph. Wonder why that’s the case though. We’ve seen plenty of times before how a victim can also be a perpetrator e.g. some victims of child sexual abuse going on to be abusers.
The entire state of Israel is, arguably, a psychological example of the abused becoming the abuser. What the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews do to the Palestinians, right down to the walled ghettos and ritual humiliations.
Poignant and sad.
And plenty of Arabs have done to the Jews.
I think it takes a specially virtuous person not to deal out what they've been subjected to.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
I agree, especially with your second paragraph. Wonder why that’s the case though. We’ve seen plenty of times before how a victim can also be a perpetrator e.g. some victims of child sexual abuse going on to be abusers.
I think that, possibly, there has been a tendency to take a very black and white / either/or approach. So there is the perpetrator and the victim. But of course it isn't because a person who was the victim of X can also be a perpetrator of Y.
It confuses matters if we realise that someone can end up as a perpetrator as a result of what was done to them. Or, equally, that they can do horrible things to others. The bullied can end up bullies. The abused becoming abusers, as you point out. Or, to take a historical example, many of those who murdered Jews in Eastern Europe had also suffered appallingly at the hands of the Russians. Both victims and killers. We tend, for all sorts of reasons, to remember the latter and not the former.
We prefer simple morality tales. And also there has been a tendency to elevate victims into some sort of special status, which I think is quite dangerous.
It's come to something when I am possibly - nay, probably - the most morally admirable and sexually conventional person in British politics.
Westminster has always gone from virgins like Ann Widdecombe to occasional cheaters like Prescott and Major to serial adulterers like Alan Clark to those with a thing for interns like Crabb to gay cruisers like Matthew Parris to those whose tastes venture into the illegal like Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe to those whose sexual tastes are bizarre in the extreme like Stephen Milligan, in that it is no different from the population as a whole but with power into the mix probably with added sexual frisson!
What did Jeremy Thorpe do that was illegal? Please do tell.... I know you are just dying to spill the beans....
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
I agree, especially with your second paragraph. Wonder why that’s the case though. We’ve seen plenty of times before how a victim can also be a perpetrator e.g. some victims of child sexual abuse going on to be abusers.
The entire state of Israel is, arguably, a psychological example of the abused becoming the abuser. What the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews do to the Palestinians, right down to the walled ghettos and ritual humiliations.
Poignant and sad.
Er... aren't you forgetting the small matter of the gas chambers?
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
Michael Jackson is a good example from popular music. I remember Guardian columnists aching to forgive him, just because the boogie
I kind of understand. When someone has given you intense personal pleasure through art (especially music, or comedy, for some reason) then the urge to cut them some special slack is enormous.
Wagner is another example. A raging and violent anti-Semite. But, Tristan!
Re Wagner... I have no problem despising the person but adoring the music. Is that hypocritical? I don't think so.
Sometimes it's better not to know too much about the life of the person who has created something beautiful to you, just in case it does taint what you love.
One of the ironies about Wagner is that he learnt a lot of his music from a Jewish musician.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
Michael Jackson is a good example from popular music. I remember Guardian columnists aching to forgive him, just because the boogie
I kind of understand. When someone has given you intense personal pleasure through art (especially music, or comedy, for some reason) then the urge to cut them some special slack is enormous.
Wagner is another example. A raging and violent anti-Semite. But, Tristan!
Re Wagner... I have no problem despising the person but adoring the music. Is that hypocritical? I don't think so.
It does raise questions about your taste in music, of course
(Disclaimer - I have to play 'Here Comes The Bride' so often it has put me off Wagner for life. If I ever get married, she's coming down the aisle to Sheba!)
I was having a similar discussion on a theatre forum earlier. I don't find it at all hard to separate the art from the artist.
I can listen to Meistersinger without any thought of Wagner and his ideologies rushing through my head. (I don't get Tristan though!)
I know others find it impossible to separate things - but, for me, I find no problem in distinguishing between the creator and the product.
(and as for processionals, I sorted the music for my sister's wedding and she came down the aisle to the Overture to the Te Deum by Charpentier... otherwise known as the Eurovision theme. Only I got the joke!)
I never heard that. Are you sure? I thought Schrondinger liked women of full years - the more the better.
Try Walter Moore's biography for Schrodinger's "Lolita Complex".
"In Germany, if a thing is not allowed, it is forbidden. In England, if a thing is not forbidden, it is allowed. In Ireland, whether it is allowed or forbidden, people do it if they want to" (Schrodinger).
Schrodinger was a serial seducer with a thing for adolescent girls (12-18), rather than pre-pubescent infants.
All very reprehensible (and illegal in most countries) but not technically "pedophile".
To be a pedophile you have to desire PRE-pubescent children. Schrodinger was a hebephile or a nympholeptic. This is a crucial psychosexual and criminological distinction, which is often blurred or overlooked. Pedophilia is absolutely abnormal, hebephilia is a regrettably licentious, dangerous and selfish form of normality.
e.g. Most heterosexual men will be "involuntarily" aroused by photos of pubescent naked girls aged 14-16, however they might wish they weren't. Most men will have no sexual reaction whatsoever to photos of naked pre-pubescents.
That distinction is new to me but makes a lot of sense. It's amazing what you learn on this site. Thank-you
No worries. It is such an IMPORTANT distinction it really angers me when papers and TV news elide the difference, so blithely.
For a start, hebephiles can be "cured" of their proclivity for 15 year old girls or boys. A year or two in jail, and they tend not to do it again. They satisfy themselves with younger looking 17 or 19 year olds.
Pedophiles cannot be cured. Their destructive desires are hardwired and they need to be listed and watched for life.
Ages of consent: "In Austria, Italy and Germany the age of consent is 14; in Sweden, France and Denmark it is 15 – and Spain recently raised its age of consent from 13 to 16. Meanwhile in Turkey and Malta, teenagers have to wait until they are 18 for sex to be legal." Hebephilia is culturally rather than psychologically defined.
btw does anyone else think that bloody Nabokov book is talent-free drivel?
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
Michael Jackson is a good example from popular music. I remember Guardian columnists aching to forgive him, just because the boogie
I kind of understand. When someone has given you intense personal pleasure through art (especially music, or comedy, for some reason) then the urge to cut them some special slack is enormous.
Wagner is another example. A raging and violent anti-Semite. But, Tristan!
Re Wagner... I have no problem despising the person but adoring the music. Is that hypocritical? I don't think so.
Sometimes it's better not to know too much about the life of the person who has created something beautiful to you, just in case it does taint what you love.
Oddly enough people seem extremely keen to discover historical person who wasn't a famous artist/scientist were racist, which surely comes as a complete surprise.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
I agree, especially with your second paragraph. Wonder why that’s the case though. We’ve seen plenty of times before how a victim can also be a perpetrator e.g. some victims of child sexual abuse going on to be abusers.
The entire state of Israel is, arguably, a psychological example of the abused becoming the abuser. What the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews do to the Palestinians, right down to the walled ghettos and ritual humiliations.
Poignant and sad.
Er... aren't you forgetting the small matter of the gas chambers?
When were Palestinians put in ghettos, forced to wear identifying marks on their clothes, forbidden from marrying or having sex with Jews, prevented from practising their profession, taken to pits which they were forced to dig and shot, or made subject to gruesome so-called "medical" experiments?
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
Michael Jackson is a good example from popular music. I remember Guardian columnists aching to forgive him, just because the boogie
I kind of understand. When someone has given you intense personal pleasure through art (especially music, or comedy, for some reason) then the urge to cut them some special slack is enormous.
Wagner is another example. A raging and violent anti-Semite. But, Tristan!
Re Wagner... I have no problem despising the person but adoring the music. Is that hypocritical? I don't think so.
It does raise questions about your taste in music, of course
(Disclaimer - I have to play 'Here Comes The Bride' so often it has put me off Wagner for life. If I ever get married, she's coming down the aisle to Sheba!)
An understandable preference; the wedding march wouldn't be on my Wagner playlist (maybe an example of familiarity breeding contempt) but there's plenty to love beyond that.
It's come to something when I am possibly - nay, probably - the most morally admirable and sexually conventional person in British politics.
Westminster has always gone from virgins like Ann Widdecombe to occasional cheaters like Prescott and Major to serial adulterers like Alan Clark to those with a thing for interns like Crabb to gay cruisers like Matthew Parris to those whose tastes venture into the illegal like Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe to those whose sexual tastes are bizarre in the extreme like Stephen Milligan, in that it is no different from the population as a whole but with power into the mix probably with added sexual frisson!
What did Jeremy Thorpe do that was illegal? Please do tell.... I know you are just dying to spill the beans....
Jeremy was found innocent of all charges.
As innocent as OJ or Oscar Pistorius.
I am not sure, if you have the Lib Dems best interests' at heart, you should be reminding us all of Jeremy Thorpe.
It's come to something when I am possibly - nay, probably - the most morally admirable and sexually conventional person in British politics.
Westminster has always gone from virgins like Ann Widdecombe to occasional cheaters like Prescott and Major to serial adulterers like Alan Clark to those with a thing for interns like Crabb to gay cruisers like Matthew Parris to those whose tastes venture into the illegal like Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe to those whose sexual tastes are bizarre in the extreme like Stephen Milligan, in that it is no different from the population as a whole but with power into the mix probably with added sexual frisson!
I think successful politicians, by definition, tend to be more highly sexed than most (more ambitious, driven, aggressive, full of testosterone). As the cliche goes, politics is showbiz for ugly people. And showbiz, as we know, is full of sexual predators.
Indeed and good looking powerful people in politics can get even more, see JFK.
It's come to something when I am possibly - nay, probably - the most morally admirable and sexually conventional person in British politics.
Westminster has always gone from virgins like Ann Widdecombe to occasional cheaters like Prescott and Major to serial adulterers like Alan Clark to those with a thing for interns like Crabb to gay cruisers like Matthew Parris to those whose tastes venture into the illegal like Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe to those whose sexual tastes are bizarre in the extreme like Stephen Milligan, in that it is no different from the population as a whole but with power into the mix probably with added sexual frisson!
What did Jeremy Thorpe do that was illegal? Please do tell.... I know you are just dying to spill the beans....
It's come to something when I am possibly - nay, probably - the most morally admirable and sexually conventional person in British politics.
Westminster has always gone from virgins like Ann Widdecombe to occasional cheaters like Prescott and Major to serial adulterers like Alan Clark to those with a thing for interns like Crabb to gay cruisers like Matthew Parris to those whose tastes venture into the illegal like Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe to those whose sexual tastes are bizarre in the extreme like Stephen Milligan, in that it is no different from the population as a whole but with power into the mix probably with added sexual frisson!
What did Jeremy Thorpe do that was illegal? Please do tell.... I know you are just dying to spill the beans....
Jeremy was found innocent of all charges.
As innocent as OJ or Oscar Pistorius.
Oscar Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide. That was then raised to murder on appeal of the prosecutors.
It's come to something when I am possibly - nay, probably - the most morally admirable and sexually conventional person in British politics.
Westminster has always gone from virgins like Ann Widdecombe to occasional cheaters like Prescott and Major to serial adulterers like Alan Clark to those with a thing for interns like Crabb to gay cruisers like Matthew Parris to those whose tastes venture into the illegal like Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe to those whose sexual tastes are bizarre in the extreme like Stephen Milligan, in that it is no different from the population as a whole but with power into the mix probably with added sexual frisson!
What did Jeremy Thorpe do that was illegal? Please do tell.... I know you are just dying to spill the beans....
Apologies, he was completely innocent as Peter Cook emphasises in this sketch of the judge in his trial.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
I agree, especially with your second paragraph. Wonder why that’s the case though. We’ve seen plenty of times before how a victim can also be a perpetrator e.g. some victims of child sexual abuse going on to be abusers.
The entire state of Israel is, arguably, a psychological example of the abused becoming the abuser. What the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews do to the Palestinians, right down to the walled ghettos and ritual humiliations.
Poignant and sad.
Er... aren't you forgetting the small matter of the gas chambers?
When were Palestinians put in ghettos, forced to wear identifying marks on their clothes, forbidden from marrying or having sex with Jews, prevented from practising their profession, taken to pits which they were forced to dig and shot, or made subject to gruesome so-called "medical" experiments?
A lot of what the Israeli's have done has been done defensive, e.g. building the wall which many decried them over, but has massively cut down the number of suicide bombers they were suffering from.
If there was a genuine peaceful Israeli/Palestine solution on the table, they would take it.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
Michael Jackson is a good example from popular music. I remember Guardian columnists aching to forgive him, just because the boogie
I kind of understand. When someone has given you intense personal pleasure through art (especially music, or comedy, for some reason) then the urge to cut them some special slack is enormous.
Wagner is another example. A raging and violent anti-Semite. But, Tristan!
Re Wagner... I have no problem despising the person but adoring the music. Is that hypocritical? I don't think so.
Sometimes it's better not to know too much about the life of the person who has created something beautiful to you, just in case it does taint what you love.
Oddly enough people seem extremely keen to discover historical person who wasn't a famous artist/scientist were racist, which surely comes as a complete surprise.
I'm at the point where I just accept the creativity/bravery/military tactical genius/intelligence of historical figures at face value, and accept they were a product of their times and don't judge them by today's standards. Obviously, there are exceptions, but on the whole, i just don't get wound up by it.
@Cyclefree the fact that so many actors and actresses praise Polanski really blows my mind. Then there’s the controversy surrounding Woody Allen, and despite it he still has Hollywood backing him.
@rottenborough That story is actually insane. Not surprised House of Cards is going after today.
Another factor with Polanski is that he had a horrible childhood (a Polish Jew during the Nazi period) plus his first wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered when she was about 9 months pregnant. So there was, understandably, a great deal of sympathy for him on a personal level.
But people find it very difficult to understand or accept that someone who has been a victim is not thereby morally virtuous - being a victim does not confer some special status on you, a sort of secular sainthood (which it all too often does these days) - and can also be a horrible person.
Michael Jackson is a good example from popular music. I remember Guardian columnists aching to forgive him, just because the boogie
I kind of understand. When someone has given you intense personal pleasure through art (especially music, or comedy, for some reason) then the urge to cut them some special slack is enormous.
Wagner is another example. A raging and violent anti-Semite. But, Tristan!
Re Wagner... I have no problem despising the person but adoring the music. Is that hypocritical? I don't think so.
Sometimes it's better not to know too much about the life of the person who has created something beautiful to you, just in case it does taint what you love.
Oddly enough people seem extremely keen to discover historical person who wasn't a famous artist/scientist were racist, which surely comes as a complete surprise.
I'm at the point where I just accept the creativity/bravery/military tactical genius/intelligence of historical figures at face value, and accept they were a product of their times and don't judge them by today's standards. Obviously, there are exceptions, but on the whole, i just don't get wound up by it.
No other way around it, really, otherwise you'd never stop. The counter argument often revolves around actively celebrating those people, but I'm always discovering much lauded people who said or did truly reprehensible things I was unaware of, and I'll bet a lot of other people are too.
I never heard that. Are you sure? I thought Schrondinger liked women of full years - the more the better.
Try Walter Moore's biography for Schrodinger's "Lolita Complex".
"In Germany, if a thing is not allowed, it is forbidden. In England, if a thing is not forbidden, it is allowed. In Ireland, whether it is allowed or forbidden, people do it if they want to" (Schrodinger).
Schrodinger was a serial seducer with a thing for adolescent girls (12-18), rather than pre-pubescent infants.
All very reprehensible (and illegal in most countries) but not technically "pedophile".
To be a pedophile you have to desire PRE-pubescent children. Schrodinger was a hebephile or a nympholeptic. This is a crucial psychosexual and criminological distinction, which is often blurred or overlooked. Pedophilia is absolutely abnormal, hebephilia is a regrettably licentious, dangerous and selfish form of normality.
e.g. Most heterosexual men will be "involuntarily" aroused by photos of pubescent naked girls aged 14-16, however they might wish they weren't. Most men will have no sexual reaction whatsoever to photos of naked pre-pubescents.
That distinction is new to me but makes a lot of sense. It's amazing what you learn on this site. Thank-you
No worries. It is such an IMPORTANT distinction it really angers me when papers and TV news elide the difference, so blithely.
For a start, hebephiles can be "cured" of their proclivity for 15 year old girls or boys. A year or two in jail, and they tend not to do it again. They satisfy themselves with younger looking 17 or 19 year olds.
Pedophiles cannot be cured. Their destructive desires are hardwired and they need to be listed and watched for life.
Ages of consent: "In Austria, Italy and Germany the age of consent is 14; in Sweden, France and Denmark it is 15 – and Spain recently raised its age of consent from 13 to 16. Meanwhile in Turkey and Malta, teenagers have to wait until they are 18 for sex to be legal." Hebephilia is culturally rather than psychologically defined.
btw does anyone else think that bloody Nabokov book is talent-free drivel?
It's come to something when I am possibly - nay, probably - the most morally admirable and sexually conventional person in British politics.
Westminster has always gone from virgins like Ann Widdecombe to occasional cheaters like Prescott and Major to serial adulterers like Alan Clark to those with a thing for interns like Crabb to gay cruisers like Matthew Parris to those whose tastes venture into the illegal like Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe to those whose sexual tastes are bizarre in the extreme like Stephen Milligan, in that it is no different from the population as a whole but with power into the mix probably with added sexual frisson!
I think successful politicians, by definition, tend to be more highly sexed than most (more ambitious, driven, aggressive, full of testosterone). As the cliche goes, politics is showbiz for ugly people. And showbiz, as we know, is full of sexual predators.
Indeed and good looking powerful people in politics can get even more, see JFK.
Also Clinton (as was, though he's aged terribly). And also Blair, IF some rumours are correct.
Clinton certainly but I think Blair kept his zipper up, at least when PM.
Leadsom will make statement on MPs behaviour this afternoon, Guardian reporting
What could go wrong?
One wonders what she thinks of it all, as a mother.
Bullsh*t.
Is it just hypocrisy, or self-loathing?
In truth I think people are really really good at compartmentalization, to the point of absurdity, and can say and do things that appear diametrically opposed to values they sincerely believe they hold.
Another reason it may occur with politicians (and Hollywood executives for that matter) is that we're all sinners, but those who find themselves in positions of power often find the restrictions that provide personal moral restraint are removed. When we had the expenses scandal, MPs were basically told to claim what they could with minimal checks and surprise, surprise a large number went out and did exactly that. With sexual harassment, men in powerful positions have long been able to get away with it with minimal chance of being reported, and with every chance of being a sleazebag paying off every so often as someone feels they have to go along with it either out of fear or to get on in life. They get away with it and can then rationalise it as ok. We're under-remunerated. She should be glad me, an important MP was interested. Being an MP puts a unique stress on a marriage...Trying to shag every researcher isn't an ongoing mid-life crisis, they're attempts at romantic affairs.
For most of us, our moral code isn't just an innate set of values but also helps us navigate through life without totally screwing it up. You don't cheat, lie and steal not just because it's not nice, but because ultimately it'll come back to bite you and those you love. The short term gratification is rarely worth the long-term risk. And yet, a significant proportion of the population still do act against their claimed moral code - albeit they don't have to go on about their morality as part of their job. Combine having to preach about stuff with not being subject to the consequences of some of it and you've got a recipe for hypocrisy. Some will remain balanced, others won't.
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He hasn't done anything wrong.
It's really funny.
I think it takes a specially virtuous person not to deal out what they've been subjected to.
I think that, possibly, there has been a tendency to take a very black and white / either/or approach. So there is the perpetrator and the victim. But of course it isn't because a person who was the victim of X can also be a perpetrator of Y.
It confuses matters if we realise that someone can end up as a perpetrator as a result of what was done to them. Or, equally, that they can do horrible things to others. The bullied can end up bullies. The abused becoming abusers, as you point out. Or, to take a historical example, many of those who murdered Jews in Eastern Europe had also suffered appallingly at the hands of the Russians. Both victims and killers. We tend, for all sorts of reasons, to remember the latter and not the former.
We prefer simple morality tales. And also there has been a tendency to elevate victims into some sort of special status, which I think is quite dangerous.
Sometimes it's better not to know too much about the life of the person who has created something beautiful to you, just in case it does taint what you love.
One of the ironies about Wagner is that he learnt a lot of his music from a Jewish musician.
I can listen to Meistersinger without any thought of Wagner and his ideologies rushing through my head. (I don't get Tristan though!)
I know others find it impossible to separate things - but, for me, I find no problem in distinguishing between the creator and the product.
(and as for processionals, I sorted the music for my sister's wedding and she came down the aisle to the Overture to the Te Deum by Charpentier... otherwise known as the Eurovision theme. Only I got the joke!)
btw does anyone else think that bloody Nabokov book is talent-free drivel?
As innocent as OJ or Oscar Pistorius.
I am not sure, if you have the Lib Dems best interests' at heart, you should be reminding us all of Jeremy Thorpe.
He wasn't found innocent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xi-agPf95M
A lot of what the Israeli's have done has been done defensive, e.g. building the wall which many decried them over, but has massively cut down the number of suicide bombers they were suffering from.
If there was a genuine peaceful Israeli/Palestine solution on the table, they would take it.
new thread
For most of us, our moral code isn't just an innate set of values but also helps us navigate through life without totally screwing it up. You don't cheat, lie and steal not just because it's not nice, but because ultimately it'll come back to bite you and those you love. The short term gratification is rarely worth the long-term risk. And yet, a significant proportion of the population still do act against their claimed moral code - albeit they don't have to go on about their morality as part of their job. Combine having to preach about stuff with not being subject to the consequences of some of it and you've got a recipe for hypocrisy. Some will remain balanced, others won't.