Jimmy Saville

I think Jimmy Saville was part of a culture of inappropriateness when under-age girls flocked round celebrities. I am very sure that other DJs and pop stars did things with under-age girls, probably consensual, perhaps in knowledge of their true age, but not necessarily so. Jimmy’s actions could easily have gone unnoticed as part of this type of hero worship.

Rather than seeing this as an isolated case and going after the people who didn’t report him, we need to understand how it happened and do our best not to let this kind of culture develop around our celebrities.

This is all much bigger and much more worrying than just Jimmy Saville and needs all of us to look into our hearts about the risks we accept and what is suitable for girls under 16 when it comes to contact with celebrities.

Every “grope” and assault from the 60s to the 90s is not going to come out, but the lessons about how to better protect youngsters from this sort of thing need to be learned.

@sceptical guy wrote:

From my memory, underage girls were seen as part of the rewards for pop bands in the 60s. There was certainly plenty of opportunity.

I do hope that any allegations about Sir John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr, Sir Mick Jagger aren’t being covered up!

I’m sure none are made, though, as these gentlemen were surely saintly when it came to girls.

You sound as if you think all men would regularly have had sex with 12 or 13 year old girls. That really does not say much for the male of the species. I know the point you are makiing, but unfortunately, you have done the equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot.

@jen_jen wrote:

I would imagine there are quite a few people feeling uneasy right now.

As for censorship, I agree that I wouldn’t want to return to the bad old days. I was simply expressing my personal opinion that I don’t think abuse should be joked about and made light of.

Very true but..

Jimmy Savilles last request was for his ashes to be put into an Etch-a-Sketch so that kids could continue to fiddle with his knob

What do Margaret Thatcher and Jimmy Saville have in common ?

They both shafted minors in the 1980’s.

Dont fancy one if those Jimmy Saville tracksuits…its normal size tops but you need to squeeze into child size bottoms!

And the above two posters are examples of why a 19 year old boy is now serving 12 weeks inside!

@minim wrote:

@sceptical guy wrote:

From my memory, underage girls were seen as part of the rewards for pop bands in the 60s. There was certainly plenty of opportunity.

I do hope that any allegations about Sir John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr, Sir Mick Jagger aren’t being covered up!

I’m sure none are made, though, as these gentlemen were surely saintly when it came to girls.

You sound as if you think all men would regularly have had sex with 12 or 13 year old girls. That really does not say much for the male of the species. I know the point you are makiing, but unfortunately, you have done the equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot.

I know Scep has made his point in quite a controversial way, but I do think that there are wider issues about the actions of male DJs, rock stars, actors etc. etc. over the years.

And it is quite damning, not of the whole males species, but of the people who have abused their power.

We do need to think about how young girls relate to celebrities and how we protect them. Is it acceptable to let vulnerable under age girls have days out unsupervised with a celebrity on his own? How do we protect girls who flock round pop stars and can be taken advantage of, willing or otherwise. How do we stop girls who want a career in the media from being abused and all of the nastiness of the casting couch or the casual grope while working?

These questions are more important than simply condemning a dead man who has committed abuse, especially when our common sense tells us that it is not an isolated case.

We can fry the guy who pulled the BBC investigation from Newsnight and take down Jimmy Saville’s headstone, but the unpleasant stench of a culture which allowed abuse must be challenged.

We don’t need to ruin the many who kept their mouths shut to protect their reputations, mortgages, or kept quite so that they could carry on working to feed their families. We certainly don’t need to ruin the reputations of any of those people who were victims. These people are all suffering right now as we speak.

But once we stop flinging the mud and blaming everyone else, we do need to understand all the implications and not put all this down to one bad apple.