If you think that’s wild, check out the rest of North America…
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Ding ding statutory rape is rape duh!
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Especially because they quoted a source. It goes from tabloid garbage to a Gawker type settlement if you’ve made it up.
Hey, Canada raised the age of consent above 14 a whole 9 years ago. That’s like, ancient history!
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As I said, Had I read this my first post would have been different. I won’t delete it because then the discussion becomes incomprehensible.
Also, with all the revelations coming out of Hollywood these days it looks like ‘perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have sexual relations’ might in a way have been true. Looks like it’s about time the lid blew off that festering pit.
Touched a nerve there I think. Where’s the anger coming from?
I like to think that I’m deconstructing tabloid stories, analyzing and debunking them, not merely “recycling” them - Peter Sheridan.
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Absolutely right it does. We are talking about RAPE and Rob is pulling out the ‘creepy relationship’ equation.
I don’t care if someone is 93 and dating a 22 year old…is it consensual? Cool. None of our business to morally judge. If we are talking about anyone under 16…there is no consent.
So again, two things to consider before judging a relationship and they don’t involve outdated mathematical formula that was designed to judge the morality of someone dating. It ends up being a very rapey algorithm used by very rapey patriarchal people. So yes…it does touch a nerve.
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the age of consent is a legal fiction designed to preempt those sort of questions.
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Some of the stances in this thread, though…
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I will thank everyone for not telling me not to exercise my judgement, thank you. You seem to have no problem exercising yours.
I have had many friends and acquaintances of the late 30- or 40-something man dates 21 or 22 year old woman variety. The relationships were—in my judgement—not great experiences for either party, and did not flourish. The older men generally seemed emotionally stunted, and, in at least one case, when an older man started dating women roughly his age, the relationship seemed healthier, and the older man particularly seemed to do be actually grown up. The younger women generally seemed to feel that they were better for not being in the relationship once over.
If relationships occurred in a social vacuum—they do not—perhaps “mind your own business” might be in order.
Does this topic belong is a discussion about a rapist and his dead victim? There may be better venues for it.
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Then again, it isn’t your business. If your friend is happy and safe, it is none of your business. If they are not…then you should be concerned no matter the age difference.
And you are right, it doesn’t belong in this thread. Which was my response to rob about including the creep equation in the first place.
All of those, plus the guy who accused the dead guy of being an attention whore.
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I can’t blame the people who are flabbergasted by any attempt to defend Sheen, should this accusation turn out to be true; but sadly, no matter how repugnant the behavior, there will always be someone, somewhere who tries to make excuses for it.
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'Who (stupidly enough, I admit) didn’t know the guy was dead (or that he was 13, yeah yeah, reading is difficult in this mobile phone age ) when he (I) wrote that comment. I admit that I based my reaction solely on the sentence I quoted and not on any context that I should have known.
Still, boingboing is very quick in getting out the pitchforks. I hadn’t been on the receiving end of that before and it’s a bit scary.
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The Boingboing user base isn’t unique in responding badly to people who, intentionally or not, sound like NAMBLA representatives who don’t grasp the concept of meaningful consent in re: 13 year olds and who compound things by not reading the original article they comment on. Claiming you’re the victim of a witch hunt after all that isn’t going to help redeem you here, either.
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fuck it, it’s the national enquirer. I ain’t reading that shit.
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I’m not, either, and the allegation against Sheen in that rag is almost beside the point. There are many other sources besides the NE article that would confirm the basic facts that Haim is a) dead and b) that he was sexually abused when young.
Checking any of those sources would have prevented one from making the bizarre claim that Haim is hopping on the abuse victim bandwagon in an attention-seeking manner.
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To be fair, I misread (or more, didn’t really read) the post here on boingboing as well because the info that Haim was 13 was right there and I just didn’t see it and blindly assumed it was a new accusation. I can blame phone screens and attention spans, but it was my own doing.
I’m not trying to claim I’m the victim of a witch hunt, I just described my somewhat flabbergasted state of mind at the moment.
