coaches engaging in legal ***ual activity

[Shark27]

Sorry, but no, I'm not accepting this. You've misrepresented my position a few times recently, I'm not trying to blame the townsfolk for everything. Of course the perpetrators are responsible, and the authorities must shoulder a huge amount of blame for their failings in allowing it to go on at the scale it did, but its nonsense to suggest people didn't realise girls this young were having multiple ***ual partners, and its a matter of recorded fact that the people of Rotherham thought of these girls as being willful participants rather than victims.

On the issue of coercion, a 12 year old cannot consent to ***. If you want to make the legal argument here its surely case open and closed?

Interestingly, the story doesn't end there. The individuals in question did go to jail in 2017. Obviously the police must shoulder some significant blame for this not happening in 2001, but against a backdrop of public indifference.

Rather than take my words for it, lets get words from the actual victim:
https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/cse-t...c-abuse-448060

This is how a 12-year-old girl who was being ***ually abused says she was made to feel by her white working class community:
"She described how she was shunned by many in her community who called her worse things than a 'dirty, cheap slag'.


She said: "No-one understood. No-one wanted to understand.

"I felt lost, isolated, trapped, ashamed and completely worthless."

But everyone can stick their fingers in their ears and convince themselves they'd have been horrified "if only they had known"

It actually makes no difference now, there's little to be achieved in feeling guilty about it. Of course nobody realised the extent of it.

The entire reason I make this point at all is because right now, in 2020, people are still questioning why the victims of abuse don't "just say no". I've been reading Sammy Woodhouse's book and its quite horrifying to see how the groomers operated, and of course these girls didn't feel like victims at the time. Maybe if the people in their communities had perceived them as victims rather than sl*gs they might have seen things differently?

All I'm trying to do is politely point out the dangers of victim blaming so we don't make the same mistakes again. I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty for what happened back then, or blame anyone other than the perpetrators for their actions, just to recognise that we do as a society have an important role in how we perceive the victims of these crimes.

If you want to see the extent of the victim blaming going on back then, there is a whole trove of articles:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-partners.html

After a 12-year old named 5 ***ual partners, this was the response of our local MP:
"Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said he was shocked by the case and called for a drive to instill a better sense of personal responsibility in both children and their parents."

Personal responsibility for children!?

We were victim blaming then, and people are still doing it.

Oh and another article for a seperate case illustrating the attitude of the towns folk to these girls.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ant-again.html

This girl got pregnant at 11 and then again at 14. Here's what the townsfolk had to say:
"One neighbour on a council estate in Rotherham said: 'She is giving out the message that it's OK to keep getting pregnant and the state will just keep paying for it.'"

Sorry, but anyone with their heads in the sand that these girls weren't being victim blamed by the white working class community has selective amnesia. Attitudes were very different.

Looking at the link from the Mail. It was her mother that the animosity was aimed at. It looked like she would have to move to a different area.

Police do nothing, council do nothing, mother let's it happen, townsfolk have a go at the mother. Sounds like they were pretty pissed off.

What should they have done John? Obviously not report it to the police or social services as that wouldn't work. What is the next step? Report it to the Guardian?

[John2]

Looking at the link from the Mail. It was her mother that the animosity was aimed at. It looked like she would have to move to a different area.

Police do nothing, council do nothing, mother let's it happen, townsfolk have a go at the mother. Sounds like they were pretty pissed off.

What should they have done John? Obviously not report it to the police or social services as that wouldn't work. What is the next step? Report it to the Guardian?

"One neighbour on a council estate in Rotherham said: 'She is giving out the message that it's OK to keep getting pregnant and the state will just keep paying for it.'"

That doesn't sound targeted at the mother. But even still, the poor mother had that girl at 14 herself, she's just another victim in a society that wasn't doing enough.

I don't recall telling my parents about that one incident. But that's quite meaningless in the grand scheme of things when we literally knew children age 12 were having *** with 26-year-olds and the town's MP was saying the girl needed to learn a better sense of personal responsibility. I think that tells us everything about the attitude back then.