I'm not especially obsessed with paedophilia - or Jimmy Savile - it's just that this case is turning over new material every day. There was a report yesterday that the police were investigating 40 victims and 340 complaints - so the potential for more to come to light seems considerable. I must admit I thought "40? It's bound to be more than that! It wouldn't surprise me if he was the type of managed one a week - he had ample opportunities.
There haven't been many details of what actually happened with these girls - French kissing and stroking is all I've heard mentioned, which while obnoxious and probably unwelcome to a 13 year old are not quite in the league of the Rochdale blokes for example. One poor transgender teenager had him put his hand up her/his skirt.
I am not trying to defend him, but I would say it would be an odd teenager in the 70s and the 80s who managed to pass through adolescence without hands up skirts, goosing, wandering hands in the cinema, etc. I can think of two or three cases where it happened to me. One serious enough to involve the police. I'm not saying "get over it" - but I think there is quite a difference between this sort of thing, and the kind of full-fledged sexual intercourse with children that the term "paedophile" usually implies. There were words for men who groped you - "perves, gropers, etc." and of course there were flashers too. They were regarded as part of the social fabric, you were warned against them, and took evasive action. Obviously some girls were less confident, less able - and obviously most pervs weren't tv stars and therefore endowed with a weird glamour which might encourage a girl to feel flattered rather than repulsed by the advances. Overall, we didn't like perves, but we talked about them, giggled about them, I don't think they haunted our dreams/nightmares - unless I was more robust than most girls. . What we probably needed was a stout hatpin!
What is apalling about the Savile case is the way he exploited those who were already vulnerable, in hospitals. The idea of being a sex pest to a disabled child is horrid, the fact that he was allowed near psychologically vulnerable people was awful. Whose bright idea was it to give him free range at Broadmoor for goodness sake? Was it a publicity stunt dreamed up by civil servants - get a "character" - a "personality" on the board to show that they have the common touch? Brrr. I'd love to find out it was Edwina Currie's idea when she was Minister (very keen on the cult of celebrity she was) - but I may be disappointed in that.
There haven't been many details of what actually happened with these girls - French kissing and stroking is all I've heard mentioned, which while obnoxious and probably unwelcome to a 13 year old are not quite in the league of the Rochdale blokes for example. One poor transgender teenager had him put his hand up her/his skirt.
I am not trying to defend him, but I would say it would be an odd teenager in the 70s and the 80s who managed to pass through adolescence without hands up skirts, goosing, wandering hands in the cinema, etc. I can think of two or three cases where it happened to me. One serious enough to involve the police. I'm not saying "get over it" - but I think there is quite a difference between this sort of thing, and the kind of full-fledged sexual intercourse with children that the term "paedophile" usually implies. There were words for men who groped you - "perves, gropers, etc." and of course there were flashers too. They were regarded as part of the social fabric, you were warned against them, and took evasive action. Obviously some girls were less confident, less able - and obviously most pervs weren't tv stars and therefore endowed with a weird glamour which might encourage a girl to feel flattered rather than repulsed by the advances. Overall, we didn't like perves, but we talked about them, giggled about them, I don't think they haunted our dreams/nightmares - unless I was more robust than most girls. . What we probably needed was a stout hatpin!
What is apalling about the Savile case is the way he exploited those who were already vulnerable, in hospitals. The idea of being a sex pest to a disabled child is horrid, the fact that he was allowed near psychologically vulnerable people was awful. Whose bright idea was it to give him free range at Broadmoor for goodness sake? Was it a publicity stunt dreamed up by civil servants - get a "character" - a "personality" on the board to show that they have the common touch? Brrr. I'd love to find out it was Edwina Currie's idea when she was Minister (very keen on the cult of celebrity she was) - but I may be disappointed in that.
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