Tuesday 9th October

While not for a moment denigrating the experiences of the girls who were molested by Jimmy Saville, I am more and more certain that it was symptomatic of the whole adulation surrounding Pop-Stars, D.J.s and the whole Pop World at that time.  We all know about ‘Groupies’ and the sexual exploits (and exploitation) of Rock and Roll Stars.  Two things come to mind.  Did these pop stars ever ask the age of the girls who were queuing up to sleep with them, did they even ask if they wanted to actually have sex with them anyway.  How many of these teenage girls were just so obsessed by their heroes that they would do anything to meet them.  Imagine how excited and thankful they would be just to be asked backstage, imagine how honoured they would be if their idols actually chose them, and wanted to kiss them.  Would they have had the courage to have said no, even if they for one moment thought they might have the right to refuse?  And how many of these girls were underage?  We simply do not know.  Apparently the Beatles, teenagers themselves, had prodigious sexual appetites when they were in Hamburg and would sleep with girls in the breaks between their on-stage sessions.

Can you imagine that any of these Pop-Idols ever thought of asking their ages, or if it ever crossed their minds that they might be underage anyway, or that it might be wrong that they were taking advantage of teenage girls, underage or not.  After all wasn’t this every young man’s dream, to have young girls screaming at you, so besotted with the idea of you that they would have sex with you without question.

Obviously there is a difference between what Jimmy Saville is charged with, the deliberate procurement of known underage girls, and the general assumption that all young girls wanted to have sex with Pop stars.  A difference, but morally perhaps not that great a difference; it was the acceptance of girls being objects for the sexual gratification of these men that was wrong in itself, and at the time no-one, including many of the girls themselves, even questioned it.