Haaahahaha!!

All you are doing Jay is showing that you are very much not of sound mind!

Ludwig,

"It was DIRECTLY my views that you got so worked up and led you to become really quite nasty towards me."

Okay....would you please post links to where I "got really nasty" towards you?

Cough up the "sustained barrage of abuse".

I mean produce them please...coz I don't believe you can.

Apart from the one wrongly worded - which I apologised for - my argument was solely against your reasoning - not to personally impugn you which you have been merrily dancing around doing to me for the last few pages.

"So I’d be more than happy to set our differences aside and just resume cordial discussions.."

Would you really...

Well isn't that dandy.

You lose your cool because we don't buy your particular brand of reasoning on this subject.

You accuse several of us of abusing you personally.

You single out Poirot in order to get a few of the others onside (shame they didn't go along with your ruse, eh?)

Then you continue to paint me as a 'nasty abuser' right up to your most recent post...only to deign at the last minute to "resume cordial relations".

I don't think so, mate.

See:

http://zeroanthropology.net/2014/08/12/bury-me-rolf-harris-in-wolf-creek-zeke/

This has been a disturbing and illuminating thread.

I was initially taken aback by Ludwig's "It seems that the worst of it was a bit of groping, which really amounts to somewhat risqué activity, and nothing worse than that."

I thought (naively?) maybe he didn't understand the implications of a 'bit of groping' for the children 'groped', and explained why this would cause confusion and shame, with potential damage to later development of sexuality. Then I worried that spelling it out might play into the fantasies of those men who get a kick out of 'risque' behaviour with its feelings of (sexual) power over powerless children, getting away with it in public, when they knew that the children would be too confused and ashamed to say anything, after all who would believe them.

Yesterday on the radio I listened to interviews following the Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse - soul-searching about why it was so pervasive, quietly condoned by so many who must have known. One conclusion: the assumption that children tell lies, and lead men on (note the contradiction: they can't both falsely claim they were abused AND have lead men on abuse them!). I am sure (and that 'sure' is not open to debate) that children have always not spoken up because of embarrassment, but also because they knew that they would simultaneously be called liars, and be told it was their fault - this is after all the default position for a child.)

Illuminating: the responses by Ludwig and his supporters indicate how deeply entrenched is the sense of male entitlement - to just a bit of groping, to just having a bit of fun, with no sense of the rights of others - especially children - not to be groped, to not be the object of an adult's desire to have a bit of fun. (Of course for some men it goes beyond just groping: to sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape etc.)

I regret that the recent angry exchanges about who said what have overshadowed the truly serious issue at the heart of this theme.

Cossomby,"how deeply entrenched is the sense of male entitlement "

I'm having some issue with the use of the term male entitlement, probably because of the way it's so readily flung around (mostly by people who are not male) as though it in some way represented the ways males in our culture think. I've rarely met men who have any sense of male entitlement, rather the attitude is one of sacrifice for their families. There are exceptions just as their are females quite happy to operate under assumptions of entitlement based on their gender.

What Harris did is disgusting to most men of our culture, even amongst criminals child molesters need special protection. The vast majority of men have a great sense of the rights of others.

I'm undecided if Ludwigs supporters on this thread were real or troll's posting to try and make Ludwig look even worse. I'm a little concerned that at least one of them was real and if so I hope he is being closely monitored by the authorities.

R0bert

Robert, I accept that. I should have said some males.

The majority of men I know are people of integrity, with a strong sense of right or wrong. However I have personally come across some who were not: at the extreme, a serial sexual harasser, and a paedophile-murderer. I met the latter incidentally through work and it came as real shock when he was later arrested and convicted. A salutary lesson that people are not always what they seem on the surface.

The point of my post, however, was that in many cases (including Rolf Harris, catholic priests etc.) other people did know what was going on but did nothing - or tacitly protected them. I guess I meant by 'male entitlement', partly the idea that some of the things that men do are not so bad - just a bit of groping, or she asked for it. etc.