The Russell Brand affair has opened a can of worms, but no one has seemed to have noticed. Let’s talk about “grey areas”.
The Brand matter has progressed in stages.
First, the media hit piece. Then the defenders, sensing a possible conspiracy behind the hit piece. Then those who have (like me) pointed out patterns of me-tooist strategy. Then the non-defenders, pointing out that Brand is a creep, a bully, and a serial sex addict, possibly indulging with the young as well of the young-at-heart. Then we have the anti-conspiracy theorists who lament the fact that this story has so quickly descended into, well, apparent conspiracy theory. Oh, and the inevitable Big Tech de-platforming (the YouTube demonetising). And on it goes.
All before a shred of evidence has been adduced in relation to the “charges”. Brought by complainants, not the police. (The police are, apparently, investigating one old case unrelated to the current wave of complainants).
Russell Brand isn’t the first to have been outed as a serial sex offender, or worse. His enemies have invoked memories of the awful deeds of the once lauded-by-all, since reviled, Jimmy Savile.
Does anyone remember Mary Travers, Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow? Who? They were, once, leavin’ on a jet plane. Yes, Peter, Paul and Mary. Well, Peter did jail time for sex acts with an underage girl groupie.
In 1970, Yarrow was convicted and served three months in prison for taking "improper liberties" with 14-year-old Barbara Winter, who went with her 17-year-old sister to Yarrow's hotel room in Washington, DC seeking an autograph.
Three months? Wow!
There was a bit of it going on. David Bowie admitted to it (as I recall), but got away with it. And his reputation intact. Gary Glitter? Rolf Harris? Not so much. Bowie fessed up. Many others of the rock revolution, which happened to coincide with the sexual revolution, all but admitted it. What happened on the road, well, stayed on the road. Does anyone seriously believe that the thousands of underaged groupies who threw themselves at rock stars were asked for their “proof-of-age” at the door?
Here is the Phoenix New Times’ list:
David Bowie, Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin), R. Kelly, Ted Nugent, Steven Tyler (of Aerosmith), Jerry Lee Lewis, Marvin Gaye, Bill Wyman, Elvis, Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger.
Quite the list. All prospered despite the open secrets. Bill Wyman hooked up with Mandy Smith when a young teenager, then later married her. Then, a bit further on, Bill Wyman’s son (from an earlier marriage) married Mandy Smith’s mother. Go figure. Jerry Lee Lewis married his second cousin when she was 13. He did suffer but the setback was temporary:
The brouhaha about the underage marriage drastically affected Lewis’ career. He was booed off stage while performing in New York and his record sales stalled. Soon, he was blacklisted. But he eventually revived his career and regained much of his popularity.
The Times notes:
Browse through the annals of rock history, and you'll find, just right of the spotlight, the women with whom the most famous and sexually appealing men of the era chose to spend time.
Often, it seems, those women were underage — girls, not women.
Pop culture's fascination with teenagers is nothing new. Chuck Berry released "Sweet Little Sixteen" in 1958. The Beatles' opening track on their debut album, "I Saw Her Standing There," begins with the line, "She was just 17 / You know what I mean?" "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" idealizes future sexual potential ("Those little eyes so helpless and appealing / One day will flash and send you crashing through the ceiling"). And for some reason, many of the rich, powerful rock stars, who in their sexual primes could presumably sleep with anyone they chose, gravitated toward girls not old enough to drive.
Some of the girls — who are now grown women — linked to the men on this list have steadfastly maintained that their relationships with rock stars were consensual and overall positive experiences in their lives. Others say the opposite.
Of course, “consent” and “under aged” should never be used in the same sentence. Statutory rape and all that. The Guardian’s 2021 analysis, speaking of the Sky Look Away review, focused on “baby groupies”.
The New York Post adds Bob Dylan to the list. Some pretty big names, then.
https://nypost.com/2021/08/17/famous-musicians-accused-of-dating-abusing-teens/
Mick Hucknall of the band Simply Red was another with numbers allegedly in the Wilt Chamberlain league. Before he eventually settled down into marital bliss. Axl Rose of Guns ’n’ Roses even had a manager to take care of all those sorts of things. He, too, had his under-age flings, but somehow managed to evade the law. Here is Ultimate Guitar:
Another excerpt from rock journalist Mick Wall's new book "Last of the Giants: The True Story of Guns N’ Roses" has surfaced via Medium, focusing on the infamous statutory rape charge Axl Rose was facing for his actions back in December 1985.
The girl in question was named Michelle. At the time, she was 15 years old.
Slash [also from the band] previously noted in his book: "My memory of the events is hazy but from what I remember she had sex with Axl up in the loft. Towards the end of the night, maybe as the drugs and booze wore off, she lost her mind and freaked out intensely. Axl told her to leave and tried throwing her out. I attempted to help mediate the situation to get her out quietly, but that wasn’t happening."
And now, Wall points out in his book:
"A naked, underage girl running away from adult men along one of the busiest streets in Los Angeles was not going to go unnoticed, and within hours the LAPD were back at the Hell House with the girl, looking to ID her assailants. Everyone in the house was brought outside except for Axl, who hid behind some equipment along with another girl. 'While the cops are out there harassing everybody, asking their stupid questions, I'm with this girl behind the amp and we start going at it,' he later boasted. 'That was the rush! I got away with it! It was really exciting.'
The legendary American basketballer, Wilt Chamberlain, is said to have bedded large numbers of women, generally estimated to have been in the five figure area. The closest Wilt ever came to the law was to have been mentioned in Robert Nozick’s legal/philosophical tome, Anarchy, State and Utopia. Did Wilt check for birth certificates?
Moving from basketball to cricket, it is widely known that the legendary Australian all rounder (in every sense), Keith Miller, was a serial philanderer. He is once reputed to have experienced the apparent joy of a mother and (sixteen-year-old) daughter encounter. His reputation, well known to those in the know at the time, survived his exploits. Being a war hero, perhaps, helped. Wilt Chamberlain was black …
Then there was former Senator Cheryl Kernot, another figure of great affection for the progressive crowd. Leftie and female. She, as a teacher at St Leo’s College, Sydney, had a relationship with the then school captain. Nothing bad was suggested, as they only began their sexual relationship after he had left school, apparently. Grey areas, nonetheless.
We seem to have two classes of perpetrator here. Those we call “paedophile”, we despise. They like them young, you know. We name the crime. Then there are all those prepared to screw any girl in sight, just because they were famous and they could, and, just maybe, some were under aged. Well, we look the other way. What happens on tour …
As it happens, there isn’t a very thin sliver of paper between the two.
When you ponder it, it is a very strange distinction. A distinction without a difference. But it suits our society’s sensibilities, in a post-modern age of confused moral categories and the absence of absolute truth. Does feminism, in any of its incarnations, help? Not really, since feminism, seeing only “liberation”, lunged with enthusiasm at the sexual revolution, and is now struggling with the fruits of that revolution.
What Keith Miller, David Bowie, Wilt Chamberlain and the rest of the borderline-paedophile lotharios didn’t have to contend with was the internet and social media. Trial by media. Instant cancellation. Today, these epic heroes of the past wouldn’t have stood a chance.
None of this makes Russell Brand either innocent or morally okay. It makes him famous at the wrong time, that’s for sure. Nor does it excuse the Brands of yore. It is probably regarded by most as a pretty good development that now, there are constraints on the often dark libido of the famous, and far better processes for the abused to bring their grievances to the attention of the law.
If only we could stop it all from going too far. Brendan O’Neill sees the problem and summarises it succinctly, but doesn’t want to be seen as a Brand defender, let alone as a scamdemic type (like me, for instance).
It is often on the back of public fury that dangerous new precedents are set. Authoritarianism can sneak in when we’re all hopping mad about something or someone. So mad that we don’t even notice that society’s rules are being rewritten in an illiberal way. I fear it’s happening again, with YouTube’s demonetisation of Russell Brand.
This is a risky thing to say. The climate is febrile right now. Criticise any aspect of the censure of Brand, following the publication of very serious allegations against him, which he strongly denies, and you risk being damned as a Brand defender. Worse, his weird online army, that ‘scamdemic’ mob that views Brand as a Jesus-like slayer of ‘the Covid regime’, might mistake you for a fellow traveller. Guys, please don’t.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/youtube-is-wrong-to-rush-to-judgement-on-russell-brand/
(Methinks O’Neill protesteth a little too much, but that is a debate for another occasion).
But … Do we go down the path of the NSW consent legislation, where you have to have “proof” of consent to a sexual encounter? Including with your spouse. Grey areas …
You always need to check consent, whether it's the first time you're hooking up with someone or the hundredth time. You need to check consent before and during any sexual activity, including kissing, touching and oral sex.
That Spanish soccer guy, take note!
The redoubtable Rod Liddle, he of The Spectator, once admitted (in print) that the reason he never went into teaching was that he didn’t want to be around all those attractive female students. An honest admission and a wise choice.
Perhaps the old fashioned – dare one say, Christian – values of abstinence before marriage, male (and female) virtue and marital fidelity, were they somehow to find popular favour again, might be the foolproof solution to our ongoing, manifest moral difficulties. No, we trashed all of that in the glorious sixties, with feminist collusion. We are a confused and confusing culture, not the least seen in our governments’ insistence, (with the acquiescence of voters who never punish them), that children be sexualised at school at a very young age. We are a culture, too, that that suffers more than a little cognitive dissonance in relation to the sexual exploits of the rich and famous. Are they legends or predators? And how many of us will stop playing music by Bowie? By the Travelling Wilburys? By the Rolling Stones? By Elvis? By Led Zeppelin? No, I didn’t think so. As Sophie Cunningham, director of the Look Away documentary, says:
"So many people, when you tell them you're making a film like this, they're like 'Oh, no, please don't' - and then they name their favourite rock star because they don't want that musician or that music to be ruined for them. This music is so deeply embedded in our lives, I think sometimes people don't want to [acknowledge] there can be a darker side."
It has been suggested that the rock music industry needs its own me-too movement. Well, it might also be argued that, by going way too far, the me-too revolution has done nothing whatsoever to resolve these matters. It simply enables suddenly powerful voices to pursue their enemies, on the back of moral panics, through the media. And the law doesn’t help much, either, as it happens. Just ask George Pell or Bruce Lehrmann.
It is all very, very murky. In the meantime, we have the absolute certainty that the Russell Brands will be exposed to trial by media, and the inevitable claims and counter-claims about conspiracies. And all the rest.
Paul Collits
21 September 2023
There is, to my mind, a big difference between paedophilia (having sex with children) and shagging groupies (having sex with teenagers). Unpopular opinion, I know, but I am female and sort of feel I know how it goes. Pervs who want to abuse children, those before puberty, should face the full force of the law. Pervs who rape anyone, ditto. Men (usually) who are rich, famous, handsome, rock gods, Hollywood movie stars (you know the sort I mean) can have their pick of women and girls. Any girl who goes to a pop star's bedroom generally knows exactly why she's there. If, back in the day, David Bowie had invited me to his room and I was only, say, 14, I'd have been there like a shot. I would then have dined out for decades to come on "My Affair with Bowie". If, at 14, I had been raped, by anyone, I would have told my mum and the police. I wouldn't wait decades before telling a newspaper. And, yes, groups like Guns 'n Roses sound like they had dreadful social lives but so did motor bike gangs around that time and some girls like hanging out with "bad boys". I'm not excusing bad behaviour, paedophilia or rape but I do think it's a bit unfair to have spent a few hours having fun with a rock star and then, years later, running off to a newspaper to complain. There is a big difference between being a knowing 14 year old and a child of 10.
Guilty or innocent, I tipped the cancellation of Brand at least two years ago over his anti-globalist, anti-vax and anti-establishment broadcasts.