It is evident that when a 20-year-old admits in court to having sex with a 13-year-old he should not be let off with a suspended sentence. The next thing you know he is organising sex flings for the under-aged where according to your front-page report last Sunday, “there is unsavoury interaction between men in their 20s and girls as young as 12”.
And what does the Commissioner for Children mean by her consideration of “going a step further: changing the law to prevent adults from attending these parties and mingling with vulnerable teens and pre-teens”? Is not illicit under-age sex the issue here? Why skirt around the problem instead of addressing it?
Why not declare the whole racket illegal? This is exploitation of childhood and adolescence for money, and so it is definitely unacceptable.
Then comes the award-winning comment that “the party organisers and the venue owners should act morally and responsibly through self-regulation” followed by a sermon lifted from some sociology textbook. To prove the point the bar owner illuminated us with his wisdom that “there is nothing wrong with 15- to 17-year-olds having a dance ‘work-out’ without alcohol”. But then we are relieved to learn that he understands the concern of adults joining in.
The education system always carries responsibility for such a mess, presumably because it do not teach enough . The Labour spokesman for Family Affairs seems to be under the illusion that “these youngsters were enjoying the attention without understanding the ramifications” and suggesting parents should ensure they impart to their children self-respect and respect for others in the way they dress and behave.
Well, there is a very simple retort to this. These youngsters know only too well that they are being used to draw attention to themselves and also that they’re being exploited.
They simply enjoy the thrill and stardom of the moment. They wouldn’t be after money per se, but after other forms of gratification, as long as they can get away with them. Why else would they paste their teen party shenanigans on Facebook?
As for their parents, you would be surprised to learn how dysfunctional some of them could be. They wouldn’t understand anything about the boundaries of self- or social respect. Compulsory education and its teachers are by their very nature the nerds to be ignored and scorned at.
The problem here is the cultural gulf between those who have been raised to respect and to promote acceptable social mores and those who have been brought up consciously defying them. The even bigger problem is the unschooled moneyed class of bar-traders who exploit the situation.
What has gone wrong with all these people in responsible positions of authority? Can we stop paying lip service on issues which are so socially sensitive that the problems they threw up have become bigger than ourselves? Do they really believe we can’t see through their useless talk for the sake of a newspaper comment?
Sexual liberation comes through cultivating an appropriate intellect, not by pole-dancing in skimpy underwear. Don’t bring on the prattlers, get the police.