Bowie & sex w/ underage fans

[Quail]

A lot of people have been mourning Bowie's death in the past couple of days, and some have been vocally refusing to mourn. I thought this article gave an interesting, balanced perspective. It doesn't sit right with me that there is often no grey area between "this person is a god" and "this person did a bad thing, therefore everything they have ever done is bad." I think if we want to get better as a society and better as people, we can't just see in black and white. I'm interested to hear what other people think though.


I feel genuinely sad about Bowie’s death. Like many people, I grew up listening to his music. He had a unique voice in every sense of the world. He was brave and beautiful and fearless. Growing up as a queer kid and a bit of an oddball, it would have been hard to not feel a connection to him. Space Oddity was one of my favourite songs, way back when I was a child obsessed with space and robots, convinced that I could go to the Moon someday.

Some of my friends don’t understand why people grieve celebrities.
They say- we’ve never met them, so why would it affect us?

Just as they don’t understand me, I don’t get that perspective either. After all, we don’t just spend our time with the people we know. We spend it with artists we’ll never meet.

That’s not even a 21st century thing. Ever since humans first learned to draw and then to write, we’ve been connecting with each other through time and space. Music written centuries ago gives me goosebumps. Authors who died long before I was born feel like old friends.

They’re not, of course. We get their final drafts. What they choose to share. But despite that, this one-way connection is still real.

If we can have a real relationship with people who died long ago, then why wouldn’t we feel connected to living people we’ll never meet? Their words, art, discoveries and music can still change our lives. Or at least, give some texture to their backdrop.

I understand that people feel differently. Some of you simply don’t feel that kind of personal (if one-way) connection to people they’ll never meet. That’s absolutely legitimate, although I don’t see why you’d bring it up when people are obviously upset. Some take it further, describing this kind of grief as performance and appropriative. As if some people are permitted to be sad, and others aren’t.

I think that’s bullshit. When we express sadness over someone we haven’t met, we’re not stealing grief from their family or loved ones. My melancholy this morning isn’t the same as losing someone you love. It’s not even close. People grieve David the man in ways that none of us who loved Bowie the artist could imagine. Of course they do. But the idea that this means the rest of us should shut up and not feel anything? Ludicrous. Bullshit. Ludicrous bullshit based on a holier-than-thou fake cool that looks down on actually feeling a thing.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling. There’s nothing wrong with enthusiasm and there’s nothing gauche about grief. We get to be sad if we damn well please.

Here’s where it gets complicated.
The other story filling up my news feeds this morning? It turns out that David Bowie may have had sex with an underage girl. I say “may have”, because this morning was the first I’d heard of it. And I say ‘sex’ and not ‘rape’, since the woman in question seems to have, as an adult, always maintained it was consensual and I don’t think it’s okay to force our own meanings onto women’s experiences.

That still doesn’t make it okay, if that was what happened. Statutory rape is statutory rape. It’s never okay for an adult to do that.

I get why people are sharing this today. What I don’t really know, is how I’m expected to respond or if the expected response is realistic. You see, I think that this is the expected response: to put Bowie into the Terrible People category and be done with it. To stop caring, never listen to his music again.

I get why people expect that. It’s about standing up for survivors in the face of a culture that brushes away abuse of women and girls by rich white men. Yes. That is important. In fact, I don’t want to dismiss it with three words like “that is important”. That is essential.

But I can’t.

No, I don’t think that what he did was okay because it turns out it didn’t harm her. We don’t have laws against statutory rape because every time an adult sleeps with a teenager they’re scarred for life. We have them because young teenagers aren’t yet able to understand the consequences of their actions or what will or won’t harm them. And because teens who are barely out of childhood are desperately vulnerable to manipulation by older people. The age of consent is a mechanism to prevent adults from taking advantage of disparities in power and decision making abilities.

When it comes to causing irreparable harm, it looks like Bowie dodged a bullet. But the unacceptable action is firing that particular gun in the first place. He did that. That was a decision he made.

I’m supposed to call him a monster because of this, and stop feeling sad about his death. I can’t do that. I can call him someone who did a monstrous thing, though.

What he did was unacceptable. And he still inspired me. He still made music that crawls in through my pores and under my ribs. That kid singing about floating in tin cans in her kitchen a quarter of a century ago is still part of me.

And I think that that’s the hard part, isn’t it? We want to live in a world of heroes and monsters. We want to be inspired be wonderful people, and to condemn the human excrement who do terrible things. We’re not comfortable with how grubby it is, here in the grey areas. Of course we’re not. It’s not comfortable.

But it needs to be. While we make monsters out of people who do bad things, we turn every single one of us into Tinkerbell- only able to feel one thing at a time. To be one thing at a time.

So that’s what I’m going to try to do: try to get comfortable with the discomfort of the grey area. To understand that a glorious oddball can also be someone protected from consequence by his position in the world. To see genius and abuse not as reflections of monsters or angels, but simply things that people do. Real, complicated, screwed up things and people. To try to understand more about the why of it all, since all of it is part of our common humanity whether we like it or not. To acknowledge that I love and am inspired by so much music this man created, and that I’m going to be as saddened by his loss and transported by his music as I’m furious at what he did. And in that discomfort, working towards a culture where rich, white, extraordinarily talented men don’t get a licence to abuse with impunity.

Because we can’t make Bowie into someone who didn’t inspire. And we can’t make him into someone who never abused his power. All we can do is sit with that, and work towards this generation of extraordinarily talented white men knowing that they are as human as the rest of us, and that nobody’s immune from consequence.

I don’t see what else I can do, really.
Source. (http://freethoughtblogs.com/teacosy/2016/01/11/david-bowie-was-wonderful-he-was-also-an-abuser-how-do-we-handle-that/)

[Zoop]

The girl was 13. It doesn't take much effort to never listen to Bowie again after knowing that.

[Invader Zim]

The girl was 13. It doesn't take much effort to never listen to Bowie again after knowing that.

Actually, Lori Maddox was 15 -- but that is splitting hairs. Of course, whether Bowie cared to ask the age of the various groupies he doubtless slept with is the issue and doubtless he didn't.

This is a tricky issue more generally, because I whole-heartedly agree with age of consent as a concept. Adults should not engage in sexual relationships with minors, because they hold all the power in the relationship and that makes complete informed consent impossible. But the USA's culture of sexual puritanism, which places the limit at 18, is ludicrous.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't see the correlation between someone doing something terrible & not being able to enjoy that person's body of work, which often exists independently of what they did. By that logic I shouldn't read Ezra Pound (supports fascism), or listen to James Brown (supports domestic abuse) or Amy Winehouse (supports being a depraved junkie) or enjoy the film "Repulsion" or "Chinatown", directed by Roman Polanski (Roman Polanski, enough said).

Although sometimes the extent of the bad acts is just so vast that it's extremely difficult to see someone's career as being independent of them, such as in the case of Bill Cosby

[BIXX]

I had consensual sex when I was 15. Granted it wasn't with someone older than 18 but I fail to see the qualitative difference. If I had sex now with someone who was over 18 when I was 15 why does that barriers drop? Why not 25 due to human brains not being fully developed? Why isn't there an upper limit?

Idk, I just don't see it being something to get angry about if it was consensual.

[Hit The North]

I think the article makes it plain that she did not consider herself a victim. To impose that label on her is to deny her agency, isn't it?

...

[hierophant]

I think the article makes it plain that she did not consider herself a victim. To impose that label on her is to deny her agency, isn't it?

...

flip the genders and there wouldn't be an argument that it was wrong, though.

no, it isn't the worst thing ever, but what kind of adult wants a 15 year old? nobody i would let my children hang around, that's for sure. i don't think it says anything about her except that she was 15 - but i do think that it reflects negatively on david bowie.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

It may have well been wrong for him to do this, but didn't Bowie himself admit that he was a coke-fuelled promiscuous horndog for a while, and that he had ceased such behavior? People are capable of change. Also, the morality of someone does not impact the quality of their work. Someone can be an amazing musician and do morally reprehensible things. Life on Mars will still be an awesome song no matter who he slept with.

[CyM]

Art should be judged on its own merits. The artist can be judged on his actions.

We should not hide the dark side of these artists, but neither should we bury their art because they may have done horrible things or been horrible people.

Dali was a fascist. Still love his art.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Art should be judged on its own merits. The artist can be judged on his actions.

We should not hide the dark side of these artists, but neither should we bury their art because they may have done horrible things or been horrible people.

Dali was a fascist. Still love his art.

I wonder what would happen if we took a hard moralistic approach to science, industry or engineering? We'd have far fewer technological opportunities available to us. It is curious how people take such moral judgments so absolutely when the person involved is an artist, philosopher, writer etc, but not in other fields of human endeavor.

It doesn't excuse the actions, but we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater, to use a common cliche

[Quail]

I guess I'm less interested in the specifics of the case, and more interested in the consequences of such black and white thinking in general. If we respond to discovering an artist did something bad by refusing to look at their art again, i.e. label them as entirely worthless based on their fucked up behaviour in one respect, how does that impact on how we deal with instances of abuse or whatever closer to home? Is it helpful to label people as "good" and "bad" with no chance of redemption?

[Luís Henrique]

Is it helpful to label people as "good" and "bad" with no chance of redemption?

I think we already know that this is a religious, and, as such, outdated, view.

The problem is that we are reinventing this kind of manicheism with different labels, such as "racist", "sexist", etc. substituting for "evil". And that in that process we are "personalising" those traits. Instead of realising that we live under the ideological dictatorship of racism, sexism, etc., we reinvent "racism" or "sexism" as an individual feature.

The point then becomes whether Bowie (or whomever) is "a sexist" (often in a quite essentialised way), instead of whether Bowie's actions are or were dictated by sexism as an ideology, and to which extent those actions reinforce(d) social sexism.

Of course, a subproduct of this is the loss of any distinctions between different Bowie actions: if he was a sexist, then it follows that all his actions were tainted by sexism, nevermind whether those actions were banging underage people or composing music.

This is however a quite agreeable way to posit things for most people, because sexism, racism, etc., are otherised in doing it. If people either are or are not racist, then only others are racist; I am not. And I can consequently threat any discussion of my actions as personal insults, instead of meaningful discussion of how racism as an ideological force that is also a social construct influences my actions.

The price of this line of action, of course, is that we remain unable to actually fight against sexism or racism; we can only objectivate them into other people, and wage word wars against each other, under the pretence of "fighting" them (actually, only fighting for our own inimputability on accusations of racism, sexism, etc).

Luís Henrique

[Comrade Jacob]

I think that was a fair article. She still says it was consensual and not a victim and we should respect it.
I think Bowie was sleeping around with his groupies and he didn't stop and think "Is she of age?"
She was under-age but she maintains it was 100% consensual and at the end of the day we have to accept it was a mistake and doesn't make him a bad person or destroy his great music.

[Aslan]

I find Hemophilia to be an uncomfortable thing to talk about. I think it is wrong and a person must be sexually knowledgeable, unless they are manipulated by a older person. But then again, Japan's age of consent is around 14 so I don't really know what to make of it.

Also, I've never heard of this Bowie dude until he died. So I feel bad that someone's life ended, but I can't care much for him.

[Lord Testicles]

Also, I've never heard of this Bowie dude until he died.

I wasn't a big fan of Bowie either but how is that even possible?

[Armchair Partisan]

I wasn't a big fan of Bowie either but how is that even possible?

I hadn't heard of him either. It's really not so unfathomable if you're not from the Anglosphere, although I can't speak for Aslan who does appear to live in the US.

[BIXX]

I think we already know that this is a religious, and, as such, outdated, view.

The problem is that we are reinventing this kind of manicheism with different labels, such as "racist", "sexist", etc. substituting for "evil". And that in that process we are "personalising" those traits. Instead of realising that we live under the ideological dictatorship of racism, sexism, etc., we reinvent "racism" or "sexism" as an individual feature.

The point then becomes whether Bowie (or whomever) is "a sexist" (often in a quite essentialised way), instead of whether Bowie's actions are or were dictated by sexism as an ideology, and to which extent those actions reinforce(d) social sexism.

Of course, a subproduct of this is the loss of any distinctions between different Bowie actions: if he was a sexist, then it follows that all his actions were tainted by sexism, nevermind whether those actions were banging underage people or composing music.

This is however a quite agreeable way to posit things for most people, because sexism, racism, etc., are otherised in doing it. If people either are or are not racist, then only others are racist; I am not. And I can consequently threat any discussion of my actions as personal insults, instead of meaningful discussion of how racism as an ideological force that is also a social construct influences my actions.

The price of this line of action, of course, is that we remain unable to actually fight against sexism or racism; we can only objectivate them into other people, and wage word wars against each other, under the pretence of "fighting" them (actually, only fighting for our own inimputability on accusations of racism, sexism, etc).

Luís Henrique

Can you reword this? I feel like I'm close to understanding just not quite there yet.

[Luís Henrique]

Can you reword this? I feel like I'm close to understanding just not quite there yet.

I could certainly reword it, but, not knowing what you find difficult to understand, I cannot be sure whether a rewording would make it more comprehensible.

Sexism is a social issue, rather than an individual one. Treating it like an individual issue makes fighting it back more difficult, if not impossible.

Luís Henrique

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

While I think it was questionable for Bowie to have sex with an underage groupie (if he actually knew her age), I believe that she was sexually mature and as such had her own agency. By her own words, she wanted the experience, Bowie didn't coerce her, and she still has no regrets.

In historical context, that was an era just after the peak of the Sexual Revolution, and a lot of people, even young adults like Lori, were exploring their sexuality and pushing back against societal boundaries.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Also, I've never heard of this Bowie dude until he died.
How old are you? One of the greatest popular musicians of the second half of the 20th century and his death was the first you'd heard of him? :ohmy:

[Comrade Jacob]

David Bowie is a household name. How can you not have heard of him till he died??? It's like saying in the early 80s "I only just heard of John Lennon now that he's been killed". Bowie is on the same level as John Lennon in terms of fame and talent.

[Devrim]

How old are you? One of the greatest popular musicians of the second half of the 20th century and his death was the first you'd heard of him? :ohmy:

I think sometimes people forget that the world isn't the Anglosphere. I saw it in on the news in the pub, and from the table I was sitting at two people didn't know who he was. Nor were they particularly young.

Then again, don't you know who Bülent Ersoy is? Oh my god!

Devrim

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

The person I was replying to lists their location as the US, where it's definitely unusual to never have heard his name ever before.

[Devrim]

Yes, in America you are probably right. Maybe they are just young or don't like pop music.

The Anglosphere is so closed to the outside though in a way that other countries aren't. For example, I doubt you are familiar with Bülent Ersoy, transsexual megastar.

Devrim

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Correct. I had never heard of Bülent Ersoy before, but now that you mentioned her, I read her entry on Wikipedia and listened to some of her songs on YouTube.

[Luís Henrique]

I think sometimes people forget that the world isn't the Anglosphere. I saw it in on the news in the pub, and from the table I was sitting at two people didn't know who he was. Nor were they particularly young.

Then again, don't you know who Bülent Ersoy is? Oh my god!

Indeed. There is a very strong Anglo (and perhaps especially American) tendency to otherise the rest of the world. We either do not exist, or we only exist to provide an adequate contrast for their supremacy.

***********************

In the specific case of Bowie, he was big down here in Brazil in the 70s and 80s of the past century, but I guess younger Brazilians might very well ignore him. The comparison with John Lennon is absurd, on both counts of popularity and of artistic quality.

Luís Henrique

[hexaune]

In the specific case of Bowie, he was big down here in Brazil in the 70s and 80s of the past century, but I guess younger Brazilians might very well ignore him. The comparison with John Lennon is absurd, on both counts of popularity and of artistic quality.

Luís Henrique

Very true with regards to the comparison with lennon, bowie was far more creative and ground breaking :)

[Blake's Baby]

And had a career lasting twice as long.

But the point about the Anglosphere is a good one. Perhaps Anglosphere+Latinosphere to an extent in this case. But how famous is Bowie in China, or India, or Turkey as Devrim points out? Not so much (though I bet he was big in Japan).

[Devrim]

There are people who are absolutely massive across lots of countries who I would imagine that most people in the Anglosphere haven't even heard of. Fairuz, for example, is massively famous, but I'd be surprised if anyone here has heard of her. Bülent Ersoy although only really popular in this country is about as famous as you can get. She's still popular today, and her life story is quite interesting with regard to trans people in this country especially after she was banned after the military coup in 1980.

It goes beyond culture though. I suppose in some ways it's only natural, but in international discussions, which basically take place in English these days, non-American experiences tend to be ignored. Istanbul, for example, is certainly the trans capital of Europe, but it's very rare to see anything about trans people in Turkey in English language discussions.

As for Bowie, it was only two people from eight who hadn't heard of him. Anglo culture is ubiquitous.

Devrim

[Luís Henrique]

There are people who are absolutely massive across lots of countries who I would imagine that most people in the Anglosphere haven't even heard of. Fairuz, for example, is massively famous, but I'd be surprised if anyone here has heard of her.

I think Joe Sacco references her in one of his books about Palestine, so yes, I might have "heard" (rather read) of her. But that is that, I have never actually heard her.

Luís Henrique

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

And had a career lasting twice as long.
Well, that has everything to do with a murderer's bullet taking one of them down at the age of 40 rather than saying anything about their careers. They were both brilliant and innovative.

[Luís Henrique]

Bülent Ersoy

There was another Turkish personality named Bülent (or Bulent?), a politician, Bülent Eccevit, if I record correctly.

Is Bülent a family name, or a given name? Elsewhere we have discussed the fact that Turkish is a genderless language; does this apply to antroponyms too? We cannot know whether a Turkish person is male or female just from his/her given name?

Luís Henrique

[Palmares]

Though I have heard of Bowie due to my own exposure to pop culture, I don't think it's unreasonable or even perhaps undesirable to not know them. Not in the sense of not giving Bowie any artistic merit, but rather from a place of being free from the boundless reach of Americanised, globalised, culture. For example, I have a friend who generally has a low knowledge of general pop culture knowledge. This is partially from his upbringing, but also a general non-engagement in it. I used to tease them about it, but nowadays, I'm partially jealous. I could probably do without the word "Brangelina" in my vernacular afterall.

On the subject of separating art from the artist, I listen to nazi black metal, am a brown person, and I certainly ain't doing it because I'm expressing my beliefs in white supremacy...

[Sentinel]

Is Bülent a family name, or a given name? Elsewhere we have discussed the fact that Turkish is a genderless language; does this apply to antroponyms too? We cannot know whether a Turkish person is male or female just from his/her given name?

I had not heard about her before - will look up now, (thanks for the tip Devrim) seems like a very intersting person. The wiki page states, in any case, that she chose to keep her given name despite it being a male one.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I've heard that Shah Rukh Khan is the most "well known" celebrity in the world, although I have no clue of how that is objectively quantified. He is probably known by only a minority of people in the UK and US, but is massively popular in South Asia and among the South Asian expatriates, as well as any part of the world where Bollywood is reasonably popular. If that is true it would indicate that being massively famous in the Anglophone world doesn't mean universal recognition.

I have a hard time believing that someone in the US or UK has never heard of Bowie however, unless they were living under a rock. He was popular across the Anglophone world, Latin America, and much of the rest of the globe. The guy was a phenomenon and shaped pop music, rock and many other genres. His collaboration with other artists in various genres is well known, too, from Queen to NIN. Many even plagiarized his collaborations (lookin at you Vanilla Ice)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoDh_gHDvkk

It may be down to youth too ... he hasn't really produced much of late (up until his latest album, which is an interesting one from what I've listened to from it)

[Hit The North]

I could probably do without the word "Brangelina" in my vernacular afterall.



Never heard of it (being old). What is the "Brangelina" you speak about?

...

[Devrim]

There was another Turkish personality named Bülent (or Bulent?), a politician, Bülent Eccevit, if I record correctly.

Bülent Ecevit was a veteran Turkish social democratic politician, who died about a decade ago. He served as Prime Minister four times though he was never President as he hadn't graduated from university, which is a requirement of the office. He's probably most well know internationally for sending the troops into Cyprus in 1974.


Is Bülent a family name, or a given name?

It's a given name.


Elsewhere we have discussed the fact that Turkish is a genderless language; does this apply to antroponyms too? We cannot know whether a Turkish person is male or female just from his/her given name?


Some given names are gendered and some not. As a general rule, the more modern a name, the less likely it is to be gendered. Thus names that come from the Koran, or ancient Turkish history are highly gendered. New names much less so. 'Devrim' for example is used for both males and females today although 50 years ago, it was much more predominantly male than it is today. occasionally, you meet some one who has what seems like a gendered name, and it turns out not to be.

Devrim

[Luís Henrique]

Bülent Ecevit [is] probably most well know internationally for sending the troops into Cyprus in 1974.

Yup, that's how I remember him.


It's a given name.

Some given names are gendered and some not. As a general rule, the more modern a name, the less likely it is to be gendered. Thus names that come from the Koran, or ancient Turkish history are highly gendered. New names much less so. 'Devrim' for example is used for both males and females today although 50 years ago, it was much more predominantly male than it is today. occasionally, you meet some one who has what seems like a gendered name, and it turns out not to be.

Thanks, Devrim. That's very interesting, especially for someone, like me, who lives in a culture where practically all given names are gendered (there are a few, like Darci or Iris, that are gender-ambiguous), and where the gender is even morphologically built-in in the names (Cláudio is a male name, Cláudia is a female name - obviously so, that's what the final -o and -a serve for: to give the name a gender).

Luís Henrique

[Philosophos]

People who see things in black and white are generally IMO people who are not honest to themselves. We have all done things we are not proud of, things that hurt others even if we didn't want to etc. There is also no guarantee that we will never do the same thing again or we will never be "bad" again.

So all in all you can't really judge people if you don't judge yourself and I think that it's kinda of a given that if you properly judge yourself you will understand that judging others is a sort of a waste of time and not really meaningful. But I suppose that's just me

[Philosophos]

Art should be judged on its own merits. The artist can be judged on his actions.

We should not hide the dark side of these artists, but neither should we bury their art because they may have done horrible things or been horrible people.

Dali was a fascist. Still love his art.

Dali was a fascist? :blink:
I love his work, but I din't really know many things about his views or personal life, I'm actually quite shocked

[Lord Testicles]

Dali was a fascist? :blink:
I love his work, but I din't really know many things about his views or personal life, I'm actually quite shocked

"One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dalí is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being". - George Orwell.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/12/06/salvador-dali-fascist/

[Luís Henrique]

Dali was a fascist?

It depends on how technical you are willing to get. He was a "fasho", ie, someone who supported brutal authoritarian tiranny, and opposed organised fighting against the regime. I doubt he would wear a blue shirt and march through the streets throwing Roman salutes right and left. And of course, the brutal authoritarian dictatorship he supported was Franco's regime in Spain, which brings into question, to what extent was Franco's Spain a fascist regime?

So, in short, I would say yes, he was a fascist in the sence that Idi Amin or Pinochet or the LAPD are or were "fascists". Not necessarily in the sence Mussolini or Rosenberg or Plínio Salgado were.

Whatever, I don't think his works reflect his political opinions. Melting watches have nothing to do with fascism.


I love his work, but I din't really know many things about his views or personal life, I'm actually quite shocked

Yeah. It is really disappointing when we discover those things about artists we like. In a certain sence, however, this is a consequence of what I wrote above about his works. If the only source of information on him we had were his paintings, we wouldn't be able to figure his politics out. Thence the shock.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Never heard of it (being old). What is the "Brangelina" you speak about?

"Brangelina" is the name of the outrageous, and universe-changing, raw fact that Angelina Jolie is married to Brad Pitt.

Now that you know it, I pity you.

Luís Henrique