Imagine if straight male politician was being interviewed and the discussion for whatever reason wandered into the zone of sex and how one is introduced to it. And imagine the man were to said something like this.
“In terms of classic seduction, as practised by the French for example, where it is an older woman introducing a younger man or I suppose more accurately a boy since we’re talking about someone under 18 but over the age of consent to adult life, I think there can be something to be said for it. And in terms of the French experience this is endemic.
Now again, this is not something that appeals to me, although when I was younger it would most certainly have appealed to me in the sense that I would have greatly relished the prospect of an older, attractive, mature woman taking me under her wing, lovingly introducing me to sexual realities, and treating me with affection and teaching me about life – yes, I think that would be lovely; I would have enjoyed that.”..
An older man honestly saying that it’s not for them as a mature adult but had it been on offer as a teenager they could see themselves being quite interested in the idea. And the reaction of most people would be a large dose of so what. After we’re pretty well aware most teenage boys would hop on a gust of wind given the chance. I should know as I was a teenage boy and had a attractive woman in her 20s or 30s say decided that she was interested in my less that buff physique , and had I survived the likely heart attack, I’d probably have been in there like a shot, quicker than you can say Risky Business. Would it have been to my long term benefit and personal development? Who knows but I would expect people reading the comment to realise that I was speaking about it that I was talking about what I might have done not necessarily what I should have done. Now imagine the gender roles being reversed or further more that it is a same sex relationship and you even have to imagine the outrage, you can see it happening right now on foot of the reviving of a David Norris interview with Helen Lucy Burke from a decade or so ago.
There is a strong degree of hypocrisy in our views of sexual relations, recently seen in the ham-fisted approach taken to the issue of statutory rape. Indeed those bright folks at South Park have already rather expertly covered this topic in general terms in the episode Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy.
Pingback: David Norris’s campaign « William Quill