The Double Life of Jonathan King (C4 documentary)

Oh well, maybe I'll go back and read the Guardin piece.

There were some questions that I wanted to put to the boys that appeared -- "Do you want King in prison? Why?" sort of thing.

Feel free to rip in to me, but for a lot of the show (I must add that I didn't see the last 15 mins: CSI on ch5!) i was very sympathetic to King. He seemed to believe (from what he DID as much as from what he SAID) that he was developing genuine relationships, eventually sexual relationships, with these boys. The whole "predatory" nature of these relationships seemed spurious and ambiguous. Obviously a straight relationship that developed in the ways described wouldn't necessarily be seen as predatory, but I guess the squeamishness revolves around the question of teenagers unsure in their sexuality. And in that I have no insight.

It occurred to me that the delay of the documentary meant that it has come out now when we have the Canuck supply-teacher story in the papers. It bears some comparison.

But since that's not the question, I think the impression I got from King and the others was that what they were doing was so widespread among their own circle that they still don't really consider it paedophilia. Also Denniz Corday came across very suspiciously. Talk about protesting too much. And also the disturbing part where he read through the evidence.

And if it's true that King abused upwards of 300 underage boys then it's not as if he can claim to be just sleeping around. I mean I guess it doesn't say, but how many overage people was he actually having sex with, consentual or otherwise.

1. He likes 14-15 year old boys and questioned whether there is really such a magical difference between that and 16 or whatever the age of consent is.

2. He castigated the boys who bore witness against King on the grounds that they went back for more and seemed to enjoy it at the time. When Ronson said many now reported having been emotionally damaged by it he suggested that was because of societial taboos putting pressure on them to conform by reporting the experience as damaging, and questioned how one can tell where such emotional scars have really come from.

It's the complete inability to recognise the exploitation of the power relationships involved that got me. Yes, one 14 year old might be 'more ready for it' than another 18 year old but that's not the point. If someone is exploiting that 18 year old then that's shit too but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and if that means that lots of ripe young chicken up for fun is denied to you then fucking tough that's the price society pays for protecting the vulnerable. Unless you take argument #2 seriously. In which case "WHA??". Then where does he draw the line, age-wise? Or is he saying that if you have sex with a 5 year old in a nice 'gentle' way and they don't appear to protest then that's OK too? Does he have no concept of the idea of emotional development, deference to adults etc.? Mind you, he's right that society needs to be able to discuss these things in a non-hysterical, slightly more open way and to think about why we have these laws. Or else people like him will just see themselves a martyrs damned by the arbitary rule of mob.

King is so fucking tragic. His defiance at the end almost made me cry he cut such a pathetic, self-deluding figure. I think Denning was spot on about how his 'I love irritating people' routine is fail-proof emotional defence mechanism.

It's the complete inability to recognise the exploitation of the power relationships involved that got me. Yes, one 14 year old might be 'more ready for it' than another 18 year old but that's not the point. If someone is exploiting that 18 year old then that's shit too but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and if that means that lots of ripe young chicken up for fun is denied to you then fucking tough that's the price society pays for protecting the vulnerable

square with the lady-teacher version on other thread (I forget her name)? Surely if the issue is power relationships, and the line in the sand has to be drawn somewhere, there needs to be impartiality wrt gender of both parties, even if in some cases we can see that it might be the ripe young chicken actually having the fun?

Corday was dreadful, DG. At first I was like 'who is this guy they are smearing by association' but as the interview went on and he started intejecting his 'ha ha the scheming minx' comments throughout his reading of the boys' testimonies I lost all sympathy. He was one of the ones going on about how they went back for more so it must have been all right.

By legal definition, under-age makes it (A) all the time [= end of argt], but this has historically then been used as a weapon against unorthodox sexuality. eg:
the under-age are non-sexual legally =>
the under-age are non-sexual biologically =>
the only reason anyone becomes [insert non- stardard sexuality here] is because of predatory "recruitment"

The problem with talking about power is that it sounds like King is going up to the kid and forcing them to have sex with some sort of arm-wrestle. The use of power is so much more psychological, for approval, for favour, for even the idea that the sixteen year old can brag about having sex with the teacher. This kind of thing can be used by the teacher to get into that relationship - the whole Mrs Robinson older woman thing after all is all about inequality of power.

I am not in favour of mad arbitrary lines drawn in the sand, because I think they lead to some of the things Mark S mentions above. Would what King/Denning were doing be legal in say Canada (14 year old age of consent) and if so is that because they have drawn the wrong line in the sand. Are 16-17-18 year people prey to similar kinds of manipulation and power plays which can later effect their development.

I'm just wondering where the power in such relationships lie now, considering that with quite simple proof (if you were willing to collect it) could easily ruin someones career. Looking at an analogous teacher relationship the kid could quite happily consent to the sex, have it and then blackmail said teacher afterwards as the line in the sand has been drawn.

I'm with Sterling (though I don't agree that we always get it right with rape). I am not quite sure that you are saying when you say you believe in childhood. Is that a childhood = innocence thing. Or childhood = non-sexual (=virginity, a big pull in the paedophile mindset). Please elaborate.

What this has to do with the argument at hand I'm not quite sure - I suppose I'd argue for an age-based sliding age-of-consent law, like I read about the Dutch having. You can prosecute a 45 year old for seducing a 15 year old but you can't prosecute an 18 year old for doing the same: that would keep the arbitrariness but reduce some of the pressures and costs, I think.

I'd argue that things got fairly out-of-hand fairly quick, at least when the repressed memories bullshit started to pop up & children were manipulated into "remembering" things which NEVER HAPPENED and in the process were subjected to actual abuse, at the hands of therapists and courts.

Pete - that 'I do believe in childhood' comment probably came across quite badly and I'm not sure exactly what I meant. I think it was just throwing my hands in the air kind of thing. There was just something about the way Chris Denning sought to make age an irrelevance that was galling. And I'm bloody glad I didn't have sexual relations with an adult when I was a kid (there was one time when I had to run out of a changing room block in Cyprus when some guy tried to roll down my trunks but that's about it).

Tom's point about the hidden cost of fixed ages of consent piling pressure on virgins is a valid one but I don't think it really can be compared in terms of emotional damage. And think of all the great indie music that would never have got written.

Idea that teachers have power over pupils = Idea that football managers have power over players?

Pipe down, you condescending nonce.

Peter - the Guardian piece

"On every other occasion, Jonathan buggered Nick. He was always gentle, says Nick, and would coo comfortingly."

I'm glad I didn't see the TV programme.

Suddenly I can't stop thinking about the title of the programme (and this thread) and imagining Jonathan King taking the place of Irène Jacob in Kieslowski's enigmatic art house classic. With appalling results.

I disagree... if I heard that some bloke went around cruising for underage totty and had had sex with over 300 fifteen year old girls following spurious promises of some kind of pop career, while I would think they were a predatory and unsavoury person.

I didn't see the documentary, but I did read the Guardian article, which was very interesting. One thing that was mentioned in passing is - why didn't Bill Wyman go to prison? Or is it that Mandy Smith is the modern Pamela (or Shamela) and by marrying Bill she made it all alright?

And can I just say: Jenny Powell. >shudder<

The "victims" still came across as unconvincing, and the subject didn't exactly do himself any favours.

The whole thing was a rather sad and sordid affair.

The stances were:
JK: innocent, unrepentant, victim of homophobia/envy/prosecuted by morals of a different age, admitted to underage gay sex but vehemently denied paedophilia or forced sexual assault.

"Victims": all seemed the sort destined to go off the rails anyway - they have variously ended up as schizophrenics or alcoholics or similar, but whether this was down to their experiences with JK was hard to fathom. One admitted to having been 20 at the time of his supposed buggery, another claimed to have been thirteen (though JK asserted he was 16) and none of them got off the bus at the first stop, so to speak - it appeared they all willingly came back for more ("but he was such a nice bloke" etc.) so it was hard to rustle up a great deal of sympathy for them, however great their pain.

However, JK repeatedly seemed to be deliberately skirting around key issues, or laughing them off, or justifying them rather feebly. My impression was that he is very slowly coming to terms with the fact that in general he shouldn't have tried it, but there's so much self-denial still rampant within him and so many protective layers of irony and grins and the general Mr Toad of pop approach that really it's impossible to work him out either.

The film, though, I felt was skewed against him too much; its intent seemed to be to paint a traducing picture of "vile, deluded, egomaniacal pervert JK" as opposed to the rather more complex but less televisually friendly truth which evidently lies beneath all the facades. No one came out of the film with much credit, but I'm not sure whose fault that was.

His friend seemed almost more repellent than King, about how just talking to a 14 year old girl would lead you onto a slippery slope. Hmm no, not with most people anyway.

Wish I could see the Hornby doc again just to see King lay claim to inventing the word 'vibe'

so I get this guy is/was not the greatest person, but what was the song "I Don't Want to Be Gay" about? was it from a time when he was closeted?

only noticed that title when I was looking at his version of "Hooked on a Feeling" and a gay friend told me he went down the rabbithole of looking into that song and that was really ugly. I couldn't find much on Google.

I think he was always closeted up till he got accused of sexual abuse? Or else people didn't enquire about his sexuality because the idea of Joanathan King having sex was not something anyone wanted to dwell on.

I like his song about Shami Chakrabarti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGFOnJA26K8