ngtskynebula

Beast and I had a lovely time away last weekend visiting nopseud (and her sterling chap, of course) along with chalcopyrite. We went to Compton Verney for a 'yarn fair' which was essentially a marketplace for some very lovely crafting. There was also actual yarn, and I refrained from purchasing any! Which I think was exceeding strong-minded of me.

We went into Coventry on Sunday, and looked at the original cathedral (fortunately it did not rain), then had Afternoon Tea in a very nice crypt.

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Oh, dear. I just watched the trailer (most of it, anyway) for the new Wuthering Heights movie. Twice I was moved to exclaim What the fuck is she wearing? out loud.

Now, to be fair, I do not remember the book very well. I read it many years ago and hated it. It is my firm belief that passion should be bridled. Wuthering Heights does not bridle anything, except possibly the occasional horse. I can't remember it having any unloathsome characters, although I dare say I am being unfair. But it is not a great love story. It is a thoroughly horrible story about thoroughly horrible people who are thoroughly horrible to one another and everybody in their vicinity. Which culd make a good—and disturbing—film. It is not a Harlequin Romance of dubious period. This film, however....

One not to watch.
Goodbye June", otoh, looks like a delightful tearjerker and I shall seek it out.

Meanwhile, we are watching the new season of The Diplomat. I really enjoy this show. You never know quite what is going to happen next. It is wondrously entangled and complicated and everybody has a different and valid point of view and any situation can twist round into its opposite when a new point of view comes into it. Also, CJ and Josh! Good stuff.

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Oh for god's sake. I wrote the following out the day before yesterday, and now I see a news item about some vacuous person suggesting that if it was a 15-year-old not a 5-year-old, it's not paedophilia and therefore isn't really bad at all.

I can't help but feel that all this emphasis on the 'pedophiles' from the Epstein list is a mistake. As best we know, the persons of prominence who are so accused are guilty of having sex* with the unwilling, the trafficked, the drugged, etc, but not with actual children. 'Ephebophile' is the term for those who have sex with teenagers. And a seventeen-year-old, while entirely plausible as a rape victim, is not a little girl.

Thirteen, now. That's different. But let's keep things clear.

At some point these definitions are going to come up in court. The repellent Andrew will probably point out that the age of consent in the UK is 16, making him innocent as snow when it comes to having sex* with a seventeen-year-old. And the whole thing—all the disgraceful behaviour from rape to people trafficking to whatever—is going to be dismissed as "she probably wanted it" because so many people will (a) blame a female, always, and (b) want to believe Trump is innocent. The actually innocent are going to be represented as conniving people who must have got something out of the experience, and selfish, exploitative people are going to be represented as their victims.

The less hyperbole is used, the more it remains possible to point out the actual crimes.

*rape, but that's not what they will say