unpopular opinion and ranting

David Bowie broke a lot of laws. 

He did drugs while hav­ing sex with men and dress­ing in a gen­der non-con­form­ing fash­ion. And he had sex with a mi­nor.

Now, I’m sup­posed to pre­tend that the law is not a ba­sis for moral­i­ty – what is im­moral about drug use, ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, and cloth­ing? – while to­tal­ly not griev­ing the death of a man that changed the West­ern world I grew up in – to make it more re­cep­tive to my kind, mind you – be­cause he broke a law to have sex with a minor.

And yes, I do see that dis­tinc­tion as le­gal, not moral. The mi­nor has been an adult for decades, and sees no wrong-do­ing in her be­hav­ior or his. She does not see her­self, a grown woman look­ing in, as groomed or ma­nip­u­lat­ed. Bowie, it would seem, did not com­mit this act again. Or at least, no one has come forward.

I hit an ex-boyfriend in the face once in a fit of rage. It was com­plete­ly un­cool, he did not de­serve it, it was not self-de­fense. It did not hap­pen again. We are still in­cred­i­bly close years lat­er. Shall my ac­com­plish­ments be dis­missed as done by a do­mes­tic abuser?

I’m ex­pect­ed as a fem­i­nist to call Bowie a pe­dophile and sex of­fend­er be­cause he slept with some­one that the law called a child. I’m ex­pect­ed to call this en­counter an act of vi­o­lence no mat­ter what the mi­nor says, be­cause she had to have been a child that could not consent.

No. I’m not do­ing that. And don’t be wrong, I am un­com­fort­able ei­ther way. I can’t call some­one a sex of­fend­er whose “vic­tim” nev­er felt that vi­o­lence was done upon her, but I also can’t say I con­done most 14 year olds I’ve known hav­ing sex with fa­mous old­er men, or old­er men period.

But what I do know is that 18 is an ar­bi­trary set­ting for mak­ing adult choic­es. If we went by brain de­vel­op­ment, we would be pros­e­cut­ing any­one sleep­ing with peo­ple un­der 25 for statu­to­ry. My ex-boyfriend would be be­ing called a pe­dophile be­cause he porked 24 year old me at 28 years old. And yet that rings ab­surd to all of us. And if we went by phys­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty, this would be no con­ver­sa­tion. And yet I’m sure that rings wrong to us, too.

And what I do know is that statu­to­ry rape laws ex­ist so par­ents can pro­tect their prop­er­ty – their chil­dren. Not to pre­vent pe­dophilic be­hav­ior. And see­ing fem­i­nists march on for days about how statu­to­ry rape, a com­plete­ly pa­tri­ar­chal con­struct, is a hor­ri­ble act of vi­o­lence, gives me a mi­graine-in­duc­ing eyeroll.

And what I do know is that I’ve met peo­ple in their thir­ties, men­tal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly im­paired peo­ple that lacked the de­vel­op­ment to un­der­stand why peo­ple found them at­trac­tive, what was weird about some­one want­i­ng them, a child in an adult body. And that both­ers just about no­body, ES­PE­CIAL­LY the law.

I have zero in­ter­est in the law defin­ing moral­i­ty, or chang­ing the law to re­flect moral­i­ty. I’m in­ter­est­ed in dis­man­tling the sim­ple yes or no an­swers that pa­tri­archy seeks us to be se­dat­ed in. 

I seek a so­ci­ety that can un­der­stand that some teenagers have had adult lives, and some adults will nev­er reach a non-vul­ner­a­ble men­tal state. 

And that
JE­SUS CHRIST YOU CAN’T JUST USE PA­TRI­AR­CHAL LAWS WHEN IT’S CON­VE­NIENT FOR YOU TO SUB­VER­SIVE­LY HATE ON A DEAD PERSON.

—mel­ony ppenosyne

Flom­mist Mel­ony Ppenosyne is a writer and weird artist type. In the last year alone, she’s trav­eled to Vir­ginia as a com­pet­ing poet, co-writ­ten a play on men­tal ill­ness that is present­ly be­ing pro­duced, and craft­ed a pub­lished es­say check­ing the priv­i­lege and scope of art gal­leries. Copy­right © 2016 Mel­ony Ppenosyne. Im­age: Still from Dan­ish band Kashmir’s mu­sic video for The Cyn­ic, feat David Bowie.

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