Given Eddie Shah’s anti-union history, I’m quite pleased to see him drag his own name through the mud. But his comments that basically amount to “sometimes, underage girls are gagging for it” still, unfortunately, has wide currency.

Let’s get some things out the way. Since Freud, if not before, childhood sexuality has been acknowledged in medicine and psychology as a fact. Ask anyone and most people will have had a good idea about what their sexuality was from a young age. Ask again and a good proportion will have had some form of sexual experience prior to the age of consent – usually with someone of roughly the same age. It exists and it’s something all of us have to navigate. But what the existence of adolescent sexuality does not excuse is the opportunist and abusive sexual behaviour of adults who take advantage of that. Continue reading →