Author Joel Williamson shared Elvis kept a group of three 14-year-old girls with him on the tour who were up "for pillow fights, tickling, kissing and cuddling when he was 22.
Plenty of famous people were scumbags. Violent, racist, misogynist, beat up women, cheated, etc. From John Wayne to Frank Sinatra, they were awful human beings but people worship them.
Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me because the fucker was whack
- Bob Vylan
This, but also rape and other abuse was tolerated for some reason back then.
There is also a bit of a gender disparity for who is getting help now. Women can get help a lot more easy than men, and aren’t as likely to be dismissed when they come forward.
Lets keep pushing in the right direction
Priscilla was 14 when they met, and he managed to convince her father to let her live with him. I blame the father just a much since he knew what was going down.
Not that I condone any of this, but consider that the cultural disgust of marrying a girl under the age of 18 is a more recent and modern taboo. Back then, in rural United States, it wasn’t an issue at all. Heck as a Gen X kid whose parents were from the Silent Generation, my mother married her first husband when she was 16 and he was 22. She never thought it was an issue other than she regretted marrying anyone at the age. But her parents, church, and teachers didn’t think it was a problem.
It’s hard to believe because most people might say Elvis lived in modern society but he’s not. The 20th century was full of changes that we don’t really think about.
I agree with you on that. And the changes still are going on. I remember in school in the 90’s it wasn’t uncommon for a college guy to date a high school girl with no real repercussion. Not saying that it was right back then, just looked at differently.
It was gross back then too. In the 90s the Coasties would trawl the junior high girls. 25 year old men “dating” 13 year olds. We all knew it was gross as fuck and not okay but small town cops didn’t give a fuck. Hell there was a deputy “dating” a 16 year old too.
It wasn’t looked at differently in the 90s.
A guy in my class knocked up a 14 year old during senior year and we basically all stopped talking to him because fucking ew, dude.
Paedophilia seemed weirdly acceptable right up until around 2000 or so. It’s really quite surreal how commonplace it was.
Uh… no. Baby raping has always been frowned upon as far as I’m concerned. 14 year old consensual (to the extent a 14 year old can be) groupies were a thing, in the not too distant past, but social mores have changed since then. Which is good. There’s an enormous difference between the two though.
I think it was that people weren’t seen as victims. They weren’t seen as helpless
I think you may be wrong. Wikipedia tells me that:
“In 1880, the ages of consent were set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States
Delaware is whack, but historically age 12-15 was a reasonable (for the time) age for girls to marry. Most biblical scholars say that Mary (JC’s mother) was about 15/16 when she popped him out (assuming there is some historical fact in the story) so those ages in your country weren’t completely crazy outliers. People grew up quicker back then because people died sooner back then. Just getting to the age of 12 was an accomplishment in its self. The past was a different place. If humanity makes it a few more generations then some of the things we accept and do now will be seen as unacceptable. We are all products, to a greater or lesser degree, of the time we live in and that shapes how we see the world as it is and as it has been.