Ok, touchy subject and I don't want to find myself in the wrong bracket here:
- When I wrote teenagers, I was not insinuating "he did it with adolescents who already kind of knew what they wanted and could be expected to say no". I was using teenager in a 10+x, but still pre-adolescent sense.
- MJ is a pedophile or at the very least has pedophile demons he has to struggle with. But I've seen no evidence, not even an indication that would allow to call him a rapist or even an attempted rapist. You can be a pedophile and not be a rapist, just like you can be straight, gay or an SM afficionado and not be a rapist (or ever in danger of becoming one) either. We're talking about varying shades of grey, granted, but even in that grey area there is a line MJ has not crossed from what I can judge him on. Seduction is not rape. Even misuse of a child's affection, gratitude or guilt is not rape. I think that was portrayed vividly in Kevin Bacon's great (and brave) performance in "The Woodsman" where he played a convicted and paroled pedophile who is not a rapist and in fact only realizes that he is (nontheless still) abusing children (or in danger of abusing them) when confronted with a girl's (he's taken an interest in) description of her parental molesting/rape situation at home.
Uwe