No Country for Dirty Old Men

JD Salinger had his young female muses also.

Muses work. That's why people use/make/have them.

Just buy a Miss Teen beauty pageant, Cormac.

Lots of people saying he groomed her, and that she is in denial. Then the NYT comes out with a new story in which academics say she wasn't actually all that important to his work. Makes me think she was smart to entrust her story to a 20 year old, instead of an academic.

Vincenzo Barney is the "Vanity Fair" writer who is getting slammed for his sexist reportage. I haven't read his article, but his hair is pretty amazing.

The article is ludicrous fanboy stuff. And then he did a witless interview in Slate, he’s a real piece of work.

Muse? She was his fuck-toy. He was another pederast, and not a drag queen.

Another gross ass white guy. Right, Paul Walker.

People are forgetting that this happened in 1977. This was a THING back then. Woody Allen made movie about it and Mariel Hemingway got an Oscar nomination.

I don’t think it was a good thing, but it didn’t come with the big stigma that it does now.

God, the amount of bullshit from fraus and prudish Gen Zers is disgusting.

I had relationships with older men and they BETTERED me. They didn't groom me. I was gay from birth. Older men teach you things and help you navigate the world, especially if you grew up poor, and in return you inspire them, keep them feeling good, and yes, help them get off. Sex is only part of it and I firmly believe that people in previous generations understood this.

So, reading this article, the girl was going through a rough time. There was mutual interest. And they became a couple. Nothing wrong with that.

He took her to Mexico. The FBI was involved.

Go and check out the McCarthy subreddit, it’s full of weapons-grade rationalization right now.

I haven't read the VF story yet but if this is any indication of the writing I'm not sure I could get through it.

He obviously held the Vanity Fair editors hostage. It is just Substack word vomit.

[quote] In 1981 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, the money from which meant Britt could go and visit her family, she said. “I just never came back.”

Is that the way MacArthur money is supposed to be used? I thought it was to allow talented people to ease up on conventional employment to focus on creative work.

I was molested

He was very handsome when this girl met him.

The Wikipedia photo is from around that time.

This article is published in Vanity Fair, it's exhaustive in details. My ADHD kicked in and I couldn't finish reading the article.

The author was generous with his muse. She owns horses and lives in comparative luxury.

If you have to sell it?

Make sure you get paid.

R10, straight men who pursue teenage girls tend to be pretty sleazy. They're not interested in mentoring the girls or teaching them how to navigate the world-- they just want to fuck them.

R9 is right - for whatever reason, there were a lot of relationships between adult men and teenage girls in the 1970's. Like a LOT of them.

Jimmie Page had a 14 year old girlfriend, IIRC. A lot of the famous groupies were under 18. Pamela Des Barres, a huge groupie, was called an old lady at 25.

Don Johnson, 22 - met and started dating 14 year old Melanie Griffith in the 70's. Look at Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

There are literally hundreds of examples of this from that time. Then there were the songs - I'd Take You Into the Night - about a 16 year old girl. Sexy and 17 - although that was early 80's.

It's insane when we look back on it - but it happened a lot and not that much was said about it. It feels like such a different world, but I think many teenagers in the 60's, 70's and 80's were more mature and self-reliant than today.

The ones that didn’t end up dead in a ditch?

[quote]Is that the way MacArthur money is supposed to be used? I thought it was to allow talented people to ease up on conventional employment to focus on creative work.

In theory, yes, but there's no strings attached, they don't monitor how you spend the money so you can use it for anything.

There must be a non-zero amount of genius grant money that went right up the recipients nose.

Young girls are coming to the Canyon (Laurel Canyon)

And in the morning I can see them walking (because they are too young to drive)

[quote]R2 Muses work. That's why people use/make/have them.

I wonder why women artists don’t tend to choose criminally underage ones.

Nothing like feet of clay.

I have no idea if women never choose young muses--certainly there are women who abuse young men. I would like to point out that, as far as we know, it's not like McCarthy found more young girls. Maybe it will turn out that he did, but at the moment he seems to have been fixated on her specifically.

Who were other underage muses/cash cows for predators?

Cher

Dorothy Stratten

Beatrice Portinari

Celine Dion

Myra Lewis Williams (?)

Priscilla.

Verificatia of sizemeat?

Of course if she doesn’t feel like a victim the woke left will demand that she understand that she’s damaged goods. Let’s just forgot that people were married by 16 for centuries. Now everyone was groomed and victim.

R19, young men have been fucking older men since the beginning of time. Even your beloved Harvey Milk was fucking a teenage boy. Is it right? Of course not. Is it the end of the world? No. Unless we’re talking about someone who hasn’t hit puberty, or was held down and raped, spare me the crocodile tears. My friends were all fucking professors and older next door neighbors in their teens. Many of my female friends were groupies. They didn’t fall to pieces over it. They grew up and moved on. People now want to make them feel dirty, manipulated, and victimized when they simply don’t feel that way.

He and JD Salinger liked 'em young.

Far be it from me to make anyone feel “dirty, manipulated, and victimized”, R32, but let’s be honest about the sort of man who pursues girls who are still in high school. I don’t fault the girls at all. They are very young and usually don’t recognize that the men going after them are damaged goods. My friends and I had adult men hitting on us constantly in high school and we always thought those dudes were gross or pathetic. It got to the point where I would go home after school and change out of my uniform because wearing my uniform anywhere outside of school guaranteed unwanted attention.

An older man (or woman) chasing after younger teens or children is clearly a pedophile. But.....I may be weird but I perceive older men having relationships with young women or young men who are 16 or 17 as not unacceptable. My mom was 16 when she met my dad (only a few years older) and 17 when they married.

I was actively chasing cock at 16 and 17 and understood what I was doing.

That was my parents in the 50s and me in the 80s, and maybe the more sheltered kids of today don't have the ability to navigate a relationship like that. I'm not trying to give pervs a pass, but I guess as someone who was raised in the 70s and 80s I saw some relationships between 16/17 year olds and older men (it was always men) that seemed balanced and normal.

He was talented so people are a lot more forgiving. When you suck your downfall is welcome.

Most of these people are dirty, dirty little buggers in their private lives. Alice Munro, Mae Sarton, now this dude too.

Perhaps you all just looked like little sluts, R34? Go fuck yourself with a hot curling iron

R38 = Margaret White

R31 were 16 year olds married to 40 year olds? How many? How many teenage boys were married off to middle aged women?

[quote]That was my parents in the 50s and me in the 80s

aka A Family of Whores.

Did your mom embroider pillows that said “Kick off your clothes and stay a while”?

Filth and debauchery, plain and simple.

But R31 the experts are now saying that our brains are still developing until age 25. That would make a 16 year old nine years under the limit.

r20 = Roman Polanski