Posted on 04/21/2010 6:06:26 AM PDT by NYer
LONDON, April 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Mandy Smith, the former child-lover and later wife of Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman, believes that the age of consent should be raised to 18 in order to protect young girls, who are emotionally vulnerable when it comes to sexual relationships at that age. In an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail, Smith said that she had slept with the much older Wyman when she was 14 years old, beginning a relationship that stole away a childhood she “could never get back.”
Smith, 39, revealed to the Mail that she has come a long way from being the Wild Child on London’s celebrity scene in the 1980s to a woman who is now single, celibate, and living out a revived Catholic faith, mentoring young girls, and involving herself in charitable work.
But the experience of her child sexual relationship with Rolling Stone Wyman, 34 years her senior, taught her that teenage girls are not emotionally equipped for sex by the age of 16.
“It’s not about being physically mature. It’s emotional maturity that matters,” Smith told the Mail.
“I don’t think most 16-year-olds are ready. I think the age of consent should be raised to 18 at a minimum, and some girls aren’t even ready then,” she said. “People will find that odd coming from me. But I think I do know what I’m talking about here. You are still a child – even at 16.”
“You can never get that part of your life, your childhood, back. I never could.”
Smith revealed that her father had been absent in her family’s life since she was three, and her mother was perennially ill around the time she met Wyman. The rocker had met her at a club where Smith and her sister Nicola, both teenagers, would party and try to dress and act twice their age.
Smith said she saw Wyman in part as filling the void of a father figure in her life. They began dating when she was 13, and revealed publicly for the first time to the Mail that Wyman had criminal intercourse with her when she was 14. When Smith reached the age of consent at 16, their relationship became public; by 18 she and Wyman married, and two years later the relationship ended in a bitter divorce.
Looking back on her past, she said that she believed Wyman never “would have made a move if my dad had been around.”
But her biggest concern is for teenage girls she sees today being caught up in a highly sexualized culture and its expectations.
“My concern is that everything – clothes, films, talk – is so sexualised. The girls I talk to are under pressure to be a certain way,” said Smith. “They think they should be having sex, living a certain life. I try to say to them: ‘Hold on. You don’t have to do this.’”
Smith is the mother of nine-year-old son, Max, from a brief relationship with model Ian Mosby. She says she rediscovered her faith in 2005 and tells the Mail that “God is the only man in my life now.”
“The great thing about the Church is that you can go back. It's never too late,” she said, adding that it was a note from one of the nuns who taught her in school that helped bring her back.
“She said that Jesus does not look at mistakes I had made, or the times I had ignored him. Until then, I'd felt a terrible guilt about the life I'd led,” added Smith. “I realised that there was another way.”
Parliament first established the age of consent in the UK at 13 years in 1875 in response to concerns that young girls were being exploited for prostitution. The age of consent was amended to 16 years in 1885 under the Criminal Amendment Act.
But in the United Kingdom recently the tendency has been to lower the age of consent. A furor erupted two years ago when Parliament passed a bill requiring Northern Ireland to lower its age of consent from 17 years to 16 years under the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, to be in conformity with the rest of the kingdom.
Members of Northern Ireland's Legislative Assembly accused London of acting with "contempt for democracy" by pushing through the measure despite their opposition. MLAs warned that the change would encourage sexual predators from the Republic of Ireland, where the age of consent remains at 17, to go north in search of younger victims.
Belfast's Rape Crisis Centre also objected to the change, saying the new law would make it more difficult for them to protect vulnerable girls from sexual predators.
See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:
British Government Bill to Impose Lower Age of Consent in Northern Ireland
What's a "criminal intercourse"? I want one of those!
What article were you reading? In the one I read, she is working to protect other girls from predation, and speaking out about the age of consent laws, which pederasts in UK are constantly trying to have lowered or eliminated. I myself did an honors master's thesis on the topic of sexual laws. What is so dumb about that, "library user"?
That's freakin' amazing, since it was clearly stated in the article.
Sympathy For the Groupies!
She is not trying to change her past. She is commenting on the continual pressure in the UK by sexual anarchists to lower the age of consent. She is speaking from experience that lowering the age of consent will do harm to present and future girls, and is in favor of raising the age of consent.
Age of consent laws do provide some measure of protection. Even Wyman knew he could have been prosecuted under the old laws, and kept the relationship hidden for two years. Would a stricter law have changed anything for him? Maybe not; but most social solutions require several solutions -- a strong law, stronger enforcement, and a campaign of public awareness. She is addressing these issues based on her personal testimony of harm suffered from the "swingin' 60s" mentality she encountered when she was a young teen. You have a problem with that?
Somebody help me(seriously.) What’s the synonym for a predictable kneejerk reaction (which articles such as the above provoke here)? It has something to do with food or feed, I think, like “food for...”, something or other, etc. I’ve been looking for it for days.
Of course it is, when the girl is an abandoned child of 14 and the man is 48, wealthy and powerful. Quit kicking the victim. It's astonishing the number of people on this thread who want to blame the victim of child sexual abuse.
It's been that way a LONG time.
The Hellfire Club was a name for several exclusive clubs for high society rakes established in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century, and was more formally or cautiously known as the "Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe".[1] These clubs were rumoured to be the meeting places of "persons of quality"[2] who wished to take part in immoral acts, and the members were often very involved in politics. Neither the activities nor membership of the club are easy to ascertain. [3][4] The very first Hellfire Club was founded in London in 1719, by Philip, Duke of Wharton and a handful of other high society friends.[5] The most infamous club associated with the name was established in England by Sir Francis Dashwood,[6] and met irregularly from around 1749 to around 1760, and possibly up until 1766.[7] Other clubs using the name "Hellfire Club" were set up throughout the 18th century. Most of these clubs were set up in Ireland after Wharton's were dispelled.[8]The club motto was Fais ce que tu voudras (Do what thou wilt), a philosophy of life associated with François Rabelais' fictional abbey at Thélème[9][10] and later used by Aleister Crowley...
Benjamin Franklin is also said to have occasionally attended the club's meetings during 1758 as a non-member during his time in England. However, some authors and historians would argue Benjamin Franklin was in fact a spy
The institutions of government and medicine are ENCOURAGING youthful sexual experimentation.
SEICUS and other organizations push a Kinseyian "sex positive" agenda. They seize upon William Reich's notion that sexual energy is a birthright to be enjoyed at every age. Proponents believe that there should be no moral judgements over any sexual pairings.
Your tax dollars fund this beast through a thousand different foundations globally.
One way to counter this agenda is to make it criminal to "corrupt minors". We have a Safe Schools Czar that introduced school children to the concept of fisting.
Perhaps you have heard that most pedophiles blame their victim. "I had sex with a 14-year-old, but she asked for it!" That is why we have age of consent laws. Children of 14 are too immature to make such decisions, and should be protected. The bartenders who gave her and her sister alcohol and the smarmy old goat who seduced her both acted illegally. She was already abandoned by her family. Get a clue who the victim is here.
Secondly, if people cannot learn from their experiences and help others avoid similar exploitation, how can society make any improvements to what has clearly become a sexual cesspool? Rates of illegitimacy have a direct bearing on the rise of socialism and the elimination of freedoms. There is a vast difference between political freedom and sexual license to abuse young girls.
Well she has a 9 year old son and probably doesn't want to be a "cougar" or "sex in the city" type of role model for him.
It wouldn't hurt to find someone to be a father figure to him and a companion for her, but she'll have to come to that relationship on her own and not bring her baggage to the potential mate's front door.
Yeah, it's not like Bill Clinton ever told Monica that he would leave his wife for her, right?
He is not dead. But according to Wikipedia's account, he appears to be a lifetime scumbag:
Bill Wyman (born William George Perks; 24 October 1936) is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for...The Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has ...toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings... produc[ed] records and film, and has scored music for...movies and television.
Wyman...has stated that he became "girl mad" as a psychological crutch... It is believed and stated by many sources that Wyman's conquest tally passed 2,000 women throughout his 31-year tenure as bassist of the Rolling Stones.
Wyman married his first wife, Dianne, in 1959; their son Stephen Paul Wyman was born on 29 March 1962. They separated in 1967 and divorced in 1969.
From 1967 through 1983, Wyman was romantically linked to Astrid Lundstrom.
On June 2, 1989 Wyman married the 18-year-old Mandy Smith, whom he had been dating since she was 13; their relationship was the subject of considerable media attention. The marriage ended in spring 1991, however the divorce was not finalized until 1993. In 1993, while Wyman was still married to Mandy Smith his son from his first marriage, Stephen, became engaged to Smith's mother.
In a penitentiary.
Today our institutions of learning (e.g. schools) run an agenda counter to the moral teachings in the home and are all too ready to put your kid on birth control prescriptions or take your kid to an abortionist without your consent.
Its funny how were are pushing for raising the age of consent (read: the age of adulthood) at a time when young people are less "innocent" then they were previously.
Back in the olden days, it was common to find 14 year old young men leaving home to look for work, and for 15-16 year old ladies (sometimes younger) to be married off to much older men.
We have become coddled thinking our postwar suburbanized "controlled" culture is the historical norm. It isn't.
I don’t have a problem with her advocating whatever she wants. I’m just saying I don’t think raising the age of consent will have too much of an effect. In this case social pressure is a much more effective than any law. Especially since by sheer numbers this would hit the 18 year old having sex with his/her 17 year old girlfriend/boyfriend far more than it would the Bill Wymans of the world.
And in this case, Wyman could have been prosecuted under the current law in any case.
Back in the olden days, it was common to find 14 year old young men leaving home to look for work, and for 15-16 year old ladies (sometimes younger) to be married off to much older men.
We have become coddled thinking our postwar suburbanized "controlled" culture is the historical norm. It isn't.
Eh, by 1969, the famous groupies had already considered Mick Jagger too old and were looking to the younger 18-year old guyes like Iggy Pop (which is exactly what they said in the vintage documentary ‘Groupies’)
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