...So Apparently Ringo Starr Committed Sexual Assault at the Age of Eight

[itsnotmymind]

*Trigger Warning*

I don't know how many times I've read the Beatles Anthology over the years, but somehow I managed to miss the implications of this passage:


I'd found out about sex at a very early age, twice. Two girls told their mother that I'd had their knickers off and was looking at them and feeling them. This was when I was eight. We were all kids; we were just looking and touching - the natural way of growing up. It was like living on a farm. We had a friend whose sister we could all feel. We wouldn't do anything else; we'd just look at it and feel it, and all laugh.

I most certainly do not blame eight-year-old Ringo for failing to realize how terrible his actions were. It looks like he was following the example of other children, possibly older children. At eight I doubt he was able to understand what was going on, and it's not a surprise that he assumed there was nothing wrong with what he was doing.

But the way adult Ringo discusses it gives me shivers. "The natural way of growing up"? That little girls should learn they have no right to their bodies, that it's no big deal for any passing boy to feel up her cunt, whether she likes it or not? Ringo says that he had a friend "whose sister we all could feel". They all could feel her? According to who? The sister? Somehow I doubt it. Ringo doesn't spare a word for the perspective and well-being of the girls his child-self assaulted. It's all about how natural and normal his own behavior was. A variation on the old classic, "Boys will be boys". And girls will be things, apparently.

Comments

[kikimay]

I wouldn't call "sexual assault" given that the boy in question was a minor and, you know, just a child. He had no notion of what he was doing, he was completely beyond any age of reason and consent. The adults are the ones who should explain kids what touching and consent mean.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as I said, I don't hold Ringo responsible for actions committed at age eight under the influence of other (likely older) children. But to say it is not sexual assault because of Ringo's lack of understanding of his actions erases the experiences of the girls who were hurt. Was being touched sexually, apparently against their will, not assault just because the kid assaulting them didn't understand what he was doing?

Ringo's description is pretty sparse, but it sounds like the two girls who told their mothers felt that the touching was something done to them, not something they had agreed to. I can't believe the sister was happy to be touched by all her brother's friends. Ringo was not guilty of a crime, but it sounds like the girls had the very real experience of being sexually touched against their will. So I feel like to say it is NOT sexual assault prioritizes the perspective of the male child and ignores the perspectives of the female children who have been victimized regardless of what the boy understood.

(Obviously, I can't say 100% certainty that the girls didn't consent because although it sounds like they didn't, Ringo doesn't spell it out. The fact that adult Ringo doesn't even seem to give a thought to the girl's consent appalls me much more than his actions at age eight.).