Pete Townshend fights depression (warning: this article is...depressing)

That's a horrible way to put that.h

now I know all about her

http://www.livedaily.com/news/9382.html?t=104

What about your stripper radar?

hahaha

surprised hes not dead yet

classic btw

Great BBC interview.

Probably should've read this thread's contents before posting the link here.

you should worry more about the contents of his hard drive!

FWIW, this thread was never updated but his story did check out after the investigation was completed. He believed and wanted to prove that financial institutions facilitated the distribution of child pornography by allowing things like their bank cards or credits card to be used in transactions without any regulation, so he took foolish and ill-conceived action by attempting to make such a transaction, believing that everything would turn out fine as long as he canceled the transaction without completing it. (The investigation, which confiscated his computers and hard drives, confirmed this and found no trace of illegal materials that might've been accessed and then wiped.) Obviously, he proved himself wrong when the authorities came knocking. As to what led him to do all of this, he was indeed getting help and trying to understand the abuse he experienced at the hands of his disturbed grandmother, who was essentially his guardian for a time, and the strange men she'd let into their lives, something that comes up in that new BBC interview.

it's in his book, iirc, that he was also looking for a childhood friend that had been trafficked.

oh right, it's in his book!

Similar to what I mentioned in the Pee-Wee Herman thread, I imagine there will always be people who will believe in the worst regardless of any investigation. Same exact social media contact I mentioned and a former schoolmate made the same accusations about him many years ago (IIRC in the mid-2010s) when I posted a Who video, commenting that he was a pedophile who was nailed for child pornography. They couldn't care less what was actually found.

I don't know about the fine details of his court case. I've always thought his defence plea sounded utter bullshit. I'm only operating on instinct here.

I dunno, if anyone's dim enough to do something that idiotic it's a washed-up rock star!

A lot of my family were sexually abused as children in 50's ROI. I always tend to lean towards cover up and conspiracy when someone noteworthy is exposed as a potential paedophile and people defend them - which is possibly not good. But one thing about the British establishment is when people become an intrinsic part of it. Then I will be more than happy to believe anything bad that is gossiped about them.

I love the Who and think Townshend is one of the best rock songwriters of his generation, but even I think his excuses were flimsy and he got lucky.

I agree with Matt, it's pretty idiotic from an eccentric guy who has a long history of taking brash, ill-conceived action. I think it's good to be wary, but I haven't seen any credible evidence that the ensuing investigation was compromised or covering up anything.

people talk a lot of shit about CSA victims. they do. there are a lot of assumptions and a lot of ignorance around those experiences. a lot of victim-shaming. i don't consider myself a CSA victim, but i know people who are. i have some idea about the ways in which CSA affects people. additionally, while i'm not a CSA victim, i am an SA victim, and I am a child abuse victim. i know how those separate experiences have affected me.

the worst thing, to me, about CSA is that, for good or ill, people have a tendency to learn what they're taught. what CSA victims are taught is incredibly awful. it's an incredibly awful thing to learn. and people who have that experience... spend the rest of their lives reckoning, in one way or another, with what's happened to them. working to end the cycle of abuse. a lot of them are really wonderful people, fucking amazing people. one of the best people i know was a CSA victim. i still miss him.

i also knew and trusted someone who turned out to be a CSA perpetrator. who perpetrated CSA against someone i care about deeply. i'm enraged at them for what they did. i hate them for what they did. the hatred i feel towards them, the rage i feel, hasn't faded over time. i don't expect it ever will. at the same time, i know that people don't fucking do that kind of thing out of nowhere.

the perpetrator i knew was a minor. i don't know how young they were. i don't know details. i know the perpetrator was a minor. people don't seem to think about that. how often CSA is perpetrated by children on other children. most of the people i know who were CSA victims, the perpetrators were other children. not only do people not think about that, it used to be normalized. when i was young, i remember reading jokes about kids playing "doctor" with each other. like people acted like it was normal, it was ok, and me personally, no, i don't think that's ok. yes, it's natural for kids to have that kind of curiosity. that doesn't change that _children are not capable of giving informed consent_.

i don't know pete townshend. i don't know the full, unexpurgated truth. i know people lie. i know people misrepresent. i know that townshend, as a famous white man, is held to lower standards than most people. i also... i mean, jimmy page gets more of a pass than pete townshend does. that seems kinda fucked up to me, when townshend has spent so much of his career talking... i mean, i listen to _tommy_, this concept album, and wow, a lot of it has some really raw fucking reckoning of townshend's trauma from experiencing CSA. _tommy_ gets reduced to "pinball wizard", which is a great song, but he's dealing with some serious shit in a serious way. which isn't something you'll ever get from, i mean, led zeppelin.

when it comes to CP, my response is, yeah, disgust and horror. also bafflement. on some level i don't understand why people would be _into_ that. even though intellectually i know. intellectually, people who are into that... that's not natural behavior. CP isn't about people somehow being born evil. being interested in CP... that's learned behavior. and i know how people learn it.