It may be legal, but men chasing teenage girls is more than just ‘icky’

My interest in older men started to wane when one of my parents’ friends tried to grope me behind a door at a party when I was 14

The 'old days' were when few were familiar with the word paedophilia, and when the repercussions on a young girl of sleeping with an older man were not much considered (Corbis)

I remember what it was like to be young and “on the cusp”. When I was in my early to mid-teens, this meant, to some of the men I encountered, I was “not quite legal” or, as many preferred, “jailbait”. I knew back then that this made me attractive, and being attractive to grown men made me feel good.

I didn’t think much beyond this fact, or why these men wouldn’t prefer to hang out with women their own age. I was more preoccupied with what I saw: worldliness, sophistication, a gateway to adulthood.

None of these interactions became physical, which, looking back, was probably because I liked the idea rather than the reality. Other girls I knew went considerably further. My interest in older men started to wane when one of my parents’ friends tried to grope me behind a door at a party. I was 14.

I look at my daughter now and I know what lies ahead. Long before she is 16 and thus, in the eyes of the law, “legal”, she’ll be leered at on the bus and chatted up by men five, 10, perhaps even 15 years her senior.

Post-puberty, her school uniform will prompt heckling from louts in vans. It won’t stop once she is “of age” either, though I can only pray that this will be the extent of her dealings with creeps who are old enough to know better.

It’s only when we are older that we begin to understand these exchanges between young girls and older men, the power play at the heart of them and the damage that can be done. This is why the responsibility lies with the older party: the man looking at the luminous flesh of a teenager and wondering if he or she is worth the risk.

It clearly seemed worth it to the 28-year-old England footballer Adam Johnson, who has pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl. He would have known what he stood to lose when he began sending lewd texts and arranging meetings with her, but still he followed his impulses. Now everyone is agreed that what he did was wrong. We know this because the law says so.

But what about the old days, when David Bowie was deflowering Lori Maddox, one of the so-called “baby groupies” of the era? The law didn’t sanction that. Since Bowie’s death last month, commentators have asked whether we should be celebrating a man known to have had sex with a minor, and whether it’s possible to separate the art from the artist. Bowie wasn’t alone, of course. Iggy Pop, Jimmy Page, Steven Tyler, Jerry Lee Lewis – they were all at it.

Those were different times, we are told; to a point, it’s true. Those where the days when few were familiar with the word paedophilia, and when the repercussions on a young girl of sleeping with an older man were not much considered, because the welfare of young girls wasn’t considered at all. Those were the days when men joked about bedding teenagers and the concept of consent was rarely discussed.

Adam Johnson pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl (Getty)

Lori Maddox, who lost her virginity to Bowie when she was 15, still maintains it was the greatest night of her life, though Mandy Smith, who was 14 when she began dating the Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, has talked about depression and having had her childhood stolen.

Perhaps the difference is that now these things have been thought about, the repercussions have been felt and the language has been developed to unpick these relationships. Most importantly, the law is now frequently (but not always) being enforced.

There is, of course, a world of difference between a man who grooms and abuses children and one with a predilection for younger women. The law has provided a line in the sand, and that line is 16. Even so, what are we to think of these men who pursue young people so fresh out of childhood? There’s the thrill of a beautiful young body, of course, but there’s more to it than that. There’s the ego trip of being with a teenager who is so easily impressed that a car, or a flat – any signifier of independence – can seem dazzlingly mature. What I remember most about the girls I knew who dated older men was how confident they were among their friends, and how passive they were around their boyfriends.

The recent nausea that accompanied 49-year-old Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP who sent sexually explicit texts to a 17-year-old, telling Newsnight: “I prefer young women. Different people have different preferences,” would suggest that attitudes are changing and that there is a sense that, when an older man pursues a much younger woman, something’s not quite right. Even his interviewer used the word “icky”.

Even so, I still hear male friends defending these partnerships, which always makes me wonder: what if it were your daughter? If it’s within the law then it’s OK, they say. Well, yes, in one sense it is. But it’s also emotionally and intellectually unbalanced and potentially exploitative.

We still have a long way to go before grown men stop seeing teenage girls as ripe for the picking.

Twitter.com/@FionaSturges