The obvious first thing to say is no one at this stage can say whether Ian Watkins, lead singer of the Lostprophets is guilty or innocent. It wouldn’t be right. Nevertheless given the current awareness of the extent of sexual abuse and exploitation in public life it is no surprise a rock musician has been caught up.
Long ago I used to work in significant regional live music venue. Part of the rota there meant there were nights working in the cloakroom, which in this particular venue adjoined the dressing rooms. Musicians would often come and go in the background. Sometimes people would hang round the front of the cloakroom to see if they could catch the musicians’ attention.
Though the phenomenon of the groupie has declined greatly it still exists. It’s based on the notion of simulated intimacy, which is the basis of a lot of popular culture in fact. Adolescents undergoing long term personal changes often find solace in music that seems to speak for them. It is a simulated sense of intimacy, seeming to know someone’s mind that provokes the desire in some to reciprocate that intimacy. Walter Benjamin said that it was the nature of a mass audience to want to “bring things closer, spatially and humanly”, to want to participate in art and public life up close and in depth. Some kids end up following their idols around.
Most of the conversation that went on between the fans and the musicians was brief and inconsequential: great gig, we love you, thanks etc. Some of it was highly alienated and disturbing. On one occasion I remember one occasion two young women asking a particular musician if they could “come back stage and say hi”, with a look that seemed to give the suggestion added meaning. There was almost certainly nothing untoward going on and the musician, to his credit, immediately said something along the lines of “you should go home, haven’t you got school in the morning?” But to me it showed how a darker aspect of the entertainment industry can and does develop. People offer themselves up constantly, either for fame or the chance to make contact with fame. Corrupt or corrupted people will take advantage of this unless stopped.
The sexual liberation of the 60s was in, one sense, about freedom to. In this case it was freedom to engage in sexuality that is more than just a means of procreation or at most a form of married intimacy. In this sense gay rights are most definitely human rights. This liberation was inverted however by the commodity structure. Whereas legitimate sexuality before was like a feudal privilege it was turned into an alienable commodity.
21st century sexual liberation will be overwhelmingly a freedom from. In this case it will be freedom from exploitation. Young people have very little going for them in our society today. They have no power and little realistic future. The job market today for some is little more than a sublimated form of streetwalking. We must not allow older people, especially older men with power and influence, to exploit the young as a form of sexual capital.