Its such a grey area this sleeping with the 12 year old business. I guess people can't get past the Michael Jackson element to the situation. So take him out for a sec, is there something wrong with a 44(?) year old man sleeping in the same room or even bed as a 12 year old boy? Our cynical society immediately assumes it is bad as that indicates the possibility of inappropriate behaviour. If there is absolutely no inappropriate behabviour, is it still wrong? If it is, is it because of age? Why age, if that is the case? Is it different from sleeping in the same bed as a friend? Many people do this for whatever reason and dont bat an eye. Is it gender? Because we are talking about a prepubescent boy and a grown man? What if it was a 44 year old woman and a 12 year old girl? Is it because we think he has a mental illness? Consider that mental illness is
not a precursor for abusing children. All these rhetorical questions, but how many of us consider this before we pass judgement on him? I believe too often, MJ is the accused simply because he is MJ, not because people have thought about the situation for its worth. Sorry if this sounds patronising as I'm not referring to people here, its the media, society in general, no, more the media who are responsible for bringing us the news, then society for interpreting it.
And what of a mental illness. People go entire lifetimes undiagnosed. The last figures I believe for here were 1 in 10 people suffer one form or another. What happened to compassion and tolerance for those who do suffer one? Statistically, there would be a few Interferencers here with one. We dont just 'put them away'. We dont pass such quick judgement on those 1 in 10, but we do with MJ, and its because he is a public figure, and we dont know him, so we dont have to realise how misguided and unfair it actually is. We dont know him so we dont have to use tolerance and compassion here.
Its wrong.
*the 'we' in my post, again, was not at us in this thread but society and media.