The coverage of ‘The Rape of Britain’ as its been dubbed, is gaining momentum. Focusing on the victims, the perpetrators and the establishments lack of action, or in some cases, direct faciliation of the abuse.

But I can’t help thinking I don’t see much about what is being done to warn, protect and educate children and young people about these dangers, and if anything the people who could, seem to have been trying to hide it. Because although these dark hearted people are about, and that we can’t always change, they don’t need to have access to a constant supply of unaware or unknowing victims now do they?

This is not a new problem, and not just a foreign one as some people think, it’s a people problem and one that all of society shares. All sorts of people, mainly men from all walks of life, are part of the problem and one that has been ingrained for generations in some cases. And obviously is not just limited to the UK. We have seen the recent case and sentencing in the Epstein/Maxwell case, notable again for the lack of convictions by any of the main perpetrators. Convenient deaths and cover ups, happens a lot it seems in that murky seedy underbelly which is now not so much under, but mainstream current. Here in the UK as well. There have been a number of crusaders, for want of a better word, who have tried shouting from the rooftops, have tried due process and following the system to try and right the wrongs. After an apparently ‘thorough investigation’ though which had the plug pulled on it, they cannot seem to determine who actually shut down this extensive police operation running years ago. Instead, it has been allowed to grow, fester and mutate in something really quite ugly. Alongside other organised crime, of which there seems to be plenty, from the top down. This country seems like a giant prison/racket.

Every day now there are articles from around the UK, and from all over Europe about violent sexual crimes against women and girls, and although I know these happen in the respective countries anyway, the shocking leap in numbers is somewhat catastrophic. Sweden has an absolutely horrific set of statistics, showing the systematic destruction of their way of life, culture, country, laws and sense of peace that used to reside there.

And the worst part is, we know why. Because the culture and mentality that is being allowed in to flood the existing culture and mentality, is not compatible. A medieval mindset is making its presense felt. But how are you meant to recognise it? If someone is saying all the right things, and appears to be westernised, how do you know? People lie and dupe others all the time, for financial, emotional, political and sexual gain. But this is so much more sinister, it’s a prostitution racket under the guise of a religious practice. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a huge problem with how women are viewed by religions, all of them, but this is the one that is knocking on our door right now, so is the point of discussion. The imported Muslim attitude that has appeared in droves, daily onto our shores. Organised crime on a level we can only imagine to get them in, then a huge set up going on once they get here, where all the official departments have their hands in the pie.

I know we had an issue before this recent influx, of separated schools, minimal integration for some, cultural differences making a divide that seems unfixable. Again, that goes for many religions, it’s all kept very separate and ‘stick to your own’ kind of thing. And I also know that you shouldn’t tarnish everyone with the same brush, but there appears to be a very sinister plot unfolding, which is using the hostilities and suspicion to stoke fear and further the divide. Because in a normal world, it wouldn’t matter what colour you were, or religion, or what background you were from, if you do terrible things to children, you should be punished. But with the new wave, there have been new, daily reports of attempted kidnappings, children being followed, approached, harrassed, assaulted on buses, filmed while out with friends, and so on. The list is horrendous of what they are dealing with on a constant basis. Add to that the online pressures, influences and stresses being shoved down their throat everyday by way of media, schools and government nudge units, I really feel for young people, and for all the children who are now adults, who were totally abandoned to a corrupted system. The violence amongst young people is rising too, I see reports of teenagers beating up teenagers, turf wars, higher depression and suicide they say, more self-harm and psychiatric problems. All when you are trying to find yourself and a way through this world, you can’t, because the world just keeps throwing it at you. And for lots of people, it really has always been that unstable and unkind, throwing you from pillar to post and all you can hope is that you make it through. I also know that social media plays a rather large role in this too, when people want to have an image, or be seen as something, get a following, and then having an audience makes them do things they wouldn’t unless they were trying to impress people. But the lack of experience and judgement often shows clear as day, and they don’t have the forethought to know how it will play out. I guess that’s how you learn though.

It’s ok to want to grow up quickly, or wish you were older and allowed to do things that ‘grown ups’ get to do, but children wanting to feel older is one thing, and one they won’t always understand the implications of. i.e., pretending to look older to get into a club, and once you are there pretending to be 18, it is thought by others you are 18, and expectations go with that, if you catch my drift. Being a teenager felt like a huge trial at the time, an endurance test of stress, confusion, fear and excitement, and isn’t an easy stage of life, for anyone it seems. So, being able to understand what expectations adults have of you should be quite important, for all sorts of reason, but for safety as well. I think many of us may have found ourselves in situations which were deemed ‘in over our head’, and had to work out how to either get out of it, or get through it. But you don’t always understand really what is going on.

And this is where I, like many others, are very uncomfortable about male drag artists performing for children at shows, libraries, schools, churches, etc, in sometimes extremely revealing clothing with very sexually suggestive ‘dance’ moves. Some people claim it’s just a bit of fun, but being honest, if you wanted to do something fun for the children, why didn’t you do something fun they wanted to do? How many 4, or 6, or 8 year olds when asked out of the blue what would be a really fun thing to do, come back with, “You know, I would like to go and see a fully grown man gyrate around in fishnets with their ‘boobs’ out please”. If they did, you should either ask what they have been watching, or who they have been listening to, because most kids don’t unless there is something very wrong going on in their life. It’s not hard to get kids attention with sparkly, shiny, bright colours and party like themes, so is it really the ‘dancer’ they are enjoying at all? Or the over the top-ness of it, the outrageous way that an adult is allowed to prance around, when adults are usually seen as authoritive, or grown-up.

So, it’s fun for the adult then? Which would ordinarily be fine, we used to have children’s presenters who are usually good with children, like playing silly games and ‘being on their level’ for a short time, same with teachers I guess. But in that, there is no expectation I believe, for the child to come up to the adult’s level of comprehension or understanding, yet it seems the children are being encouraged to imitate the behaviours they are being exposed to. It’s not just watch and enjoy is it? It’s interactive and imposing on their personal space, often. So many boundaries being crossed with this, and it is disappointing that more people don’t see it. And they don’t seem to see the overall sexualisation of children generally, it’s all connected in my view, how they try to make out it’s not a big deal, on both issues. Oh no we can’t say anything, we’ll seem racist? Oh no, we can’t say anything, we’ll be called homophobe or transphobe? Screw that, if I think I see children being taken advantage of by emotionally dysfunctional people who are just trying to justify their own sexual gratification, I will say it. Life can be hard enough as it is without someone forcing their own dysfunctional ideals and wants on others, I think we’ve had quite enough of that already don’t you know…

(c) K Wicks

Creating life, sometimes from death. Many a book, film or idea has been put forward about reanimating the dead. There seems to be a mild, if not fanatical obsession we have about the dead, and what may or may not happen in the afterlife. The Egyptians worshipped and revered it, as did the Mayans they say, and other civilisations and cultures throughout history have had a place for it. Life and death go hand in hand. Halloween approaches too which is apparently the day where the lines are thinnest between what is, and what it to come, and maybe sometimes, things can cross over, or come back. But in many of the themes I will use as examples from films, it isn’t always about stopping death, or bringing someone back, but about creating something new, from something dead.

Frankenstein – A tale of longing, madness and revenge. A scientist builds a monster from ‘human scraps’ and gives it life, through the medium of electricity. Note that, it’s a running theme you will notice.

Weird science – a great film, where two teenage boys decide to ‘create’ a woman using computer programming and a plastic barbie doll, and what should be the catalyst for making it work? A crazy lightning storm just happens to hit the house. And suddenly, there is life.

Short Circuit – A military robot gets hit by lightning, and it creates ‘life’ in him, developing a personality and learning. Another great film, and although not a human as such, it is still lightening and life. Which leads into the next one quite neatly.

Transformers – not the robots themselves, but the focus of the films, the Allspark. A metal cube that has the ability to give ‘life’ to metal objects. A spark of electricity is seen being emitted from it when it it’s activated.

War of the worlds – machines in the ground, activated by extreme lightning from the sky.

Resident Evil – The whole premise of the film starts around a virus, the T-Virus. A liquid compound that when injected into something dead, will bring it back to life. But as with most weird and unnecessary creations, it doesn’t stay as liquid, turns into a gas, and has a horrific effect on already living tissue, thus creating the ‘zombie’ for the storyline. No lightning, but a weird play on creating life, because it turns it around and creates ‘living death’. As I mentioned at the start, it doesn’t always seem about saving people from death, but about creating something new, from something dead.

Pet Semetary – this one being a classic example of that, trying to bring back a child, but what comes back isn’t what was expected or happily received in the end.

Nine – slightly different film to the above, but a delightful watch being honest. But the premise is the creation of nine little dolls, which each have a part of the scientists’ soul in them. He put his living self into objects and gave them life. It also has hints of a technological revolution and takeover by machine, and is a great story. I enjoyed it very much.

But they all have a thread of there being a mechanism, a spark that creates life. We bring people back to life with electricity to the heart when it stops, and people can die by being struck by lightning. A big bang of sorts to the system it is introduced to. Like what the hadron collider is trying to do. People think of it maybe creating a black hole, or a vortex, but what if it is there is create ‘life’ from the underworld, raising a leviathan? I’ll leave that idea there; it crosses into other realms. Once they reanimate or create something though, can you maintain it as such? All the storylines show that no, we can’t control it, but it doesn’t stop people trying. To be the commander of life and death really would set you apart from the average person. But what if you could, instead of creating ‘life’ from death that staggered on in a half-life, do the opposite. Create death within life, to have the same result of a half-life, creating a shell of a person, I only say this because it sometimes appears that is what has happened to some. And while in some ways I have speculated on their being another entity here, using our dead as vessels as said in the film Dark City and in my article Not like us, maybe I have missed the obvious. That they may also require the living, even though I should have realised this after writing Vampires, but not as you know it, but sometimes it takes a while to link things together. Because although things like this may only be fiction, and work their way into storylines and tales, there is no harm in considering what if it was real, and to ask yourself, would they? Could they? Have they?

(c) K Wicks