Am I wrong in feeling a little sorry for Adam Johnson?

As others have said, he knew full well that what he was doing was against the law and that he knowingly ruined an otherwise stable relationship, so no excuses.. But i do roll my eyes at the self-righteous hysteria of the twitter mob.. F*******N PAEDO SCUM etc. Who's to say she didn't know exactly what she was getting into? Oh no wait, all girls have an epiphany of wisdom on their 16th birthday of course, so lets lynch him and lump him in the same box with Jimmy Saville. Most of the crimes that will get you a custodial are far worse that this... but come on Adam, you had it coming mate.

She was a football fan (season ticket holder) asking her idol for a signed football shirt. FFS. The sex talk was initiated by him and him alone. Probably she had a crush on him and that's why she went along with a kiss, but let's not pretend there was not a massive power imbalance here or that any of this was her idea.

Oh and the picture you saw was probably of his girlfriend (it was at some point circulated as that of his accuser). The victim has anonymity and all that.

The power imbalance wouldn't have vanished in a puff of smoke on her 16th birtbday.

Not necessarily a sexual deviant. Many sex offenders would not be considered sexually deviant, but they commit their acts for other reasons.

Do you actually think this post makes sense? Honestly, no jokes or anything, do you really?

Oh the irony.

Yes. I clearly do not know what sexual deviancy means having studied sexual offending as part of my psychology degree course.... In order for an individual to be considered sexually deviant, they need to be aroused by the deviant behaviour itself. Still doesn't make sense?

Let's look at sexual violence, in very broad terms there are two types of sexual violent offenders. One type is actually turned on by sexual violence, if you showed them a depiction of violent sex, they will become aroused. The other type of person who engages in violent sex does not necessarily find the violence itself arousing, but simply uses violence to get what they want, to overcome resistance. The first individual, is a sexual deviant, the second, is a person who has mental issues yes, but is not a sexual deviant because it is not the violence that makes the sex appealing.

The same applies to child sex abuse. A proportion of child sex abusers are deviants, they hold a strong sexual preference for pre-pubescent children. However another proportion does not necessarily hold such a preference but they choose children over adults for numerous others reasons, for example children are weaker, easier to access, some feel they associate with children more than adults etc.

Now I'm not saying that the non-deviants are any better, they also have mental problems. But they are not sexual deviants.


So "do I actually think my post makes sense", yes, yes I do. Do you?
I'm not really expecting a reply though tbh.

At 25 you are old enough to know there is no such thing as "true love". At 15, I'm not so sure. (I think the average age to lose your virginity is still 17 for girls, so most just-turned-15-year-olds probably have never even been in a serious relationship.) That's why I feel sorry for his victim but not his GF.

Arguments about power imbalances and maturity levels are fallacious since there are plenty of normal relationships between individuals with a large disparity in power, age and money. In this case the age difference is 13 years; I can give plenty of examples of famous couples with age differences greater than this.

And I bet they are older. We should be happy we can protect 15-year-olds from this sort of behaviour, not say "oh well, we can't protect 16-year-olds, so let's just make 15-year-olds a free for all too".

No, I don't feel sorry for him at all.

It's not so much because of the girl's age that it annoys me, but more that it was an act of infidelity towards his partner; especially since she was pregnant with his child. Had the girl been 16 rather than 15, he may have escaped totally scot-free for that. So even though it's in a bit of a roundabout way, it's good that he's getting his comeuppance.

In my opinion it's a little stupid that you can go to prison just for having sex with someone who's 15 years and 364 days old, but infidelity in a marital (or de facto marital) relationship, which can actually destroy families and ruin lives, that's totally fine, affected parties are expected to just bite their lips and live with it.

No-one should be a free-for all regardless of age. I think you focus too much on age as an independent factor.

If the law didn't say 16 was the age of consent then there would be many people saying he's done nothing wrong. In other countries, the majority of people do say this and hence they have much younger ages of consent.

Yeah we live in a society where cheating on a partner or spouse is completely legal. So he should not be punished by the law just because he had a gf at the time.

Yeah we live in a society where cheating on a partner or spouse is completely legal. So he should not be punished by the law just because he had a gf at the time.

I focus on age because I think life experience helps you deal with relationships. Someone who has gone through at least one serious relationship should be less likely to be conned by sweets (or football shirts and range rovers).

And so what? IMO it would still be wrong. I don't care about the age of consent in other countries. I am happy that we can protect young teenagers in this country. I think that's a very good thing.