Author Joel Williamson shared Elvis kept a group of three 14-year-old girls with him on the tour who were up "for pillow fights, tickling, kissing and cuddling when he was 22.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Most people weren’t even aware of it.

      The general public knowing every little detail about a celebrity’s life simply wasn’t a thing then.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        People wrote songs about it. Famous songs that you know the words to. People knew, they just didn’t care.

    • aodhsishaj@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The sad truth is that it was a very common practice. Just wait until they hear about Jerry Lee Lewis.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        And the Grateful Dead (sure Bob, you waited while she slept outside your room every night for 3 years), Chuck Berry, Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, and about a hundred other groups. Hell, Kiss had the Christine Sixteen song, Jethro Tull had Aqualung, Seventeen by Winger, Into the Night by Benny Mardones, and a bunch of other songs have super uncomfortable lyrics about girls.

        That’s not even getting into well known shit bags like Nugent.

        • MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk
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          2 months ago

          Jethro Tull doesn’t romanticize Aqualung (the old man that sits on a park bench and eyes little girls with bad intents). Quite the contrary actually.

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            That’s a really good point. I’m leaving it for now so your reply makes sense but I’ll remove it next time I make that list (which happens too often).

        • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Those fucks would talk parents into giving them “Guardianship” over their teenage daughters so they wouldn’t be arrested for kidnapping and child molestation.

  • actionjbone@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    As disgusting as we see it now, keep in mind that, back then, child marriage was not only condoned but sometimes encouraged in those parts of the Southern U.S.

    We’ll never know if he did it because he had a thing for young girls, or if he did it simply because it was an accepted practice.

    Regardless of why, it’s objectively terrible that he did that.

      • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 months ago

        Age of consent is not the same as age an adult is allowed to be with a minor. Minors should be allowed to consent to have sex, just not with much older people. Laws that prosecute, say, a 19 year old from having sex with a 17 years old, or god forbid two 14 years olds to have sex together, are absolutely draconian.

        • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Actually, that’s exactly what age of consent is. The age at which you’re allowed to do things with an adult of any age.

          Romeo and Juliet (or close in age) exceptions are for the situation you’re describing, and are usually tacked onto age of consent laws as an exception.

          In Canada, there’s a pair of these. At 14 and 15 it’s less than 5 years older, and at 12 and 13 it’s less than 2 years older.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Fun fact: there’s no such thing as objective morality. Back in the 1920s people thought it was objectively terrible for Black people to have equal rights.

  • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Because his fame comes from an era when that kind of age gap and inappropriate conduct was handwaved away with “fRoM a GoOd FaMiLy!”

    Especially in his native southern US. Especially especially among the white folks in his native southern US.

  • dumbass@leminal.space
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    2 months ago

    Have you not listened to songs from that era? They’re mostly about hooking up with underage girls.

      • darkpanda@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Might you be thinking of “Sweet Little Sixteen” by Chuck Berry? The guy who btw installed cameras in women’s bathrooms?

        Also, the most venerated boomer band of all time…

        “She was just 17… if you know what I mean

        Love the Beatles, mind you, but uhhhh… all of those boomer bands were like that.

        “I used to pull your pigtails And your scrunched up nose But baby you been growing And baby it’s been showing From your head down to your toes”

        Another Elvis hit, “Little Sister.”

        Again, love the King, but uhhh….

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      And stood trial for a murder, which he was definitely present at. Everyone’s forgotten that Snoop is an actual OG who ran with bangers. His PR with Martha Stewart completely changed his image, and now he’ll put his name and face on anything that will pay him enough money.

  • wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    I absolutely hate (not dislike) that “huah” vocal noise that’s commonly associated with him and think any human making that noise needs to be taken out immediately.

    I’ve never heard anything about any of this but I absolutely hate him and any contract he made on society simply as a product of the horror of that noise.

    I exaggerate for humor, clearly, but I really do absolutely hate that noise and do not give it a single shred of artistic respect at all, it’s flatly and out-of-hand declined any consideration for credit at all and people that like him as an artist I will literally completely discount any of their artistic opinions.

    I have the same artistic hate for Elvis that I have political and personal hate for Trump.

    I don’t even have a way to know exactly what it is but just hearing his voice immediately sends me into a blinding rage. It’s not to my knowledge some kinda trauma type of memory associated with it, because I was only exposed to enough of it to just recognize the voice. There are just a few things I know of that make me that angry that quickly. One of them is having to backtrack. Like realizing you forgot a critical grocery and having to go back to the store immediately, or forgetting to bring that one super important thing to work and you have to go back for it before going in. That part multiplies with any kind of time pressure.

    But Elvis hits me in the same kind of spot. A randomly specific and very reactive trigger. Well I say reactive but I just end up telling at myself and increasing blood pressure for a few minutes. I don’t literally go into a fugue state and start dropping people.

    All that just to say that with me he is absolutely NOT loved and the little bit I heard about some kind of drama with the Graceland estate makes me laugh myself silly because screw those people, the whole lot of them. Do fans of Elvis even care a little bit about any of the family careers? It doesn’t seem so to me, but I’m not an expert.

  • nikaaa@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I don’t like saying it because people get very emotional and unreasonable about this but:

    These things were normal a long time ago. It’s only been in recent years, especially starting from the 1960s, that moral panic took over and these things are looked at now as “a crime”.

    • null@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      emotional and unreasonable

      moral panic took over and these things are looked at now as “a crime”.

      Ah yes, what a neutral and regulated way to phrase that.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        2 months ago

        I think they meant people’s reaction to the idea that the past could’ve had a different view on it that we view as disgusting rather than implying it’s “emotional and unreasonable” to view criminalized pedophilia as a “moral panic”, but I’m not a telepath. That was just my reading of it.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      2 months ago

      it was normal to allow your child to bang adults?

      First time I am hearing of this dear… Do you let adult people to fuck your kids?

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          2 months ago

          i guess depending on what is your position on child and adult here…

          but yeah, i don’t think anyone is permitting their jailbait to fuck anyone over 20 in good conscience.

            • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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              2 months ago

              ok… it was common for parents to allow catholic clergy to fuck their kids and when kid complained they did nothing. what is your point?

              • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                The distinction between past and present. And more abstractly, not confusing acknowledgement of past moral principles as agreement with them.

                • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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                  2 months ago

                  saying it was common back then is tacitly approving of it IMHO

                  but people can make up their own minds.

                  note that many of these people who fucked jail bait are still alive and it is still happening in celebrating circles.

                  did not charlie cheen rape some kid? and there many stories all the disney jailbat being raped?

                  What excuse will society muster for this shit happening in 1990s?