Episode 2: They Groom Everyone
In the second episode, Renton accuses Napier and other PIE members of 'grooming' whole communities to push their agenda and give themselves access to young boys.
Renton visits Napier's old neighborhood, where he allegedly knocks on doors and coincidentally comes across a family whose children used to play with Napier. They report that Napier was a kind and charming man who was much loved by the community. He would frequently invite children to his house, play with them in his garden, and take them on trips. Renton insinuates that Napier used a charm offensive to groom the community into giving him access to their children.
Later, Renton investigates alleged connections between PIE members/associates and gay youth support groups that sprung up around the UK at the time. It is claimed that PIE members actively forged connections with these groups, and were even accepted to a degree. A former attendee at a
CHE meeting expressed horror at how a PIE chairman had attended a meeting with a boyfriend who was a 'child' and received rapturous applause. He comments that the boy was no doubt destined for the 'scrapheap' once he hit puberty. He then describes his (17/18m) boyfriend (22/23m) seeing a parallel between their criminalized relationship and the PIE chair's criminalized relationship, while he thought it was different due to it being above the
heterosexual age of consent. He stated that he felt he was able to make decisions about who he had sex with, implying that the PIE chair's younger partner must not be able to do so.
Thoughts
1. There is a blatant push to treat Napier's charm and kindness as an attempt to groom the community into liking him. This disgustingly cynical approach starts with the default assumption that MAPs are sadists who dedicate their lives to inflicting harm on children. Through this lens, any good that a MAP does is part of a ploy to inflict harm on a child, no matter the actual intentions.
2. Renton’s team clearly hold the same bias toward the alleged involvement of PIE members in gay youth groups. I don’t doubt that BLs back in the day used the gay youth groups as a way to hook up consensually with teenage boys, but I do doubt that hooking up was the only purpose. Getting young people onboard is important for any cause, and young gay people would have been a natural ally when the straight AoC was 16 and the gay AoC was 21. Forging such connections isn't grooming; it's classic activism.
3. Destined for the scrapheap? I had a lot of YFs in my 20s (no criminal activity occurred), and I stayed in touch with closer YFs into their adulthood when I was no longer physically attracted to them. What a despicable slur to imply that we tell YFs to fuck off once they're no longer in our AoA.
4. If an older teenager under the age of consent believes he was able to consent, how could he outright assume that a younger teenager must not have the same ability?