At 17, I dated a 36-year-old. That decision looks very different to me now | Polly Hudson
The Guardian ·
As teenagers, my friends and I thought it was glamorous to have relationships with older men. But after the revelations about Russell Brand and David Walliams, I have started to see that period of my life in a new light It has been a strange time to be a “woman of a certain age”, as Gregg Wallace so charmingly labelled us . Many of us were consumed by every detail of the Russell Brand trial and the David Walliams exposé . We were pleasantly surprised, albeit dazed – stunned even – by there being consequences for their behaviour, because that’s not how it usually goes, in our experience. A few days ago, while spending time with a group of fellow certain-agers, among whom this was the main topic of discussion, as it has been pretty much everywhere I’ve been, I confessed to something of which I’m ashamed. If I had been the woman Brand was found guilty of raping – in an attack that was difficult even to read about – I worry that I would have felt powerless to complain about what had happened. I would have thought consent would be taken as a blanket statement that covered whatever followed, however horrifying and unwanted; that I’d made my bed, so was obliged to lie in it, come what may. My friends, it should be noted, felt the same. Thank God the heroic woman forced to endure Brand’s attack knew better. Continue reading...