2013-05-19T10:52:53-04:00 Nikki McWatters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=nikki-mcwatters Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Nikki McWatters Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2667156 2013-02-12T03:35:50-05:00 2013-04-13T05:12:01-04:00

Nikki McWatters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-mcwatters/
Only last week, as part of my research for a new book, I became aware of the prophecies of Saint Malachy, made in 1143 AD. He fairly accurately predicted each and every pope from that time until... the end of time. I was so excited to read that our current Pope Benedict XVI was the second last, and that the next one - code-named Petrus (Peter) will shepherd us all into Armageddon or at least be instrumental in drawing the final curtain on the Catholic Church.

It was also prophesised that the second last Pope would resign or abdicate to make way for the next nefarious grim reaper or false prophet or anti-christ or whatever you'd like to call him. The ultimate anti-pope. Let me reiterate that I READ THIS LAST WEEK! (on some dodgy doomsday site)

Needless to say I nearly fell off my barstool when I heard about the imminent resignation of Colonel Ratzsinger (come on it does sound like a new KFC burger). And then, to top off the spectacular launch into the end of times, and just to make sure we were all taking notice, a perfectly executed lightning barb struck the steeple of the Basilica. ON THE SAME DAY.

Now I don't know about you, but that sealed it for me. I'm stocking up on cans of baked beans, creamed corn and baby carrots. I'm taking the rosary beads off the rear vision mirror so I can begin to pray effectively for my soul.

Did you know that a previous Pope Benedict (VIII) was damned by some breakaway factions for making a significant change to the Nicene Creed (the blueprint for the church)? This led to the schism between Western Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church. It was the work of Satan many said, heralding a new and corrupted era for the Church. May I interrupt here to say that this happened in 1014 AD! That is months away from being 1000 years ago. Anyone? Anyone? Come on. Every Bible student of the Apocalypse knows that Satan will be bound on Earth for one thousand years before letting all hell break loose.

Back to Malachy's prophecies. He was, it seems, almost as good as the late Paul the Octopus who successfully predicted the winner of each of the German National Football Team's seven matches in the 2010 FIFA World Cup as well as the outcome of the Final! He's now dead... he must have seen this coming.

With some creative rose-coloured glasses it is possible to match each Pope since 1143 AD with the Marvellous Malachy List. He described the current 111th Pope on the list as 'The Glory of the Olive' and the Benedictine Order's crest is, you guessed it, the olive branch. You have to take off your hat to a clear and obvious pointer there.

The next and last Pope is code-named 'Peter the Roman', who will 'nourish the sheep in many tribulations ; when they are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End.'

That's how it finishes. Abruptly. Just - The End.

Rome (aka the Catholic Church) will be destroyed.

The question remains how this will manifest. I suspect any destruction will be self-inflicted. Benedict XVI does not leave in an angelic trumpet burst of glory. He has some dark smoky questions about paedophiliac cover-ups trailing him like the smell of dog turd underfoot. Perhaps the Vatican heavy-weights all sat around and someone said...'What's that smell?' They all looked at their soles (pun intended) and Benny's sheepish grin gave it away and they all pointed at the door. But the bottom line is they all have shit on their shoes and the faithful followers are starting to smell it and it isn't pleasant. Corruption stinks.

Christopher Hitchens wrote, that in 2001 Ratzinger circulated a confidential letter to the global community of Bishops reminding them of the great crime of reporting the rape and torture of children by the clergy. Ratzy, it seems, for at least a time, was the Grand Poobah of the Cover-up Culture Club. ('Do you really want to hurt me?' playing on the juke box in the background). Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated with utmost secrecy and silence. The threat of ex-communication hung over anyone who dared to speak out. Little wonder the Vatican has readily accepted the Pope's resignation just when the governments of the world are beginning to hold the Church accountable for that very cold, calculated and criminal wall of silence. Forget the sacrificial lamb, Benedict XVI is about to become the number one scapegoat amongst a herd of cloven-hoofed goats.

With Malachy's musings on every conspiracy theologian's lips and the divine lightning strike hitting the throne of God's earthly elect (on the day the current Pope took the unusually rare option to bail), every placard-bearing rapturous end-of-times fan will be looking at the newly elected pope as Anti-Christ no matter who he is.

It's going to be a tough job any way you look at it. Scraping all the crap from underfoot is one thing, paying out extraordinary amounts of compensation to victims of God's representatives another, but shaking off the unofficial title of the Anti-Christ - that's going to be a tough call. And if he does take the name Peter...... dear God, all hell will break loose!]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2368043 2012-12-28T19:00:00-05:00 2013-02-27T05:12:02-05:00

Nikki McWatters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-mcwatters/ 'Predatory Teenage Girls' I made the bold move of taking some responsibility for my under-age promiscuity. This was widely misunderstood by some readers as a rape apologist rant and endorsement of paedophilia. Nothing could be further from the truth.

My blog was not about the Jimmy Saville train wreck that has deeply affected many innocent lives. The recent rash of arrests connected to the music industry was simply a trigger for a discussion about my own experiences thirty years ago.

I was discussing the grey area of post-pubescent desire - with no talk of paedophilia which is a separate and disturbing issue of which I have no experience. My opinions and ponderings were on the differences in attitude and experience that the decades have brought since the 'swinging sixties' and 'free-loving seventies.' It peered into my old teenage world of sex, drugs and rock and roll of the early 1980s; a time when the word 'paedophile' was almost unheard of (we called them perverts), IDs were rarely checked at bars and music venues. There was less vigilant monitoring of teenage girls and no AIDS.

With all the focus now on that red line of 'age of consent', that small grey area of adolescence is being more militantly protected to the point that many young men, some only teenagers themselves are ending up on 'sex offender' lists for engaging in sexual activity with a girl only a handful of years younger than themselves.

I discussed my seduction of an older musician when I was still 15. I presented backstage at an over-18 club and did a very good job of looking like a more mature young woman. I did not look like a child, I looked like a woman. I am now 46 and see how dangerous my behaviour could have been but I own it and take responsibility for it. I would be devastated if a young girl ever did what I did to one of my sons and then pressed charges. My point is that at 15 a girl can have the mens rea to commit a sexual crime of entrapment. I know this to be true because I am guilty of it and know many others who were indulging in the same risky behaviour back in the rocking eighties.

Sexual intercourse before the age of consent is considered statutory rape. I protest that in the one example I shared, this was not the case. I resent the response from readers who demanded that I label myself a 'victim'. I was not. And by saying so, I do not trivialise other young women's stories of abuse. Some years later I was raped and I have deep empathy with other survivors of such terrible violation.

My blog was not intended to 'condone paedophilia' as one reader suggested. I was disappointed that my discussion of young women and their sometimes wayward and wanton desires was distorted into discussions of the rape of children. The definition of a paedophile is that of a person over the age of 16 who has a primary or exclusive sexual interest in pre-pubescent children (generally younger than 11).

Despite our heightened vigilance over our daughters' sexuality, STDs and teenage pregnancy statistics are soaring. What is needed more than anything else is education; earlier and more rigorous education. As the mother of five children, I am acutely aware of the need to warn young people of the dangers of predatory sexual offenders - both real and virtual. They aren't always dirty old men and more importantly, they aren't always men.

Every sexual encounter on this planet brings a unique set of dynamics and power imbalances that change and slide even between the same two people over time. To promote the idea that a girl is never, ever responsible for an irresponsible sexual act before the age of consent is a militant and dangerous stance to take, particularly when a 15-year-old boy will almost always be held accountable for any of his own misguided sexual behaviour. To suggest that a boy must take responsibility for his dangerous sexual desires but a young girl should always be cast as the 'victim' of sexual activity by an older male, is offensive and completely shackles the feminist sensibility. One young couple are still paying the price 15 years later, despite being married with four children.

With age and hindsight I can see the folly of my ways as a teenage girl but I was not a victim. I was playing with fire. I don't suggest that this is a common experience, but it was mine.

I am not a rape apologist and do not condone child sexual abuse.

The complex issues of consent and power imbalances must be discussed at great length with young people. The biology of sex and the pharmacology of contraception are only the tip of the iceberg. Sex while drunk or high. Age imbalance. Emotional coercion as well as physical. Regrets and recriminations. Rough sex. The unrealistic expectations of a porn-laden culture. False rape claims. We can't shy away from any issues. We need to provide our boys and our girls with maps to navigate the world of sex.

If we encourage sex education but refuse to look at all sides of the issue, then we are not being responsible.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2303862 2012-12-14T17:48:24-05:00 2013-02-13T05:12:01-05:00

Nikki McWatters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-mcwatters/
The age of political correctness and litigation has been dry tinder to this funeral pyre of human frailty and it seems to be getting out of control.

It has become our cultural habit to insist that someone else pay for any misfortune that might befall us, accident or otherwise. But this is not something new. We have begun to slip back into prehistory; a time when a thunder-storm 'had' to have been caused by an angry god. A malformed child 'must' have been punishment for some human crime. Somebody or something was always to blame and when there was no guilty party available, we would create one. That's how religion came about in the first place. We needed someone to take the blame for the whole world and all our actions. It couldn't have been random because we couldn't seek revenge or turn our back on random when things didn't go our way. The concept of original sin was just another loophole so that we didn't have to shoulder the blame for our own human imperfections and terrible choices in life. It was all Adam and Eve's fault.

I read recently of a paedophile priest who, I kid you not, blamed God for making him that way!

This whole Royal Prank scandal is yet another case of the public and other media scrambling to find a scapegoat. The D.J's, the radio management, the hospital....the media at large. But, although unpopular an observation to make, only one person was ultimately responsible, it would seem, for the 'prank-victim's' death, and that was herself. There may have been many factors contributing to her decision to take her life. To decide what her mindset and motivations were in absentia is quite disrespectful to all involved. To attribute blame to anyone else in particular is appalling.

Hundreds of prank calls and skits take place around the globe every day. How a person chooses to handle being the butt of a practical joke is really up to them. If Jacintha Saldanha chose to commit suicide and leave behind her children because of the public humiliation of making a fairly minor mistake in the grand scheme of things, then that was an extreme choice but it was the one she made. But we don't really know all the contributing factors. All we do know is that she chose to kill herself.

When that other most famous of Royals, Diana Spencer, the former Princess of Wales, was killed in a car accident, the conspiracy theories were prolific. It couldn't have simply been a case of a drunk driver speeding away from cameras and two passengers who had chosen not to wear seatbelts losing their lives largely because they overlooked that simple act of buckling up. Minor mistakes can cost lives. Those left hurting feel uncomfortable about directing their anger and confusion at the deceased and need to find someone else to be the smoking gun.

Blame is an element of anger that this modern society is addicted to and it is becoming most dangerously rife in the media. Oh how they burn with indignant self-righteousness.

The British paparazzi are notorious for their blatant disregard for common decency in seeking out a sensational story and are now salivating over their Antipodean comrades embroiled in this mess. When they point a finger, there are three pointed back at themselves.

Michael Jackson's death had to be attributed to someone other than the demanding, drug-addled star himself. After Michael Hutchence was found dead, the media began hounding Sir Bob Geldof who had argued with the singer on the night of his death, as if the act of arguing with someone in a delicate frame of mind, might be tantamount to murder or manslaughter.

The media, and in particular comedy shows, both on radio and television, rely on a certain amount of playful mockery to entertain. Ricky Gervais is merciless with Susan Boyle. Billy Connolly, Chris Rock and Dylan Moran sling mud like frenzied bulls in quicksand. They do it because we like it.

In the initial radio/royal prank, a short phone call, who was really hurt? No-one. Was Kate hurt? The Queen hurt? The nurses hurt? No-one was actually injured or sacked. The Royals took it in good humour. How people later chose to define the situation didn't change the fact that no measurable damage was done initially. Some benign information about a woman with excessive nausea and vomiting was leaked.

People make mistakes at work every day. Had Jacintha Saldanha not made an error of judgment, the first of two, the prank would never have seen the light of day. It was the media at large that amplified those mistakes into something huge and raw. They took a silly prank call and ran with
it. Ultimately the forty-six year old woman may have decided it was so big as to be the defining point of her existence. If so, that was her tragic miscalculation.

Because the real tragedy is that two weeks later it would likely have all been forgotten. The greater tragedy is, that in the media it probably still will be.

Perhaps pranking is wrong. Perhaps putting honour and pride before family is wrong. Perhaps the radio station should have gotten clearance. Perhaps the hospital should have had tighter privacy rules. But the bottom line is that the most heinous crime against decency that has occurred, is that
people who don't know the D'J's and don't know the bereaved family or the deceased, have decreed who is responsible for a suicide. What arrogance.

To blame anyone for a suicide is to accuse someone of murder and without any concrete justification that is libellous and cruel to all parties involved. The media did not champion Jacintha in life - they should not be so righteous and hypocritical to do so now!!]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2287890 2012-12-13T19:00:00-05:00 2013-02-12T05:12:01-05:00

Nikki McWatters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-mcwatters/
These men are animals. Right? Perverts with no moral sense at all. Right? Paedophiles. Right? The girls, innocent victims with no way of knowing that they were being taken advantage of. Right?

Well, that's what the media are telling us.

But - if I may be the devil's advocate for a moment. Have you met teenage girls? Have you been one? I have and I know that I was fantasizing about sex from about the age of thirteen. It was all my friends and I could talk about and we weren't fantasizing about our pimply, gangly school-boy mates.

At 14 I was dreaming of getting horizontal with Rod Stewart, Peter Frampton and Sting. Possibly all at once. These guys were more than double my age. At the age of 15 I successfully seduced my first rock-star and adopted the secret life of a groupie for the rest of my teenage years, chasing INXS and Duran Duran and just about anyone else who was top of the pops. I was predatory, 'collecting lovers like butterflies.' The truth is that back in the late seventies and early eighties the 'school-girl' thing was a big drawcard. Now, as an older, wiser woman, I find this distasteful and just plain wrong but I know some of that is driven by my ageing ego.

Lori Maddox, a famous teenage groupie from LA, is alleged to have lost her virginity to David Bowie at the age of 13. She was Jimmy Page's steady girlfriend while still underage. And then there's the Rolling Stone who gathered no moss because moss takes too long to grow, who hooked up with Mandy Smith when she was 14! Elvis started playing with Priscilla while she was still a young schoolgirl.

Some girls do develop a sexual identity before others and it doesn't always fit nicely with the current legislation that controls that area of her life. The age of consent varies around the globe: In Japan it's 13 for a girl. In Australia it's 16. In Tunisia - 20. For male homosexuals the age is usually much higher. Does that mean that human sexuality develops differently for girls according to their geographical location or that gay people mature more slowly?

The local newspaper back then, was happy to publish 16 and 17-year-old bikini models on page three. The media promoted the teenage girl as the ideal and it still does. Idiots like Benny Hill had stupid television shows where blokes ran around chasing buxom blondes in sexy school uniforms.

There is a world of difference between a paedophile who grooms and targets young children for sexual abuse and a young man who is seduced by a young girl with casual sex on her mind. And it is an important distinction to make; a shade of grey that needs to be understood.

While the media rustles up a storm of indignant horror at the men who have been accused of fooling around with young girls back in the seventies, they would do well to remember that by definition Bill Wyman, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and many others - could by strict definition - be accused of child sex crimes.

Back in the day teenage groupie sex was epidemic. It was the fuel that drove rock and roll. It is not in the same category as the Belgian paedophile rings or the systemic abuse of children by Catholic priests. It just isn't.

Celebrities get targeted by wanton teenage girls. I know, because I've been the hunter.

My teenage experiences were not rape. I am in a position to be able to differentiate between the two. They are poles apart. But even consensual under-age sex is considered an offence, even if it is between two experimental teenagers. I knew what I was doing at 15 and by 17 I had learned some hard lessons, crossed some lines and learned to pitch my own boundaries. I believed I had the right to say 'yes' as well as 'no'.

Max Clifford, one of the world's top publicists (from The Beatles to Simon Cowell) was arrested this week in this latest hunt for child sex offenders from the seventies and even earlier, in the British music industry. He denies any wrong doing.

"All kinds of things went on - and I do mean young girls throwing themselves at them in the dressing rooms at concert halls, at gigs, whatever. They never asked for anybody's birth- certificate and they were young lads..." he has said.

I do not make excuses for any genuine abuse and/or rape that these men might be guilty of. Children, women and men, young and old, should be protected from unwanted sexual attention.

I simply hope to present a balanced perspective on this issue.

We are products of our society. The one I live in now is very different from the one I lived in as a young girl. It's very hard to judge past behaviours through a modern-day lens.
Retrospective justice is not necessarily 'just'.

We used to drive without seatbelts! It was dangerous. But armed with that knowledge now, should we hunt down every bare-back driver from three decades ago, lock them up and throw away the key? These men may have done wrong, but I want to be one of the girls who stands up and says - quite unashamedly - that I accept responsibility for my own part in that behaviour.]]>