Sometimes it’s only through looking back, that you can see the progress we’ve made. And it is by looking back at Justin Bieber’s life and meteoric rise to fame, that such heartbreaking realisations can be found. A boy, not a man, who skyrocketed to global stardom at the cost of his dignity, his autonomy and his safety. A boy who was repeatedly sexualised, harassed, assaulted and even molested, live on stage, to an audience’s laughter and applause. These videos are shocking. And whilst it is too late to change what happened, it is not too late to stop it happening again. Because this is not just Justin – one in six men are sexually abused in their lifetime. Yet men and boys routinely fall through the cracks of advocacy, support and outrage. Let down by campaigners, and made invisible with the horrific assaults upon them normalised. I wonder, if in the last ten years will you find a 18 year old girl, openly sexually assaulted by a 40 year old man, live on stage in front of millions of people, to no consequence. I doubt you will find interviews with the man who did it, openly bragging about his actions. I wonder if you can find me a clip of a man walking on stage, and slapping a female comedian across the face, and sitting down at his table, like nothing had happened. I wonder if social media acolytes would rally behind the violent man who did it, and pine over his wellbeing, over his wife, and entirely forget the woman who was assaulted. I wonder if we’ll break out of this highly gendered narrative of sexual assault, that erases men who are victimised, and instead start to see the issue, rather than the gender. I wonder. ~ [1] Images by Gradienta, Dan Cristian Padure, Ali Jouyandeh, Kiwi Hug #justinbieber #justinbiebervideos #bieber #bieberfever #sexualassault #sexualassaultawareness #metoo #justindrewbieber

2023-03-09