Surviving R. Kelly: Young Girls & Older Guys

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For those of you who don’t know, I’m 38 years old, I’ll be 39 in a few months. So when this whole R. Kelly sex tape thing was going on in 2000 I believe, I was 20 years old going from my sophomore year to my junior year in college.  The reason I’m mentioning this is because all over Facebook and Twitter everybody has been talking about episodes 3 & 4 of the R. Kelly documentary and these 2 episodes were focusing on the sex tapes that involved Kelly and that 13 or 14 year old girl.  What’s shocking about this discussion taking place is that it’s coming from people who are in my age bracket who were in their late teens early 20s back then and people who were older. The shocking aspect about this is how now all of a sudden these same people are all high and mighty up on social media acting as if they are the moral authority police, but if you rewind the clock 19 years, these same people were literally out there breaking their necks to watch those R. Kelly tapes.  I even recall dudes selling bootleg versions of the tape in barbershops. Now I personally never saw the tapes, I did however see still images of it and there’s no doubt that that was R. Kelly on that tape. But I just find it so fascinating how everybody wants to sit up on social media and bible thump people to death about liking R. Kelly’s music or questioning certain aspects pertaining to the entire history of R. Kelly regarding underage girls, but yet so many of these very same bible thumpers were the main ones back in the day either bootlegging or watching these child pornography tapes.  You have to love how people can just pretend to be something today as if they weren’t the exact same thing they are calling out just yesteryear.

In regards to this whole R. Kelly story, I’m not even going to dispute the validity of the tapes because like I said, I never saw them.  I only saw still images and I’m convinced based off what I saw that that was indeed R. Kelly. When it comes to some of these other aspects of this documentary, I’m not gonna lie, I have some serious problems with what some of these women are saying.

Let’s examine the singer Sparkle for instance.  For those of you who don’t know who Sparkle is, she was R. Kelly’s protege of sorts after Aaliyah and sh just happens to be the aunt of the 13 year old girl that R. Kelly was on tape with.  The problem I have with Sparkle is how she’s on this documentary acting like she’s just so innocent in all of this. Sparkle is on this documentary telling this story about the first time she went to R. Kelly’s house.  She said she was over there chilling with Kels and some other people watching a game. As she’s there watching the game, she said she heard somebody knocking on a door and that Kels just appeared to be ignoring the knocking. So Sparkle says she heard the knocks again and told R. Kelly that somebody was knocking on a door.  She then says that R. Kelly yelled “open the door” and out popped R. Kelly’s wife name Drea Kelly to where she asked R. Kelly could she come out of the room to get something to eat. Kels said yes, then Sparkle said she was just in complete shock talking about how that could never be her. Fast forward a little bit, Sparkle and R. Kelly make their song called Be Careful and Sparkle starts to blow up a little bit and get some fame.  Sparkle then says that Kels tried to control who she could and couldn’t talk to, but Sparkle stated that she was defiant and didn’t listen to him. Now here’s where my issue with Sparkle kicks in, AFTER ALL OF THE STUFF THAT SPARKLE CLAIMS SHE WITNESSED R. KELLY DOING AND ALL OF THE STUFF SHE CLAIMS R. KELLY WAS DOING TO TRY AND CONTROL HER, Sparkle THEN introduces her niece (the girl on the tape) to R. Kelly in hopes of R. Kelly turning her into the next big child rap star.  Sparkle then says on one occasion that she discovered that R. Kelly and her niece were in a studio alone and Kels appeared to be showing her too much attention and fast forward, we have the infamous sex tapes. My problem is, Sparkle is literally sitting on this television acting like she’s so damn innocent when she literally delivered her niece to R. Kelly AFTER ALL THE SHIT SHE KNEW ABOUT R. KELLY. Who does that? Who introduces their 13 year old niece to a man who literally had his wife locked up in a room the first time you were ever at his house?  Who then years later acts like she’s just so innocent in all of this in regards to what happened to her niece?

The next person I have an issue with is R. Kelly’s then wife by the name of Drea Kelly. So Drea is on this show crying her eyeballs out talking about all of the abuse and embarrassment R. Kelly subjected her to over the year right, to which I’m not necessarily doubting didn’t take place.  But here’s the problem, just 2 years ago, Drea recorded a FB live video where she’s driving in the car with her new man and both of them are jamming out to some R. Kelly songs. In this video Drea is talking about how R. Kelly is the greatest and that Kels is her baby daddy and he’s still family and she’ll support him no matter what.  Fast forward to the present day, she’s all over this show going in on Kels. So I’m like, if Kels was abusive as you claim he was, then why in the hell would you record a video of yourself praising this man while you are literally sitting in the car with your new man as you are praising your alleged abusive ex-husband. It’s funny because on the show Drea stated that she’s not on the show going in on R. Kelly because Kel’s isn’t paying her anymore money, but I just find it so hard to believe considering that literally 2 years ago she made a video giving R. Kelly all the props and praises in the world.  

And finally there’s another young lady on there whose name I can’t recall, but if you watched the show, she was the woman who said she was about 16 years old and she would skip school to go down to the courthouse to support R. Kelly during his trial.  She said she was there so much that she actually met and befriended R. Kelly at the courthouse while he was on trial for child pornography tapes. So fast forward, R. Kelly is found not guilty and this girl and R. Kelly continue to keep in contact. The girl says that she told R. Kelly that she was abused as a child and Kels told here that he was abused as a kid and I guess that helped them 2 to cement a bond.  Anyways, she gets to telling this story about how she was at R. Kelly’s house and they were in the back by the pool and Kels told her to change into a bikini and then model it for him. She then says that Kels told her to start stripping and then he kissed her. She then says that she told Kels that she was only 16 and she was a virgin and that Kels said “good, keep telling everybody you’re 19 and act like you’re 21 and since you are virgin that means i can control and mold you the way I want.” Then she claims they engaged in oral sex.  So the whole time I’m listening to this story, I’m just thinking that there is just no way this story can be proven beyond the words she’s saying. She could be telling the whole truth or she could be flat out lying just to be on tv and there is absolutely no proof whatsoever to back her story (unless a mysterious video pops up out of nowhere) but regardless, everybody is going to believe her just because she’s a woman and he is R. Kelly.

So here’s my problem with this is it relates to this girl.  This girl admitted that she lied about her age to R. Kelly when she was telling him she was 19 until I’m assuming she showed him some ID (I believe she actually said that on that show if I’m not mistaken).  The problem here is this and this is not specifically in direct reference to her, but this is more so in reference to teenage girls in general, especially back in the 90s when I was a teen, because I honestly don’t know how it is now.  Everybody is online saying how R. Kelly is a rapist and a child molester, which technically could be debated to a degree to where statutory rape isn’t really rape-rape in the sense of a man physically taking some coochie against a woman’s will, but then people will say, “but a minor can’t consent” which legally they can’t, but outside of the scope of legalities, they can say yes and proceed to do the do if they choose to do so.  And herein lies the problem I have with the social media moral authority. I was in high school from the years of 1994-1998. In high school I can recall quite a few times being rejected by some chicks who proudly told me that I was too young for them (despite us being the same age) and that these girls were only interested in “real men”. Real men meaning, dudes 20 – 21 years of age or older who were in college or just regular niggas out there on the streets slanging, working or whatever.  This wasn’t some big secret. This was known information that accepted all over. A lot of these young girls at the time (and I imagine now) were dead set on getting an older dude because he had more money than most of high school dudes, he had a car and he might have even had his own place to stay at, and he was tricking off of them. A lot of these young girls were in to that heavy and these young girls who are now grown ass women today will admit this stuff.  When they were in high school, a lot of them weren’t checking for dudes their age. They wanted the older guys. They lusted after the older guys as much as the older guys lusted after them. This was the way it was. It was the culture back then and everybody knew this too include parents. Aa lot of people today will say, “IT DOESN’T MATTER, THEY WERE UNDERAGE AND DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER! THEY WEREN’T MENTALLY MATURE. THOSE WERE GROWN ASS MEN! THEY WERE BREAKING THE LAW AND SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!”  And yes, I’ll agree that they should have known better and I’ll agree that if they engaged in some form of sex with these underage girls that they were definitely breaking the law. But where I’m going to disagree is on this “mentally mature” part and this “they didn’t know any better part”.

How long have we been hearing that teenage girls are more mentally mature than teenage boys?  We’ve been hearing that shit since forever now. We’ve been hearing that teenage girls are something like 3 or 4 years ahead mentally of dudes their same age or some shit like that since forever now.  And don’t sit up here and pretend like you’ve never heard that. Whether it’s true or not, I have no idea. Assuming it to be true, well then how can people sit here and make arguments saying that teenage girls are not mentally mature and do not know any better when people have literally been saying that teenage girls are 3-4 years mentally ahead of their age? How?  Sure we can all sit around and blame older dudes all day long for pursuing younger girls, but can you honestly sit up here and totally write off the role a lot of these younger girls played in the pursuit by these older men? Just like that last girl in the R. Kelly story I was talking about, this girl sat there and admitted that she lied about her age to R. Kelly in order to be closer to him.  Do you know how many young girls purposely lie about their age to present themselves as older to attract older dudes? A lot of them do, even back when I was in high school. Another thing is, let’s not pretend like a lot of these young girls don’t look older than what they really are. Can we just be honest for a second? There are a lot of teenage girls who look like grown ass women. So I’m saying all of this because for as much as you can rightfully blame the older the dude for pursuing a teenage girl that he has no business pursuing or being with, you cannot sit up here and act like these teenage girls are just 100% innocent in the whole ordeal simply because of their age when a lot of these girls will literally lie about their age, a lot of them look older than what they really are, and a lot of them will go all out on their own free will and accord to attract these older dudes because they want to be with these older dudes just as much as the older dudes want to be with them.  You all just cannot honestly sit up here and pretend like that shit doesn’t go on. It went on when I was in high school and I imagine it’s going on now with teenage girls in high school today.

The problem is, when you try to have an honest discussion about this, people are quick to jump up and down and call you a rape apologists or pedophile apologist or you have suspect rapey and pedophile tendencies as if you are trying to formulate an argument in favor of R. Kelly when in reality, you are just examining this shit from all sides.  You just don’t want to have people on social media slap a scarlet letter on your chest for fear of losing friends and followers.

So like I said, as much as we all can sit around and declare that R. Kelly is more than likely a serial teenage girl predator, you cannot sit up and here act like just because a girl is under the age of 18 or 17 or whatever the age of consent is in a particular state, that this girl is not capable of making decisions regarding as to whether or not she wants to be a willing participant in some type of relationship with a grown ass dude.  Sure, you can put up an argument that some girls are not mentally there and can be taken advantage of, especially if they come from a background of abuse sort of like how a pimp takes advantage of broken girls and women. Sure you can make that argument, but are you honestly going to say that this is the case for every teenage girl who has ever been in a position where she was pursued by an older dude? Are you honestly going to pretend like some of these teenage girls don’t play an active voluntary role in being pursued by these older dudes because these teenage girls want to be with this older dude just as much as the dudes want to be with them?  Are you all going to honestly sit up here and pretend like that shit doesn’t happen probably way more often than the storyline of the abused girl being manipulated by an older dude? Are we really going to tell ourselves this lie in order to avoid being handed out social media scarlet letter because we’re at a point in society now that whenever a woman makes an accusation, it is to be automatically believed wholeheartedly without question? Deep down inside you all know what I’m saying to be true about a lot of these teenage girls being willing participants in being pursued and/or preyed on by older dudes. It’s just not the popular thing to admit on social media these days, but if you were in high school in and around the years I was in high school then you all know damn well way too many teenage girls would do whatever they had to do to get chosen by an older dude and if they did get chose, they would go out of their way to let everybody know they got chose too include informing their parents in a lot of instances.  You all know what I’m saying to be true so stop fronting for Facebook likes and retweets.