Why our laws must move beyond allegiance and start defending the vulnerable instead of the powerful.
The recent scandals surrounding figures of immense privilege and influence have revealed a painful truth: our system of protection for young women is broken. When the priority becomes safeguarding institutions—be they royal, corporate, or cultural—it is the voices of survivors and the safety of the young that are silenced first.
Stripping royal individuals of titles or duties is not justice. It is damage control. The Monarchy, like any powerful body, is acting to preserve itself. Real progress will come only when our laws stop protecting privilege and start protecting people.
The Age of Consent: A Line in the Sand, Not a Shield
If the law’s true purpose is to shield children from exploitation, it must recognise the role of power imbalance. A Rolling Age of Consent would do precisely that.
It would retain a minimum age—say, 16—but make sexual relations unlawful when the older person is over 18 (or a similar adult threshold) and the age gap exceeds a set limit, perhaps two to four years.
This approach would protect 16- and 17-year-olds from predatory adults while allowing healthy, consensual relationships between peers. It acknowledges a vital truth: what is technically legal is not always morally defensible. Consent cannot be freely given where power looms large.
The Art of Exploitation: A Pattern Older Than Law
History and modern life alike are filled with examples of older or more powerful men exploiting younger women and girls under the guise of love, mentorship, or opportunity.
Consider the artist Paul Gauguin, who took a 13-year-old Tahitian girl as his “wife” while painting visions of paradise. Or in more recent memory, R. Kelly’s illegal marriage to Aaliyah, and Bill Wyman’s relationship with Mandy Smith, which began when she was barely in her teens.
And exploitation is not confined to the privileged or the celebrated. The Rotherham and other grooming gang scandals revealed how thousands of young girls were systematically abused while authorities failed to act. In these cases, neglect and indifference became their own form of complicity.
The same imbalance of power runs through all these stories—whether it hides behind fame, family, faith, or fear. Vulnerability does not respect class, culture, or postcode. Whether in a gilded palace, an artist’s studio, or an ordinary town centre, exploitation thrives wherever power goes unchecked.
Time to Redraw the Line
We are long past the point of accepting legal loopholes as inevitabilities. We now possess both the cultural understanding and the legal mechanisms to build protection that truly works.
A Rolling Age of Consent would send a clear message: protecting young people matters more than preserving powerful reputations.
So the question is this: should our laws evolve to recognise power as a central factor in consent? And within your organisation, do your policies reflect the difference between legality and genuine equality?
At Little Ro, we work to challenge the systems that fail the vulnerable and to help organisations build cultures that protect rather than silence.
Through my talks—For Crying Out Loud and Paradise Lost—I explore the realities of child sexual harm and the cultural blind spots that allow exploitation to continue, from the classroom to the corridors of power. If your organisation is ready to face these truths and begin meaningful change, I would be honoured to start that conversation.