This article deals with some heavy themes, particularly involving child abuse, so if you reckon you might find it a bit uncomfortable, feel free to click away.
If you’re unfamiliar with Milo Yiannopuolis, let me give you a quick bio: he is a huge fuckwit.
Slightly less quick than that, he’s a self-styled figurehead of the alt-right movement who sees himself as a professional “provocateur” and “troll”, a career that mainly seems to involve going on TV, saying a bunch of shitty things about trans people, and then accusing everyone with a reasonable response of being “triggered”.
If you’re unfamiliar with the alt-right, they too are a bunch of huge fuckwits. They are largely comprised of younger conservatives who insist that they aren’t racist but staunchly advocate for a white “ethnostate“, because they believe society can only function if it is racially segregated. These people see Milo as something of a silver bullet, because he is both gay and of Jewish ancestry, therefore he can’t possibly be criticised, right?
Unfortunately for them, they’re about two decades behind where we’re at with progressiveness: we absolutely can criticise people regardless of their race or gender or orientation, because we treat everyone like they are people now. Wild.
This is particularly important because he uses his position as one of those rare famous conservative gay people to heavily criticise other gay people, who he has repeatedly described as deviants suffering from a psychiatric disorder. What a delightful man.
The man generates a lot of controversy, most of it because he either willfully says awful shit to shit-stir because he’s a borderline sociopath or says awful shit that he genuinely believes because he’s a borderline sociopath, so it’s not unremarkable to see him in the headlines.
He’s landed himself in quite a lot of trouble this time, though, after video surfaced of an appearance he made on a podcast in 2016 in which it seemed very much like he was advocating for pedophilia, like so:
“This arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent which totally destroys, you know the understanding of many of us have the complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships.“You know people are messy and complex and actually, in the homosexual world particularly. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, that sort of coming of age relationships.“The relationships with those with older men have helped those young boys discover who they are. And give them security and safety, provide them with love and reliable and sort of a rock. Where they can’t speak to their parents.”
When another person on the podcast interjects to say that sounds like molestation, he makes a joke about child abuse, and argues semantics about the term ‘pedophilia’:
“You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is an attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty. Who are too young to be able to understand. That is not what we are talking about.”
Asked to clarify if he’s advocating for these “cross-generational relationships“, he says that he is:
“Yeah I dont mind saying… I don’t mind admitting that. And I think particularly in the gay world and outside the Catholic Church if that is where some of you wanna go with this. I think in the gay World some of the most important enriching and incredibly the… mm … you know life affirming, important shaping relationships very often between younger boys and older men, they can be hugely positive experiences.”
His supporters are crying foul, claiming that the video circulating has been artfully edited, but you can watch it uncut here if you have the time and hate yourself (it starts at around 56:15):
After the video surfaced, Milo responded lengthily on Facebook, calling the people who misinterpreted his comments “idiots”:
“I do not support pedophilia. Period. It is a vile and disgusting crime, perhaps the very worst. There are selectively edited videos doing the rounds, as part of a co-ordinated effort to discredit me from establishment Republicans, that suggest I am soft on the subject.“If it somehow comes across (through my own sloppy phrasing or through deceptive editing) that I meant any of the ugly things alleged, let me set the record straight: I am completely disgusted by the abuse of children.”
He goes on to say in that in his time as a journalist he “outed” three pedophiles, and that he chose his words poorly:
“I shouldn’t have used the word “boy” when I talked about those relationships between older men and younger gay men. (I was talking about my own relationship when I was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the UK is 16.) That was a mistake. Gay men often use the word “boy” when they refer to consenting adults. I understand that heterosexual people might not know that, so it was a sloppy choice of words that I regret.”
I’m only bisexual so maybe I don’t completely speak “gay”, but I’m not so sure about that one. He also repeatedly used the age of 13 as an example, both in this interview and also He also says attacks like this are why gay people vote Democrat:
“This rush to judgment from establishment conservatives who hate Trump as much as they hate me, before I have had any chance to provide context or a response, is one of the big reasons gays vote Democrat.”
Absolutely, there’s no reason to assume the Republican’s consistently anti-LGBT agenda has anything to do with it. He also selects a quote from the interview that he bafflingly believes makes him look better:
“In case there is any lingering doubt, here’s me, in the same interview the other footage is taken from, affirming that the current legal age of consent is about right: ‘And I think the law is probably about right. It’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about ok. But there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age. I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who were sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world, by the way.’”
Congratulations, in the attempt of defending yourself, you just implied that gay men are predisposed to be pedophiles, a myth that saw them beaten, arrested and killed as late as the 70s.
You can read the whole post here:
What a fucking creep. It’ll be interesting to see what the Australian conservatives who fawn over him (Bolt, et al) say in response to this.
Source: YouTube.
Photo: YouTube.
