Daily Rant on the Power of Words
I have a lot of things on my mind to write about today, but I'm not going to blow up this journal with a handful of posts all at once. Pacing myself. Today's post is going to be a mini rant on an issue that has gained international attention and a mass of online speculation. I have a lot of mixed feelings about Milo Yiannopoulos, and his current fall from grace as the poster boy for Conservatives and the Alt Right rabble the world over. Now I'm about to add my two cents worth.
To be clear, I am not a fan or a supporter of Milo Yiannopoulos. And I don't imagine that anything I have to say will have an impact on anyone who is. I don't expect it to. Milo and I don't share the same political views or social ideologies. I find his internet villian persona to be distasteful and disingenuous. But as soon as I heard about the furore on the internet over comments he made that seemed to be in support of paedophilic child abuse I wasn't sure what to think. Honestly, as he is a self-identified and very prolific troll, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Surely it would all come down to his usual MO of making comments that were unfortunately worded for mass shock effect. I may not like his version of entertainment, but if that was the case I would have scoffed at his nonsense and left the matter alone. So I sought out his statement, I watched his press conference, and according to him Milo was just mistunderstood. Either by poor word choices or deliberate editing choices. What he was saying didn't resonate quite right with me, but ... seemed legit.
Then I watched the longer cut The Reagan Battalion posted on Twitter of the interview in question. Fell down the rabbit hole and ended up watching Milo's interviews with Joe Rogan on youtube. One in particular really got to me. Milo is induced to discuss his own past abusive relationship with a parish priest when he was 14, but rather than acknowledge how messed up what happened to him was he actually seemed quite proud of the experience.
Gallows humour I can absolutely excuse. It sickens me to my stomach to hear victims play the game of minimising or normalising the abuse against them, but I certainly wouldn't judge another's coping mechanism. Here's the thing, though: talking about himself as the agressor or the seducer, joking about 'liking' the abuse, even implying how lucky he was to have been abused in this way is disgusting to hear but so very, very different to his then suggestion that intergenerational relationships (where one party is VERY FUCKING OBVIOUSLY A MINOR) is a wonderful thing to be encouraged. A 'hugely positive experience', is I think how he stated it. Urgh. Seriously? No!
If Milo refuses to name his abuser, if he refuses to name & shame the Hollywood elites he states he has witnessed forcing themselves on very young, very desperate boys, then I have to ask; who in the living hell gains the most from his silence? I'm not hip to the Christian code of late so I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure outing 3 paedophiles throughout his journalistic life (so far) cannot wipe clean the moral responsibility to report the names of these monsters he keeps silent on. He is enabling further abuse simply by keeping his mouth closed.
So yes, I am and do feel very conflicted by this drama. It has allowed me to view Milo in more dimensions than a 2D image as the self-loathing, nasty internet troll he likes to present to the world is the total complexity of his character. I found new sympathy for him as another human who has suffered. I truly wish he is as healed from his past experiences as he wants everyone to believe he is. But. I do not think he should be allowed to slide away from the responsbilities he owes for his words.
Words hold power. That is truth. I won't comment here on all the purposefully hurtful, deliberately hateful dialogue Milo Yiannopoulos puts out there in the world, or this post is going to get epically long. I won't argue semantics of whether he is talking about paedophilia vs pederasty in his interviews. The truth is, he has spoken out often enough in support of pederast relationships where the philerast is under the age of consent. I could expound for pages and pages on the science of the maturation of the human brain to explain why what appears to be willingness still does not and cannot mean consent. Let's instead focus on legalities. Law of the land. Age of consent is not 13 or 14 years old. Grooming youth into sex, no matter how much it appears to be a comforting or empowering relationship, is not a positive experience. It is not OK. It is simply abuse. Stop attempting to normalise it!
Rant over.
To be clear, I am not a fan or a supporter of Milo Yiannopoulos. And I don't imagine that anything I have to say will have an impact on anyone who is. I don't expect it to. Milo and I don't share the same political views or social ideologies. I find his internet villian persona to be distasteful and disingenuous. But as soon as I heard about the furore on the internet over comments he made that seemed to be in support of paedophilic child abuse I wasn't sure what to think. Honestly, as he is a self-identified and very prolific troll, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Surely it would all come down to his usual MO of making comments that were unfortunately worded for mass shock effect. I may not like his version of entertainment, but if that was the case I would have scoffed at his nonsense and left the matter alone. So I sought out his statement, I watched his press conference, and according to him Milo was just mistunderstood. Either by poor word choices or deliberate editing choices. What he was saying didn't resonate quite right with me, but ... seemed legit.
Then I watched the longer cut The Reagan Battalion posted on Twitter of the interview in question. Fell down the rabbit hole and ended up watching Milo's interviews with Joe Rogan on youtube. One in particular really got to me. Milo is induced to discuss his own past abusive relationship with a parish priest when he was 14, but rather than acknowledge how messed up what happened to him was he actually seemed quite proud of the experience.
Gallows humour I can absolutely excuse. It sickens me to my stomach to hear victims play the game of minimising or normalising the abuse against them, but I certainly wouldn't judge another's coping mechanism. Here's the thing, though: talking about himself as the agressor or the seducer, joking about 'liking' the abuse, even implying how lucky he was to have been abused in this way is disgusting to hear but so very, very different to his then suggestion that intergenerational relationships (where one party is VERY FUCKING OBVIOUSLY A MINOR) is a wonderful thing to be encouraged. A 'hugely positive experience', is I think how he stated it. Urgh. Seriously? No!
If Milo refuses to name his abuser, if he refuses to name & shame the Hollywood elites he states he has witnessed forcing themselves on very young, very desperate boys, then I have to ask; who in the living hell gains the most from his silence? I'm not hip to the Christian code of late so I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure outing 3 paedophiles throughout his journalistic life (so far) cannot wipe clean the moral responsibility to report the names of these monsters he keeps silent on. He is enabling further abuse simply by keeping his mouth closed.
So yes, I am and do feel very conflicted by this drama. It has allowed me to view Milo in more dimensions than a 2D image as the self-loathing, nasty internet troll he likes to present to the world is the total complexity of his character. I found new sympathy for him as another human who has suffered. I truly wish he is as healed from his past experiences as he wants everyone to believe he is. But. I do not think he should be allowed to slide away from the responsbilities he owes for his words.
Words hold power. That is truth. I won't comment here on all the purposefully hurtful, deliberately hateful dialogue Milo Yiannopoulos puts out there in the world, or this post is going to get epically long. I won't argue semantics of whether he is talking about paedophilia vs pederasty in his interviews. The truth is, he has spoken out often enough in support of pederast relationships where the philerast is under the age of consent. I could expound for pages and pages on the science of the maturation of the human brain to explain why what appears to be willingness still does not and cannot mean consent. Let's instead focus on legalities. Law of the land. Age of consent is not 13 or 14 years old. Grooming youth into sex, no matter how much it appears to be a comforting or empowering relationship, is not a positive experience. It is not OK. It is simply abuse. Stop attempting to normalise it!
Rant over.