Many thanks for this, it's genuinely appreciated. Given that I live close to Bristol which in parts is 'woke central', I probably should rein it in a bit for my own good. Should but, I've no intention of doing that whatsoever:)! I'd rather take the risks associated with speaking out than living a lie just to avoid rows...
I liked what you said about how we don't need to agree on everything.
I think that as a general rule I will plan to defend my comrades even when I don't agree with them.
Words are words.
I will mention that while I do share your concerns about the appropriateness of drag shows for children, I don't share your views that drag shows are offensive to women because they play on stereotypes.
I'm guessing that I've seen more drags shows that you have, and there are definitely people who do really cool, creative things with it.
Given that it's a form of sexual exhibitionism, and I'm not into men, it's not really my cup of tea, but drag does cross over with burlesque, circus, clowning, comedy etc... I think you would be surprised how hilarious drag shows can be.
It is a valid art form and I don't think that it's good to problematize art, even if you don't like it / find it offensive.
I don't even think blackface is necessarily as big a deal as people have made it out to be in recent years. Personally, my definition of bodily autonomy includes the right to choose one's attire, meaning that I would not consider it any of my business how another person does their make-up.
For example, a Muslim woman should have the choice whether or not she wants to wear a hijab.
Could a performance involving blackface be offensive? Of course. Is a non-racist performance involving blackface also imaginable? Yes.
Let's say that the ethnicity of a black character was important to the plot of a play, and that play was being performed at a rural high school somewhere. No black people are available for the role, so a white actor plays it.
(Pretending to be something you're not, in the context of art, is known as ACTING).
Now, if that actor didn't have blackface, they would have to communicate the black-ness of the character in another way, perhaps through body language, mannerisms, tone of voice, or accent. So imitating the behaviour of a black person is okay, but it's not okay to imitate their appearance? Think about this problem from the point of view of an actor. How good is the typical high school student in rural Canada at acting black? Seems to me that it could be easier to communicate the black-ness of the character to the audience through blackface.
My views on blackface changed after attending a Tsotsil Mayan ceremony in Chiapas in which Mayan clowns in blackface throw squirrels at Jaguar-People in a Tree.
At the time, I had been reflecting a lot about David Graeber's Theory of Imaginary Counter-Power, which a fascinating lens through which to study Mayan culture.
Not only do Mayan people have their imaginary counter-power down to an art, but many different Mayan communities use many different variations of a flexible cosmovisión that allows them to successfully culturally adapt to changing circumstances.
After grasping the meaning of the ceremony in Zinacantan, I achieved spontaneous enlightenment, so I can testify that a ceremony involving blackface can have good results.
Hmm... Maybe I should write a piece called In Defence of Blackface. That oughta twist some knickers. I've got footage from that ceremony. Maybe if other people saw they would achieve enlightenment too.
I think I could do a good job at writing a defence of blackface. I've already got an angle.
I remember the indigenous playwright Tomson Highway specifically taking on the liberal concern that it is offensive to cast non-natives as native characters.
This was a practical question. There simply weren't enough indigenous actors and actresses at the time.
If there was an expectation that all the indigenous characters in his plays were played by indigenous people, it means that that they would rarely be performed.
Anyway, I'm not against drag and I'm not against queer culture. There's a lot of people who get a lot of pleasure from drag and I'm all for people doing what they want, so long as they're not harming others.
What I don't get is how people can deny that drag involves sexual exhibitionism, and that cross-dressing is a paraphilia.
Obviously, the people who are into drag have a kink. The word paraphilia might sound judgemental, but a paraphilia is just a kink - something you're into that most people aren't. Anyone with an imagination has paraphilias.
Trans ideologues apparently expect us not to know how kinks work.
Sexual exhibitionists don't get off of just whoever watching them... They are more aroused when they are performing for people that they are attracted to.
This is true of all fetishists. For instance, foot fetishists aren't just into feet in general... they're into the feet of the people that they're attracted to. Shit fetishists aren't raiding porta-potties because they love shit so much. They're turned on by the shit of the people that they're attracted to.
Maybe a thought experiment would be helpful here.
If you're a straight guy, think about stripping for a bunch of hot girls at a bachelorette party.
Now think about stripping for an audience of dudes at a gay strip club.
See what I mean?
Part of the reason that I held my tongue on the trans issue so long was because I'm all about sex-positivity and mad pride, and I thought the perfect critique of trans ideology would be non-kink-shaming and also respectful towards the different ways that people experience reality... I am anti-psychiatry, which is a big part of why I'm against trans ideology. I think doctors who fuck with your mind are evil. I blame these psychopathic so-called doctors for everything. They're way worse than the drag queens, even if the drag queens. They're worse than child molesters, and they deserve to die and burn in hell.
Last time I checked, doing permanent physical damage to a person's body is worse than doing psychological damage, because psychological damage can be healed. But once a boy's dick gets cut off, there's no going back. I don't know why the right-wingers are taking the bait and getting their panties in a knot about drag queens reading stories. Listen, these kids' parents took them there, and parents should be the ultimate authority as to what is appropriate for their children. I don't actually agree that these events are worth protesting, and I would certainly oppose any acts of violence against the drag queens, library staff, or parents. If parents want to send their kids to Drag Time Story Hour, that's their right, and they shouldn't be interfered with. It's all fine and dandy to say that parents shouldn't indoctrinate their kids with a harmful belief system, but what about Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses or any number of other cults you might have fundamental disagreements with?
As far as ideology goes, the best attitude is one of "live and let live". Such an attitude is pretty much a prerequisite for a healthy, pluralistic society.
Some people aren't going to like hearing this, but trans ideology has a right to exist, such like the Jehovah's Witnesses do.
Unlike Jehovah's Witnesses, though, trans cultists can't reproduce on their own, which is why they're so interested in the children of other people. I don't necessarily think their interest in children is purely sexual.
It's normal to take an interest in children, because we are genetically programmed to care for children. Now that I'm 35 I understand that better than I used to.
People who don't have kids of their own are likely to seek ways to interact with children. This is healthy, normal, and good. It takes a village to raise a child.
For instance, a spinster might become a Sunday School teacher, and derive much of her pleasure in life from the relationship with her students.
A bachelor might become a hockey coach, and channel his parental energy towards his team.
An ex-junky might channel their parental energy towards the members of their recovery group. In this case, no children are involved, but the parental instinct has been activated and redirected.
Many people could also direct this energy towards plants and animals, for instance by having a garden or by caring for pets or livestock.
I think that society needs to have a grown-up conversation about how trans people are going to get their psychological needs met in a world that is increasingly suspicious of them. It would be sad if
To any trans people reading this, have you really thought this through? Your plan to influence children runs the risk of backfiring in a way that will lead to a popular belief that the only reason that you want to spend time with children is because you want to indoctrinate and diddle them. You're running that risk, and you might want to consider backing off a bit. I know you want your ideology to be more widely accepted, but if you're too pushy about it, people are going to push back. I recommend laying off and rethinking your strategy. If you want to influence children, why not volunteer at an after-school program or something? Children are big imitators. If you want them to be like you, all you need to do is make them want to be like you, and the way to do that is to be fun.
One of the problems with trans ideology is that many of its adherents don't know how to have fun, because they can't take a joke, because their identity is based on a lie, and one of the evolutionary functions of laughters is to limit the human capacity for self-delusion.
This is why jesters were so important in feudal society. A king who can't laugh at himself is likely to be a tyrant, and to become a sadist.
People who cannot achieve catharsis through laughter are likely to seek it through other means.
I haven't studied neurology enough to know whether or not this can be proven, but I suspect that the sadistic pleasure that the torturer experiences in causing their victims pain activates the same neural circuitry that laughter does.
Whether or not this is true, I hold that it is definitely true that laughter and cruelty are inversely correlated in personality psychology. People who laugh more are less cruel, which is why people are more scared than they should be of evil, cackling clowns.
What I think is important is the conversation about pharmaceutical drugs and unnecessary surgeries. If a parent cut off their child's ear, I think we could agree that their child should be taken away from them, and that parent should be punished (or be put into psychological care, for those of you who don't believe in punishment and think that involuntary psychological "care" isn't a form of punishment). You with me so far? Can we agree that cutting off your child's body parts is child abuse?
Now, let's imagine that the same parent paid someone to cut off their child's ear. Is that child abuse?
Of course it is. But feminists have been so successful in their war against masculinity that people don't it as horrifically abusive to cut off a boy's penis, because penises are bad, because rape and stuff.
I honestly think that that's where we're at. And then these bitches wonder why they're so unhappyt
I've had a title for a critique of feminism in mind for awhile, and that title is "It's Not My Fault You Don't Have a Dick". I'm just waiting until someone pisses me off enough to motivate me to right it.
Wokesters tend to go all in on complicated explanations and overlook the simple ones. Penis envy is real.
Anyway, I think that if people are mad at drag queens or queer culture, they're missing the point. It's the "doctors" that are the spawn of Satan. They're the groomers, not the drag queens. People need to stop pretending like these scumbags are doctors, that they're doing anything good, or that they deserve any kind of respect. They should be ground up into hamburger meat and fed to the wolves.
My experience of blackface is watching the Black and White Minstrel Show on TV when I was a kid back in the 1960s! Somehow, it was seen as acceptable at the time - it wasn't it was dire:( On the other hand as you pointed out with the examples in Mexico, there are plenty of instances of folk traditions where people black up their faces for reasons which have nothing to do with demeaning black people. It's certainly something that has been a feature of some folk traditions in the British Isles, Morris dancing being one of them. What gets me is the way some 'woke' elements try to racialise these folk traditions, putting their contemporary interpretations on something that's been going on for centuries. My gut feeling is that these 'woke' elements don't like folk culture and are out to wreck it...
I would be interested in hearing more about folk traditions of the British Isles. Paul Cudenec has written in passing about how many folk traditions were discontinued after WWI, and I feel like there's an interesting story to be told there.
Yeah, one of the things that I like about Mexico is that people aren't easily offended. Commonly, if people don't know someone's name, they will refer to people as Flaco (Skinny), Gordo(Fatso), Pelon (Baldie), and so on. This isn't to be mean, they're just descriptive terms that apply to certain people, and Mexicans don't have a taboo against using them.
Black women who come to Mexico need to get used to the idea of being called "Negrita" from time to time... Negro means black, and doesn't have the same connotations of racism that it does in English.
So Negrita basically means "blackie" or "little miss blackie" or something like that. But it's not meant to be offensive, and Mexicans don't tend to know quite how to act when people do get offended because getting offended about such things is such a foreign concept to them.
Another fascinating thing is that bullying is a completely foreign concept to Mexicans that has only been introduced in the past ten years. Wrap your mind around that one.
My question is: Where the hell did all these psycho "doctors" come from? What kind of sick fuck wants to mutilate the genitals of children? Are these people part of some fucked -up evil cult or something?
I honestly wonder whether it might be scientologists that are behind it. This didn't happen by accident. An operation on this scale boggles the mind. It's just too big. It requires the participation of too many people. Someone would have come forward. Etcera.
But that's the reason a lot of people could simply not bring themselves to believe that COVID was one giant scam.
But these people came from somewhere... Who could come up with such an evil plan? Would it really surprise anyone if the same type of person who would come up with such a plan also happened to be into black magic?
Oh yeah, I forgot. Magic's not real, because science. Black magic isn't real, because religion bad. Therefore Satanists don't exist, or if they do, there's no way they're into anything evil, or actually believe in magic, let alone practice it.
They're clearly secular materialists, just normal, upstanding people who just happen to like the aesthetic of worshipping the embodiment of evil.
Hmm... They just like the aesthetic... Where have I heard that before?
If you look into ancient Mesoamerican traditions of genital mutilation, you'll also see that the trans cult has historical antecedents on this continent. I don't want to offend anyone, so that's all I'll say.
Maybe the Scientologists have joined forces with the skinwalkers.
Or maybe I just like fucking with people.
(Wow, where did the last hour go? I didn't set out to write something so long!)
The supposed "revolutionary left"--in all its iterations--has truly lost the plot during the last three years of Covidiocracy. In hindsight; the handwriting was on the wall since the dissipation of the anti-Iraq war protests here in the U$@ following Obomber's '08 victory followed by his squashing of the "Occupy Wall St." protests in October '11. The veritable cancer that is "Identity Politics" metastasized and has now subsumed "the left", divorcing it completely from any attachment with the working class and any genuine opposition to militarism & imperialism IMHO.
I came across a documentation post Occupy of the increase of divisive words. All the social divisions we see today. Google word tracking showed them all pop up, inorganically, and begin to have a more prominent presence in the discussion. I recall it being right when Obama started running for President, that people started calling others racists. Random trolling at first, but then responses led to fighting, and so on. Anyway, I haven't re-found the doc.
Iain Davis had a good take on the question of drag shows for kids. In a critique of the notorious narrative gatekeepers from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, he wrote:
"According to the UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) a sign of child-grooming is that the child exhibits "sexualised behaviour, language or an understanding of sex that's not appropriate for their age." The NSPCC describes the processes that lead to this sexualisation of children:
Children’s sexual development is shaped by their environment, experiences and what they see. [. . .] Sometimes children may have been sexually abused themselves and not understand that what happened to them was wrong.
The NSPCC considers that anything the child sees that leads the child to develop an age-inappropriate understanding of sex is abuse and part of the grooming process. Exposing children to such experiences is "wrong."
The NSPCC is particularly concerned about the "premature sexualisation of children" and the increased risks this presents to the child:
The premature sexualisation of children is an issue that concerns parents, politicians and policy makers alike. The NSPCC is particularly concerned about the extent to which sexualisation drives abuse or other harm to children.
There is nothing wrong with men and women dressing up in garish costumes to entertain children with age-appropriate song & dance routines or pantomime, etc. Nor is there anything wrong with appropriately dressed drag queens reading suitable stories to children.
But wearing bondage gear, thongs and nipple tassels, simulating sex acts, exposing yourself or adorning a comedy erect phallus in front of children is "wrong." The NSPCC are among the child protection organisations that consider this a form of "grooming."
If anyone performs lewd acts in front of children that is a form of abuse. Should drag queens be excused from this adult responsibility?
There is a lot of evidence that all age drag shows lead to the premature sexualisation of children and can therefore constitute grooming. Any "reasonable" person, who cares about the welfare of children, can have legitimate concerns about some all age drag shows.
If the proportion of all age drag shows that evidently do sexualise children continue, then, this can only benefit paedophiles. The evidence, from the NSPCC and others, suggests that we need to think carefully about the content of these shows. Yet the CCDH is attempting to make any criticism of all age drag shows practically impossible by labelling it ant-LGBTQ+ "hate speech."
In an exchange on Notes, Iain Davis (who thought that I was criticizing him because of a poorly-worded post I made), had this to say:
Fair enough. With regard to my point that appropriately dressed drag queens can read stories to children as far as I am concerned, I meant someone like Barry Humphries not Connie Lingus.
I see that the Stirrer rejects absolutely that any man dressed as a woman should ever read to children. So to that extent, having now read his article, while I agree with most of it, we do disagree on that point. So your observation that I disagree wasn’t wrong.
Personally I think it would be a shame to lose Widow Twankey from the realms of kids entertainment but I take the Stirrer’s point and understand why he is concerned. I share his concerns.
It’s an honest mistake. I’m sure you can appreciate why I was a bit miffed. Just, as you say, unfortunate wording.
All the best and keep up the good work yourself.
My reply:
Thanks for being cool about this, it won’t happen again!
I agree with you. What about Monty Python? I hope no one thinks that Monty Python is inappropriate for kids because it involves a lot of cross-dressing. To derive kids of such entertainment would be cruel and unnecessary!
I have a pretty extreme bias towards supporting free expression because I like a ton of art that provoked the ire of censors and moralists.
Voltaire, Burroughs, Bukowski, de Sade, Dostoyevsky, N.W.A., 2 Live Crew, Jello Biafra, Anti-Nowhere League, Anal Cunt… the list goes on and on.
I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t stick up for controversial art.
Heck, have you ever listened to Dying Fetus? That’s my favourite metal band.
I’m not going to lie. I love R. Crumb and GG Allin too. I love outrageously offensive, transgressive art. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so.
Speaking of GG, whoo would have thought that when GG Allin released EXPOSE YOURSELF TO KIDS that it would only be a few decades before that became the stance of an influential political ideology?
There is going to come a day soon when a pedophile is outside have a robotic lookalike walkable ai child for their sexual fetish (and they would prefer it be naked as an animal to them-- and if you don't like it you got their problem). I am just going where they want to with this alliance of their taking the 5g vax neocon gov-corp pedophile worldview. This whole cult will either die-off or become transhuman.
Banning things never helps. It only empowers whomsoever it is that thinks they can ban stuff, often some sort of government. But there are groups that seek to polarise response so as to promote violence and justify greater control.
With some groups now adding to the traditional "we're here, we're queer" chant the new phrase "and we're coming for your children" it seems that polarity is wanted. Maybe it's a sign of the desperation of those in power that they are attacking innocence in order to provoke the violence on which they want to crack down upon. Idk. It's a weird feeling these last few years inspire.
We? Listen, friend, I am not in charge of your ethical conundra. If you feel there's some meaningful prohibition by the state against shooting people before, say, orchestrating a kangaroo court proceeding to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt at a reasonable price, do feel free to disobey the gooferment and be ungovernable. I gather that the police in Nanterre aren't convinced of the sanctity of life. But if you acknowledge that we are each to be judged by Christ Jesus when He returns to judge the living and the dead, then God bless you. And may your actions be guided by the Holy Spirit. Amen.
You're the one who said "banning things never helps". So I assumed your some kind of Anarchist. Now it appears you want to have it both ways, you want pedos to be able to groom children because "banning things never helps", while you want to state to protect said pedos from angry pedos and other vigilantes with a bunch of hypocritical references to Christianity thrown in for good measure.
I would ask that you please hold yourself to a higher standard of decorum here. I find your style of commenting overly aggressive. If you're not interested in constructive debate, this isn't the place for you.
This comment doesn't sit right with me. Around the time that I left Montreal, DIE CIS SCUM was a popular slogan amongst trans people in the anarcho-punk scene.
Now, if you think it through, this amounts to an insistence that the human race should commit self-inflicted extinction, because trans people are incapable of reproducing on their own. But that's a subject for another day.
Now, what you're saying is DIE PEDO SCUM, which reminds me of the DIE CIS SCUM thing.
I don't like your comment, because you seem to be claiming a moral high ground that you don't deserve. You seem to be calling to initiatory violence against people guilty of thoughtcrime, and to think that doing so is righteous.
People who are operating from tribalism often think that violence against their political adversaries is righteous, which is why I find your comment troubling. Such people always think that the violence that they want done to their enemies is fundamentally different from violence that their enemies do to them.
To me, violence is a much bigger problem than sexual attraction.
Let's think this through.
The Oxford dictionary definition of pedophile is "a person who is sexually attracted to children".
It is often assumed to imply that that person has acted upon their desires, but that is not implicit in the word's definition. People often conflate pedophilia and pederasty, but the two are different, as Hunter S. Thompson pointed out.
The Oxford dictionary defines pederast as "a man who has sex with a boy".
What you are suggesting seems to be that initiatory violence against people for thoughtcrime is morally justifiable. I disagree, and I think that anyone who understands anarchist morality or natural law would have to agree with me. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The etymology of the word pedophile is not complicated. It means a person who loves children.
Pretty fucking weird that this society thinks that that's the worst thing that a person can be, isn't it?
Love serves the biological, and parents are genetically programmed by their DNA to love their children. So are people who don't have children of their own, for that matter. The survival of our species depends upon successful reproduction, therefore nature made it so that humans would have powerful motivation to care for their young. This is called love.
The conversation about the "grooming panic" leaves a lot to be desired, if you ask me. People are locked into an Us versus Them moral panic, and neither side is being honest.
I don't know if you've ever been to Canada, but a lot of native girls look 19 when they're 14. If you're attracted to them before you find out their age, do you stop being attracted to them afterwards? Okay there, bud. Sure you do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, you're not supposed to admit being sexually attracted to teenagers. That's why guys don't like it when their girlfriends creep their search history. But C'mon. Go on any porn site right now and search "teen", "schoolgirl", etc. Obviously a ton of guys are sexually attracted to teenagers. This is normal, because the primary biological function of sex is reproduction, and teenage girls are in the prime of their fertility by the time they hit 14 or 15.
Is the world ready to have a grown-up conversation about this? I don't know. A lot of women have a vested interest in protecting the status quo, because they don't want to compete with younger women for the limited supply of desirable men. Now that feminism is crumbling, it's anyone's guess what's on the other side of the paradigm shift that is well underway.
But anyway, Eugene, maybe you're different than the skeezy pervs who use the keyword "teen" when they're browsing for porn. I don't know you. Although I am a Discordian pope, meaning that I am infallible, I am only infallible about what goes on in my own nervous system.
Some guys claim to be asexual, and who am I to contradict them? I don't know what happens in their minds when their dicks get hard.
So let you ask you this: Are you attracted to teenagers?
If you said no, I don't believe you. According to physics, all matter in the universe is attracted to all other matter. I'm not big on science, but all physicists hold that to be a fact, so far as I'm aware, and this assertion is congruent with a shamanic perspective.
Ah, yes, sexual attraction is a type of attraction, I'll grant you that. To be clear, I'm not saying that means you're a pedophile.
Sexual attraction is a subset of attraction, true. But let's get one thing clear - it is normal to be attracted to children.
If we want to have an intelligent debate about the ethics of sexuality, we have to set the table. What can we all agree is normal sexual behaviour? What can the fields of physics, chemistry and biology? What's the hardest data we can find on the subject of sexual attraction?
These fields of science are more fundamental than psychology and sociology, which are "soft sciences", i.e. not science.
Science is fundamentally about measurement. It is a method data-driven empirical inquiry which seeks to disprove false beliefs.
The sensible thing to do in studying sexuality would be by beginning with the assumption that human beings hold some false beliefs about human sexuality and attempting to identify those false beliefs.
In fact, if you believe in the myths of science, it is physically impossible not to be attracted to children.
If you are a secular materialist, you might believe that sexual attraction is fundamentally different from other types of attraction. But how is it different? You might find that this question is harder to answer than you might think.
I am a pantheist who believes reality is imaginary, which makes the question a tricky one.
I basically believe that the universe exists because of the libido (life-wish) of the Creator. The life-force which animates the universe has a lot in common with sexual energy, which makes sense, given that the sexual energy is a manifestation of it.
If not for the libido of the Supreme Being, why does the universe exist? Because of an accident? Because a non-existent entity ejaculated into the Cosmic Womb in an explosion of energy known as the Big Bang? Okay there, bud. That's your creation story? You might want to have another go at that one.
To punish us for being naughty little angels? I don't think so.
If we're here to suffer, it's because through suffering comes knowledge.
I'm an optimist, though. I believe that reality can be whatever we want it to be.
Let's face it, teenagers like to fuck. Should they be allowed to decide who they fuck?
Guess what? They're gonna fuck. And some of them are going to make decisions that their parents don't approve of.
What should society do about it? I don't know. It depends on a lot of factors. But we're not going to be able to have a grown-up conversation about such things if we're in denial about the realities of biology.
This has gotten long, so let me wrap it up with a thought experiment.
Let's imagine that you wound up on a desert island, shipwrecked with a beautiful 17-year-old girl whose 18th birthday is in 3 months. Let's say that this girl is really, really into you and wants to fuck your brains out. Let's say that it's cold and night and you don't have blankets, so you cuddle together at night in your lean-to, thereby making the most of one another's body heat.
Let me ask you this:
1. Could you get it up with her?
If so, that means you're sexually attracted to her.
2. Are you considering waiting 3 months for her to turn 18?
If you're willing to fuck her after she turns 18, it means you want to fuck her.
If you answered these questions honestly, you just admitted to be sexually attracted to a minor. Unless you're gay or live in Canada, that is.
(The age of consent in Canada is 16. Until Harper, it was 14. I remember that anarcha-feminists protested that change, which goes to show you how much feminism has changed in the past 13 years. Can you imagine feminists standing up for the right of a 14-year old to fuck an adult now?)
Don't worry, though, Eugene, I don't think you're a pedophile, because I don't think a 17-year-old is a child.
The whole idea of adolescence is a relatively new idea. In traditional societies, people went directly from childhood to adulthood. Wrap your mind around that one.
I also don't think that you should be shot for being attracted to an imaginary person.
For the record, I assure you that there are plenty of pedophiles who do commit horrific crimes against children, and they deserve to pay for their crimes.
How an anarchist society would respond to such acts is one of the hard questions, and should not be neglected by anarchist theorists.
You can tell if someone's a true intellectual by gaging whether or not they're interested in the hard questions.
In some cases, the death penalty would probably be appropriate. In other cases, rehabilitative measures might be more appropriate responses.
In general, the punishment should meet the crime, which is why overly proscriptive "one-size-fits-all" solutions are stupid.
I fail to see how sexual crimes need to be treated differently from other crimes, though.
Anarchists are opposed to forcing people to do things they don't want to do. We're also opposed to coercion and exploitation.
The assertion that I am making is that all ethics should stem from a solid understanding of natural law.
To those of you who do understand anarchist morality and natural law, I ask the following question: Are special sexual taboos necessary?
It seems to me that natural law provides us all the guidance we need. Don't force your will on another person, and don't mislead them to get what you want.
As far as how much freedom children should have, well that's a tricky question. If you can't provide for yourself, you gotta play by the rules of the people providing for you. That's just life. Should parents have the right to tell their children what to do? Yes, of course, but children also have the right to rebel.
Even in the case of parental authority, which is the most legitimate type of authority that exists, there is push and pull. Children are political animals too.
If you're wondering why I've thought about this so much, it's because I'm 35 and my girlfriend is 21.
I recently moved to her community, and I was pretty scared that her family wouldn't accept me.
Want to know more? You can read about my story here:
So I recently had a good reason to ponder the ethics and morality of age differences in intimate relationships.
I ultimately concluded what I always conclude - natural law is the only framework for understanding ethics that makes logical sense.
In other words, anarchism is right, and all forms of statism are morally wrong.
If any statists out there think that I give a fuck about their fucked-up "moral" arguments, I can assure you that you are mistaken.
Statists suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, and their opinions about morality and ethics should be taken with a grain of salt. Intellectually, they are children, and morally, they are developmentally challenged.
So if any statists want to wag their fingers at me, let me assure you up front that I don't give a fuck what you think. You believe that people should be brainwashed from a young age in mandatory indoctrination programs to make them believe that it is morally right for the people with the greatest capacity for inflicting violence should be in charge. You think I'm going to let myself be lectured by you? Nope.
If any anarchists have critiques of my analysis, I'm all ears. Obviously, it's very taboo to say the things I'm saying, and I welcome criticism. I know that I can be pretty bombastic with my foes, but I assure you that I will respond respectfully to those of you who disagree with my position. This is a serious matter. Chances are that the only people who will respond in good faith are the people who are interested in the hard questions of ethics and morality, which is to say true intellectuals. Anyone willing to engage in good faith on this question has my respect.
Lastly, I'll say that in order to have this debate, we need the perspectives of teenagers.
I used to be involved with a group called Psychiatric Survivors of Ottawa, and in the psychiatric survivor movement, we have a saying: "Nothing For Us Without Us".
It is infuriating that the perspectives of schizophrenics are not taken seriously by psychiatry, because there is no one that understands schizophrenia like schizophrenics.
Want to guess how many times I've been invited to lecture on the subject of schizophrenia?
Zero.
At the end of the day, psychiatrists don't want to understand schizophrenia, because doing so would require them to update their operating system, and they don't want to do that, because they're scared of insanity, which is the reason that most of them started studying psychiatry in the first place. But I digress.
I think that the slogan "Nothing For Us Without Us" should apply to teenagers too. Let's not speak for teenagers. They can speak for themselves. They are as capable of moral reasoning as older folks are, if not more so.
> I think that the slogan "Nothing For Us Without Us" should apply to teenagers too. Let's not speak for teenagers. They can speak for themselves. They are as capable of moral reasoning as older folks are, if not more so.
The whole history of the 20th century shows that this is false, and the kind of disasters the follow when society treats the beliefs of teenagers as carrying equal weight to those of elders.
> Now, if you think it through, this amounts to an insistence that the human race should commit self-inflicted extinction, because trans people are incapable of reproducing on their own. But that's a subject for another day.
> Now, what you're saying is DIE PEDO SCUM, which reminds me of the DIE CIS SCUM thing.
Except non-pedos are capable of reproducing on their own.
> The Oxford dictionary definition of pedophile is "a person who is sexually attracted to children".
> The Oxford dictionary defines pederast as "a man who has sex with a boy".
That's not how the terms are used in practice and I'm not interested in pointless semantic arguments.
Fair enough. I think I know what you meant. There are certainly many sex offenders who deserve to die, and I wouldn't shed any tears for if someone started murdering the members of the RCMP sex trafficking ring in Prince George, for instance.
You are certainly correct that I am interested in semantic arguments.I actually am reading a textbook on General Semantics right now (Selections from Science and Sanity by Alfred Koryzybski).
Masterbaters into the vax. The preemptive attacking to halt speech is akin to the neocon preemptive strike to destroy anyone who challenges whatever they want to do. I suspect these types are going to make enclaves of sexuality eventually. Its much more all over on the West coast with open naked sexuality. They are probably ahead of where Montreal is now but what a fucking bunch of assholes that only think about being assholes. That's a pitiful life!
Many thanks for this, it's genuinely appreciated. Given that I live close to Bristol which in parts is 'woke central', I probably should rein it in a bit for my own good. Should but, I've no intention of doing that whatsoever:)! I'd rather take the risks associated with speaking out than living a lie just to avoid rows...
No problem!
I liked what you said about how we don't need to agree on everything.
I think that as a general rule I will plan to defend my comrades even when I don't agree with them.
Words are words.
I will mention that while I do share your concerns about the appropriateness of drag shows for children, I don't share your views that drag shows are offensive to women because they play on stereotypes.
If people want to do drag, more power to them.
I tend to agree with what comedian Doug Stanhope says here - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Apavg-efd3g
I'm guessing that I've seen more drags shows that you have, and there are definitely people who do really cool, creative things with it.
Given that it's a form of sexual exhibitionism, and I'm not into men, it's not really my cup of tea, but drag does cross over with burlesque, circus, clowning, comedy etc... I think you would be surprised how hilarious drag shows can be.
It is a valid art form and I don't think that it's good to problematize art, even if you don't like it / find it offensive.
I don't even think blackface is necessarily as big a deal as people have made it out to be in recent years. Personally, my definition of bodily autonomy includes the right to choose one's attire, meaning that I would not consider it any of my business how another person does their make-up.
For example, a Muslim woman should have the choice whether or not she wants to wear a hijab.
Could a performance involving blackface be offensive? Of course. Is a non-racist performance involving blackface also imaginable? Yes.
Let's say that the ethnicity of a black character was important to the plot of a play, and that play was being performed at a rural high school somewhere. No black people are available for the role, so a white actor plays it.
(Pretending to be something you're not, in the context of art, is known as ACTING).
Now, if that actor didn't have blackface, they would have to communicate the black-ness of the character in another way, perhaps through body language, mannerisms, tone of voice, or accent. So imitating the behaviour of a black person is okay, but it's not okay to imitate their appearance? Think about this problem from the point of view of an actor. How good is the typical high school student in rural Canada at acting black? Seems to me that it could be easier to communicate the black-ness of the character to the audience through blackface.
My views on blackface changed after attending a Tsotsil Mayan ceremony in Chiapas in which Mayan clowns in blackface throw squirrels at Jaguar-People in a Tree.
At the time, I had been reflecting a lot about David Graeber's Theory of Imaginary Counter-Power, which a fascinating lens through which to study Mayan culture.
Not only do Mayan people have their imaginary counter-power down to an art, but many different Mayan communities use many different variations of a flexible cosmovisión that allows them to successfully culturally adapt to changing circumstances.
After grasping the meaning of the ceremony in Zinacantan, I achieved spontaneous enlightenment, so I can testify that a ceremony involving blackface can have good results.
Hmm... Maybe I should write a piece called In Defence of Blackface. That oughta twist some knickers. I've got footage from that ceremony. Maybe if other people saw they would achieve enlightenment too.
I think I could do a good job at writing a defence of blackface. I've already got an angle.
I remember the indigenous playwright Tomson Highway specifically taking on the liberal concern that it is offensive to cast non-natives as native characters.
This was a practical question. There simply weren't enough indigenous actors and actresses at the time.
If there was an expectation that all the indigenous characters in his plays were played by indigenous people, it means that that they would rarely be performed.
Anyway, I'm not against drag and I'm not against queer culture. There's a lot of people who get a lot of pleasure from drag and I'm all for people doing what they want, so long as they're not harming others.
What I don't get is how people can deny that drag involves sexual exhibitionism, and that cross-dressing is a paraphilia.
Obviously, the people who are into drag have a kink. The word paraphilia might sound judgemental, but a paraphilia is just a kink - something you're into that most people aren't. Anyone with an imagination has paraphilias.
Trans ideologues apparently expect us not to know how kinks work.
Sexual exhibitionists don't get off of just whoever watching them... They are more aroused when they are performing for people that they are attracted to.
This is true of all fetishists. For instance, foot fetishists aren't just into feet in general... they're into the feet of the people that they're attracted to. Shit fetishists aren't raiding porta-potties because they love shit so much. They're turned on by the shit of the people that they're attracted to.
Maybe a thought experiment would be helpful here.
If you're a straight guy, think about stripping for a bunch of hot girls at a bachelorette party.
Now think about stripping for an audience of dudes at a gay strip club.
See what I mean?
Part of the reason that I held my tongue on the trans issue so long was because I'm all about sex-positivity and mad pride, and I thought the perfect critique of trans ideology would be non-kink-shaming and also respectful towards the different ways that people experience reality... I am anti-psychiatry, which is a big part of why I'm against trans ideology. I think doctors who fuck with your mind are evil. I blame these psychopathic so-called doctors for everything. They're way worse than the drag queens, even if the drag queens. They're worse than child molesters, and they deserve to die and burn in hell.
Last time I checked, doing permanent physical damage to a person's body is worse than doing psychological damage, because psychological damage can be healed. But once a boy's dick gets cut off, there's no going back. I don't know why the right-wingers are taking the bait and getting their panties in a knot about drag queens reading stories. Listen, these kids' parents took them there, and parents should be the ultimate authority as to what is appropriate for their children. I don't actually agree that these events are worth protesting, and I would certainly oppose any acts of violence against the drag queens, library staff, or parents. If parents want to send their kids to Drag Time Story Hour, that's their right, and they shouldn't be interfered with. It's all fine and dandy to say that parents shouldn't indoctrinate their kids with a harmful belief system, but what about Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses or any number of other cults you might have fundamental disagreements with?
As far as ideology goes, the best attitude is one of "live and let live". Such an attitude is pretty much a prerequisite for a healthy, pluralistic society.
Some people aren't going to like hearing this, but trans ideology has a right to exist, such like the Jehovah's Witnesses do.
Unlike Jehovah's Witnesses, though, trans cultists can't reproduce on their own, which is why they're so interested in the children of other people. I don't necessarily think their interest in children is purely sexual.
It's normal to take an interest in children, because we are genetically programmed to care for children. Now that I'm 35 I understand that better than I used to.
People who don't have kids of their own are likely to seek ways to interact with children. This is healthy, normal, and good. It takes a village to raise a child.
For instance, a spinster might become a Sunday School teacher, and derive much of her pleasure in life from the relationship with her students.
A bachelor might become a hockey coach, and channel his parental energy towards his team.
An ex-junky might channel their parental energy towards the members of their recovery group. In this case, no children are involved, but the parental instinct has been activated and redirected.
Many people could also direct this energy towards plants and animals, for instance by having a garden or by caring for pets or livestock.
I think that society needs to have a grown-up conversation about how trans people are going to get their psychological needs met in a world that is increasingly suspicious of them. It would be sad if
To any trans people reading this, have you really thought this through? Your plan to influence children runs the risk of backfiring in a way that will lead to a popular belief that the only reason that you want to spend time with children is because you want to indoctrinate and diddle them. You're running that risk, and you might want to consider backing off a bit. I know you want your ideology to be more widely accepted, but if you're too pushy about it, people are going to push back. I recommend laying off and rethinking your strategy. If you want to influence children, why not volunteer at an after-school program or something? Children are big imitators. If you want them to be like you, all you need to do is make them want to be like you, and the way to do that is to be fun.
One of the problems with trans ideology is that many of its adherents don't know how to have fun, because they can't take a joke, because their identity is based on a lie, and one of the evolutionary functions of laughters is to limit the human capacity for self-delusion.
This is why jesters were so important in feudal society. A king who can't laugh at himself is likely to be a tyrant, and to become a sadist.
People who cannot achieve catharsis through laughter are likely to seek it through other means.
I haven't studied neurology enough to know whether or not this can be proven, but I suspect that the sadistic pleasure that the torturer experiences in causing their victims pain activates the same neural circuitry that laughter does.
Whether or not this is true, I hold that it is definitely true that laughter and cruelty are inversely correlated in personality psychology. People who laugh more are less cruel, which is why people are more scared than they should be of evil, cackling clowns.
What I think is important is the conversation about pharmaceutical drugs and unnecessary surgeries. If a parent cut off their child's ear, I think we could agree that their child should be taken away from them, and that parent should be punished (or be put into psychological care, for those of you who don't believe in punishment and think that involuntary psychological "care" isn't a form of punishment). You with me so far? Can we agree that cutting off your child's body parts is child abuse?
Now, let's imagine that the same parent paid someone to cut off their child's ear. Is that child abuse?
Of course it is. But feminists have been so successful in their war against masculinity that people don't it as horrifically abusive to cut off a boy's penis, because penises are bad, because rape and stuff.
I honestly think that that's where we're at. And then these bitches wonder why they're so unhappyt
I've had a title for a critique of feminism in mind for awhile, and that title is "It's Not My Fault You Don't Have a Dick". I'm just waiting until someone pisses me off enough to motivate me to right it.
Wokesters tend to go all in on complicated explanations and overlook the simple ones. Penis envy is real.
Anyway, I think that if people are mad at drag queens or queer culture, they're missing the point. It's the "doctors" that are the spawn of Satan. They're the groomers, not the drag queens. People need to stop pretending like these scumbags are doctors, that they're doing anything good, or that they deserve any kind of respect. They should be ground up into hamburger meat and fed to the wolves.
My experience of blackface is watching the Black and White Minstrel Show on TV when I was a kid back in the 1960s! Somehow, it was seen as acceptable at the time - it wasn't it was dire:( On the other hand as you pointed out with the examples in Mexico, there are plenty of instances of folk traditions where people black up their faces for reasons which have nothing to do with demeaning black people. It's certainly something that has been a feature of some folk traditions in the British Isles, Morris dancing being one of them. What gets me is the way some 'woke' elements try to racialise these folk traditions, putting their contemporary interpretations on something that's been going on for centuries. My gut feeling is that these 'woke' elements don't like folk culture and are out to wreck it...
I would be interested in hearing more about folk traditions of the British Isles. Paul Cudenec has written in passing about how many folk traditions were discontinued after WWI, and I feel like there's an interesting story to be told there.
Yeah, one of the things that I like about Mexico is that people aren't easily offended. Commonly, if people don't know someone's name, they will refer to people as Flaco (Skinny), Gordo(Fatso), Pelon (Baldie), and so on. This isn't to be mean, they're just descriptive terms that apply to certain people, and Mexicans don't have a taboo against using them.
Black women who come to Mexico need to get used to the idea of being called "Negrita" from time to time... Negro means black, and doesn't have the same connotations of racism that it does in English.
So Negrita basically means "blackie" or "little miss blackie" or something like that. But it's not meant to be offensive, and Mexicans don't tend to know quite how to act when people do get offended because getting offended about such things is such a foreign concept to them.
Another fascinating thing is that bullying is a completely foreign concept to Mexicans that has only been introduced in the past ten years. Wrap your mind around that one.
If anyone is interested in seeing that footage, by the way, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3H5BfZqH7A&t=761s
My question is: Where the hell did all these psycho "doctors" come from? What kind of sick fuck wants to mutilate the genitals of children? Are these people part of some fucked -up evil cult or something?
I honestly wonder whether it might be scientologists that are behind it. This didn't happen by accident. An operation on this scale boggles the mind. It's just too big. It requires the participation of too many people. Someone would have come forward. Etcera.
But that's the reason a lot of people could simply not bring themselves to believe that COVID was one giant scam.
But these people came from somewhere... Who could come up with such an evil plan? Would it really surprise anyone if the same type of person who would come up with such a plan also happened to be into black magic?
Oh yeah, I forgot. Magic's not real, because science. Black magic isn't real, because religion bad. Therefore Satanists don't exist, or if they do, there's no way they're into anything evil, or actually believe in magic, let alone practice it.
They're clearly secular materialists, just normal, upstanding people who just happen to like the aesthetic of worshipping the embodiment of evil.
Hmm... They just like the aesthetic... Where have I heard that before?
If you look into ancient Mesoamerican traditions of genital mutilation, you'll also see that the trans cult has historical antecedents on this continent. I don't want to offend anyone, so that's all I'll say.
Maybe the Scientologists have joined forces with the skinwalkers.
Or maybe I just like fucking with people.
(Wow, where did the last hour go? I didn't set out to write something so long!)
By the preponderance of the evidence, we may safely reach one conclusion about trans ideology:
It's unadulterated hatred and bigotry, from start to finish.
The supposed "revolutionary left"--in all its iterations--has truly lost the plot during the last three years of Covidiocracy. In hindsight; the handwriting was on the wall since the dissipation of the anti-Iraq war protests here in the U$@ following Obomber's '08 victory followed by his squashing of the "Occupy Wall St." protests in October '11. The veritable cancer that is "Identity Politics" metastasized and has now subsumed "the left", divorcing it completely from any attachment with the working class and any genuine opposition to militarism & imperialism IMHO.
I came across a documentation post Occupy of the increase of divisive words. All the social divisions we see today. Google word tracking showed them all pop up, inorganically, and begin to have a more prominent presence in the discussion. I recall it being right when Obama started running for President, that people started calling others racists. Random trolling at first, but then responses led to fighting, and so on. Anyway, I haven't re-found the doc.
Iain Davis had a good take on the question of drag shows for kids. In a critique of the notorious narrative gatekeepers from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, he wrote:
"According to the UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) a sign of child-grooming is that the child exhibits "sexualised behaviour, language or an understanding of sex that's not appropriate for their age." The NSPCC describes the processes that lead to this sexualisation of children:
Children’s sexual development is shaped by their environment, experiences and what they see. [. . .] Sometimes children may have been sexually abused themselves and not understand that what happened to them was wrong.
The NSPCC considers that anything the child sees that leads the child to develop an age-inappropriate understanding of sex is abuse and part of the grooming process. Exposing children to such experiences is "wrong."
The NSPCC is particularly concerned about the "premature sexualisation of children" and the increased risks this presents to the child:
The premature sexualisation of children is an issue that concerns parents, politicians and policy makers alike. The NSPCC is particularly concerned about the extent to which sexualisation drives abuse or other harm to children.
There is nothing wrong with men and women dressing up in garish costumes to entertain children with age-appropriate song & dance routines or pantomime, etc. Nor is there anything wrong with appropriately dressed drag queens reading suitable stories to children.
But wearing bondage gear, thongs and nipple tassels, simulating sex acts, exposing yourself or adorning a comedy erect phallus in front of children is "wrong." The NSPCC are among the child protection organisations that consider this a form of "grooming."
If anyone performs lewd acts in front of children that is a form of abuse. Should drag queens be excused from this adult responsibility?
There is a lot of evidence that all age drag shows lead to the premature sexualisation of children and can therefore constitute grooming. Any "reasonable" person, who cares about the welfare of children, can have legitimate concerns about some all age drag shows.
If the proportion of all age drag shows that evidently do sexualise children continue, then, this can only benefit paedophiles. The evidence, from the NSPCC and others, suggests that we need to think carefully about the content of these shows. Yet the CCDH is attempting to make any criticism of all age drag shows practically impossible by labelling it ant-LGBTQ+ "hate speech."
In an exchange on Notes, Iain Davis (who thought that I was criticizing him because of a poorly-worded post I made), had this to say:
Fair enough. With regard to my point that appropriately dressed drag queens can read stories to children as far as I am concerned, I meant someone like Barry Humphries not Connie Lingus.
I see that the Stirrer rejects absolutely that any man dressed as a woman should ever read to children. So to that extent, having now read his article, while I agree with most of it, we do disagree on that point. So your observation that I disagree wasn’t wrong.
Personally I think it would be a shame to lose Widow Twankey from the realms of kids entertainment but I take the Stirrer’s point and understand why he is concerned. I share his concerns.
It’s an honest mistake. I’m sure you can appreciate why I was a bit miffed. Just, as you say, unfortunate wording.
All the best and keep up the good work yourself.
My reply:
Thanks for being cool about this, it won’t happen again!
I agree with you. What about Monty Python? I hope no one thinks that Monty Python is inappropriate for kids because it involves a lot of cross-dressing. To derive kids of such entertainment would be cruel and unnecessary!
I have a pretty extreme bias towards supporting free expression because I like a ton of art that provoked the ire of censors and moralists.
Voltaire, Burroughs, Bukowski, de Sade, Dostoyevsky, N.W.A., 2 Live Crew, Jello Biafra, Anti-Nowhere League, Anal Cunt… the list goes on and on.
I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t stick up for controversial art.
Heck, have you ever listened to Dying Fetus? That’s my favourite metal band.
I’m not going to lie. I love R. Crumb and GG Allin too. I love outrageously offensive, transgressive art. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so.
Speaking of GG, whoo would have thought that when GG Allin released EXPOSE YOURSELF TO KIDS that it would only be a few decades before that became the stance of an influential political ideology?
> Why do woke zealots think strip shows for kids are a good thing?
Because they're pedophiles.
There is going to come a day soon when a pedophile is outside have a robotic lookalike walkable ai child for their sexual fetish (and they would prefer it be naked as an animal to them-- and if you don't like it you got their problem). I am just going where they want to with this alliance of their taking the 5g vax neocon gov-corp pedophile worldview. This whole cult will either die-off or become transhuman.
Banning things never helps. It only empowers whomsoever it is that thinks they can ban stuff, often some sort of government. But there are groups that seek to polarise response so as to promote violence and justify greater control.
With some groups now adding to the traditional "we're here, we're queer" chant the new phrase "and we're coming for your children" it seems that polarity is wanted. Maybe it's a sign of the desperation of those in power that they are attacking innocence in order to provoke the violence on which they want to crack down upon. Idk. It's a weird feeling these last few years inspire.
> Banning things never helps.
Ok, so can we unban shooting pedophiles?
We? Listen, friend, I am not in charge of your ethical conundra. If you feel there's some meaningful prohibition by the state against shooting people before, say, orchestrating a kangaroo court proceeding to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt at a reasonable price, do feel free to disobey the gooferment and be ungovernable. I gather that the police in Nanterre aren't convinced of the sanctity of life. But if you acknowledge that we are each to be judged by Christ Jesus when He returns to judge the living and the dead, then God bless you. And may your actions be guided by the Holy Spirit. Amen.
You're the one who said "banning things never helps". So I assumed your some kind of Anarchist. Now it appears you want to have it both ways, you want pedos to be able to groom children because "banning things never helps", while you want to state to protect said pedos from angry pedos and other vigilantes with a bunch of hypocritical references to Christianity thrown in for good measure.
I would ask that you please hold yourself to a higher standard of decorum here. I find your style of commenting overly aggressive. If you're not interested in constructive debate, this isn't the place for you.
> I would ask that you please hold yourself to a higher standard of decorum here.
Too many people attempting to "hold themselves to a higher standard of decorum" is precisely what allowed the woke zealots to take over.
This comment doesn't sit right with me. Around the time that I left Montreal, DIE CIS SCUM was a popular slogan amongst trans people in the anarcho-punk scene.
Now, if you think it through, this amounts to an insistence that the human race should commit self-inflicted extinction, because trans people are incapable of reproducing on their own. But that's a subject for another day.
Now, what you're saying is DIE PEDO SCUM, which reminds me of the DIE CIS SCUM thing.
I don't like your comment, because you seem to be claiming a moral high ground that you don't deserve. You seem to be calling to initiatory violence against people guilty of thoughtcrime, and to think that doing so is righteous.
People who are operating from tribalism often think that violence against their political adversaries is righteous, which is why I find your comment troubling. Such people always think that the violence that they want done to their enemies is fundamentally different from violence that their enemies do to them.
To me, violence is a much bigger problem than sexual attraction.
Let's think this through.
The Oxford dictionary definition of pedophile is "a person who is sexually attracted to children".
It is often assumed to imply that that person has acted upon their desires, but that is not implicit in the word's definition. People often conflate pedophilia and pederasty, but the two are different, as Hunter S. Thompson pointed out.
The Oxford dictionary defines pederast as "a man who has sex with a boy".
What you are suggesting seems to be that initiatory violence against people for thoughtcrime is morally justifiable. I disagree, and I think that anyone who understands anarchist morality or natural law would have to agree with me. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The etymology of the word pedophile is not complicated. It means a person who loves children.
Pretty fucking weird that this society thinks that that's the worst thing that a person can be, isn't it?
Love serves the biological, and parents are genetically programmed by their DNA to love their children. So are people who don't have children of their own, for that matter. The survival of our species depends upon successful reproduction, therefore nature made it so that humans would have powerful motivation to care for their young. This is called love.
The conversation about the "grooming panic" leaves a lot to be desired, if you ask me. People are locked into an Us versus Them moral panic, and neither side is being honest.
I don't know if you've ever been to Canada, but a lot of native girls look 19 when they're 14. If you're attracted to them before you find out their age, do you stop being attracted to them afterwards? Okay there, bud. Sure you do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, you're not supposed to admit being sexually attracted to teenagers. That's why guys don't like it when their girlfriends creep their search history. But C'mon. Go on any porn site right now and search "teen", "schoolgirl", etc. Obviously a ton of guys are sexually attracted to teenagers. This is normal, because the primary biological function of sex is reproduction, and teenage girls are in the prime of their fertility by the time they hit 14 or 15.
Is the world ready to have a grown-up conversation about this? I don't know. A lot of women have a vested interest in protecting the status quo, because they don't want to compete with younger women for the limited supply of desirable men. Now that feminism is crumbling, it's anyone's guess what's on the other side of the paradigm shift that is well underway.
But anyway, Eugene, maybe you're different than the skeezy pervs who use the keyword "teen" when they're browsing for porn. I don't know you. Although I am a Discordian pope, meaning that I am infallible, I am only infallible about what goes on in my own nervous system.
Some guys claim to be asexual, and who am I to contradict them? I don't know what happens in their minds when their dicks get hard.
So let you ask you this: Are you attracted to teenagers?
If you said no, I don't believe you. According to physics, all matter in the universe is attracted to all other matter. I'm not big on science, but all physicists hold that to be a fact, so far as I'm aware, and this assertion is congruent with a shamanic perspective.
Ah, yes, sexual attraction is a type of attraction, I'll grant you that. To be clear, I'm not saying that means you're a pedophile.
Sexual attraction is a subset of attraction, true. But let's get one thing clear - it is normal to be attracted to children.
If we want to have an intelligent debate about the ethics of sexuality, we have to set the table. What can we all agree is normal sexual behaviour? What can the fields of physics, chemistry and biology? What's the hardest data we can find on the subject of sexual attraction?
These fields of science are more fundamental than psychology and sociology, which are "soft sciences", i.e. not science.
Science is fundamentally about measurement. It is a method data-driven empirical inquiry which seeks to disprove false beliefs.
The sensible thing to do in studying sexuality would be by beginning with the assumption that human beings hold some false beliefs about human sexuality and attempting to identify those false beliefs.
In fact, if you believe in the myths of science, it is physically impossible not to be attracted to children.
If you are a secular materialist, you might believe that sexual attraction is fundamentally different from other types of attraction. But how is it different? You might find that this question is harder to answer than you might think.
I am a pantheist who believes reality is imaginary, which makes the question a tricky one.
I basically believe that the universe exists because of the libido (life-wish) of the Creator. The life-force which animates the universe has a lot in common with sexual energy, which makes sense, given that the sexual energy is a manifestation of it.
If not for the libido of the Supreme Being, why does the universe exist? Because of an accident? Because a non-existent entity ejaculated into the Cosmic Womb in an explosion of energy known as the Big Bang? Okay there, bud. That's your creation story? You might want to have another go at that one.
To punish us for being naughty little angels? I don't think so.
If we're here to suffer, it's because through suffering comes knowledge.
I'm an optimist, though. I believe that reality can be whatever we want it to be.
Let's face it, teenagers like to fuck. Should they be allowed to decide who they fuck?
Guess what? They're gonna fuck. And some of them are going to make decisions that their parents don't approve of.
What should society do about it? I don't know. It depends on a lot of factors. But we're not going to be able to have a grown-up conversation about such things if we're in denial about the realities of biology.
This has gotten long, so let me wrap it up with a thought experiment.
Let's imagine that you wound up on a desert island, shipwrecked with a beautiful 17-year-old girl whose 18th birthday is in 3 months. Let's say that this girl is really, really into you and wants to fuck your brains out. Let's say that it's cold and night and you don't have blankets, so you cuddle together at night in your lean-to, thereby making the most of one another's body heat.
Let me ask you this:
1. Could you get it up with her?
If so, that means you're sexually attracted to her.
2. Are you considering waiting 3 months for her to turn 18?
If you're willing to fuck her after she turns 18, it means you want to fuck her.
If you answered these questions honestly, you just admitted to be sexually attracted to a minor. Unless you're gay or live in Canada, that is.
(The age of consent in Canada is 16. Until Harper, it was 14. I remember that anarcha-feminists protested that change, which goes to show you how much feminism has changed in the past 13 years. Can you imagine feminists standing up for the right of a 14-year old to fuck an adult now?)
Don't worry, though, Eugene, I don't think you're a pedophile, because I don't think a 17-year-old is a child.
The whole idea of adolescence is a relatively new idea. In traditional societies, people went directly from childhood to adulthood. Wrap your mind around that one.
I also don't think that you should be shot for being attracted to an imaginary person.
For the record, I assure you that there are plenty of pedophiles who do commit horrific crimes against children, and they deserve to pay for their crimes.
How an anarchist society would respond to such acts is one of the hard questions, and should not be neglected by anarchist theorists.
You can tell if someone's a true intellectual by gaging whether or not they're interested in the hard questions.
In some cases, the death penalty would probably be appropriate. In other cases, rehabilitative measures might be more appropriate responses.
In general, the punishment should meet the crime, which is why overly proscriptive "one-size-fits-all" solutions are stupid.
I fail to see how sexual crimes need to be treated differently from other crimes, though.
Anarchists are opposed to forcing people to do things they don't want to do. We're also opposed to coercion and exploitation.
The assertion that I am making is that all ethics should stem from a solid understanding of natural law.
To those of you who do understand anarchist morality and natural law, I ask the following question: Are special sexual taboos necessary?
It seems to me that natural law provides us all the guidance we need. Don't force your will on another person, and don't mislead them to get what you want.
As far as how much freedom children should have, well that's a tricky question. If you can't provide for yourself, you gotta play by the rules of the people providing for you. That's just life. Should parents have the right to tell their children what to do? Yes, of course, but children also have the right to rebel.
Even in the case of parental authority, which is the most legitimate type of authority that exists, there is push and pull. Children are political animals too.
If you're wondering why I've thought about this so much, it's because I'm 35 and my girlfriend is 21.
I recently moved to her community, and I was pretty scared that her family wouldn't accept me.
Want to know more? You can read about my story here:
https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/128653452?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts
So I recently had a good reason to ponder the ethics and morality of age differences in intimate relationships.
I ultimately concluded what I always conclude - natural law is the only framework for understanding ethics that makes logical sense.
In other words, anarchism is right, and all forms of statism are morally wrong.
If any statists out there think that I give a fuck about their fucked-up "moral" arguments, I can assure you that you are mistaken.
Statists suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, and their opinions about morality and ethics should be taken with a grain of salt. Intellectually, they are children, and morally, they are developmentally challenged.
So if any statists want to wag their fingers at me, let me assure you up front that I don't give a fuck what you think. You believe that people should be brainwashed from a young age in mandatory indoctrination programs to make them believe that it is morally right for the people with the greatest capacity for inflicting violence should be in charge. You think I'm going to let myself be lectured by you? Nope.
If any anarchists have critiques of my analysis, I'm all ears. Obviously, it's very taboo to say the things I'm saying, and I welcome criticism. I know that I can be pretty bombastic with my foes, but I assure you that I will respond respectfully to those of you who disagree with my position. This is a serious matter. Chances are that the only people who will respond in good faith are the people who are interested in the hard questions of ethics and morality, which is to say true intellectuals. Anyone willing to engage in good faith on this question has my respect.
Lastly, I'll say that in order to have this debate, we need the perspectives of teenagers.
I used to be involved with a group called Psychiatric Survivors of Ottawa, and in the psychiatric survivor movement, we have a saying: "Nothing For Us Without Us".
It is infuriating that the perspectives of schizophrenics are not taken seriously by psychiatry, because there is no one that understands schizophrenia like schizophrenics.
Want to guess how many times I've been invited to lecture on the subject of schizophrenia?
Zero.
At the end of the day, psychiatrists don't want to understand schizophrenia, because doing so would require them to update their operating system, and they don't want to do that, because they're scared of insanity, which is the reason that most of them started studying psychiatry in the first place. But I digress.
I think that the slogan "Nothing For Us Without Us" should apply to teenagers too. Let's not speak for teenagers. They can speak for themselves. They are as capable of moral reasoning as older folks are, if not more so.
> I think that the slogan "Nothing For Us Without Us" should apply to teenagers too. Let's not speak for teenagers. They can speak for themselves. They are as capable of moral reasoning as older folks are, if not more so.
The whole history of the 20th century shows that this is false, and the kind of disasters the follow when society treats the beliefs of teenagers as carrying equal weight to those of elders.
I'm not sure I follow you. Could you please elaborate?
You seem to be (intentionally) equating attraction to teen girls with attraction to pre-pubescent boys, when these are not remotely equivalent.
> Now, if you think it through, this amounts to an insistence that the human race should commit self-inflicted extinction, because trans people are incapable of reproducing on their own. But that's a subject for another day.
> Now, what you're saying is DIE PEDO SCUM, which reminds me of the DIE CIS SCUM thing.
Except non-pedos are capable of reproducing on their own.
> The Oxford dictionary definition of pedophile is "a person who is sexually attracted to children".
> The Oxford dictionary defines pederast as "a man who has sex with a boy".
That's not how the terms are used in practice and I'm not interested in pointless semantic arguments.
Fair enough. I think I know what you meant. There are certainly many sex offenders who deserve to die, and I wouldn't shed any tears for if someone started murdering the members of the RCMP sex trafficking ring in Prince George, for instance.
You are certainly correct that I am interested in semantic arguments.I actually am reading a textbook on General Semantics right now (Selections from Science and Sanity by Alfred Koryzybski).
Um, isn't the whole point of General Semantics to recognize that the map is not the territory and thus avoid semantic arguments?
Masterbaters into the vax. The preemptive attacking to halt speech is akin to the neocon preemptive strike to destroy anyone who challenges whatever they want to do. I suspect these types are going to make enclaves of sexuality eventually. Its much more all over on the West coast with open naked sexuality. They are probably ahead of where Montreal is now but what a fucking bunch of assholes that only think about being assholes. That's a pitiful life!
Thanks NM. Good post.