John Walsh/Foley/Gays & Gay Bashing

Great Debates
1

I was quite disturbed by watching John Walsh describe Foley as a pedophile. The youngest person Foley is known to hit upon was 15 years old.

Lets look at what the pages think about Foley

The first thing to take note of is that 18 is not to old for Foley. It is quite clear that he does take an interest in post pubescent young men.

The second thing I notice is that all the pages were made aware of his interest from the gitgo. These kids aren’t victims. They are not alone as prey. They had each other and the power to take him down if they wanted to but preferred not to during their time as pages.

What strikes me is that I can so identify with these kids. In my teenage years in the small town of Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, there was a wealthy eye doctor by the name of Dr Mitchell, a community benefactor to the Shaw Festival who was well known by all the teenage boys for being a queer. He hit on a lot of us. He hit on me when I was 14 or 15. To this day I do not know if the adults were aware but all us kids knew, he was a middle aged bachelor, talked “queer” and defined the concept of homosexuality for us. None of us kids that I know of, felt like victims. We reported these incidents to each other.

When I began to hear of gay bashing in general, it is these incidents which I perceived as the reason for a few hotheaded guys who felt the need for retribution.

So lets get a sense of right and wrong here. Teenage girls get hit on all the time by older men. Young is preferred for a sexual object, hence the multi billion dollar industry for the maintenance of youth. Outside the realm of sexual harrassment, there are no penalties where no physical contact has occurred.

So why should that be any different for homosexual hitting?

Foley is not a pedophile. He is however very guilty of sexual harrassment in the work place. I think we need to keep the perspective in mind.

2

I agree. There should not be a separate demonization because he’s gay, and as far as I can see, he’s not a pedophile. He’s a hypocrite and an asshole, but I’m not seeing him as the predatory monster they’re making him out to be. What he did was wrong, for sure, but the villagers need to set down the torches for a minute and put it into perspective. I saw women practically frothing at the mouth on tv mischaracterizing the whole thing.

But here’s another thing I’m pissed off about. What is the point of his declaring that he was molested by clergy when he was 13? It appears he’s trying to garner sympathy by pointing a finger at the crimes of the catholic church and thereby deflecting responsibility away from himself. Yes…yes…I know the molested frequently grow up to be molestors themselves. But as far as I can tell, isn’t he cruising for willing partners? Isn’t that quite a bit different?

3

I raised the same concern in the other Foley thread. What is he trying to say by making this confession about his past? Does he think being abused by a priest made him gay? Does he think it made him overly attracted to teens? Does he think it led to him becoming a sex addict? There was nothing to be gained, that I can see, by him coming out with this confession, because it will only make people associate his actions with psychologically deviant behavior. He certainly isn’t helping to disabuse us of the idea that he’s not a sexual predator.

4

Its about sexual harrasment. That has no age limit.

5

Um, since a Dr Mitchell is still remembered in that neck of the woods (this B&B dedicated a suite to him) perhaps you’ll want the mods to edit your post, removing names and all.

6

I think Dead Badger’s take in the Pit Thread is instructive. The last thing you want to do in the current environment (on either side of the political asile) is start tyring to define what is, and is not, pedophilia in the gray zone below 18 years old.

7

But I think the OP is saying that John Walsh, of all people, should know the difference. I seriously doubt that if a straight man were hitting on 16 year-old-girls, that we’d hear so much about pedophilia from folks. Too many people think that gay = pedophile, so those of us who know better shouldn’t feed that ignorance.

8

No, but at least now he has an “excuse”. And it’s probably much more comforting for a number of right-wingers to be assuaged by the news that he wasn’t “originally” that way but got turned by something tragic and awful that also positions him as a victim. One is an indication of character, but the other allows him to shed some responsibility by providing a motivation for his “lack of control”.

9

So what do you call a straight fifty-something man who solicits underaged girls (aside from “creep”)? “Pedophile” is still the best term for the job, IMO; quibbling over at what under-18 age makes it less creepy is a semantic exercise.

Sure, but that’s a different kettle of fish. The only people drawing “gay = pedophile” in this Foley mess are the conservatives using it as an excuse to attack homosexuals.

10

Oh my !

I always knew he was a good doctor because he owned one of the wealthiest mansions in town. He had a full time butler and maid as well. But that was 40 years ago

I have no problem with outing him. Maybe I should have done that forty years ago. At the time I didn’t think it was a big deal.

11

Last I heard, being creepy isn’t a crime. “Oh, don’t worry about him, he’s just a dirty old man.”

Pedophiles are scary and dangerous. They create victims. Ephebophiles are, well creepy. And there must be way more ephebophiles in our society than pedophiles, and if you double the amount of jail space in America, you won’t be able to hold them all. Besides, in a lot of other societies, once a child hits pubescence, they are fair game for at least marriage or prostitution. Pedophilia has never been acceptable in any human society.

12

Works for me if you’re comfortable with it and he’s dead.

13

I disagree. I think it goes beyond that and I would say he is a pedophile. He is attracted to children. It’s not just a physical attraction because at 16 there is substantial developement. Anyone can look at a teenager and acknowledge a fully devolped body but from a mental standpoint there should be no attraction.

14

I call them a creep and, possibly, a criminal. I do not call them pedophiles because they are not pedophiles. It’s really that simple. It’s a terrible term for the job because it’s incorrect. I’m not sure why anyone would advocate for using it in this instance unless that person wants deliberately to make the action seem worse than it is.

15

Simply because it’s understood by the majority of people out there. “Pedophile” may not be technically accurate, but I’d wager 99% of those out there familiar with the term have no idea what an ephebophile is, and by using “pedophile” you’re capturing the spirit of the accusation (“sexually attracted to underage individuals”) even if it’s not correct on a clinical level.

Of course, it does make him sound worse, but than you’re putting the responsibility of semantic distinctions on the other side–and sophistry is a losing strategy when it comes to a “Kids = Victims” scenario.

16

Here’s the thing.

I don’t know that it’s even sexual harassment in the work place if the MO is to limit the actual seduction until after they leave. Which is what I have gathered to date. It’s a summer job, after all, he doesn’t have to wait that long. I suppose an argument could be made for “hostile environment” harassment.

And I agree with you, the pedophile argument is a stretch based on what I have seen to date anyway. The Feds may get somewhere with charges, an enterprising prosecutor may also get somewhere. Who knows.

And I think the gay angle is just a lot of foolishness. Though it is compelling and dangerous foolishness in a time and place where people do think gay men are more likely to chase after young men than straight men are to chase after young girls. Nobody ever accused a straight guy of “recruiting” girls.

But besides all that. He likes young stuff. This is hardly a trait reserved to people of one sexual orientation or another.

What bothers me is this: access to teenaged temporary employees as your dating pool is not supposed to be one of the automatic perks of power. Other people in power are not supposed to act to protect that perk as long as you don’t actually break any laws while doing it.

Not since the Borgias in any event. I disagree with you rather strongly that the pages were not without power. Sure they could have reported it, but it seems rather an exercise in futility when everybody already knows.

In your life, none of you felt like victims; but none of you believed that your future job prospects and political future depended upon your creepy doctor either. People who work as pages are future politicians. They don’t go there becasue they so love to run errands and DC seemed a nice place to do it. It is a highly competitive job and not one you just sort of pick up because you applied for it out of the blue. They also tend to be from families who are members of the party faithful.

By being warned from the git-go, they were also being told that it was okay, that it was normal, that it was not a problem. If they thought it was a problem, then that was a purely personal matter which they would have to deal with personally. Everybody else handled it, right?

We are not talking about a guy attracted to young stuff in general who had a relationship or two, as I understand it. I have no personal opposition to a May/December romance. But my opinion is no doubt colored by the fact that as I read the exchanges, at least one kid was desperately trying to put him off but playing along. Why? Could it be because of power? He could always hang up or cut off contact; but maintaining contact is important to anybody who has gotten far enough to want to be a page. For future jobs and in-party contacts and so on.

And I know it isn’t popular in this day and age but you know what? I don’t know that I want that to be okay. Swapping sexy IMs for access to power is something I would not especially like for my child to be engaged in; thinking that was just how things are done is also not something I would prefer they be engaged in.

And deciding that this is really okay as long as nobody outside the beltway finds out is most decidedly not something I care to have my nation engaged in.

17

Why do we have at “call it” anything? I don’t object so much to ignorant people using the term, but I see no reason why those of us who do know the difference should cater to that ignorance and use it in a way that we know to be incorerct. And John Walsh is surely one of those people. That’s all.

18

Political shorthand, I suspect. It’s easier to be reductive (“cut & run”, “tax & spend”, etc.) than to be accurate. It inflames the emotions and cuts to the heart of your message (though not to the heart of the matter).

19

Seems like most of the news outlets are using the term “sexual predator”. That seems to work quite well.

20

For whom? Hell, I can’t count how many Saturday nights I’ve totally struck…oh. Well, be ok long as I don’t hit the