The words and the sentiments have come up before on the boards, but they’re getting on my nerves again.
The blogs and other web pages and various parent-activists are raising hell over people who are turned on by these pics of Daniel Radcliffe and his nude appearance onstage to begin with. Personally I think that Radcliffe’s whole purpose in doing the play (because he certainly doesn’t need the money) is the donning of his manly gowns by shirking his drawers, but whatever the case- it’s not pedophilia to say “The boy’s hot”.
Now personally I don’t think Daniel is that hot other than in the way young men without blemish and with nice tone are hot. I’m more attracted to guys who have a few more years between them and the First Pube and to guys who have a little more meat on their bones (i.e. not so much about the twinks), BUT I don’t think anybody who IS attracted to him is sick. Now, that’s attracted to, not planning on making a pass at.
I think that Mark Foley was a creepy old bastard who deserved to be exposed. It has relatively little to do with the fact he thought some 16 and 17 year olds were attractive, it has everything to do with the fact he acted on said attraction. In addition to being highly inappropriate to trying to shag someone who’s not even old enough to vote, it was sexual harassment and otherwise an abuse of power. It doesn’t make Foley a pedophile (a word that was tossed around constantly at the time) and whether it makes him an ephebophile or not depends largely on the 16/17 year old’s physical maturity.
There are some 16 and 17 year olds who are hot- that’s just a fact. Britney Spears was turning more than a few way-way-older-than-she-was male heads at that age, so was Lindsay Lohan, etc… There’s not a city in America- not even in the most Mormon spot in Utah or the most conservative Catholic neighborhood of New Orleans- where a good percentage of the 16 and 17 year olds aren’t sexually active. There’s not a city in America where there haven’t been marriages between men twice that age or better and said teenaged girls. (James Doohan of STAR TREK comes to mind- he married his last wife when he was in his mid 50s and she was 17.) Both gay and straight porn feature copious titles and studios that openly exploit the “barely legal” status of their performers (the legal age for porn being 18). GIRLS GONE WILD certainly doesn’t tend to go after the Sex in the City thirty year old professional type wild gals and the guy who produces the videos is a millionaire many times over.
Now personally I consider 17 years old WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too young to date or even shag even if it is consentual and in a place where that is past the age of consent. Personally I would not date a 20 year old. (A couple of years ago I had a fling with a 21 year old and felt tremendous guilt by it even though he was the agressor and he was brilliant and very mature, and the relationship ended because I couldn’t take the age difference.) I would be extremely upset if any friends my age or even significantly younger (I’m 40) were to date an 18 year old. BUT, lookin’s another thing entirely.
What irritates me is people who condemn Mark Foley or the “Damn, Harry Potter guy is fine!” folks as “pedophiles” is that they clearly don’t know what the term means. When the Foley scandal was the big topic even John Walsh, a man who’s son was abducted and murdered by a pedophile, was using the term towards a man who, while most certainly a shitbag who deserved censure, was not one. Walsh also, as did many other columnists and pundits, added a Seinfeld “not that there’s anything wrong with that” twist with “Now I want to make it clear that I’m not saying gay men are more likely to be pedophiles or that the fact Foley was attracted to boys was because he’s gay. He’s the exception”.
Alright, Foley was attracted to post-pubescant boys. That makes him either an ephebophile or a creep, dependent upon how post-pubescant they were. In the first place he’s not a pedophile. In the second place, FUCK YES IT MOST CERTAINLY IS RELEVANT THAT FOLEY’S GAY, because if he were straight he’d probably have the same self-destructive hang-up about 16 year old girls.
It is not uncommon for a pedophile to be completely heterosexual in his adult sexual orientation but focused upon (in the recent case of Devlin) 11 year old boys in their pedophilic sex drive. (I’ve no idea if Devlin was gay or straight in adult sexual encounters.) Some pedophiles are homosexual in their adult sex drives and probably constitute about the same precent of pedophiles as they do most of the rest of the population (a single digit percentage); I’ve no idea if there are “gay in adult drive” pedophiles who molest girls but it wouldn’t terribly surprise me and it’s almost irrelevant.
Ephebophiles- people who are attracted to adolescent or pubescant or immediately post-pubescant youths, are almost invariably attracted to the same gender of youth as the gender of adults they’re attracted to. It’s a different critter of sexual aberration; it’s still a perversion, it’s still a pathology even, but it is very definitely linked to adult sexual orientation. Gay ephebophiles (many of th priests involved in scandals, possibly Mark Foley) will be attracted to adolescent boys, straight ephebophiles (Juan Peron, Charlie Chaplin) will be attracted to adolescent girls.
When it comes to sexually mature (and that’s very important qualification- sexually mature, not emotionally mature) youths, it’s neither ephebophilia or pedophilia but just flat out garden variety “whatever your regular orientation is” horniness that’s the governor. You’re probably more unusual if you DON’T occasionally notice 17 year old hotties than if you do (particularly the closer you are to 17), it’s only when you ACT upon the attraction that it makes you irresponsible or vile. (And even that is cultural; we’ve reached a point in civilization where it’s far more reasonable for a grown man to date/marry a 20 something woman than a teenager, though for most of history it was not the least unusual for 30 year old men to marry women half their age.)
Anyway, this is disjointed and pointless, but the complete ignorance people seem to have on what constitutes a pedophile and what’s appropriate bugs the shit out of me. OF COURSE ADULTS ARE ATTRACTED TO ATTRACTIVE NEKKID TEENAGERS! WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE! IT’S ON OUR [no pun intended] HARD DRIVE! IT’S NOT A PERVERSION AND TRUTH BE KNOWN THOSE WHO ARE GETTING SO WORKED UP OVER IT ARE PROBABLY WANKING LIKE MONKEYS ON ECSTACY WHEN THE DOOR CLOSES!
And people like Larry King, John Walsh, etc., don’t do gays any favors by repeating total bullshit about how his sexuality has nothing to do with going after young guys. OF COURSE IT DOES. It’s quite alright to say “That closeted middle aged gay Congressman is a slimeball piece of shit for going after teenagers”- it makes you closeted-middle-aged-Congressman-slimeball-piece-of-shit-ophobic, not homophobic, but more importantly it makes you “correct”.
[Mr. Cellophane]Hope I haven’t taken up too much of your time.[/Mr. Cellophane]
