The Pedophile Problem Won't Go Away

Back in the day -- and that was actually pretty recently -- we were told that same-sex attraction and pedophilia were two different things. As of 2010, for instance, there was finger-wagging at the Vatican Secretary of State:

The sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church took yet another turn this week when statements by the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, second only to Pope Benedict, linked pedophilia to homosexuality.

Bertone said: "Many psychologists, many psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and pedophilia, but many others have demonstrated that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia."

. . . Other church and lay leaders similarly have called the remarks outrageous and ill-informed. While en route to the United States in 2008, Pope Benedict said he considered homosexuality and pedophilia to be separate matters. So why would Cardinal Bertone make his statements? And what is the real truth behind any association of pedophilia and homosexuality?

The piece concludes,

To link homosexuality and pedophilia (or ephebophilia) is obviously erroneous, uninformed and irresponsible. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation. Pedophilia and ephebophilia are sexual disorders that afflict both heterosexuals and homosexuals, and mostly heterosexuals.

Much more recently, I nevertheless read remarks by a Catholic bishop who pointed out that, first, all Catholic priests are male, and second, of child victims of abuse by priests, the overwhelming majority have been boys. (I've been looking for this, but haven't been able to find the exact quote. If anyone knows where it is, please let me know!) Nevertheless, even without a citation, this at least appears to match the anecdotal record.

The issue, thought to have been fully resolved at least within respectable opinion, has reemerged in the context of drag queen story hours, other prominent gays posting on Twiter, and Elon Musk. Alex Berenson on Substack, up to now a high-profile Musk supporter, has had to do a quick 180 in the wake of l'affaire Yoel Roth:

Musk has targeted Roth in a very dangerous way. For the last several days, Musk has repeatedly said that old Twitter didn’t do enough to end child pornography and sexual exploitation.

. . . [I]n the last 48 hours, he has helped cheerlead a campaign against Yoel Roth. The campaign has highlighted old and off-color tweets Roth made, as well as Roth’s University of Pennsylvania PhD thesis about Grindr, a gay sex and dating app.

. . . Musk’s fit this weekend has endangered Yoel Roth. If he has evidence that Roth or other Twitter employees supported child sexual abuse on Twitter, he should take it to an agency qualified to investigate. If not, he needs to leave Roth alone and stop inflaming passions around this issue before someone gets seriously hurt.

If blood flows, it will be on Elon Musk’s hands.

Berenson's argument here, as best I can parse it out, relies on premises he doesn't directly state. The first is the currently respectable view that same-sex attraction and pedophilia are two different things. However, unreconstructed opinion in places like the Vatican continues to link them, without foundation. This in turn encourages deplorables to commit violent acts against people who are same-sex attracted, or something like that. Thus, Elon Musk is inciting violence against Yoel Roth in particular and gays in general. When the next mass shooting at a gay club takes place, the blood will be on his hands, even though the motivation of such shooters has so far always turned out to be deeply ambivalent, and they haven't come out as conventionally deplorable.

But this is now the line:

Former Twitter “Truth and Safety” honcho, Yoel Roth, has allegedly fled his home in fear for his safety.

The problem continues to be that the public statements of figures like Roth, who is now portrayed as unfairly demonized and completely misunderstood, nevertheless indicate a sympathy for pedophilia, and even a leaning in that direction. On Monday, for instance, I linked a Tweet where he said, "I'm persistently freaked out by the youth-centric direction my research interests are headed in, given I, you know, hate children." Or the tweet he approvingly quoted, "Musclebear with beard: hot. Musclebear with beard holding a child: inexplicably hotter."

In another tweet, he said, "I enjoy having the kinds of meetings where googling 'gay bareback porn' is considered academic work." This strongly suggests that "research interests" in the tweet above is an arch reference to porn. But that's a problem in itself.

Berenson's complaint is basically that nobody's caught Roth in flagrante with a 12-year-old, or if they have, they should report it, not make idle accusations. But nobody needs to be caught in flagrante with a 12-year-old to go to federal prison.

Section 2256 of Title 18, United States Code, defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age). . . . Additionally, federal jurisdiction almost always applies when the Internet is used to commit a child pornography violation.

Just the tweets from Roth above, although these aren't unique, indicate at minimum a deep sympathy with people who view child pornography, as well as a definite leaning in that direction on his part. That he should ever have been "Trust & Safety Head" at Twitter is clearly problematic, and a decision, however hasty or poorly thought through, to fire the guy or accept his resignation should not have been controversial. In addition,

I haven’t been able to find any examples of evidence of direct communications with Roth that included threats, but such messages are never appropriate. Plenty of people have been complaining about Roth online (ironically on Twitter), but that’s hardly the same thing as death threats or bomb threats.

And this leaves aside an even more recent linking of same-sex attraction with pedophilia, the drag queens who went to the White House for the signing of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act:

Among those who attended the White House's ceremony for the signing of the legislation codifying same-sex marriage were two drag queens, one of whom once tweeted: 'The kids are out to sing and suck d!'

Another performed for a group of kids in a church in New York in August where 'social pressure' was put on students of Grace School to enjoy the show.

What do drag queens have to do with marriage, gay or straight? They weren't there to promote any form of marriage; they were there as "non-binary" people to normalize pedophilia. The same-sex pedophilia problem isn't going away.