By Rafael Collado
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
I am a radical Leftist. I don't and never have deemed Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos serious enough to analyze or contest any of his macabre oeuvre. However, there is something completely unrelated to politics that the general public might be missing on both sides of the spectrum.Rethinking the Yiannopoulos thing after I have seen both of the videos, I must reaffirm something I said earlier in another thread. I have no intention of defending Milo Yiannopoulos, although there is a moral argument somewhere for doing it, I'm just not that nice of a person.
Pedophilia and child sexual abuse are very morally complex issues, and most people don't understand the intricacies, or do not want to. First of all, pedophile is not synonymous with child molester. It's hard to know how many, because it's probably the worst thing ever to admit, but there is a big number of pedophiles who do not abuse children, and they live very conflicted, miserable lives. A lot of them commit suicide, or are severely depressed.
Sadly, all indications point out to pedophilia being basically a sexual orientation; their brains are structurally different from that of a normal person. As you can imagine, it must be an absolute hell to be a moral person and live with that. So, not all pedophiles abuse children, not all child molesters are pedophiles (they're just sociopaths), and almost 100 percent of the pedophiles who do abuse children have been victims of abuse themselves.
This is what Yiannopoulos revealed about himself without knowing it, and I think this gives you a better understanding of the man as a whole. What I see here is a guy who was molested (at 13 and 16, he says), but hasn't really assimilated what happened to him as abuse.
This is what Yiannopoulos revealed about himself without knowing it, and I think this gives you a better understanding of the man as a whole. What I see here is a guy who was molested (at 13 and 16, he says), but hasn't really assimilated what happened to him as abuse.
By being so open about his views on the issue, without intending to, he revealed that he does not understand that he was a victim of child molestation. I just can't imagine him talking about it so openly if he understood the implications of what happened to him. What I'm seeing is a guy who wrongly internalized his own abuse, and is now being massively confronted with the fact that it is NOT normal, and it is NOT ok.
Do you understand that we are very publicly watching a man reevaluating his experience, and possibly figuring out for the first time that he was raped, and he is a victim? This debacle has turned into a completely different thing now, and nobody has realized it.
He insisted on the interview that he was very sexually mature and that it was him doing the chasing, which is probably a coping mechanism, but if he was indeed sexual at 13, it reveals a big possibility that he might have been abused even earlier in life.
I am not defending him, and his comments are undoubtedly wrong. What I'm saying is that it didn't really seem to understand to what extent he was wrong, and his mind has been contorted by the gymnastics it needs to do to avoid facing the fact that he himself was a victim of pedophiles. My point is that it is far more complex than, "he says sex with teenagers is ok!!"
We are watching a man who already doesn't like himself much, considering that, as an openly gay man, who is also an allegedly devout Catholic, he still thinks homosexuality is a sin. He insists he chose to be gay, and his existence is faulty. And now, this man's own personal narrative that he built for himself is crumbling in front of the whole world.
It's fucked up. I mean, it's sad, it's confusing, and its full understanding is kind of out of the reach of most people. Nobody wins here. I get no satisfaction from watching this unfold, and I can't even allow myself to have compassion for him.
This is not a call from compassion, but for objectivity.
Do you understand that we are very publicly watching a man reevaluating his experience, and possibly figuring out for the first time that he was raped, and he is a victim? This debacle has turned into a completely different thing now, and nobody has realized it.
He insisted on the interview that he was very sexually mature and that it was him doing the chasing, which is probably a coping mechanism, but if he was indeed sexual at 13, it reveals a big possibility that he might have been abused even earlier in life.
I am not defending him, and his comments are undoubtedly wrong. What I'm saying is that it didn't really seem to understand to what extent he was wrong, and his mind has been contorted by the gymnastics it needs to do to avoid facing the fact that he himself was a victim of pedophiles. My point is that it is far more complex than, "he says sex with teenagers is ok!!"
We are watching a man who already doesn't like himself much, considering that, as an openly gay man, who is also an allegedly devout Catholic, he still thinks homosexuality is a sin. He insists he chose to be gay, and his existence is faulty. And now, this man's own personal narrative that he built for himself is crumbling in front of the whole world.
It's fucked up. I mean, it's sad, it's confusing, and its full understanding is kind of out of the reach of most people. Nobody wins here. I get no satisfaction from watching this unfold, and I can't even allow myself to have compassion for him.
This is not a call from compassion, but for objectivity.