Because, since apparently nobody else is willing to do it, it falls to me to defend Milo Yiannopoulos. After years of gleefully dismantling the shibboleths of political correctness and getting away with it, Milo has finally gone too far; in a podcast appearance recently, he had the audacity to poke at the taboos surrounding pedophilia, which was, to be sure, a very poorly thought out decision. Milo, of course, is used to having the correct identity cards to say outrageous things and get away with it; in this case, he probably should have considered that the homosexuality card is a positive detriment, as homosexuality and pedophilia have been linked in the popular imagination for so long that a prominent homosexual playfully discussing pedophilia pushes all the wrong buttons with the conservative crowd. That is the politically correct line you do not want to cross.
Yet cross it he did, and the reaction was swift and fierce: his CPAC speech was canceled, his book deal was withdrawn, and he was resignated at Breitbart. Milo is sufficiently energetic and sufficiently entrepreneurial that I suspect he’ll survive it, but he’s lost a lot of cachet over this, to the point where even his friends seem to be distancing themselves from him. Since I’m already a pariah, though, I don’t fear the hornets’ nest; I’ll dive right in there!
I suppose I need to make this concession immediately, offensive though it is to the sensibilities: no, I am not "pro-pedophilia." This is, of course, a trait I share with Milo Yiannopoulos, who said so in as many words in the very interview that got him in trouble.
You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty… That’s not what we are talking about. You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you are saying I’m defending it because I’m certainly not.
Okay. Let’s start at the beginning: what about Milo’s definition? Is it accurate? Merriam-Webster tells us that pedophilia is
sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object; specifically : a psychological disorder in which an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child
I am compelled to disagree with Milo here. While Merriam-Webster certainly emphasizes the case of a prepubescent child, it also clearly leaves room open for post-pubescent children to be covered by its definition as well. In case you think I’m playing tricky dickens here, Merriam-Webster was actually the only outfit I could find that made any concession in his direction at all; every other source merely says some variant on "a person who is sexually attracted to children." So the balance of the evidence indicates that Milo is incorrect in his definition of "pedophilia." That, however, is not much of a crime.
The real scandal — breathlessly reported by people who couldn’t wait to destroy Milo Yiannopoulos — is that bit where he says "somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature." This has been seized upon as evidence that Milo favors grown men having sex with thirteen-year-olds. Yet I am hard pressed to find any such connection; Milo is merely saying that sex with a thirteen-year-old who has gone through puberty is not pedophilia. He is not making any statement about whether it’s right or wrong.
If you think I’m splitting hairs, this is exactly the same argument I’ve been having with people over software piracy for twenty-some-odd years now. "Piracy is theft," they senselessly bark at me, to which I reply "no, whatever software piracy is, it is clearly not theft," which is, legally speaking, "the dishonest taking of property belonging to another person with the intention of depriving the owner permanently of its possession." I am not saying that software piracy is therefore necessarily a right and proper act; maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. My statement leaves that wholly unexplored. I am stating merely that it is not the specific crime of theft. Milo, above, was making a statement of exactly the same type, which becomes clear if you pay attention to the fact that he also said "the law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age."
Milo’s point, and it was not articulated clearly, is that a one-size-fits-all, governmentally-decreed age of consent is, quite by definition, purely arbitrary. Would anyone like to dispute this? Does anybody wish to go to the barricades over the idea that something magical happens when we turn eighteen? The day before we were totally incapable of consenting to sex, and then — hey presto! — we are transformed? Shall we forget that, in 1984, the age at which one could legally drink was arbitrarily moved to 21? Did a fundamental sea change in human nature occur in 1984?
Clearly not. Both the old and the new limit were arbitrarily decreed by faceless bureaucrats. So too with the voting age (changed in 1971). Was it scandalous that anybody would so much as question those sacred governmental edicts? Should those holy numbers have remained unconsidered and unthoughtof forevermore?
I am willing to bet that absolutely nobody reading this will deny that a six-month-old baby is incapable of consenting to sexual activity. Similarly, I am willing to bet that nobody will deny that a thirty-year-old man is so capable. Obviously, somewhere in the middle, there’s a crossover point. Where is it? This is, of course, a continuum, and admits to no actual solution — there is no specific, non-arbitrary point we could choose. This becomes a problem, of course, when one has a government setting public policy for hundreds of millions of people; if we’re going to have a law that says "thou shalt not have sex with children," we really really need to have a concrete definition of "children" or there’s a pretty substantial miscarriage of justice taking place. Since the only possible definition is an arbitrary definition, it follows that there will be such an arbitrary rule.
This is the gist of Milo’s point, and he’s not wrong; the government’s age of consent is arbitrary. Some people below the line will be ready, and some people above the line will not. Of course, Milo being Milo, he didn’t make a clear and rational philosophical argument; he put on his nutty homo schtick, turned the "controversy" dial up to eleven, and went to town, which is what Milo always does. He is guilty of badly misreading his audience, but, clearly he is not guilty of what he’s actually being charged with: attempting to "normalize" grown men having sex with thirteen-year-old children.
Also, can we please stop using the word "normalize" as a transitive verb? Bureaucraspeak at its absolute ugliest.