"Suppose Mark Foley had been caught having sex with a dog. And it was a male dog, so he announced, 'Yes, I'm gay.' Would people go, 'Oh, well that figures?' No! They'd go 'What the hell does that have to do with it? You were fucking a dog!' And that's really what should be happening here."
That is paraphrased, but it came from a conversation I had with a psychologist friend of mine last week. We were discussing, yes, Rep. Foley, because it's what the whole country is discussing (certainly what they were discussing last week, anyway), and we happen to live in Washington D.C.
"So there seems to be an awful lot of 'Well, what do you expect? He's gay.' Coming from the real wackjobs," I said. "Which seems ridiculous, unless every gay person I know is secretly a child molester, and that's just bullshit. Something like 95 percent of child molesters are men who molest girls, right?"
"More like 90, but it's even more bullshit than you think," said the Doc. "Not only is there no connection between being gay and being a pedophile, but actually there's no such thing as a gay pedophile. There's no such thing as a straight pedophile either. You're either gay or you're a pedophile. You're not both."
"Huh? I don't understand."
"It's like this," the Doc said. "See, heterosexuality and homosexuality are what we call 'mature sexualities.' This stuff doesn't really become latent until puberty, but when it does it's assumed that people are looking for partners with the same physical maturity level. So mature sexuality means not just that the people are physically mature, but that they're seeking partners who are physically mature. Okay?"
"Okay," I said.
"And so whether you're heterosexual or homosexual, you're looking for someone on your level. You're attracted to sexual maturity, whether it's strictly your age or not."
"Aha," I said. "But is Foley a pervert, then? Sixteen is post-puberty, most of the time."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Katie McNeill
I really enjoyed this, I thought it was very funny.
2 - Bliffle
Good article. Very convincing. Should put to rest attempts of various republican apologists, like our own Dave Nalle for example, who are attempting to divert attention from Foleys pedophiliac crimes into a criticism of gays in general.
3 - Dan
"Like, I'm discriminating because I'm attracted to brunettes more than blondes?"
Or penis' more than vagina's apparantly in Foley's case.
4 - Jet in Columbus
But what if I'm 51 and I'm attracted to 26-year-old surfer dudes with long blond hair and muscles out to there?
5 - Dan
Then you're just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill, gay guy?
6 - Jet in Columbus
Ohhhh... well... thank god!
7 - Michael J. West
Thanks Katie...and if you think the article was very funny, you should read comments 4-6. I woke my fiancee up from laughing!
8 - Michael J. West
Bliffle, I'm not sure this article actually contradicts Nalle's, but you know what? I'm going to leave that to the two of you.
9 - Clavos
Good article. Very convincing. Should put to rest attempts of various republican apologists, like our own Dave Nalle for example, who are attempting to divert attention from Foleys pedophiliac crimes into a criticism of gays in general.
Um, Bliffle. Can you cite any statement Nalle's made that criticizes gays?
10 - Michael J. West
Damn, Clavos. At first I thought you were calling my article "good" and "very convincing," too. You tease.
11 - Clavos
Sorry, MJW. Actually, it IS a good article, and I learned from it.
But, while I've got your attention, a quick question (and maybe I missed it in the article):
I understand the premise that a pedophile is a pedophile (say THAT three times fast!); what do you call a male pedophile who only likes boys?
Or a female who only goes for girls?
12 - Michael J. West
It is in the article, but that's okay.
You call them a discriminating pedophile. It's almost, but not quite, a matter of taste rather than sexual orientation.
13 - Clavos
Oops, sorry Michael--I should learn to be more discriminating.
Or maybe just learn to read...
14 - Michael J. West
No worries, Clavos. I'm not at the top of my game till lunchtime, either.
15 - Anna Creech
Thanks, Michael! This is an informative and timely article.
16 - bumpy187
does it matter wether you want a 16 yearold or a 38 year old of the same sex? What is the cutoff between pedophile and queer? This guy is gay as hell and you trying to write it off as some PC bullcrap is dodging the issue.
17 - T. Michael Testi
Great Article Michael!
You said
>>
Bliffle, I'm not sure this article actually contradicts Nalle's, but you know what? I'm going to leave that to the two of you.
<<
Wouldn't that be a Politicalphile.
18 - Michael J. West
Who's writing anything off as PC bullcrap? I was talking about science. And science says, yes, it does matter whether you want a kid or an adult of the same sex...although, as the Doc says, 16 is a gray area.
19 - Richard Longhurst
This is complete nonsense.
Pedophilia and mature sexual attraction are simply two ends of a scale, or rather the end and the middle of a scale.
To pretend that a pedophiles' gender preferences have different psychological roots then the average gay or straight person's is just total, total bullshit.
"Gay and straight are grown-ups who go for other grown-ups. Consenting adults who understand what they're doing. That's normal. Pedophilia? Not."
30% of adult males become sexually aroused when shown pictures of pre-pubescent girls in suggestive poses.
20 - Michael J. West
Are you a psychologist, Richard?
21 - Richard Longhurst
No.
22 - Richard Longhurst
Out of curiousity, under your new definitions what would you call someone who was attracted to both pre- and post-adolescent boys?
Are they not gay pedophiles either, by some other miracle of semantics? Maybe they're gay and pedophiles but somehow not gay pedophiles.
Such people most definately exist, as do people attracted to pre- AND post-adolescent girls.
Furthermore, in your effort to distance pedophiles from gays, you seem to be lumping them in with bisexuals, or at least saying that pedophiles are essentially bisexual by default. I'm sure the bi community will be super pleased with that.
23 - Chris2048
This sounds like bull. Rather than posting in 2nd-hand, can you get your psychologist friend to argue the case?
24 - Michael J. West
No, Chris, I'm not going to ask a working psychologist to take time out to answer questions on a blog. But what I will do, is ask him for the names of some of the research on the subject.
25 - Snarkattack
Crap, this actually makes sense to me - I think it might be based upon some of the stuff in Freud's 'Three Essays on Sexuality', where he argues that children are bisexual before puberty, or devoid of sexuality - something like that.
I believe someone who is exclusively attracted to boys is called a pederast, used to refer to a man, but I recall an instance where Germaine Greer claimed to be one. Caused a bit of fuss at the time too.