Opinion

Suffer The Children: The Creeping Sexualization Of Minors

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The landscape of minor sex and sexual relations hosts all the perils of pre-Disney fairy tales. While failed candidates must mutilate themselves as they struggle to fit in positions citing “legitimate rape,” the mention of a certain word in conjunction with anything other than condemnation possesses the magical property of turning any pundit to a pedophile. Then there’s the pied-piping of Slate’s half-hearted defense of Milo Yiannpolous and other celebrity endorsements of Socratic relationships.

Yet some still cannot seem to call a wolf a wolf.

Suffice it to say (and I’m not straight-splaining when I say this), the children here are victims. Period.

Yes, merely recounting one’s experience does not necessarily translate to endorsement, and Milo’s musing on his assault while not paying children back in kind deserves pathological pity. You’d think, however, that those with no shortage power-disparity and victimization verbage wouldn’t struggle to identify the adult practitioners for what they are. But in a world where a child can permit a doctor to mutilate her body, I suppose the extension into sex fits their Weltanschauung.

Even if it were the case that some older men only broaden their camp to selflessly serve as sexual sommeliers for immature palates, there remains room for debate as to why these older men engage in such outreach in the first place. One’s feelings about childhood events, especially the admittedly traumatic ones, are inherently unreliable. Unable to undo the damage done, we instead find the means to approve of it in some way. We rewrite rape not by forgetting, but by believing that we consented—and perhaps with the expectation that others will as well.

By extension, many have denied the science of gender to further political ends. Taking advantage of the confusion of adolescence, activists have sought to rush children to the sacrificial operating table. Sure, many of these priests and priestesses may have good intentions, and the “It’s Just Genitals” siren song can seduce those of us who wished we were someone else. But is it too much to expect of the alleged party of science and compassion to consider all aspects of medicine, including psychiatry, absent fetters of political correctness?

I struggle to find some affecting anecdote about the joys and mysteries of childhood. Clearly, the world has more to offer than witches who love too little and sorcerers who love too much. However, recognizing a little more Grimm and a lot less saccharine may be just what the modern child psychiatrist prescribed.