I’m starting this off here because what is probably going to follow is a long series of Posts. In a strange way, I have to thank Halstead, because he’s actually helped me get used to the format that I’m going to take for the following posts. And given that the person whose writings I am about to go over manages to make me look succinct and focused, well. This could take a while. So I may not go over everything they say.

I’m also doing this as a warning. Now, I make a great deal of fun over trigger warnings. In fact, I have claimed that I pull more triggers than a platoon of marines. Not sure how accurate that claim is, but there you go. I started out as a “troll” and the complete willingness to smash people’s feels is a part of me that’s never gone away.

But just this once, I am going to warn people that I am headed into what could possibly be the darkest, most morally quagmiric place I’ve ever headed into on this blog. There will be questions of morals, questions of history, questions even of the very religions I and many others worship. These are likely to be hard questions, and even I do not know where I or anyone else will be by the end of this.

Because we’re about to head into an area I suspected was coming since gay marriage got legalized. The grand frontier of sexual liberation and equality was open for who was going to stand up next for their right to love who they please. Who would it be. Well, we have our answer, thanks to Salon.com and Todd Nickerson.

Pedophiles.

The first article Nickerson wrote: I’m a pedophile, but not a monster came out I think several weeks ago, and I really wanted to go over it. But time and work meant I couldn’t give it the attention it deserved. After all, here was a person willing to publicly come out and try and argue that wanting to sleep with not just an “under aged” child, but a prepubescent one, didn’t make you a bad person.

We’re going to go over it in detail, but the short of it was that Nickerson claims because he “doesn’t approach children” and belongs to a group that calls themselves “virtuous pedoes” that not only is he an okay person, people should feel sympathy for those like him because they cannot help who they love.

Or at least, cannot help who they want to fuck.

So right away, anyone who reads my blog and actually understands where I tend to come from, can see why I would seriously want to take apart such an argument. And I will, Hela willing. But then their came the second article, also published by Salon. Both of these, by the way, seem to have been front page material.

I’m a pedophile, you’re the monsters: My week inside the vile right-wing hate machine

You read that right. Now, before my more left wing readers start hauling of and saying, of course the right-wing is a bunch of hate mongering bigots, or people want to accuse me of being said right winger, I am going to point out two things. One, I have seen a number of “left wing” people rip the hell out of this guy as well, and two, I would like to point out that anything to the right of this man, no matter how “left” is going to be viewed as “Right wing” because it is more “conservative.” Also, I myself am a classical liberal, not a conservative. Even if I do like some conservative ideas when it comes to economics.

The truth is though, that unfortunately we are going to have this conversation as a society now. Salon is a major publication. They, and many others have started coming out to support self admitted pedophiles. This is not going to go away.

And so, before we start, I am going to lay a few things out on the table.

1. I do think age of consent laws that we have at present are bullshit. The way they’re worded and set up, plus the rather arbitrary line of 18, has in many ways proven more damaging than helpful. Statutory rape has ruined the lives of a great number of young men simply because their girlfriends were a little bit young. Many a young woman’s life has been ruined because the person she loved was labeled a sex offender for life due to an age gap of just a couple years. To give an example, I recently heard of a young man who is going to be tried as an adult, sentenced as an adult, and labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life because he was in possession of nude images of an under-aged person…himself. Frankly, that is bullshit. So I do think this whole system of laws needs to be revised.
2. As a Cultor Deorum, I acknowledge that in ancient times under the Religio Romana, “pedophilia” was an acceptable and widely done practice. Under this religion which I follow there are to my knowledge, no moral or cultural stipulations against the practice of “pedophilia.” Perhaps not as prevalent as it was under the Greeks, but still quite common.
3. No morality or religion is sacrosanct above others. I cannot claim that simply because I am not a pedophile that I am a better person than Nickerson or those like him. Sadly enough, I cannot even say that my own religious and moral views are objectively provable as more “correct” than his. Though I’m sure there are many out there who will claim such a high ground, and I do not begrudge them doing so, I am not. Because, frankly, I’ve seen how that fight goes thanks to the Gays vs the Christians, and, well, now we have gay marriage and Christians are getting thrown into prison for not complying. Clearly, moral high grounds are not going to be enough. So I will simply have to do it another way. I shall explore, learn my “enemy” and see what conclusions can be reached.

So there we have it. If you won’t want to read…well, I’m not going to blame you. I’ve perused both these articles and I admit there’s a part of me that really, really doesn’t want to get into this. Because even if I come out victorious, there is no coming out of this clean.

May the Gods be with us all.