Hating Kids is Child Molestation

Think about it. Sexual molestation is an unspeakable evil, and society agrees. They take the obviously unquestionable moral tautology of detesting child sexual abuse, and then feel it justifiable that anything but outright detestation of kids is "unacceptable" on the grounds that "wanting nothing to do with them" reduces the likelihood of their abuse, or something. This means that it's actually preferable now for a man (in particular) to hate kids than to show them any compassion whatsoever, professional or otherwise, related or not, on the grounds that any compassion coming from a man to a child is a sign of inevitable sexual abuse in the works. Truth be told though, how it protects children to encourage the social disregard of them by half the adult population is beyond my reasoning capacity.

It's a weird situation of society wanting to "have its cake and eat it too." Do they want us men to hate kids or do they want us to agree child sexual abuse is wrong? Is not sex abuse predicated on harm, and harm stemming from lack of concern? If we're not supposed to show any compassion toward kids while they are unharmed, why does the presence of harm have to change those expectations? And if we're really supposed to hate kids, wouldn't it make sense that we shouldn't also care about whether they are being abused or not? See, I just get confused about what the standards are, because if it were up to me, I'd prefer to live in a world where I can wholeheartedly be against child sexual abuse and still not be expected to callously disregard that which I don't want to see come to harm.

I'd prefer to live in a world where a child's right to be nurtured by an individual was not dependent on whether society tolerates the sex of that nurturer, but that isn't the world we've allowed thus far. It happens every time the insinuation is made that the relationship of the man to a child is inevitably coercive and harmful, whether it's a professional relationship, family bond, or even a friendship. Every time that insinuation is made, even if in jest, a loving, committed adult man has convinced himself to turn away from a child in need of a role model. This is unfortunate.

Many men will go so far out of their way to prove to society that they absolutely, fundamentally, have no interest in children, that they actually start to sound more like the stereotypical child molester who only thinks about child abuse when he looks at a child. They've been scared into submission and conditioned from the time they were children themselves to withdraw, to fold at the sight of a child, to shirk them off, and now society wonders why so many do exactly that? Men are condemned for "stooping so low" as to be parents. They are harassed by paranoid bypassers when they take their own children out to the park. They are both lauded and chastised for running from their natural responsibilities so consistently and with such venom (to be undervalued when being a proper father and dismissed completely when complying with expectation not to be), that so many do run.

So many want nothing to do with children as a result, and the expectation that men are to keep a distance from every child maintains itself, spreads to the new generation, and society is content with it. They are content with depriving children their positive male role models. Our society delights in it, even if they don't recognize their own delight. They please themselves on the notion that a man can only bring harm to a child, and they seem to think the next generation ought to feel the same. It is the tyranny of the present once again over the future of mankind, and regardless of our intentions now, won't last. Bigotry never does.

Anyone, be them child molester or not, who looks upon a child and can only see the destruction of that child, is the equal of a child molester in sickness, and so is the society that holds such an expectation to begin with. The men who don't run, who don't submit to that sickness, and still do what is right for kids regardless of what anyone expects of them, are among the most commendable human beings on the planet, and unfortunately, the most under-appreciated.

More Honesty, Less Irony

Irony is the package that truth is delivered in, so that it can be palpable to comprehension. Contrary to what people think, truth is actually pretty simple, but it's impossible to comprehend due to its simplicity, so people invented irony to tease it out. When truth is delivered with naked honesty, it is feared at best and disregarded at worst. So society is full of irony, which is to say, pretense, which is to say, lies in the guise of truth and truth in the guise of lies. Our intuitions are always an honest representation of ourselves, but adults in particular (far more than children) are contented to bury their intuitions under false pretense for the purposes of keeping up appearances. Adult society is built by honest conviction that is delivered and made palpable by lies, self-deprecating humor, sarcasm, and ironic twists of personal judgment to fit in with prevailing cultural standards. If society decides to castigate or lynch a group of people, the individuals within it are more inclined to support that lynching with their love of irony, sarcasm, self-deprecating humor, and misrepresented values, than they are with their honesty and truthful conviction to their gut.

Truthful conviction and honesty tells us that all people deserve respect unless they have personally done something that amounts to a forfeiture of that right by their own discretion alone. For instance, our honest, truthful, "heart of hearts" knows by pro-social evolution that to disrespect an individual on the stereotypes or heuristics of the class, race, sex, or creed they belong to (or are perceived as belonging to) is shameful. Our intuition directs us to value some version of an equality standard for all, and not solely base an individual's inclusion in that standard on the perceived class or "group" that an individual belongs to. For most non-sociopaths capable of shame, it seems unconscionable on the face of it to show disrespect to someone for a reason having nothing to do with that person's own character or actions, but to circumstances totally beyond that person's control. This is not a novel concept to most people, so we have every reason to assume there is at least some truth to it, but let's see how irony will cause a person to break those very same conventions in the name dishonest truth, often for humor's sake.

Irony in the broadest sense is a narrative device where a circumstance exists for which an unexpected result occurs with the property of contradicting or going against the meaning behind the circumstance. It is usually easier to depict than to define, for instance: when a child and an adult are competing, and the inexperienced child outwits the adult, it is an ironic situation because it is not expected that someone of smaller experience would outwit someone of larger experience. Adults find such joy in irony like this because they have more of an experience with social conventions and like to see something that challenges them or contradicts them from unexpected sources. Girls outwitting boys, for instance, is another common trope, even now when we should no longer consider a girl to be an "unexpected source," but such is the backwards way with irony. 

Adults use irony to accomplish the opposite of challenging convention though, and deliver the "unexpected truth" by confirming convention only so much as to kill it with kindness. This forms the basis of most deconstructionist, post-modern philosophy. For instance, by saying something like "children are better than adults by their savagery," there is an attempt to combine "superiority" with "savagery" (an unexpected pairing), and children (traditionally considered to be pure and inferior to adults), with the same, for the purpose of exposing the more intuitive truth that "adults are no better or worse than children." But why all that diversion when one could have just said: "adults are no better or worse than children?" It's because that truth is made more thought-worthy when it comes dressed in a subtle poetic quip involving lots of comparisons. Blatant statements of belief mean nothing to anyone beyond the church pew, but lies that cover up truths seem to really cause people to stop and reconsider their thoughts. That is just how the secular world prefers its truths. But by confirming something that one does not actually support, even with the intention of laying bare some truth about it, one is essentially dressing a truth in a lie, which is to say, lying.

So human beings can get away with making the most ludicrous and crass statements, cast misguided judgement, purposefully misrepresent where their values lie, and get away with it, as I have done at times, by calling it "sarcasm" in the pursuit of a higher truth, or by being humorous. But where do we draw the line before we've totally divorced our honest intuition from our outward dishonest personality? Do we get away with saying that "boys are stupid" so that we may appear ironic for saying it and therefore be "interpreted" as saying anything supportive of girls? "Boys are stupid" will never be a supportive statement for anyone. Do we get away with calling a particular boy "stupid" because of the circumstance of his sex (which he had nothing to do with)? Do we get away with advocating for the lynching of ethnic minorities just so we can feel sarcastic and witty enough to be espousing truth in furtherance of tolerance? "Lynch him in a back alley" will likewise never be a statement endorsing tolerance, no matter how ironic it is perceived to be. 

It is not that sarcasm this hurtful should be outright censored though, just that those who speak it should be regarded shamefully. It is shameful to say something that contradicts one's better judgement, whatever that judgement may be. If we have to assume that no one truth exists, but that each one of us has our own truth, the best we can do is be truthful to ourselves as best we can, and that is called direct honesty. The truth does hurt, which is why we invented irony--to soften it, to make it more palpable, to make it humorous, to add distractions so that we're not forced to accept it as much as we'd like to--but the truth is always the truth and it can't be twisted, even if one doesn't agree with it. As much as the truth hurts though, dishonesty hurts more. When you are being honest by saying "peace on earth," chances are, it was dishonesty that lead the first battle cry.

Saying "equality for all people," is the only way of truthfully conveying the message of "equality for all people," even if it sounds comically vague or naive on the bare surface like that--but that is what the truth is! The truth is naive. It is simple. You can not arrive at "equality for all people" if you're going around, cheekily saying "girls are better than boys," for instance, because you know that statement, when expressed categorically in relation to a whole group of people, is false, and therefore, a comic lie. It is a statement of devaluation toward one group and a superficial support of another (not on the basis of merit, but on the basis of circumstances neither child had any control over) against your better intuition. You know you are lying when you say it, so why don't you feel shameful? If you are saying the opposite of truth--a falsehood---and if you know that it is false, then you are lying.

Adults don't think of irony or sarcasm as lying because they know a deeper truth is attempting to be exposed with its phrasing, but they only arrive at that conclusion because they have adult brain capacities. Ask any child what a lie is, and they will tell you about the time they lied to get away with something they didn't want exposed. In our case, what we don't want exposed is the truth, and instead, favor a pretense of falsehoods, lies, and sarcasm. How does that not describe, in its entirety, all that the sarcastic, ironic, hypocritical, pretense and illusion that the adult social world is built on?

Men are Not Finished

Female chauvinists Hana Rosin and Dan Abrams were recently able to convince an audience that not only is the status and position of men and boys in relative decline, but that men and boys are "finished."  They represented and posed as the intellectual establishment backing the "For" position over the question "Are men finished?" and were able to win a historic percentage of converts in an Intelligence Squared debate. They carried the debate, based on polling done before and after.

So by contending that "men are finished," these two and their recent converts must either be in favor of blatant and unapologetic sexism, OR are willing to personally foot the bill to give the "weaker" side (men) more special protections and affirmative actions that "stronger" females apparently have no need for (by their own arguments). By contending that "men are finished," these self-avowed "feminists" are either dismantling the house of gender equality which has been decades in the painstaking build, OR they are simply trying to advocate for redistributing resources toward the weaker side (men) in order to achieve equality. By contending that "men are finished," our "intellectual establishment" here is either smugly giving up on boys and condemning them to lives of assured and self-prophetic under-performance and hopelessness, OR they are expressing a need to shift our resources and attention back to the "weaker class" (boys) and away from the class (girls) that doesn't appear to "need" so much attention anymore (by their own statements).

The point being, they can not have it both ways. They can not be in favor of gender equality and profess that men are finished, because to do such either solidifies them as personal advocates for promoting the interests of the "neediest" (boys and men) over that of the "well off" (girls and women), OR it solidifies them as sexist bigots, gleefully cheering on the disenchantment of a whole class of people, including every child born male who under-performs. Either they can try to humanize themselves by saying that the down-and-out men deserve "more" (which is not very feminist), or they can solidify their reputation as female chauvinists and gleefully cheer on the evisceration of all things male. There is no in between.

They may in their own mind believe that either of those positions empowers women, or that all they are doing is expressing an inevitability and simply siding with the winners, but they can also still believe they are decent people too. Neither of their beliefs make either statement true. There is a thousand mile difference between saying there are more women in college, and saying that men are an "endangered species"--whether tongue and cheek or not. Men are not a "species." Homo Sapiens is a species. It would seem people of such intellectual or academic esteem should know that. And yet, there is no surprise that Dan Abrams doesn't.

There is a thousand mile difference between talking about trends, and making bold-faced assertions about a group of people having become "finished." The former is a rational, concerned approach, seeking remedies to a real-world social ill, while the later is merely a contention toward a finality--it is a way of saying that solutions are not needed, because the problem has ceased to be a problem. In real terms, saying "boys and men need help" assumes that challenges need to be met with solutions. Saying "boys and men are finished" denies that the problem is a problem, and in so doing, denies the possibility for there ever being solutions.

One wouldn't say "this patient is finished," when all the patient needs is some active treatment to regain their health. One wouldn't condemn a student with a learning disability by calling him "finished," unless one is callous or cruel, and the same should go for those who use that terminology to talk about the well-being of men and boys. An appropriate argument could be worded "the social place of men is evolving," and be perfectly within the boundaries of reality, but no, they choose to focus on "finished," which means there is no evolution, just a dead end and a hopeless future. But let us cut to the main issue---this term "finished" is not meant to rebuild men, nor empower women, it is simply used to weaken the already weakened social resolve (of both genders), by those who have fetishized male social evisceration and humiliation. In any case, gender equality is as removed from Rosin's and Abram's minds as common decency.

Let them and their followers chase after their personal fetishes and "mother complexes" all they want, but leave the future of our boys to people with a sense of decency, please.

Unworthy Victims

One of the problems with victimology and unwavering victim-worship is that it is unevenly distributed. In western culture we're almost lead to believe, whether by accident or not, that certain people are more deserving of our sympathies than others for matters having nothing to do with the circumstances of their victimization, all things being equal. The "usual suspects" are always our template for villainy, and the "typical victims" are always getting hammered into our sympathetic nerves, time after time. All else who don't fit the narrative need not apply, even if they have been objectively victimized too.

The image of a girl being raped by a shadowy man, even as tragic as it is, has been turned into little more than a thought-stopping cliche. It is indeed the prototypical image in our heads when we think of sexual exploitation, simply because of its incessant repetition in film, television, and the news media. Its depiction no longer makes us think, we merely become anesthetized to it, and we ignore and become incapable of seeing exploitation in other forms perpetrated on less-prototypical human beings. Not only does its repetition rob our emotional minds blind to the real tragedy of it (just because we've seen it a hundred times), but it holds that emotional mind hostage and blocks its rational ends from seeing the travesties committed on those our sympathetic acuity has been blinded to.

One wants to talk about how the predator manufactures the consent of his victim when he exploits her, but what about when culture has done the same to you, and has manufactured your consent to feel one way or another toward or against someone, at its discretion, by repetition? When the mere gender of a person, the age of a person, or social class of a person, has more to do with your outrage, your indignation, your sympathy for them, than the act that they have become victim to or perpetrated, you've already become a victim to the cliche of the media narrative yourself. That is how culture and the propaganda, the "thought-stopping cliches," have molested your will and alienated your compassion from you by their constant mercantile presence. Herman and Chomsky wrote on this phenomenon in like manner:

“Our hypothesis is that worthy victims will be featured prominently and dramatically, that they will be humanized, and that their victimization will receive the detail and context in story construction that will generate reader interest and sympathetic emotions. In contrast, unworthy victims will merit only slight detail, minimal humanization, and little context that will excite and enrage.”

—E. S. Herman and N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent

According to culture, men and boys are unworthy victims, so society does not care when they are victimized, abused, and maltreated en mass. Boys may only be sympathized with because they also fit the class of "child," but not because they are boy children. According to culture, teenagers are unworthy victims, so society does not care when they are victimized, abused, and maltreated en mass. So by these two observations alone, we should expect society to feel more sympathy for a six-year-old girl that has been mishandled, than a 15-year-old "young man" who has suffered the same--or even still, has been murdered, or sold into sexual slavery as a bacha bereesh in Afghanistan, even as much attention has been given to the treatment of girls in that country.

That which we assume "en mass" dictates how we respond to individuals within that mass. It would certainly lend an explanation as to why it does, and why male offenders are touted as "beasts" while female offenders of the same crimes are given the "mother of three" treatment. Where do you think your sympathy is "supposed" to go, given the choice between a beast and a mother of three? What if the "beast" had children too? Nobody is given the chance to care, and it is not important anyways.

So while we are all required to feel sympathy toward the typical cases, and hatred toward the "usual suspects," let's not forget those our culture has forgotten to take seriously. The moment you have an image in your mind about a typical case victim, fill her in with her exact opposite, and remember that it happens too, and how nobody cares about it when it does. Nobody's singing the lamentations of a teenage boy who has been violently raped by a woman, no matter how traumatic, just because it doesn't fit the typical schema of "offenders and victims." Nobody's asking for the head of the female rapist either. And when you realize this, you'll see real sexism, real ageism, real classism at work in ways the focus group didn't think would be commercially viable enough to wrest your "unquestionable" sympathy for.

All media is the same story being sold, over and over. Don't buy it.

Burn the Witch

When a woman rapes a young boy, all we get treated to are statistics. They tend to come spewing from the mouths of apologists and feminists. It's as if we're supposed to throw our heads back and suddenly realize that we made a big mistake in criticizing the rape of a young boy (by a woman) simply because it was an unlikely occurrence. It doesn't follow, and it's horribly insensitive. Yes, it is true that "less women do it," but does that mean the pain of molestation stings a little less for the male victim? I thought not. Does that mean anything as to how we ought to regard and treat the offender? Absolutely not. Statistics don't mean anything to anyone who isn't already sold on some agenda. They are a mere prop used to justify the thoughts in one's own head.

Remember all the righteous indignation about how the "law is the law" and how it is "there to protect minors regardless of the consequences?" Does that ring a bell? It ought to, because that's why society wrote it--to supposedly "protect minors,"--not to judge according to whether the perpetrator belongs to a class we feel is getting stigmatized. If men or women are getting stigmatized as offenders, it's because they went into it thinking "regardless of the consequences!"--so I say to them, enjoy the consequences. If you don't enjoy them though when women bare the bunt of them, you also shouldn't enjoy them when men and children are baring the same bunt.

Statistics here are as meaningless as this: "The main reason [for women's shorter sentences] is that their crimes are objectively less vile..." is insulting. Is "less-vile" child rape more acceptable to us than "more-vile" child rape? I would think not. Rape is rape.

I'm trying to make a broader point with how I express the sentiment and the word choice. I'm parodying how the extremists talk when they vilify men offenders--directing the same moral indignation that society shows toward its scapegoat "usual suspects," towards its so-called "sympathetic offenders" instead, to show how wrong-minded moral outrage is to begin with. The fact that society would be willing to sit down and have a civilized discussion on the statistics when it comes to women offenders and totally ignore all rationality when it comes to men offenders, ought to be the new definition of sexism.

No amount of statistics in the world should justify hating one group over another, but no amount should apologize for the crimes of one over another either. Women are the minority offender, yes, but their crimes need no apology, nor do we need to temper our reservations about them, whether they are "less vile" or not. If failing to reserve contempt for someone's crime is a function of sexism, then one shouldn't be justified in failing to reserve contempt for the next adult man who has sex with a 15 year old and is given the "Amy Gail Lilley" sentence (no prison time, just two years of house arrest and 8 years of probation). If you can't see yourself wanting to gouge that fictional man's eyes out while the very real Mrs. Lilley sits back in her house unfazed, then your whole theory about the sexism against women offenders is thrown to the fire--where true criminals belong.

What Is So Hard?

What is so hard about deposing sexism? Why can't we come to a point where men are given the same say and rights and privileges with children as women? Why can't we congratulate the men who bend over backwards for their children, who spend time with them, read to them, help them with their homework, and play catch with them, with the same unconditional devotion we reserve for "moms?" Why can't single fathers get so much as an acknowledgement rather than a lecture on statistics? What is so hard about that?

What is so hard about ending this generational program to make our sons pay the price for the sexism of their great-grandfathers? If it is justifiable that we devalue boys today as retribution for the patriarchy of yesterday, does that mean it will be justifiable to devalue the girls of the future as retribution for this current strain of sexism? Why must we ridicule those hungering for sexual equality for being whiny, petty, or egotistical, only so long as they are male? Can we not accept the sexism of the past for what it was without trying to "make up for it" by turning one against the other in the present?

Why must we let a few bad men dictate how we see all men? Why must our children go devoid of positive male role models because we fear the child molesters in our heads? Doesn't that make as much sense as never going in the water for fear of a shark attack when so few happen to begin with? If statistical outliers like single dads cause us to withhold our sympathy for them, why must other statistical outliers like child molesters cause us to assume so much derision? Is sympathy a harder emotion to feel than derision? What is so hard with praising the men who deserve praise instead of only demonizing those who do wrong? 

Why can't we just treat our sons and daughters and mothers and fathers (single or coupled), as if their biological sex was not a determinant of whether they deserve praise or derision? Why can't we just treat everyone doing well by children with respect and dignity without regard to sex, race, age, or any other permanent or impermanent characteristic? What is so hard about that? 

Affectionate Men

This is a culture that honors work over family, so it is no surprise that the struggle to gain women equal standing with men in the workplace and therefore in society in general, has been generally promoted. It is also no surprise that the struggle to gain men equal standing with woman over the family, the children, has never taken root. This work based culture seems to want nothing to do with raising its own children. The majority of men are pushed away from the care of children, and just as many seem more preoccupied with the workforce, with careers. With the arrival of feminism, it was finally declared that women sought the same. For both, having and raising children has become just a side project on a path toward personal fulfillment within the work place--something you have to do just to stay in keeping with social expectations.

These expectations have done nothing to raise us out of the sexist, 1940's culture that permeates family law in the United States. It has even been conveniently overlooked by the feminist movement itself--once again, because it doesn't concern the workplace. Family law arises from the belief that men are breadwinners and women are housewives and child caretakers. This is how a man and woman can divorce, and along with fifty percent of the marriage effects, the woman is typically granted the children, child support, and alimony. Many fathers who have weathered divorce have been brought into extreme poverty and even bankrupcy and homelessness as they've watched the mothers of their children reap the rewards of 1940's sexism in a modern equal opportunity culture. This is especially true if the man was not indeed the true breadwinner.

Regardless, all this stems from a pervasive and destructive cultural belief that men can not and should not be affectionate with children, and certainly are not equipped to be sole caretakers of them. As the old adage goes, we're fast becoming a culture that fears it may never cross a bridge designed by a woman, but couldn't care less if its children are raised by a man. Stereotypes, comedic tropes, and sexist cliches reinforce prejudice and embolden standards. Men who express any affection in public toward children, even fathers toward their own children, are often mistaken to be pedophiles, to be deviants. They are often ridiculed openly and harassed rather than celebrated.

The problem is not feminists, who have conveniently overlooked matters of family law and long ago demeaned and diminished the importance of raising children. The problem is not with men, who have been belittled from birth against showing affection toward anyone, and certainly not toward children, until they accepted this without complaint. The problem is with the underlying culture that does not allow men to complain about their diminished importance within the family, within childcare, as the feminists did about their status in the general workforce. Society looks up to work, it looks down on child raising. If a group of men come out and declare that they want to be taken seriously as child caretakers, it becomes a comedic trope at best rather than a genuine statement of desire. Why should a group of men who are not being discriminated against in the glorious and glamorous workforce want to do something as demeaning in the eyes of the culture as raise and nurture children? Society can not grapple with this concept.

Most men aren't like me. Most men don't place a high value on parenting either, as culture has dictated, so it's only the disaffected men (those who have been spit through family court) that complain. Many men will be reluctant to demand equal rights under family law because doing so makes them appear effeminate. What was a strength among the women's movement--the calculating, un-feeling, career-minded, self-fulfilled, self-dependent ideal woman of the future--becomes the unraveling of the men's movement--the nurturing, loving, reliable, educational, invested, selfless ideal male child caretaker of the future. It's seen as a sign of weakness to devote oneself to the ones society generally demeans anyways. The women's movement goes with the flow of western civilization (self-fulfillment, making money, children as a means to an ends...etc.) while the men's movement resists it (self-fulfillment in the fulfillment of a child's needs, children as a ends in and of themselves). There's no money in staying home and taking care of the kids, so western culture has no use for this new breed of man, and roots for his demise.

Feminists may have overlooked the affectionate man, male chauvinism may have tried to keep them down, culture may be trying to do away with them like shedding a malignancy, but the one group that needs the affection of a man is the only group we care about--the children, the boys and girls. In the end, raising them up is its own vindication where all else has failed them. If society wants nothing to do with the demeaning aspects of raising a child, then it's high time someone steps up to do the most important job of them all. Automation will erode the glorious western workforce, but children are always going to need affection.

Sexuality Supermarket

Loosening sexual mores allow for tolerance, but also provide impetus for individuals in governments or corporations to create in their future customers or constituents any sexual appetite most fitting with whatever social message or piece of merchandise they wish to peddle. Fetishism is a natural evolutionary function of sexuality that social engineers would love to exploit, and with increasing tolerance for alternative sexual appetites comes unprecedented ability to construct markets out of them. Advertisers know how to play this game, and the motto is as it always was: "get 'em while they're young."

Beyond their consent, like it or not, children are raised and sexualized by the increasingly accessible media. This is not so much a bad thing in and of itself, but at the same time their sexuality is being shaped by the media and other companies, they are not given the sexual nurturing they need because people don't want to be "seen" as en-culturing a child into functional sexuality. It should be no doubt then, where sexual dis-functionality stems. The panic over whether a company is exposing children to a sexual lifestyles before they can comprehend such things is another distraction, because it should be no news that a corporation is not in it for Junior to begin with.

If there should be concern, it rests squarely with the culture that hasn't allowed the people in Junior's life (who are, or should be, the ones "in it" for him) to be the ones to nurture his developing sexuality as they would his ability to read. Time and time again though, that responsibility is taken away from the adults in his life, and given over to the television and the internet by a culture made too squeamish or paranoid about appearing to be "too involved" with kids.

More disturbing is the mechanism where future generations can be made to love the egotism and material servitude it takes to power our economic engine, by influencing their sexual development to correspond to what best suits the interests of those who have a hand in shaping that culture. How many little boys will grow up with a sexually driven inferiority complex to females after spending their formative years sexualized by a media that obviously finds greater value in its female customers? The idea behind this social engineering is to designate what populations buy and what populations don't, take the ones that do and create in them this belief of superiority as instinctive and unstoppable as a biological necessity (like their sexuality). Then take the ones that don't and create the opposite with theirs--an inferiority complex--so they accept their place or at least don't take issue with their depictions and social devaluation in the media for being what it cultured them to be, because they will be so busy getting off on it.

Abominations as such that would never be allowed by a stranger passing a child on the street are permitted and perpetuated on a daily basis by strangers who just so happen to be further away from the kids in question, but wield the same influence. Given the choice between a person who loves your child and a person who wants to make money off your child, the parent will side with the profiteer. So the marketing exec goes to work every day, makes his pay and feeds his family on the idea of stealing children away from their parents. The stranger on the street just wants to model the daily "how do you do?" for your kid, and yet he is made the villain--no doubt by who.

Any media-backed morality is innately immoral, especially if it's presented as "counter-culture." There is no such thing. That which is truly counter-culture, is that which can not be marketed.

Ignorance on Display

I found this statement online. How wrong, ignorant, or just plain sexist is it? Shall we count the ways?

And I have to say that maybe if you're a man, you might not quite get the instinctive caution or even revulsion felt when it looks like an adult male is too involved with a child.

The writer is implying that men "may or may not" be capable of feeling empathy for victims of abuse or revulsion towards abusers, or even caution at a child who appears to be slipping into a hazardous situation. Lord help me from slipping into the same trap of sexist ignorance this female commenter has fallen into, and jump to the conclusion that all females are incapable of telling the difference between child abuse and an adult male and child simply spending quality time together. Are not fathers, for instance, supposed to be "involved" with their children? Are they not too "adult males?" Obviously not all females are as ignorant as the ignorant among them imply all "adult males" of being.

And how shall we quantify when an adult male is "too involved" with a child? What precisely is the boundary that causes such revulsion in females who apparently are so adept at deciphering it? If we are talking about real physical, emotional, or any other form of abuse in such a way that there is physical harm, jeopardy, or any kind of marked impairment in the child as a result, then we have something to base our revulsion on for sure--whether or not "feeling revulsion" for the abuser will do any good for the child is another story. If we are talking about a child and an adult male spending a mutually appreciated, non-harmful, parental consented "fun filled" afternoon together, then as the saying goes, "the boredom under peace will spread its own evil" in the popular imagination. Knee-jerked "revulsion" on cue in such a situation will only cause harm, not just to the child, but to everyone involved, and those ripples of negativity will spread throughout society.

Society can either be held together on a platform of trust and responsibility, or it can be held together on one of fear and knee-jerk assumptions. Each of us have to make that choice, and society will either benefit or suffer for it.

And how shall we quantify what is meant by "child," anyway? Are we speaking of a 17 year old, or a 4 year old? What are the circumstances of these encounters? These are all questions that need to be posed and answered before you should be expecting anyone to feel "revulsion" on cue at the mere suggestion of an adult male and a child spending time together. Blanket statements requiring our revulsion toward phantom child molesters and sympathy for phantom child victims do nothing to help real child victims and deter real child molesters. If anything, it hinders our ability to feel empathic or even "cautious" in real life situations, because so much of our emotional fortitude is distracted and divested to feeling "revulsion" or "sympathy" for the shadows in our heads.

Men in Care

Despite what is said, despite what is advertised, men are not wanted in care fields, working in care capacities, where there are children involved. He can apply, he can try to volunteer, he can do all these things to put himself in for the line of work, but staff to child ratios, gender ratios, age ranges, and other bureaucratic paper and tape block his ability to put himself into that line of work. Males can't work in care with girls. If there are more girls in the room, a female staff is preferred. Males can't work in care with young children. If there are more toddlers in the room, a female staff is preferred. In most situations, a female staff, applicant, body, or candidate is preferred.

This is true as much for Big Brothers Big Sisters as it is for the Scouts--gender barriers across the board. It seems the only place for males who desire work with children is in their detention and rehabilitation centers, where the population is normally older male youth anyways. Where confrontation abounds, males are expected to line up. Where there are colorful rooms with small tables, males are to keep at a distance.

In the 21st century, an era where bridges are being built by females, society has all but prevented males from working with its children. It won't be surprising that at least some part of the rest of the 21st century will be spent unraveling the negative effects of this cultural predator panic that has done nothing but separate children from positive male role models for the last couple decades. Perhaps our children will stem this tide, perhaps they will continue it.