What is #Pizzagate?

[tapitsbo]

Well I feel like that's a lazy and knowingly dishonest misrepresentation, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that.

Your number trick was especially irrelevant to the substance of the discussion.

[barracuda]

I disagree.

[guruilla]

Barracuda's is mostly a straw man argument, because these are two different propositions that have some overlap but still can and need to be addressed separately, namely, the overlap between paraphilias and former or socially accepted paraphilias (or "paraphilias"), eg: homosexuality & pedophilia; and (secondly) the question of how much LGBT culture has formed, or been formed (I'd say a combination of both) partially as a cloak for ... the sort of nasty shit under scrutiny at RI.

To be super-clear, and AFAIK based on all I have read and lived, most active (male) pedophiles are not (considered as) homosexual, BUT, they generally, statistically, prefer young boys. They are not considered homosexual because their preference is not for same-sex sex but for sex with children who happen to be boys (in their adult sex relations, they are usually heterosexual). Secondly, more importantly, their physical, emotional, and psychological gratification is less to do with sex per se than with power and dominance, with having someone under their complete control, i.e., they are sadists. (Strictly speaking, many, maybe even most, active pedophiles aren't so much pedophiles as sadistic sexual predators,;but anyway. The S & M subculture overlaps with LGBT so ....)

What I am getting at then is not so much an overlap between, or conflation of, homosexuality and sexual child abuse, but that sexual child abusers may adopt a homosexual identity, lifestyle, and culture set as a means to facilitate their desires. I would even say that they have, over time, co-created this culture set, engineered it, to that same end.

This is something that ought to be of concern to homosexuals, obviously; and it IS of concern to ones I know personally. IMO, a person's sexual orientation should not in any way commit them to a given cultural set, any more than their skin color should.

[barracuda]

Child sexual predators created gay culture. Our children are not safe around the gays. Got it.

[guruilla]

Well I feel like that's a lazy and knowingly dishonest misrepresentation, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that.

Echo?

[barracuda]

Talk to the hand, beotches.

[tapitsbo]

And yet. No one is trying to defend creepy references to child exploitation by saying, "It's just part of heterosexual culture."

That's a pretty crass summary of what I actually said. My point is that drag has its own codes and they're complicated. I'm not even too intimately familiar with the art form but I know enough to understand there's a certain kind of kitsch and a certain kind of blasphemy directed towards socially mandated taboos - often directed at the heteronormative / hetero world (ie childbirth). So ignoring that subculture's own systems of meaning and reading them through the lexicon of the very same dominant culture that it is oppositional to can only be done in bad faith.

Alefantis, Brock, and Clinton's culture IS the dominant culture in Ameriduh.

At least in terms of institutions like media.

[Novem5er]

What I am getting at then is not so much an overlap between, or conflation of, homosexuality and sexual child abuse, but that sexual child abusers may adopt a homosexual identity, lifestyle, and culture set as a means to facilitate their desires. I would even say that they have, over time, co-created this culture set, engineered it, to that same end.

I don't think I've ever heard anything on RI that's as ridiculous as this.

Child predators come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colors, and cultures. The key point is that they adopt an appearance of normalness so that they can hide and prey: congressman, youth pastor, athletic director, school teacher, friendly neighbor, loving aunt, etc.

Of course there are child molesters hiding in the gay community, just as they are hiding in the straight Christian community; just as they are hiding in our youth sports communities, the occult community, the drug-addled trailer park communities, and the mansions and vacation homes of our elite.

[tapitsbo]

Yes, I think that was guruilla's point elsewhere.

The difference with "queer culture" is that apparently it can be used to excuse the sketchiness of someone like Alefantis as "subversive", "playful", or even "not part of the dominant culture" (!)

[Novem5er]

tapitsbo, are you starting to see the "witch hunt" in this? No, there isn't an official inquisition kidnapping people and torturing them.

What we ARE having, though, are thousands of strangers on the Internet labeling all sorts of people as being suspicious. We've heard it about painters, art collectors, musicians, and now gay people (or queers?).

[tapitsbo]

I think it's fair that the publically available social media and other sources on people like Alefantis are considered suspicious.

It's not suspicion of "gay people (or queers?)"

unless you think an individual should be immune from having questions asked about them or suspicion drawn to them solely because the happen to be gay (I doubt you think this)

I think I've learned an awful lot from this RI discussion and I don't regret my participation as much as I usually do.

[Novem5er]

I reference Gurillia's quoted section above. He's not at all saying that gay people are child molesters (I get that), but he is saying that predators adopt a gay lifestyle and culture to hide and that they have actually influenced and helped create gay culture. So it's an attack on gay culture.

[tapitsbo]

well guruilla's from the UK where groups like PIE did have a hand in the inception of modern gay culture. liminalOyster even gave a nod to these curious historical dynamics

I think a lot of gay people would acknowledge those sorts of facts not as "attacks" so much as strange and unsettling truths worth assimilating and acknowledging.

If they were being used to characterize gays as intrinsically child abusers yes that would be an attack and a misrepresentation. i doubt guruilla would ever intend to suggest something like that though...

then again guruilla's quoted section doesn't really "make or break" pizzagate and the strong suggestion of something wrong inherent in the pizzagate material

[Novem5er]

It's possible that Pizzagate is at least partially true AND that observers are using it to attack cultural groups that they dislike. I actually think that this is the most likely scenario.

[tapitsbo]

I agree. Partially true because nobody will ever know the whole truth and surely some of the material is actually harmless and misinterpreted.

"Attacking cultural groups" is always happening in multiple directions.

Some may be concerned that Pizzagate is an "attack on queer culture" (instead of an opportunity for transparency and clarification)

I'm seeing more of an attack on "fake news" fans (people interested in information that threatens powerful people)

In any case Pizzagate seems to be positively dripping with rich, thick, highly contested cultural meaning beyond any potential "reveals" about powerful individuals in DC. Interesting.