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1. Yes, and you can read “reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi (2004).
   As another blogger just wrote: We have to do our own fact checking…

2. We’ve all heard the saying “when someone shows you who they are, listen.” The extension is that if they don’t show you who they are right away, keep them talking. It’s only a matter of time.

   This episode wasn’t a pleasant one, but there was also nothing especially surprising about it. I was a little surprised originally to learn that the person in question was far enough gone to vote for Trump. I sort of felt like his sweet spot was in the Paul Ryan ballpark, but he’s a smart guy and always presented himself as a reasonable, thoughtful type.

   Once we knew the Trump part, though, it was a matter of time. Unfortunate, but inevitable.

3. I think this post would be more interesting and fair Sam if you included the actual conversation between you and I and Frank B. Also for color I’m a adding link to someone else’s defense of Milo as not being a supporter of pederasty. https://thelibertarianrepublic.com/defense-milo-yiannopoulos/

   Milo Y-This week, for political gain, the media and the Republican establishment accused a child abuse victim of enabling child abuse. It’s sick. But they have not killed me. They have only made me stronger.
   Thank you for the support. You guys have kept me sane. In a few months, this will be a distant memory. I’ll be back with details of my new publisher, my new media venture and my new tour.

   Frank Dilatush When I see hardliners left and right gunning for somebody, I know they’re someone worth listening to. Fuck ’em kid, you just picked up a pile of new followers. A month ago I didn’t even know who you were and now I can spell your name. Head up, eyes front, give ’em hell!

   Sam Smith Frank, did you READ what he said?

   Frank Dilatush Yes sir, watched the full interview and read a bunch of followup. He is not a pedophile and he is not advocating for pederasty. He is most definitely a wild child who uses words to shock people. I would think you’d understand that Sam as you’re a bit of the same. Taking a few sentences out of context and trying to mold them into some global truth about a person’s entire existence is fucking bullshit. You know it’s bullshit. You wouldn’t let someone do it to you and I wouldn’t expect you to do it to someone else.

   Sam Smith I’m sorry, but no. He was absolutely not taken out of context. He damned well said what he damned well said. And there is nothing that he and I have in common. I have been known to provoke to lead people in a direction they need to consider, but MY has never led anyone in any direction except hate. Unless he’s running the godamnedest performance art gig in history, he’s a male Ann Coulter. Yes, he goes over the top in order to call attention to himself, but I have never seen any evidence that he says anything other than what he believes. And if he is saying things he doesn’t believe, that’s arguably worse.
   This is appalling.

   Frank Dilatush “You need to have the ability to offend in a range of ways. Offending with your art is a great tool to have in the box. Before you can offend people you have to get their attention.”
   Those are your words Sam and I’d say Milo got your attention with his art. Did he cross a line? Probably, but I judge people on their whole not one verbal misstep.
   No wee tykes were abused, it was just words. Unrustle your jimmies man.

   Sam Smith Point me to his “art.”
   Also, offending in the name of art is about expanding perspective, consciousness, elevating the soul and improving the mind. There is a pro-social message behind it. Advocating for pedophilia isn’t pro-social, nor is it expanding our consciousness in any way we need to go.
   I judge by the whole record instead of one mistake, too, and his body of work is deplorable. He’s about fostering ignorance and hatred at every turn.
   Even if I buy your mission statement here 100% you have seized on a horrible model for it.

   Frank Dilatush Obviously we have a disparity of opinion here that is not going to be resolved in a few short volleys of back and forth Sam. Too bad you don’t offer the American Civic Debate Union in an internet format. I would absolutely meet you there to debate pro-Milo. Have a fine day!

   Frank Balsinger Since this crosses my feed again, and since words that were used to inspire me, personally, were used perversely as an attack to defend this pederasty defender, I figured I’d start my fine day by asking why on earth this speaker in particular, MY, should be understood in any other way than as defending pederasty with this verbatim comment:
   “”“In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men — the sort of ‘coming of age’ relationship — those relationships in which those older men help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable, sort of rock, where they can’t speak to their parents,” he added.””
   By all means, if there’s a context to this this is more blatantly exculpatory than this statement is damning, do share. I would like to know words good, too, since I’m clearly lacking some aspect of comprehension you have acquired, Frank.
   Like · Reply · Yesterday at 7:41am

   Frank Dilatush Since this crosses my feed again,
   **You control your feed Frank, it’s not magic. If you don’t like something, ignore or delete.
   Since words that were used to inspire me, personally, were used perversely as an attack to defend this pederasty defender
   **The point is that Sam uses offensive language as a tool to smear people who disagree with him. Yet he takes umbrage at offensive language when used by others he disagrees with. He wrote those words to encourage you to be more offensive in your writing. Which I think is bullshit by the way.
   I figured I’d start my fine day by asking why on earth this speaker in particular, MY, should be understood in any other way than as defending pederasty with this verbatim comment:
   **Once again, because the preponderance of Milo’s speech and writings _do not_ defend pedophilia. That you don’t see that is because you are not looking, not because the evidence doesn’t exist
   By all means, if there’s a context to this this is more blatantly exculpatory than this statement is damning, do share. I would like to know words good, too, since I’m clearly lacking some aspect of comprehension you have acquired, Frank.
   **Read it any way you want Frank, you two followed me here. My original comment was addressed to Mr. Yiannopoulos and has nothing to do with you or Sam.. What I find most interesting is Sam’s comment that only progressives can be the true arbitrators of what is and isn’t art. If he rips someone a new asshole in the furtherance of progressive social ideals that’s fine. If a conservative dares to do the same it is at best autistic screeching, at worst heresy. That’s some Talibanesque shit right there.

   Sam Smith >>What I find most interesting is Sam’s comment that only progressives can be the true arbitrators of what is and isn’t art. If he rips someone a new asshole in the furtherance of progressive social ideals that’s fine. If a conservative dares to do the same it is at best autistic screeching, at worst heresy. That’s some Talibanesque shit right there.<>>”Point me to his ‘art.’ Offending in the name of art is about expanding perspective, consciousness, elevating the soul and improving the mind. There is a pro-social message behind it. ”
   **Your words again Sam. I find it quite reasonable to parse them into, “I disagree with his message therefore it can not be art.” <<>>**You’re not down on Milo because he spoke his particular truth about homosexuality in a taboo manner. That was just a trigger. You’re down on his entire body of work because he’s conservative and loud.
   Well, you say that like the two are mutually exclusive.
   First, he didn’t speak his “particular truth” – that’s remarkably relativistic language from you, btw – he defended pederasty. He rationalized it. It’s hard to read it as anything but an endorsement.
   Second, yes, I hate the guy. He has worked long and hard to make sure he is hated. He advocates things that are appalling. I don’t care about the loud part, by any means. If you’re working for divisiveness and hatred I don’t care how loud you speak.
   Regardless, a guy who has always agreed with me could all of a sudden defend pedophilia. Or a long-time asshole could go to war attacking pedophiles. In this case the two things correlate, but that’s not causal.
   >>>**”Ignorant, deplorable, and hateful” I believe you said. From where I sit you play the exact same game, just for the opposing team.
   So, you just called me ignorant. Deplorable. And hateful. So I guess we’re now learning some things about what you consider okay. Personal attacks that spring directly from a willful misreading of what I said and meant.
   You can always find every damned word I have published over the last decade at S&R, so proving those allegations ought to be easy if they’re true. There are certainly things I hate, but they’re always about how people CHOOSE TO ACT. I don’t hate because of skin color, I hate because someone chooses to hate blacks. I don’t hate because of religion, I hate because certain religious types try and force others to their narrow beliefs.
   Do you see that difference?
   I think you need to spend some time with the guy in the mirror. Either you’re becoming something very different from what you have always presented yourself as, or it was a façade all along.

   Frank Balsinger Ya know, I think I’m actually finally tired of your crap, Frank. We got along fine so long as it was issue by issue. I’d like to think you noticed I wan’t especially partisan. Hell, I might be one of the only left-sympathizers you know that actually kept barking at the left for the broad-brushing of Trump supporters they routinely engaged in during the election. Then after the election, I couldn’t help but notice your silence as Trump over and over again kept justifying the left’s irrational fears, but now and again you’d call me out on some little quibble as though those minnows were the fish you cared to fry, never having anything to say about the far bigger issues. Really penny-ante crap, actually. And I cautiously expressed some concern that you might be singling out your opposition while indulging your own team’s BS rather freely, which you flatly denied. I don’t know if you know this about FB or not, but it’s nice enough to let people know when friends post and/or like and/or react to and/or comment on things, and I’ve seen the tenor of some of the threads on your personal page, in particular (but certainly not limited to) the degree of contemptuous vitriol the love of your life likes to engage in now and again, vitriol of such vehemence that I long since decided to never even bother engaging with you on your page. Your farce is done, as far as I’m concerned. I have actually kept up with a long sequence of MY’s horrorshow of free speech, and while I support his right to be as garish a caricature of humanity as he wants to be, I reserve the right to judge people for how they embrace or reject him because of the things he says. Now I know you endorse this MRA troll, his first claim to fame of which I’m aware, so I have a pretty good idea of how you really feel about women and their place in society. I’ve seen his Islamophobic hatemongering, so now I know how you really feel about that, based on your strong endorsement. And here’s the kicker, Frank. I know other conservatives who haven’t been duplicitous about what they actually support, and they’re still friends and, if I have anything to say about it, will remain so. Have a long, happy, and healthy life, but you’ll need to start taking applications to replace one fool in your circle, because you’re short one now. Pity that. Up till now, I’ve had the dubious claim to distinction, for being such a leftist, of only having defriended two people, both liberals, over politics. You’ve won the First Time Out award for your side. This should be a proud day for you. PS, nice to see you’ve found your nards on this forum, because you’ve certainly not displayed this degree of “boldness” forthcoming previously of which I’m aware. I guess Milo can claim that victory for himself. Kudos!

4. Yeah, my summary was better.

5. Thank you for boosting my retort, Frank. I don’t see a word in it that I regret. Perhaps you’d care to exercise more than your copy/pasting skills and actually address anything that was said? Or should I continue to be weary of what appears to be willful distortion on your part? After all, I did ask for you to enlighten me as to how my understanding of the context of MY’s verbatim quote is somehow in error. Has he actually helped other victims? Show me proof as good as Obama’s birth certificate, and even then I’ll only give him half credit because the quote in question stands alone perfectly well. Is he himself actually a victim? Sounds to me like it depends on whether or not he’s got book deals or speaking fees at stake, because one minute I can watch an interview on YouTube where he’s fucking grateful for “Father Michael” because otherwise he wouldn’t suck a dick as well as he does, and another, he’s crying foul because literate people read his words and fucking well understood them.

   Good luck with your mendacity elsewhere.

6. What follows is a little bit of due diligence following an offline conversation in which I was just engaged. Point the first, I’ve yet to write a thing under a pseudonym for fear of reprisals. When I first started writing here, I made it a point of pride to hold my opinions so publicly, occasionally dripping with what I believed fairly at the time to be well deserved vehemence and venom. Now, thanks to several different blogging experiments and an idiosyncratic thing WordPress does with usernames with different blogs (one I’ve not yet been bothered to try resolving), my posts and comments end up authored by whichever blog name I’m using elsewhere at the time. In the past, my scribblings have appeared under my own name, Ars Skeptica (the name of one of my blogs, which was frequently peppered with links back to S&R), Rohg Skoler, only coincidentally even remotely like S&R, as I’ve referred to myself (deservedly or not) as a rogue scholar for decades, which now serves as a persona for an autodidact’s blog wherein, when I remember, I share nifty things I’ve learned, and most lately a blog for a creative endeavor under the name of Rocky Mountain Bog Monster. All of which is to say that I am unconcerned, personally, with the fact that you trotted my name out in your comment without first exercising the courtesy of asking consent. So what if people know what I say? But that you did that? That is a tremendously dick move.

   As to the Milo pedophile/pederasty thing, I want to be absolutely clear on something. I’ve been cautious to keep my characterizations of Milo since his public outing restricted to his defense of pederasty. When you finally get around to addressing anything like my point, you are the one who pulls a bait and switch and refers, for the first time, to pedophilia. That’s you. Thank you for posting that. And you also drop what must have felt like a really clever zinger to you at the moment when you said no wee tykes were abused. Pedophilia. Wee tykes. First you swap pederasty for pedophilia, then you take it upon yourself to define it, albeit indirectly, as involving wee tykes.

   This is where bullshit is called. If you know the first thing about that “special relationship” called pederasty and on what grounds its apologists from ancient times have defended it, then you know damned well that is exactly both what MY expressly described, and what any reasonable person with a command of the language would readily discern from his comments.

   You might note from this article that Milo also plays the bait and switch card, but we’ll get to that in a minute. http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/milo-yiannopoulos-pedophilia-video-child-molestation-boys-older-men-relationships-watch-cpac-graphic-uncensored-you-tube-response-priest/

   First, before we even have a chance to get to the good stuff, he leads off with the idea that we’re hung up on…Child. Abuse. Stuff.

   Let that sink in. Here’s the guy you are defending. Publicly. You have taken this stand until you retract it. Frank Dilatush heartily congratulates the guy who thinks we’re hung up on this Child. Abuse. Stuff. Good job, Frank. Fucking excellent work.

   MY goes on to attack policies against sexual fraternization between grad students and professors. As I understand it from my brief and very drunken trip through college, fraternization is a word. It can be looked up. And there are policies against it. And there’s reasons for those policies that have everything to do with both the abuse of the power imbalance between the professor and the grad student and with an educational institution’s legitimate desire to not be liable for the dalliances of those in their employ. So let’s be all libertarian for a moment and suggest that the University (we’ll just call it that, be it a college or whatever) has a right to establish terms of employment and establish policies and that, upon accepting employment, a professor agrees to abide by those policies, and that the professor who breaches those policies is the asshole here, on both counts (the ethical issue of abuse of power and the breach of terms).

   While you’re at it, you might want to read up on ethics and, in particular, the ethical issues surrounding non-fraternization policies and/or the lack thereof.

   MY thinks those policies are a problem, but of course, kind of person that he is, he will advance a position without actually fairly stating what a competing point of view might be and then defeating that view with sound reasoning. That would be too academic, too rigorous, too much like the right way to make a case. That’s not his style, or yours either, apparently. But he’s all for loosening restrictions on the ethical abuse of power represented by sexual fraternization between professors and grad students, and you heartily congratulate him. In public. In front of people. Good fucking job.

   Then the real fun begins.

   What he describes in the quote that I harped on in the thread you posted like an asshole is pederasty. Note: I am the one at this point inserting that word into the analysis, not you, not MY, not the DJ’s in the interview.

   Since I don’t seem to word two good, I’d better look that word up. Dictionary.com will suffice. noun
   1.
   sexual relations between two males, especially when one of them is a minor.

   Oh, damn, there’s another word I obviously don’t know. Minor.

   Definition 4 is the one that fits: under the legal age of full responsibility.

   Weird, huh? That doesn’t mention an age of consent. Full responsibility. Am I foolish for thinking a reasonable person in the US typically associates this age in question with 18? You tell me.

   And MY at no point balks against this notion, the one of pederasty. Not once. No, figuratively speaking, he strips down naked, oils himself up, and swims around in it like a polar bear in a bloody pool of seal meat.

   And you, Frank Dilatush, heartily fucking congratulate him. Good job!

   Now let’s examine when it became time to defend this deplorable view (please say out loud here that you don’t think defenses of pederasty are deplorable, please). First there’s some speculation as to when MY first had sexual relations. He’s reticent. They urge that it was surely in his teens. They urge 14. MY concedes only so far as to say “something like that.”

   Perhaps SAT sample questions aren’t an indicator of my ability to comprehend the written language, high percentiles be damned. I see that part of the discussion and infer from it that “something like that” means either 13, 14, or 15,” or is just an offhand concession/dismissal, or possibly even hints at the possibility that the age is even lower, but yeah, let’s go with that. Two kids steal a car. They’re pulled over. Officer asks, “whose car is this, kid?” Kid says, “um, my brother’s?” Cop says, “your brother’s?” inflected in such a way as to indicate suspicion. Kid says, “yeah, my brother, something like that.” Used that way, I think one might even call it ironic, but it’s certainly a possible usage.

   So, keeping this short segment in the highlight, we need to consult outside the text for context, but only the littlest bit, because it becomes clear in a matter of minutes. Spoiler alert: later on he gives strong reason to believe he means it here ironically.

   Then a DJ wonders aloud if there are 13 year olds out there capable of giving informed consent. He speculates that it’s possible. Then he adds that in his own experience with other 13 year old boys when he was that age, not all were sexually mature yet. Some still felt that girls were icky. And this is why, opined the DJ, we have these age of consent laws.

   MY, in his typically unclear (maybe intentionally obfuscatory) way says that he thinks “the law” probably gets it right. He is unclear in many ways simultaneously here. Allow me to scratch my head and drool while I try to spell it out for myself (the blogging equivalent of reading out loud, I guess).

   Milo is a British journalist. When he says “the law,” it makes semantic sense, because there would be the one law he’d first (and maybe only) think of, British law. Guess what the age of consent is in the UK. Go ahead. Guess. 14, of the “something like that” comment, indicating he was of legal age to consent? 15? Ohhhh, maybe the other way, deeper into dodgy territory, 13?

   Nope. 16.

   Milo thinks the law that was broken when he “consented” (if he consented) is “about right.” The law he’s most likely thinking of is his own. The law says 16.

   As Americans hearing this interview, am I to assume that the majority of us will understand him as talking about the age of consent in the UK? That’s way more generous than I’m willing to assume when I can point to embarrassing articles highlighting the tragicomedy that 30% of Americans believe some patently stupid shit or other…over and over and over again. Sometimes that’s liberals, just sayin’.

   Hell, how many of Trump’s supporters (that I defended against broadbrushing over and over again) will even stop to wonder if the age of consent is the same in all states? Or would bother, of their own gumption, to look up age of consent information. I’ma stick with Wiki as a primary encyclopedic go-to and allow that individual facts within might be arguable. Find one? Argue it.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America

   Looks to me like he’d have to be talking about Mexico or Central America for his consent to be legal, as he’s discussed it thus far. Minimum legal age of consent in the US and Canada is 16. 17 in some US states, even 18 in others. Hello, statutory, depending on which state you’re in.

   Gonna need more of that context from a moment in the future, aren’t we?

   He goes on to say that he believe there are people under “that” age, which seems like it has to be 16, if we’re to understand werds good, who can give consent. He considers himself one of them. See also: banged at the age of “something like that.”

   MY suggests that there are kids under the age of 16, hold on, that there are 15 year olds and 14 year olds and maybe something like that 13 year olds or maybe even something like that 12 year olds. MY doesn’t refer to precocity, per se, but soon he may as well have. Aside from its usage in reference to intellectual maturity, in biology it also references physical maturity, as in sexual maturity.

   MY derails for a moment to rant about “the left” and their (not yours, Frank, unless you have an official Lefty Card in the Lefty Closet) their “arbitrary” imposition of age of consent laws like some one size fits all solution. So 16 in the UK and in Canada are arbitrary leftist domineering of you poor conservatives with 15 year old daughters who just need a good fuck and we’re keeping them from it. Us damned leftists are keeping your good and decent 14 year old boys from slobbering the occasional knob. Dammit, those leftists! You good and wholesome right-wingers have friends with 13 year old kids who have a right, a RIGHT, I say, to a good jab right in the brown-eye once or several dozen times. If it weren’t for those fucking leftists, why…

   I’ll tell ya why…Frank Dilatush.

   Why is when MY deplores (now there’s a joke, get it? HAH!) (pro-tip: that MY is capable of finding something deplorable outside a mirror is fucking hilarious) that vast left wing conspiracy to keep godfearin’ right-wing children from playing a friendly game of Bumpin’ Uglies and it’s a DJ who first uses the word molestation to describe what MY endorses. Then another DJ chimes in with the same usage, but in the context of Catholic priests.

   I see no reason to think either of the DJ’s that spoke in this instance to be anything other than Reasonable Men, of the sort referred to in law when a Reasonable Person test is applied. Maybe you have some dirt on the DJ’s that would make them not reasonable people and somehow protect MY as one? That would be quite special. So, if I assume them to be Reasonable Persons, I have to take it as reasonable that, when faced with what MY endorses, a reasonable person would see what MY endorses as molestation.

   And you heartily congratulate the endorser of what reasonable people call molestation, Frank Dilatush. Really, you should be getting medals for all these wins. Just outfuckingstanding.

   Finally, FINALLY, the word pedophilia comes up, the one that you glommed onto. And you glommed onto the word on the basis of what the guy who introduces it defines it as. Well, fuck. Who needs a damned dictionary when I have MY to tell me that what reasonable people see as molestation, he sees as something that only happens to children, to wit, humans that have not yet sexually matured.

   And he thinks that upon sexual maturity, a person is no longer a child and can give consent. He defines it in terms of puberty.

   Dictionary.com might almost agree with you both there. Pedophilia:

   noun, Psychiatry.
   1.
   sexual desire in an adult for a child.

   That’s pedophilia. Ain’t it a damned shame I had to go ahead and click for the definition of child, though?

   First definition in common usage: noun, plural children.
   1.
   a person between birth and full growth; a boy orgirl:

   Between birth and full growth.

   Randos on Yahoo seem to think “fully grown” implies something between 17 and 24. Are you smarter than some rando on the internet, Frank Dilatush? Can you define fully grown to be earlier than that?

   Oh, well, there’s those damnable leftist age of consent laws that allow for nobody younger than 16 to consent in the UK, Canada, and the US. If ya wanna get freaky deaky with someone a little fuzzier and less hairier, I guess you need a good right-wing friend with a kid or a trip to Mexico.

   Now, if one consults Wiki on the subject of pedophilia, one can, with a little judicious clicking, learn that in the DSM-5 the cut-off age is 13, even though girls as young as 10 and boys as young as 11 might start puberty much sooner.

   And it’s those damned leftists that insist on this arbitrary and fucked up age of consent thing that makes people have to wait another whole three years before people can go stuffing their cocks into people. And to hear MY tell it, pedophilia is only when squishy (and not so squishy) bits are plastered on, around, or into another human body before puberty, and one size fits all laws are oppressive.

   Got any hot 10 year old nieces you want to pair off with some young (young adult is apparently under 30, which is one of the two most common age groups to engage in real pedophilia, so don’t worry, Frank Dilatush, the pervs won’t be going after your 9 year old nieces and 10 year old boys. Pre-pubescent.

   Let that sink in, Dear Reader.

   It’s puberty and maturity, you see, not arbitrary numbers thrown about by freaks like leftists and psychiatrists and psychologists and lawmakers and dictionaries, that dictate when a person should be allowed to give your precious and maybe precocious snowflakes a Dirty Sanchez. Too far? Okay. Mea culpa. I’m relieved to learn that if Frank Dilatush has friends with 10 year old daughters and 11 year old sons, a Dirty Sanchez might be a bit much, but maybe reverse cowgirl (or boy) is okay. As long as the kiddos say yes, who are we to say otherwise?

   And you, Frank Dilatush, heartily congratulate this endorser of sex with precocious 10 and 11 year old children as long as…they CONSENT! Now there’s a brass ring to reach for! If the (not a predator not a predator not a predator) aspiring lover of tender young orifices can just cajole consent out of a sexually precocious child, age is just a number, right?

   So tell me, Frank Dilatush. You have a hot niece? Is she a goer, aye? Wink, wink, say no MORE, squire!

   Better yet, tell us your physical mailing address so I can send you a copy of Lolita with Jeremy Irons. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should, but I should warn you…the point is to NOT fap while watching it.

7. In Defense of Milo

   I don’t like bullies. I was molested by a bully in Kettering Ohio starting in 1961 and continuing for over a year. I was 6 or 7 he was 11 or 12. His name was Rance and he was rancid. I still remember the heavy dirty smell and taste of him and the threats of extreme bodily harm if I didn’t do what he wanted and keep my mouth shut. He was defective and I knew it but I felt powerless and I let it happen. Then he got caught setting neighborhood cats on fire and was sent away to the boy’s home. That was a bad year for me and I never told anyone until now. I fucking hate bullies.

   In the summer of 1966 my single mother saved up enough money to send me to a boy’s science camp in Pennsylvania. Skycrest, we wore blue shorts and white T’s printed with their logo. It was neat. A pool, a lake, trampolines, archery and crafts, canoes, plus classes on chemistry and biology and astronomy. I loved it. Our cabin counselor’s name was George. I admired him a lot. He seemed old but in reality was probably only 20 or so. One night he held me back while the other campers went to some activity and he tried to molest me. I wasn’t having any of it. Rance had cured me of that shit. I called my mom and told her exactly what had happened and she hopped in her car and drove 7 hours and came and got me. Never said a word to George or the owners, we just split. It was the 60’s, men had a lot more power then.

   Then around 1969 my mother had risen in the ranks of IBM to Senior SE and she was gone a lot so she started hiring housekeepers to cook and clean and babysit for my sister and I. We went through a few and finally settled on Clara Duff. She was a big breasted country woman with an easy smile and bottle blonde hair and she always smelled like Avon lilac perfume. Mid 40’s I’d guess. She said I looked like Heath from The Big Valley. I don’t know who seduced who but I definitely had an active part in it. She took my virginity and I loved every minute of it. The only moral crisis it presented for me at all was that she was married and I still believed in god at the time. I had a lot of conversations with myself and my imaginary friend about the sin of adultery…but I never stopped until I dropped out of high school in the 11th grade to join the Marines. Hell, given the chance I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

   So what on earth does this have to do with our current debacle? From experience I have empathy for little mister Milo Yiannopoulos. I know exactly where he’s coming from. And while I don’t agree with some of what he says I do feel strongly that he has been wrongly accused, bullied if you will, by both left and right for speaking truthfully about his own experiences. And that is why gentlemen, that I stood up and still stand up most vigorously in his defense. He said nothing that has not been said by other celebrities such as Bill Mahler, George Takei, Lena Dunham. Yet they get a pass and he gets vilified. Did I mention that I _fucking_ hate bullies?

   Now, I am sorry that our time together has come to an end. I enjoyed our many discussions and I learned some things. Thank you. I was never a good fit here anyway, round peg in a square hole. We all gave it the old college try but you just can’t force minds to mesh. I came here with a clear conscience and inquisitive nature and I leave with the same. No harm no foul as far as I’m concerned.

   Otherwise, you’re full shit like a Christmas turkey when you say I’ve been hiding my true self. From the moment I arrived here I have been exactly me, no more no less. Vociferous, brash, unfiltered, and always honest and true to my beliefs, whacked though they may or may not be. As far as Facebook, no I don’t attack people on their pages anymore than I would come into their home and start a fight. It’s not a matter of nads, it’s a matter of civility. That I did start a fight, which I accept full responsibility for, was because I felt I was stalked on to a 3rd party’s page and waylaid. Nemo me impune lacessit.

   Frank, you’re a good man with a kind heart and I take no offense at your words. That you gallantly stood up for your friend is proof positive. Bravo, live it like it you stole it brother. As a parting gift I offer you this. Don’t believe the “art has to be offensive” business. A few less words, a little more soul, connect with your audience and you’ll do fine.

   Sam, I was harsh and you were harsh. Fucking life is harsh. I’m extremely happy for you that you finally found love and a dog and photography. Especially photography. Third time is a charm, and you’re really rather good at it.

   So long, and thanks for all the fish!

   Frank

   • I want to be very clear about something.

     Two boys are sexually abused. One grows up to hate bullies and abusers. The other grows up, becomes famous, and uses his pulpit to justify abuse, to rationalize it, to normalize it, to promote it.

     These aren’t just different things, they’re opposite things. Black vs white. Night vs day. Good vs evil.

     When abuse victims grow up and speak on the issue (if they speak – many remain silent their whole lives as a result of the trauma and humiliation, and that’s understandable), they use their voices to condemn it. They may work tirelessly to help the victims or to assure that the guilty are punished so that it doesn’t happen again.

     This isn’t what MY did. And if all I know about you and him was that both were abused, and that he grew to say what he has said and you have grown up to say what you say about your childhood experience in this comment, I would bet the house that you’d condemn him in the strongest terms humanly possible, because while you fought back, he’s encouraging abusers to target young boys like you were.

     I can’t imagine anyone here not empathizing with young Milo the rape victim (even though he doesn’t frame his experience in those terms). We’ve heard enough stories from the victims of priests, of coaches, of funny uncles and trusted family friends, and the pain is visceral. I can’t imagine that anyone here right now doesn’t feel the same empathy for young Frank.

     But whereas Frank grew up to be a successful businessman and community member who provides good jobs for his people, MY grew up to be an unfiltered piece of shit who does all he can to make the world a more hateful place. And who the hell knows – maybe if he hadn’t been victimized by that priest he’d be a solid member of the community right now, too. No telling, but I can’t help asking the question.

     This whole episode isn’t happening because you never quite fit here. It isn’t happening because you’re a square peg in a round hole. It’s happening because you saw a pederast rationalizing child rape, normalizing it, endorsing it, and instead of saying that’s wrong you cheered him on. I was appalled that on the face of it. Knowing that you were molested, too doesn’t make your comments more sympathetic. It makes them even harder to fathom.

     I can’t help wondering that if instead of MY the subject had been someone with a similar rank and platform over at Raw Story or Crooks & Liars or Kos your response might have been different.

8. I’m totally hosing my swan song but what the hell, there’s no hurry. I think Sam that our extreme difference of opinion here lies in the terms rape versus consensual sex. I agree with the internet artist formerly known as FB (sidebar: dude I’m sorry I used your name. It wasn’t a dick move, in my world it’s common courtesy to refer to fellows by their Christian names. It won’t happen again because, well, because we’re splitting the sheets. But even if we weren’t all you had to do was say something). Anyway, Bog Monster was right I have been using variations of the words pederast and pedophile interchangeably and they’re not.

   In the 3rd part of my saga I related how I beginning at 14 years of age had ongoing consensual sex with a 40 something year old woman. Now we can argue about the hypothetical age of reason and the legal age of consent (which was 15 at the time in West Virginia) but I was there and I knew exactly what I was doing. Just as Milo said he was when he was fellating Father Whatshisname. Consensual sex, not rape.Willing partners not victims. We’ll never agree on that, but that’s the way I felt it and that’s the way I read it.

   As far as I can tell you didn’t blink an eye at that part of my story but yet take great umbrage at that part of Milo’s. To quote Bill Maher speaking about a similar female teacher/male student case, “The crime is, we didn’t get to see it on videotape.” I find that extremely sexist. I’ll also note that we don’t even seem to have an equivalent word for pederast when it involves an older woman and an early teens boy. Hebephile was the closest I could find and you don’t hear that one very often, or ever. If there is such a word I’d like to hear it.

   As to my motivations for supporting Milo, we’ve had several discussions here where I stood up for individuals that I felt were being treated as under dogs. That filthy George Zimmerman and your godtard buddy Tim Tebow come immediately to mind. People I have zero commonality with but felt inclined to defend in particular circumstances. That I haven’t swum upstream supporting progressives being attacked is more a function of the available subject matter here than any disinclination on my part to do so.

   OK, I’m sure I’ve once again said something offensive so I’m now tying myself to the whipping post and standing by for the lash. It’s only fair to allow rebuttal and then I’m fucking out of here.

9. As long as there’s partings and bearings of souls, I’ll offer up what I have, because I sympathize with the child Milo, and I sympathize with the child Frank. Where we part ways is that I can support Milo’s right to free speech, abhor the treatment of his right by the knee-jerk left, and still utterly loathe the current Milo and what he stands for. If it weren’t for his calling Spencer, a modern-day loserNazi white supremacist, a friggin’ “thought leader” to the alt-right, I’d never dream of Godwin-ing an argument, but Milo did that to himself by calling Spencer a thought leader instead of opposing him vigorously. I, too, hate bullies, and hate is a word I don’t use loosely. I don’t know of a bigger group of ultimate bullies than our current incarnations of racial and Nazi hatred. In an alternate universe changed by momentary decisions, I’d either be dead or a lifer in prison for the nature of the hate I’ve harbored. Let’s just say that when I was in a delicate decision-making point in my pre-adult life, I had means, motive, opportunity, and a raging desire. Blood being spilled was a decision away.

   Was I molested as a young child of 5 or younger? I don’t know. I have snippets of memories, incommensurables that don’t add up. If no, things were merely weird in a bad way for a kid. If yes, that might explain much. Did I watch way more T&A movies at the drive in than the average 5-9 year old? You betcha. I grew up on horror and 70’s schlocky sexploitation bad woman cop/prison guard movies somehow.

   Bullying started for me when I was 5. Nothing to compare to FD’s. Getting shoved was a fact of life. Being wee without any fight was, also. From 5-17, bullying changed with every new neighborhood, of which there were plenty, and every new school, of which there were several, some physical, mostly of the garden variety verbal nature. It was enough to make a 10 year old suicidal. It was enough that by 14 I’d memorized chunks of the US Army Improvised Munitions manual from ’68 and had plans.

   At 11 I was the target of a neighborhood offender with a rap sheet a mile long. Some diligent buttinsky probably saved me from getting trafficked. Said offender, lacking racial privilege, went away for “enticement,” a word that apparently cops can use for nothing more than a bad past and the stink of maybe a suspicion.

   A 14, I had my Milo/FD opportunity. I consented to every offer she handed me. I also consented to a lot of other weird shit because somehow I forgot the word, “no.” There was a slippery slope of bodies and drugs and I was lubed up for a slick, fast ride. It took me fewer than 10 years of aging and maturing to realize to my own satisfaction that what I enthusiastically consented to didn’t involve real, meaningful consent on my part. I’m dogmatic on that point now, and probably impossible to persuade to the contrary. Caveat emptor is an adult concern. No child, no minor, should be put in a situation where the candy store is open, the candy is free for the taking, and the big caveat emptor reveal is later down the way. If some say yes and never have cause for regret, that’s just really damned good fortune. As we learned in school way back, the good suffer for the mistakes of the bad, however. There will be locker searches for everybody because little Billy chewed gum.

   At 16, the caveat emptor reveal happened. Maybe I could have ended up dead. Odds were against the angry hubby, though, as he had everything to lose and I had not only nothing to lose, I thought I had access to someone’s trunkload of illicit arms. Failing that, I had a machete. There was a ledge. I was talked down. You know, standard fare for a 16 year old kid.

   At 16, I hadn’t learned a damned thing and went from married mentor to married mentor, as it were. Two angry hubbies later and I was ripe for dropping out of high school, high PSAT scores and likely scholarships be damned. At 17, my sheltered ass went from being an 05G recruiter’s wet dream to some slimebag recruiter’s easy mark for 11X. I make little distinction between bullies and cons on that front considering the life path that led me down.

   18 would be the last year I could consider myself the target of a sex crime of any sort, and that was some freakazoid who picked me up as a hitchhiker in the middle of nowhere. Let’s just say, “I don’t care if it kills us both, stop the car or I’ll bash your brains out,” gets the car stopped.

   I count myself fortunate that the degree of bullying I survived is a lower degree than the bullying you survived, FD. I count myself and you as both unfortunate as nobody should have any degree of it. I count the people I didn’t kill as most fortunate. Columbine gained its place in the history books because Riverdale didn’t happen. The world has heroes whose names will never be known. I know because one of them stopped Riverdale with an hour worth of words.

   Which leads me full circle to where Sam was headed. What we deal with now in the present is the worth of words (and by implication, ideas and actions). I see Milo, and yeah, my heart breaks for the young one. That had a tremendous shaping effect on his present day character. You know what else has such a shaping effect? The personal responsibility one takes for their ideas and their words and their actions and the causes for which they take a stand. And in Milo, I see a present day avatar of all the worst society has offered since WWII, a Goebbels wannabe at best, which is ironic considering he’d be getting the pink triangle at best and no love for his Catholicism.

   We choose our causes du jour. Sometimes we pick winners. Sometimes we pick losers. Sometimes, like me, you pick Obama in 2008 and say, “fuck that,” in 2012. Along the way, maybe we err, but maybe we learn to err on the side of caution.

   History tells me that caution means err away from Milo and his ilk. I’ve said it repeatedly, for any worthwhile thing he or his particular ilk have to say, do the legwork and find someone who doesn’t suck that says it and says it better without compromising the quality of the message with the rest of the total package. At the end of the day, I don’t care if Hitler was touched in such a way he could point to the doll and show what the bad man did. I don’t fucking care. He was Hitler, modern history’s biggest bully.

   Some people are handed some sour-ass lemons in life and become Milo or Spencer or Hitler. Some make lemonade, or a pie, or throw it at latter-day Hitler wannabes. I’m glad you made good, FD. Right now your money is on the wrong horse, though, and that’s about as objective a subjective observation I can make. For every good thing Milo says, you can find it in Reason and National Review and The Hill blog, for instance. But every click, every like, every boost to his personal brand advances not only the good but the worst along with it. And you know this is something to at least consider because it’s been pointed out. And you’re a smart cookie, so you’ve weighed it at least a little. And you plunk your $2 on Milo and fuck anyone who disgrees because siding with Milo is so much more important.

   With that in mind, maybe you can understand the degree of my vitriol.

   So, no, FD. At the end, you don’t get sympathy from me. Or good will. Whatever your past, whatever your reasons, I don’t give a shit, because in the final analysis you choose Nazi sympathizers over people willing to at least try to bridge differences instead of light them on fire with field expedient gas gelled with blood.

10. I actually agree that Milo got dumped on and probably wouldn’t if he were someone else who felt the same way, say Joe Paterno.