Normalizing Abuse Can Make Us Do Terrible Things: Milo Yuckopolous

Milo Yianno... Yuckopolous: A Troll and His Priest

[Citation needed] Even if that were statistically true,
treating it as an insidious conspiracy is still racist.
Hello, internalized anti-semitism!

Recently, an interview came to light in which Milo* implied that it is fine for adults to have sexual relations with minors who have reached puberty*2. Despite his previous hateful stances against women, feminists, transgender people, people of color, Jewish people, liberals, and men who simply aren't assholes, people were just fine with him and freeze peach and just give him a chance! 

Then suddenly: outrage! Fox News turned on him and even Breitbart. You see, asshole white men aren't women, feminists, transgender, brownish, Jewish, or liberal but they can be survivors of molestation. It's like abortion; one reason that people care is that the fetus could be a white male.

Now Milo's lost his book deal, his biggest speaking gig, and his "credibility" because he thinks that statutory rape is ok. I think that what he specifically said he supports is gross because of the power imbalance; difference in judgment capability and experience; and the teen prestige of catching an adult.*3

Then he explained his rationale.

"In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men — the sort of ‘coming of age’ relationships — the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable rock where they can't speak to their parents."  

His molestation was beneficial and would be to others if he did the same. Well, hi, normalization! 

Suddenly, his claims that transgender women commit sex crimes against women and girls in bathrooms make a lot more sense, don't they? After all, people who do bad things or want to do bad things usually think that that group that they hate does those things in inexcusable cases, which are unlike their "right and just" cases. (See right wing claims of voter fraud conspiracies.)

And then there's the fact that Milo calls Trump "Daddy." That just went from weird in a bad way to super creepy. And his comment that the idea of consent is "arbitrary and oppressive?" Well, that's one way to defend his online army's rape threats. They're not really a problem if the real problem is requiring consent in the first place.

Yiannopoulos protests that, this time, he really didn’t mean it, that his words have been taken out of context, that child sex abuse is real, and that he understands that words have consequences for victims.

(But only for victims of crimes that affected him, that affect white men, that affect his followers and his income.) Now Milo is bending over backwards to deny that this is what he meant, including changing his story from him being 12 to him being 17, which would still be illegal where he lived. He changed his story so he doesn't have to admit to his followers that he was a victim.

At least he seems to have done some soul searching now and has discovered his normalization of abuse:

My relationship with my abusers is complicated by the fact that, at the time, I did not perceive what was happening to me as abusive. I can look back now and see that it was. I still don’t view myself as a victim. But I am one.

His career is victimizing people, which he justifies by saying that being victimized is wrongly seen as "special currency," and now he says that what he said should be excused because his victimhood gives him special currency. ("My experiences as a victim led me to believe I could say anything I wanted to on this subject, no matter how outrageous.") This is a man who has repeatedly launched online mob attacks against women and feminists, mobs who obtained personal information on their targets to go to their homes and stalk them. His followers frame the targets for racism or "pimping their child to pedophiles" on Breitbart in forum pieces that they spread as "reliable facts from a reliable source." They try to coerce the target's employers to fire them (in the case of Gamergate, successfully), and leave notes in mailboxes that the targets need to watch out or their children will be harmed, complete with he child's school information or photo.

Anyone who complains is called an exaggerating whiner and a snowflake with a victimhood complex who is trying to ban free speech that they dislike. Threats of harm are not actually free speech. There are laws against it. These things are rarely prosecuted because there are too many suspects, most of whom are anonymous. You can't prosecute people who can't be identified. The online mobs also use lack of prosecution as proof that none of this happened or that the target was trying to frame them.

But he couldn't admit to himself that he was a victim, by his own admission; that would make him just like his targets. It's also possible that he victimizes people to prove to himself that he's not a victim, lashing out to further his denial, dehumanizing to make his dehumanization feel normal.

For that, I feel sad for him. That's the only sadness that I have for him, because even if his actions are based in a traumatic past that he hasn't dealt with, he is still responsible for his behavior towards other people, which is indescribably reprehensible.

Coming soon: The Rape Denialists and The Religious Right!

* I refuse to use Milo's whole name because his name is his brand and I don't want to contribute to that brand even through search engine results.
*2 This is technically hebephilia. Pedophilia is attraction to pre-pubescents. However, to be consistent with media reports and with how most people actually use the term pedophilia, I'll be using pedophilia instead of hebephilia. While he and many others are saying that it's not really pedophilia because it's hebephilia are trying to distract from the point and excuse what he said, even though hebephilia is also gross and acting on it is also illegal.
*3 I know I wanted an adult boyfriend when I was a teenager, just for the coolness factor, and I had a few close calls.