The Tth About Gay Men and Pedophilia - INTO

Contents:

• THE TTH ABOUT GAY MEN AND PEDOPHILIA
• INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD
• ARE GAY PRITS THE PROBLEM?
• THE GAY COMMUNY’S OBSSN WH STAT AND LOOKS HAS HUGE MENTAL HEALTH COSTS

THE TTH ABOUT GAY MEN AND PEDOPHILIA

Earlier this month, actor Anthony Rapp, the origal Mark RENT, who now plays an openly gay character on CBS’s Star Trek: Disvery, acced Kev Spacey of sexually harassg him at age 14. But has also revived the long-dormant stereotype that gay men are predisposed to molt young boys, a favore trope of anti-gay csars who have ed to ny gays’ rights for s. The Spacey ntroversy cid wh a seri of sexual asslt allegatns agast gay men the wake of the Harvey Weste reports cludg Nashville publicist Kirt Webster, agent Tyler Grasham, entertament executive Gary Goddard, and actor Gee Takei.

Lively, who is listed as a hate lear by the Southern Poverty Law Center, asks if this is a “tip-of-the-iceberg perasty sndal” that will expose “the pedophile re of ‘gay’ male culture. Lively is among the most unhged anti-gay bigots: He has advoted for laws crimalizg gay public advocy, acced gay men of beg the “te ventors of Nazism, ” and helped export hate to Ain untri like Uganda, where Lively helped spire legislatn that impos the ath penalty for gay sex.

But the associatn of gay men wh pedophilia is a nard that persists the culture s after actor and bety queen Ana Bryant lnched the “Save Our Children” mpaign 1977, which succeed repealg a Da County anti-discrimatn law and led California to nsir banng gay people om teachg public schools. Even today, Fay Guy regularly featur an elrly gay pedophile on the show who often attempts to prey on the character of Stewie.

INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD

For all the work LGBTQ activists have done to show gay men are not a danger to children the era of marriage equaly, the pernic trope persists. The tth is that there simply is no nnectn between homosexualy and pedophilia: The ia that gay men are attracted to young boys at rat any higher than the general populatn is a scientifilly monstrable lie.

By measurg “penile rpons” (aka how erect the penis be) while showg gay men pictur of boys and straight men pictur of girls of different ag, rearchers found that young boys did not aroe gay men any more than young girls aroed straight men.

“There is no nnectn statistil or theoretil between gay attractn toward men and the proclivy to molt children, ” Ray Blanchard, a sexologist at the Universy of Toronto School of Medice, tells INTO. For both gay and straight men, he distguished between pedophil, who are attracted to prepubcent children; hebephil, who are attracted to post-pubcent young men; and telephil, who are attracted to adults.

ARE GAY PRITS THE PROBLEM?

Confirmg s of fdgs, Blanchard disvered that gay men are no more attracted to children than straight men. Both gay and straight men showed some aroal toward post-pubcent adolcents, but fact, straight men were more often aroed by teens than gay men.

While lbians have historilly been ls associated wh pedophilia than gay men, they still mt ntend wh the trope of the lbian gym teacher who is way too eager for the schoolgirls to shower after class. This means that, spe what people like Stt Lively may thk, there’s no monstrable lk between homosexualy and pedophilia. Blanchard, Seto, and other sex rearchers strs that “homosexual” this ntext do not mean “gay” as is monly ed.

In the scientific lerature, “homosexual” not a person who is attracted to someone of the same sex whether they adm their attractns and embrace a gay inty or not. Blanchard and other scientists refer to gays attracted to adults as “homosexual telephil” (vers homosexual pedophil).

THE GAY COMMUNY’S OBSSN WH STAT AND LOOKS HAS HUGE MENTAL HEALTH COSTS

Bee of lgerg stigma around homosexualy, gay men are more likely to be spected of child abe and monored when they teract wh children. If one looks at natnal data about both pedophilia and hebephilia (aka attractn to adolcents), ’s clear society should worry way more about straight men moltg girls than gay men preyg upon young boys. Even Blanchard says that his own study do not show that gay men are any greater a danger to children than straight men; his fdgs should not be misnsted to mean gay men are more likely to be pedophil.

Until the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, the gay movement wily shunned heteronormativy, wh LGBTQ people of the era claimg that they wanted no part society’s love and marriage game. “Gay liberatnist disurse go beyond the state, ” Jim Downs, a historian at Connecticut College and thor of Stand By Me: The Fotten History of Gay Liberatn, tells INTO. “So much of what we’ve accepted today as gay rights started as gay radilism, women’s radilism, and black radilism.

The earlit “homophile” anizatns like the Mattache Society, found 1950, were unrground groups that operated more like a terrorist cell work than a hive natnal anizatn. As did society more generally, gay men qutned the age of nsent and censorship laws unrground publitns. Three months after Stonewall, the North Amerin Conference of Homophile Organizatns, umbrella anizatn prisg 14 gay liberatn groups, published “A Radil Manifto” mandg “the removal of all rtrictns on sex between nsentg persons of any sex, of any orientatn, of any age, anywhere, whether for money or not, and for the removal of all censorship.