LE FREAK, C’EST CHIC

The other double standard is the way in which under-age boys’ interaction with adult women is largely celebrated in the general culture. One heterosexual correspondent put it best: ‘The problem, it seems to me, is not that the gay community doesn’t treat pedophilia as a crime. The problem is that the heterosexual community only treats SOME pedophilia as a crime, and the root of the problem is that female sexuality is shameful, homosexuality more so, but a boy’s (heterosexual!) loss of innocence is occasion for male bonding and cold Budweisers.’ This seems to me to be pretty accurate. Again, the issue for Eberstadt is not pedophilia (which is often ignored when it occurs between under-age boys and legal girls) but homosexuality (which many people regard as inherently abusive even if it is engaged in by teenagers of legal age). The Standard should simply be honest and write a cover-story about why it believes that homosexuals are the equivalent of pedophiles, and should endure the same moral and criminal sanctions. That’s what they believe. Why don’t they have the guts to say it?