Editor’s Note: Read with care as comments made by TV host Bill Maher are graphic and offensive to some.
If you haven’t seen talk show host Bill Maher’s recent monologue calling out the pedophilia problem in Hollywood, you really should take the eight and a half minutes to do so.
I’m glad someone finally said the sexual exploitation of children is wrong, and that Hollywood’s complicity and hypocrisy are appalling. However, the problem is deeper than Maher thinks. In my opinion, pedophilia is baked into the core principles of the sexual revolution. The potential for full-on acceptance of pedophilia has been latent from the very beginning of this ideology.
Here is what I mean.
Sexual revolutionaries basically tell people they can do whatever they want sexually, without any negative results. Nothing bad will happen to you or anyone around you. The old-fashioned, out-of-date taboos are the real problem, filling people with unnecessary, irrational and repressive guilt.
Advocates of the revolution seldom blurt this out, as it would be too obviously ridiculous. But when the typical advocate is pressed, this belief will surface in some form or fashion.
What’s the connection with pedophilia? Sex makes babies. The social expectations, rules, and yes, taboos, around sexual activity have consequences for children.
Pre-sexual revolution social rules around sex increased the chances that children would have lifelong access to both parents. In the new taboo-free society we’ve created for ourselves, many children don’t even know who their parents are, much less have stable relationships with both of them.
To accommodate our new beliefs about sex, we have had to revise our beliefs about children. Advocates of the New Sexual World Order suggest that children are not as helpless, dependent and needy as we supposed.
Some of these intellectual fathers and mothers of the sexual revolution held that children are “sexual beings from birth.” People like Alfred Kinsey and Wilhelm Reich suggested that kids be given judgment-free space and time to explore their sexuality with their peers, without shame or guilt. Reich advocated for children to be provided with their own apartments for this purpose. The idea that society should “protect childhood innocence” becomes no more than a relic from a benighted era.
This new understanding of childhood offers very different answers to the questions of what children really need from adult society in general and from their parents in particular. Guiding children from innocent helpless dependence to mature independence is no longer necessary, in this view. “Kids know what they need.” “Follow the child’s lead.”
Without serious exception, the architects of the sexual revolution held that sexual education was a necessity for all children. These advocates meant more than information about the mechanics of the sexual act and its connection to reproduction. They meant encouragement to see sex as a pleasurable end in itself, not necessarily connected with babies, marriage or even love.
Furthermore, they claim, kids are so resilient that they don’t even need stable loving relationships with both parents. People used to “stay together for the sake of the kids.” But in the new environment created by no-fault divorce, adults can switch their sex partners and living arrangements for any reason or no reason, without ever having to offer an account of themselves. The kids will be fine as long as their parents are happy.
Mom’s new boyfriend, or dad’s new wife, are fine substitutes for the original dad or mom. Better yet, children of divorced parents will have four adults who love them. Isn’t that great? The needs of children are reconceived in order to absolve the adults.
In effect, we redefine childhood in order to bridge the mental gap between children’s need for parental stability and adults’ sexual rights to “move on” at will.
Taking all these pieces together, what do we have? Childhood is no longer a time of dependence and innocence. The proper role of parents is no longer to protect children’s innocence. Good parenting means giving children guilt-free opportunities to explore their sexuality.
The redefinition of childhood is now almost complete. We’ve become accustomed to the idea of minors having access to contraception and abortion, without parental knowledge or consent. Some states allow minors to consent to so-called “transgender” medical procedures. Indeed, in some states, the agents of the state are authorized to remove children from their otherwise fit parents, if they do not “affirm” the child’s idea about their gender identity.
Welfare policy allows unmarried minor mothers to receive government aid, thus providing them with their own “safe space” where they can have sex without the supervision of their parents. This has now gone on for several generations so that this kind of child-rearing arrangement is completely normalized in some communities.
Please note what I am not saying. I am not saying that the people who originally engineered these policies, or those who continue to support them, are pedophiles. Nor am I saying that Reich or Kinsey were themselves pedophiles. (However, there was a group of French intellectuals who signed a petition in 1977 calling for the decriminalization of sex between adults and children. People like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir signed it.)
What I am saying is that they set something in motion that has led us to where we are today. Their theories about children being sexual from birth surely must be attractive to people who are pedophiles. The social policies inspired by their ideas surely made it harder for parents to protect the innocence of their children. The sexual revolution emboldens the predator and disarms the victim.
So, thank you, Bill Maher for your stinging critique of Hollywood’s abuse of children. But you didn’t go far enough. Trying to end childhood sexual abuse without challenging the sexual revolution is a fool’s errand. I do not believe it can be done. Hollywood will never be the leader in ending the scourge of childhood sexual abuse.
Fellow Catholics, the ancient teachings of our Church are the only possible answer to the sexual abuse problem. We need to defend those teachings. We need to pull ourselves together and clean up our own house. Because if we don’t defend the innocence of children, no one else will.
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