USA Today Calls for 'Destigmatizing Pedophilia' - Pedophiles Are 'Misunderstood'
Newspaper diminishes pedophilia as 'inappropriate' while blasting the 'stigma'
© press
Left-wing newspaper USA Today has published an article that champions "destigmatizing pedophilia" while arguing that pedophiles are "misunderstood."
On Monday, the paper, one of the most circulated in America, ran an article that downplays the "attraction" to children as merely "inappropriate."
USA Today, one of Facebook's so-called "fact-checkers," then goes on to promote a radical theory that the “stigma” against the sexual attraction to minors “can actually lead to harm against children.”
"Pedophilia is viewed as among the most horrifying social ills,” decries the article's author, Alia E. Dastagir.
"But scientists who study the sexual disorder say it is also among the most misunderstood.
"Researchers who study pedophilia say the term describes an attraction, not an action, and using it interchangeably with ‘abuse’ fuels misperceptions” about pedophiles.
© press
One of the "experts" compares pedophilia to any unguarded sexual impulse upon which society would frown.
Anna Salter, a psychologist, says she begins her sessions by asking, “How many of you have ever had an inappropriate sexual thought?”
However, if you're expecting to find links to peer-reviewed studies that back up these claims from "scientists" and "researchers," you will be disappointed.
Instead, the article favorably quotes Allyn Walker, formerly of Old Dominion University.
Walker promotes the idea of “destigmatizing pedophilia” and calling pedophiles “minor-attracted persons.”
Walker — a transgender individual who uses the pronouns they/them — said the “stigma” against the sexual attraction to minors “can actually lead to harm against children.”
The newspaper opened a lengthy thread on Twitter by stating, “We think we know what a pedophile is.
"There’s a lot we’re misunderstanding.”
"When most of the public thinks of pedophilia, they assume it’s synonymous with child sexual abuse.
"A pedophile is an adult who is sexually attracted to children, but not all pedophiles abuse kids, and some people who sexually abuse kids are not pedophiles,” the paper told its readers via social media.
Roughly 20% of all girls and 5% of all boys experience childhood sexual abuse, according to the National Center for the Victims of Crime.
The newspaper subsequently deleted the Twitter thread.
“The initial thread lacked the context that was within the story and we made the decision the pull down the entire thread,” the paper wrote.
The initial thread lacked the context that was within the story and we made the decision the pull down the entire thread.
— USA TODAY Life (@usatodaylife) January 11, 2022
USA Today has deleted its entire pedophile apologia thread but don’t let them memory hole this pic.twitter.com/vVYzdgsAsP
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) January 11, 2022
“The Internet is forever a******s good try on the delete tho!” wrote Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter.
“To me (and probably anyone who has been watching) this is nothing more than the first step of trying to normalize this kind of behavior.”
The Internet is forever assholes good try on the delete tho!
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 11, 2022
USA TODAY TRIES TO “UNDERSTAND” PEDOPHILES!!!
To me (and probably anyone who has been watching) this is nothing more than the first step of trying to normalize this kind of behavior. 🤬🤬🤬 https://t.co/vbJQUkfspZ… pic.twitter.com/FKGMAvmcui
The article, which appeared in USA Today’s “Health and Wellness” section, triggered a withering response from bewildered readers.
“F***ing what,” asked one.
“Did your editor approve of you writing this or did you just kind of slip this article in?” inquired another.
© press
Social scientists say the effort to erode the social taboo around pedophilia has been underway for years.
"I do not misunderstand pedophilia at all,” Jennifer Roback Morse — a former Yale economics professor who founded the pro-family Ruth Institute — said in a statement.
"The architects of the Sexual Revolution declared, without proof, that all sexual restraints were outmoded taboos that we were well rid of.
"But the sexual taboos protect the interests of children,” added Morse.
In order to eliminate traditional sexual morés, “the sexual revolutionaries had to redefine childhood.
"Instead of children being dependent on their parents, parents became the oppressors of children’s sexual liberation.
"Instead of being innocent, children became sexual beings.
"In this way, pedophilia has been baked into the sexual revolution from the beginning.”
The world’s most notorious pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, took a similar tactic of presenting sexual attraction to minors with same-sex attraction.
Epstein “said that criminalizing sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable,” according to New York Times reporter James B. Stewart.
"He pointed out that homosexuality had long been considered a crime and was still punishable by death in some parts of the world."
As long ago as 1996, Mary Eberstadt wrote in an article titled “Pedophilia Chic” that the “social consensus against the sexual exploitation of children . . . is apparently eroding.”
Throughout the 1990s, feminists prodded colleges nationwide to host performances of Eve Ensler’s play “The Vagina Monologues.”
The original script gives a positive portrayal of a 24-year-old lesbian seducing and statutorily raping a 13-year-old girl.
Subsequent edits raised the girl’s age to 16.
The issue of pedophilia interjected itself into last year’s Virginia governor’s race, as concerned parents noted that books in public school libraries depicted acts of homosexual pedophilia and/or portrayed man-boy sexual interaction in a positive light.
The newspaper that published Dastagir’s article, USA Today, has increasingly blurred the line between reporting and editorializing.
Late last year, USA Today ran a news story allegedly linking support for the right to keep and bear arms with neo-Nazi extremism.
Earlier in December, the newspaper asked, “Is math racist?”
In recent years, USA Today has repeatedly attempted to defame Neon Nettle as "fake news."
