What was going on in the late 60s/70s that allowed for like the 14 year old “baby groupies” to be a celebrated phenomenon, for Foucault (History of Sexuality I p. 27, 31, lots more ) and Andrea Dworkin (Woman Hating 190-192 ) and Allan Ginsberg (noted for marching with NAMBLA) and Pat Califa (Public Sex contains an essay opposing age of consent laws) and Germaine Greer (The Beautiful Boy seriously read about that it’s FUCKED UP, also she advocated a bunch of other horrible shit but let’s focus on the pedophilia for now) and the International Spartacist tendency and probably a LOT more theorists/groups I haven’t read/heard of to say “it’s okay to fuck kids” in public and be prominant parts of the left/politically relevent/anything other than totally beyond the pale and not okay?
And like I mean I don’t think we live in a society that handles CSA well by any means but like pedophiles are pretty well and thoroughly loathed by the vast majority of people. They get murdered in prison. People protest when one moves into the neighborhood. A lot of people’d like to straight up murder them and like most relevant to my point, you’d be thrown out of… pretty much anywhere for saying the stuff these people said, and like that seems very much like the sensible response to me. You shouldn’t listen to people who say it’s okay to molest children, that seems pretty obvious to me, and hopefully all of you.
So like how did we have a cultural moment where the radical left was like “you know, maybe it’s not only okay to fuck kids, but the radical, politically conscious thing to do”? Like what was happening? How did this exist? How was there a time where Andrea Dworkin could say that “Curling irons are inherently oppressive (woman hating page 115), but adults having sexual interactions with children is an enlightening and positive thing”? WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT WAS HAPPENING WITH POLITICS IN THE 60S AND 70S?
HOW? WHY? CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING ON?Honestly, I’m only familiar with Greer. But if the others are like her, the answer is “They hate women”. Which seems like an odd answer, considering, but hear me out.
I heard a really compelling argument that pedophilia is advanced misogyny. In the case of young girls, it’s a hyper-toxic version of the sought after power imbalance in relationships that misogynists seek. A partner with no power, easily manipulated, and who is going to be psychologically and perhaps physically hurt by the relationship.
In the case of young boys, it’s come out that many seek to degrade through “feminizing”, and many male pedophiles with boys as victims are not in fact gay. The relationship between having been abused and being more likely to abuse likely seems to run along these lines, to prove masculinity by being able to force this false and fucked up concept on others.
But we’ve got so little data on women who prey on young boys.
Greer is a total piece of shit, though. A SWERF and TERF, and just generally unpleasant and prescriptive, she’s already got many categories of women she hates. I also think that her concept of feminism is in fact more about being able to control and speak over women.
So the idea of being able to (to her mind) manufacture a completely powerless transwoman and damage her massively is just sublime to her.
The idea that they want it, which even just saying it should ring bells, is the sort of thing that comes out of the usual rape-apologist misogynists mouth. Which would kind of explain the draw of the underage groupie concept. The fact that horny, hormonal teens desperate for a sexual outlet and validation just plays to the favour of the latter. Kids actually wanting it in some cases (I certainly did) is used to ignore whether or not that relationship has any chance of being good, or even okay for them.
And then it’s just wound backwards somewhat, through whatever justification necessary.
I find it really plausible that this is what top-tier internalized misogyny can look like, that it in fact really makes sense. The concept lodged in the patriarchy of being a “keeper”, or among the less cagey, an outright owner of women is able to spread in some truly fucked up ways. Particularly for people who conceptualize children as property, which even the supposed liberated politics of the time seem to embrace; how they sought to force their kids into a mold was different, but it was still forceful and assumed an ownership role.
Even among the less creepy sects of that era of feminism, a common theme was that women had to look a certain, “non-traditionally” feminine way in order to be viewed as liberated, respectable, and as such, worthy of having their opinion genuinely heard.
This entire era seems rife with control and power dynamics dressed up as progressive thought. As if denying the wants of an individual and their personal/bodily autonomy is anything less than reprehensible.
They’re not really quite like Greer, not really mostly in that Dworkin and Foucault never expressed any attraction to children and Dworkin (despite her many many many faults) really tears into Greer in Woman Hating
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 