The left has a new crusade: legitimizing child molestation.
That’s why Salon.com has now run two pieces by admitted “non-active” pedophile Todd Nickerson. In his first piece, Nickerson writes, “I’m not the monster you think me to be. I’ve never touched a child sexually in my life and never will, nor do I use child pornography.” Nickerson says that sexual orientation is unchanging (this is true in the case of pedophiles), and therefore that society should tolerate those who feel such attractions. Given that leftism has excused every other sexual orientation based on the same reasoning, tolerance for non-active pedophiles seems the logical extension.
Nickerson joined a group known as Virtuous Pedophiles – pedophiles who don’t act on their proclivities. He concludes:
There are still holdouts, people who believe that pedophilic feelings should be crammed down into the most subterranean recesses of ourselves, never to be discussed in the open, but these folks are going the way of the dodo bird. Anyway, we’ve tried that. Take it from someone who has firsthand experience: it not only doesn’t work, it tends to make things far worse.
Nickerson’s piece drew criticism from the right; conservatives rightly suggested that tolerating and accepting open proclamations of pedophilia mainstreams such behavior, and leads to its legitimization. Nickerson fired back with a second piece, in which he accused his critics of being the real monsters.
The American left now celebrates when “transgender” children are given hormone therapy to mutilate their bodies and warp their development. Why wouldn’t they buy into the argument that children are capable of learning from and experiencing sex with adults?
In the end, the left will undoubtedly mainstream pedophilia as a sexual orientation. The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV classified pedophilia as a disorder under the following conditions: (1) if fantasies involve prepubescent children; (2) if they last at least six months; (3) if the pedophile acts on those urges; (4) if they cause marked distress. The latest version redefines pedophilia as “pedophilic disorder” and says you only have a disorder if you:
- feel personal distress about their interest, not merely distress resulting from society’s disapproval;
- or have a sexual desire or behavior that involves another person’s psychological distress, injury, or death, or a desire for sexual behaviors involving unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent.
The DSM continues, “It is a subtle but crucial difference that makes it possible for an individual to engage in consensual atypical sexual behavior without inappropriately being labeled with a mental disorder. With this revision, DSM-5 clearly distinguishes between atypical sexual interests and mental disorders involving these desires or behaviors.”
The left, which took over the American Psychiatric Association long ago, has now redefined disorder to mean not sexual behavior or orientation that is inherently counterproductive or damaging, but sexual behavior that either bothers you subjectively, or that impacts others. This is why the APA redefined gender identity disorder toward gender dysphoria, using similar criteria. The APA does not hold by the same standard with regard to non-sexual issues – for example, the APA does not merely diagnose you with schizoaffective disorder if having that disorder gives you “personal distress.” You either have the disorder or you don’t.
But when it comes to sexual issues, the APA has redefined the nature of mental illness. The only thing standing between the APA’s definition of pedophilic disorder and full-scale legitimation of pedophilia is redefining the nature of consent for children.
And the left is well on its way to doing just that. Nickerson, when he isn’t writing self-aggrandizing pieces about his virtue, has argued that children are not damaged by sexual experiences with adults. As Reginald Harper reports at Medium, Nickerson wrote at a pro-pedophilia website:
He says that pedophiles actually educate children about sex:
I will reiterate my swimming metaphor here (though I’ve already mentioned it twice.) Society preventing children from engaging in sex play and romance play is akin to preventing them from learning to swim, but not only that — refusing to tell them anything ABOUT swimming (or swimming pools or lakes . . .) and then, when the child turns 18 or so, taking them to the ocean and tossing them in, shouting, “Well, you’re on your own!” That’s what society does to children in the name of protecting them.
The American left now celebrates when “transgender” children are given hormone therapy to mutilate their bodies and warp their development. Why wouldn’t they buy into the argument that children are capable of learning from and experiencing sex with adults? Does the left truly argue that an adult touching a child’s genitals is more damaging than allowing an adult to slice and dice those same genitals?
Yes, the left will mainstream pedophilia; eventually, they will remove the last gate guarding the innocence of children. Legitimizing and tolerating the desire – and redefining mental illness itself to do so — is merely the first step toward legitimizing the activity. The left will eventually give Todd Nickerson exactly what he wants.
