On Monday, the Conservative Political Action Conference disinvited Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking at the conference after a year-old video resurfaced of him discussing pedophilia.
During a discussion on “The Drunken Peasants” podcast (video, transcript below), which was posted Jan. 4, 2016, the openly gay conservative pundit and social media personality appeared to condone pedophilia, or at least not condemn it, though he later denied that was his intent, blaming the controversy on his own “sloppy phrasing” and critics’ supposed attempts to distort his meaning.
Milo described his own sexual abuse as a teen by a Catholic priest and said that some boys are able to “discover who they are” through their sexual relationships with older males. Boys’ relationships with older males, he suggested, can give them “security and safety” and “provide them with love and a reliable rock where they can’t speak to their parents”:
Milo: The [consent] law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who are sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world by the way. In many cases actually those relationships with older men…This is one reason I hate the left. This stupid one size fits all policing of culture. (People speak over each other). This sort of arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys you know understanding that many of us have. The complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex. In the homosexual world particularly. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents.
When the podcast host pushed back, saying, “Sounds like Catholic priest molestation to me,” Yiannopoulos responded in what he later described as an attempt at “edgy” “gallows humor.”
“I’m grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him,” Yiannopoulos said.
Here is the video (partial transcript below):
Though the video has been online for over a year, it resurfaced just a week before his appearance at CPAC, highlighted by conservative blog Reagan Battalion and quickly went viral.
Yiannopoulos responded to the resurfaced video on Sunday night by posting a partial apology on Facebook titled “A note for idiots” (full post below), in which he said he emphatically does not support pedophilia, insisting that he was not condoning any illegal activity, meaning instead only those young men who were of legal age in consensual relationships with older males. His use of the term “boy,” he said, was “sloppy phrasing that I regret.”
I shouldn’t have used the word “boy” when I talked about those relationships between older men and younger gay men. (I was talking about my own relationship when I was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the UK is 16.) That was a mistake. Gay men often use the word “boy” when they refer to consenting adults. I understand that heterosexual people might not know that, so it was a sloppy choice of words that I regret.
As for the joke about the priest who took advantage of him when he was 14, Milo said he was engaging in “gallows humor.”
The videos do not show what people say they show. I *did* joke about giving better head as a result of clerical sexual abuse committed against me when I was a teen. If I choose to deal in an edgy way on an internet livestream with a crime I was the victim of that’s my prerogative. It’s no different to gallows humor from AIDS sufferers.
Not long after the apology, CPAC rescinded its invitation, the chairman of the group which sponsors the conference revealing the decision Monday afternoon in a statement.
“Due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation,” said Matt Schlapp in the statement.
UPDATE: Simon & Schuster announced Monday afternoon that, “after careful consideration,” they are canceling the publication of Yiannopoulos’ book Dangerous:
In response, Yiannopoulos tweeted: “I’ve gone through worse. This will not defeat me.”
Here’s a partial transcript of the “Drunken Peasants” podcast, courtesy of Heavy.com:
Milo: “This is a controversial point of view I accept. We get hung up on this kind of child abuse stuff to the point where we’re heavily policing even relationships between consenting adults, you know grad students and professors at universities.”
The men in the joint video interview then discuss Milo’s experience at age 14.
Another man says: “The whole consent thing for me. It’s not this black and white thing that people try to paint it. Are there some 13-year-olds out there capable of giving informed consent to have sex with an adult, probably…” The man says, “The reason these age of consent laws exist is because we have to set some kind of a barometer here, we’ve got to pick some kind of an age…”
Milo: “The law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who are sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world by the way. In many cases actually those relationships with older men…This is one reason I hate the left. This stupid one size fits all policing of culture. (People speak over each other). This sort of arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys you know understanding that many of us have. The complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex. In the homosexual world particularly. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents. Some of those relationships are the most -”
“It sounds like Catholic priest molestation to me,” another man says, interrupting Milo.
Milo: “And you know what, I’m grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.”
Other people talk. Oh my God, I can’t handle it, one man says. The next thing in line is going to be pedophilia…says another man.
Milo: “You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty. Who are too young to be able (unclear and cut off by others)…That’s not what we are talking about. You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you are saying I’m defending it because I’m certainly not.”
Another man said, “You are advocating for cross generational relationships here, can be honest about that?”
Milo: “Yeah, I don’t mind admitting that. I think particularly in the gay world and outside the Catholic church, if that’s where some of you want to go with this, I think in the gay world, some of the most important, enriching and incredibly life affirming, important shaping relationships very often between younger boys and older men, they can be hugely positive experiences for those young boys they can even save those young boys, from desolation, from suicide (people talk over each other)… providing they’re consensual.”
Below is the full statement about the controversy Yiannopoulos posted on his Facebook Sunday night:
A note for idiots (UPDATED):
I do not support pedophilia. Period. It is a vile and disgusting crime, perhaps the very worst. There are selectively edited videos doing the rounds, as part of a co-ordinated effort to discredit me from establishment Republicans, that suggest I am soft on the subject.
If it somehow comes across (through my own sloppy phrasing or through deceptive editing) that I meant any of the ugly things alleged, let me set the record straight: I am completely disgusted by the abuse of children.
Some facts to consider:
1. I have outed THREE pedophiles in my career as a journalist. That’s three more than any of my critics and a peculiar strategy for a supposed pedophile apologist.
(a) Luke Bozier, former business partner of Louise Mensch
https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/…/menshn-co-founder-embroile…/
https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/…/…/3746/luke-bozier-arrested/(b) Nicholas Nyberg, anti-GamerGate activist who self-described as a pedophile and white nationalist
https://www.breitbart.com/…/leading-gamergate-critic-sarah-…/(c) Chris Leydon, a London photographer who has a rape trial starting March 13 thanks to my reporting.
https://www.breitbart.com/…/tech-city-darling-chris-leydon-…/2. I have repeatedly expressed disgust at pedophiles in my journalism.
https://www.breitbart.com/…/heres-why-the-progressive-left-…/3. I have never defended and would never defend child abusers, as my reporting history shows. The world is messy and complicated, and I recognize it as such, as this furore demonstrates. But that is a red line for any decent person.
4. The videos do not show what people say they show. I *did* joke about giving better head as a result of clerical sexual abuse committed against me when I was a teen. If I choose to deal in an edgy way on an internet livestream with a crime I was the victim of that’s my prerogative. It’s no different to gallows humor from AIDS sufferers.
5. National Review, whose journalists are tweeting about this, published an article defending Salon for giving a pedophile a platform.
6. I did say that there are relationships between younger men and older men that can help a young gay man escape from a lack of support or understanding at home. That’s perfectly true and every gay man knows it. But I was not talking about anything illegal and I was not referring to pre-pubescent boys.
7. I said in the same “Drunken Peasants” podcast from which the footage is taken that I agree with the current age of consent.
8. I shouldn’t have used the word “boy” when I talked about those relationships between older men and younger gay men. (I was talking about my own relationship when I was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the UK is 16.) That was a mistake. Gay men often use the word “boy” when they refer to consenting adults. I understand that heterosexual people might not know that, so it was a sloppy choice of words that I regret.
9. This rush to judgment from establishment conservatives who hate Trump as much as they hate me, before I have had any chance to provide context or a response, is one of the big reasons gays vote Democrat.
10. In case there is any lingering doubt, here’s me, in the same interview the other footage is taken from, affirming that the current legal age of consent is about right: “And I think the law is probably about right. It’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about ok. But there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age. I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who were sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world, by the way.”
This article has been updated and expanded.