[Vol. 66] Can We Cut it Out??
A comparison that has irked me for forever.
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Happy Tuesday, everyone :)
How are you?? How’s the morning been?
On my end it’s been … pure chaos. First of all my coffee maker gave me a scare when it pumped out slimy looking water rather than the substance I need to write this newsletter – but don’t worry, crisis (eventually) averted. Oh and then I tried to offer my roommate a banana, since (as per usual) they were all starting to go bad. Cut to all three bananas peeling off the stems by which I was holding them and then falling to the floor in a mushy pile (simultaneously I might add – as if this was some type of pre-planned, group suicide attempt).
It’s all good though – my roommate and I had a good laugh. The bananas on the other hand were not so lucky … unless being wiped off the floor beats slowly rotting on the kitchen table (that’s a question you’d have to ask the fruit – and not this fruit 😏 ).
Anyways, welcome back to That’s Gay :)
We got a tough (but interesting) one to tackle today, so let’s just rip the bandaid right off and dive right in – the only proper way to do things.
Pedophilia is not the same as being gay.
Let me say that again for the people wayy in the back: Pedophilia is not the same as being gay. They are not equivalent. At all. In any way shape or form.
Now I know most of you are probably scratching your heads right now thinking, “Yah … umm we know.” The thing is though, the same cannot be said for many people sharing this Earth with us today, dear lord.
I came upon this *lovely* topic when this headline popped up in my regular newsletter from LGBTQ+ Nation.
Whew … do we have a lot to unpack here.
For those that don’t know, Simu Liu is the star of mega-movie studio Marvel’s latest box office hit, Shang Chi. It’s in theaters right now.
I’ll admit the headline from LGBTQ+ Nation is a little grabby, so let me fill ya’ll in on what I understand of Liu’s comments after reading the article and going down the rabbit-hole of source notes (AKA Liu’s old Reddit posts).
This whole story comes from unearthed, old Reddit posts Liu made in 2015 under a pseudonym profile on Reddit that’s since been linked to the actor – NippedintheBud.
If you want to read the Reddit posts yourself, Twitter user @XMENMAGlK reposted them (link below)
Here’s the TL;DR on Liu’s posts: For the most part, they seem to be in reply to people either interested in, and/or afflicted with pedophilic urges.
Liu, who mentions that he comes armed with background research after having played a pedophilic character in a TV gig, writes a self-described “sympathetic post towards pedophiles” (specifically those that have not acted upon, but are struggling with, their urges) in which he affirms that pedophilia is a disorder. He goes on to denounce society’s lack of proper treatment for pedophiles, arguing there’s “ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO GET HELP”, and encourages those writing in and confessing to pedophilic urges to avoid child pornography as well as making “any decisions you will regret”.
Ok … so far I don’t have much to say other than:
1) I’m not sure why Liu would get himself involved in this thread.
2) I agree we should have well-researched/proper treatment in place for people afflicted with sexual disorders so that they never end up hurting anybody. While I wasn’t totally aware of this fact prior to going down this rabbit hole, pedophilia is, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM), a disorder – with causes, although yet unclear, rooted in everything from abuse in childhood to marked differences in brain matter (Source: “Pedophilia”, Psychology Today). Better access to treatment is a case for prevention – that much makes sense to me.
But then, Liu goes ahead and really loses me – and most of Twitter – by using language that equates pedophilic disorders to being gay.
All throughout his post, he drops juicy little tid-bits like “from a biological standpoint, it’s no different than being gay” and “what we currently know about the disorder is this – like homosexuality, it exists on a spectrum”.
Again … whew.
Listen, even if Liu were right in his oversimplification of where sexual disorders and sexual identity come from biologically, he’d still be a big ol’ bull that stepped into a china shop ladened with history (and, might I add, dark history).
Like Liu, people have been wrongly linking homosexuality with pedophilia for years.
Often on purpose … here’s a poisonous little tweet sent by the South Africa’s Film and Publication Board (FPB) in 2017 in which they “accidentally” propagated an anti-LGBTQ+ fake news article (in quotes because I’m not sure how you make a mistake like this?)
Here’s something interesting as to the history behind this comparison –
According to research provided by Schuyler Bailar (@pinkmantaray on Instagram – a regular source on That’s Gay) it actually wasn’t until 1983 that the Bible’s infamous “Man shall not lie with man, for it is an abomination” line came about. Why? Well allegedly in the original Greek and Hebrew texts, the word that was later translated by German copy editors to “homosexual” and adopted by the American bible printer Biblica originally translated to pedophiles or “boy abusers” – most likely due to pervasive, systemic pedophilia in the ancient Greek world.
So, if this theory stands, that infamous and heavily-quoted line in the Bible was really meant to say “Man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman, for it is an abomination,” and yet it’s been wrongly attributed and actively used to denounce gay relationships for years.
Albeit a major one, that’s just one example of folks linking homosexuality – a sexual identity – to pedophilia – a sexual disorder.
Another, more recent example (as in, umm, last month) went down when a gay volleyball couch at a Christian school in Colorado was given an ultimatum by the school’s staff to either renounce his sexuality or resign. When asked what the motives were behind this ultimatum the coach told KUSA, a local NBC News station in Denver, that the school considered him a “danger to be in front of the kids”.
Breaks my heart, honestly.
So let me say this one more time for everyone hard of hearing: Pedophilia is not the same as being gay.
Regardless of Liu’s intentions in making that comparison – regardless of anyone’s intentions of making such a comparison – it’s not a comparison you can make. Not only are they not comparable, but people are still losing their jobs and being kicked out of their homes over the belief that they are.
Being gay – as with being straight, bisexual, pansexual or any other sexual identity under the sun – means sex and love with a consenting adult partner. If you have a problem with that, I’d say you turn inward first.
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Find me on Instagram: @till_kaeslin
Check out the newsletter’s home on Instagram to see this post there, and more like it: @thatsgaynewsletter
See you in Volume 67, folks!
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