Milo Yiannopoulos, darling of the alt-right, has finally experienced the repercussions of being a loud and obnoxious racist, bigot, misogynist. Nah, just kidding. Nobody seems to care about his outing a trans student or leading a hate brigade against Leslie Jones or doing his damnedest to smear Shaun King. None of this was enough to get employees of Breitbart demanding his dismissal or Simon & Shuster to cancel that $250,000 book deal ‘cause Free Speech, y’all. But when he allegedly said he was all pro-pedo and thanked his own abuser for giving him mad blowie skills, the world finally reacted to the poster child for pissing people off.  

Why now? What makes this recently discovered video (that wasn’t even hiding) so much worse than all the other shit he’s said? And why am I about to somewhat, kind of defend the indefensible one (but don’t worry, there’s far more yelling at the jerk than siding with here so don’t run off cursing my name just yet)? ‘cause Free Speech, y’all.

First thing: I can’t stand the silver-headed troll. Anytime he’s in the news, I want to roll that paper up and wack him upside his damn head. He’s a professional hate monger who only exists thanks to the dark underbelly of sites like YouTube and Facebook. If he retired tomorrow I’d throw a damn celebration and invite all my special enemies. Now, into the painful part.

Milo’s quip about a touchy-feely priest and proper head-giving lessons didn’t bother me. Mostly ‘cause nothing’s sacred so no jokes are out of bounds. I’ll-conceived or in bad taste? Sure, but a stupid one-liner should never sound the death knell on anyone’s career, even one as slimy as Milo. Yet it appears he’s finally crossed that line. Yay?

During the interview, which Milo claims was edited to make him sound like a pedo-loving wanker, he said that young boys totes banging old men in the gay community. Um, no. The vast majority of pedos are straight dudes but then again according to Milo pedos don’t bang 13 year olds (which, technically, is correct as a pedophile is an adult attracted to prepubescent (approx under 11) while a hebephile is attracted to young pubescent children (approx 12 – 15) and at 13 one could be on either side of that adolescent hormonal imbalancing but I’m nitpicking). His making excuses for how awesome it is for a boy to be fondled by a man is bullshit; any qualified physiatrist will tell you how very much not awesome the lingering effects can be. He later claimed he misspoke and meant the gay version of a young boy – younger adult in a two-adult relationship – but that’s bullshit, too. Check out the context and you’ll understand.

In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men — the sort of ‘coming of age’ relationship — those relationships in which those older men help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable, sort of rock, where they can’t speak to their parents.

Seems pretty clear that the “young boys” he’s talking about are, in fact, actual young boys. But what else would he do after being caught cheering for the kid-diddlers? Beyond that, he also called consent arbitrary and oppressive (guessing he meant age of consent) and believe that 13-year-old (straight) boys wander around trying to seduce their hot (female) English teachers ‘cause 13-year-old boys are sexually mature. Again, he doesn’t know what the hell he speaks of; sexual maturity occurs after puberty. Just because a kid can pop a boner doesn’t mean he’s ready to ride the closest warm body. Even infants masturbate. Should they be considered sexually mature just because things work? Again, sounds like a defense if pedophilia (for the sake of my own sanity, I’m going with the general public’s understanding of pedophile and lumping them together).

Still, as gross as his comments are, what he said makes him no worse in my eyes; he was a horrible, sick person playing on people’s hate and bigotry who should’ve been cast aside years ago. While I’m glad he’s finally getting some comeuppance, I’m also disappointed it took so damn long for it to happen.

I’m also disappointed this was the end. Milo, who was allegedly sexually molested, made a joke about his own molestation. He owns what happened to him and can make all the icky jokes he wants about it as only he can decide how to deal with his past. His further comments about sex in the “gay community” are disturbing though I am forced to wonder if his own experiences led him to this conclusion. Maybe – and this hurts – we should try compassion instead on condemnation, this one time. His insistence that he wasn’t negatively affected by his abuser’s actions could also stem from the same confusion.

It’s impossible to know what goes on inside someone’s head if you’ve never been in their shoes and while many things can be guessed at or understood, the ramifications of childhood sexual abuse isn’t one of them. Milo, as disgusting a human being as he is, should’ve been given some leeway with his career-ending comments even if he deserved to be driven out long ago.

Will is an author and artist and producer (it’s only one indie short film but it’s on IMDB.com so it totes counts!) and founder of fetchentertainment.com and pain in the ass. He rather opinionated and has no problem sharing his thoughts on a variety of topics from the freakshow that was Election 2016 (how tf did Trump freaking win!?) to the importance of matching that belt to those shoes. He adores penguins and has a maniacal plan to use an army of them to take over the world and crown himself Emperor of All That Is (though he’d be happy with the Winter Russian Palace in what he would rename Mine!-Mine!-Mine!) but until then enjoys hiding away in his apartment and writing all sorts of tales that would worry that cokehead Sigmund Freud (really, we should believe he snorted for science!?) and drawing pictures of his creations.

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