Fast cars, fancy restaurants, opulent yachts, private planes — and child molestation. It’s not something that was ever featured on Robin Leach’s TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but “pedophilia may be emerging as the characteristic sexual perversion of the American elite.”
So says American Thinker assistant editor J.R. Dunn in a piece titled “Pedophilia and the American Future.” Dunn opens with an obvious story: that of billionaire hedge-fund manager Jeffrey Epstein, who beginning in 2008 served 13 months in prison for abusing and trafficking in underage girls. It was a slap on the wrist, say critics — facilitated by high-priced lawyers such as Alan Dershowitz and former Clinton special prosecutor Kenneth Starr — for a man who violated perhaps hundreds of minors and could have served life in prison.
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Epstein, whose case has now been reopened by the FBI, was more than just a pervert operating in secrecy. He was also the nucleus of what could loosely be called a “pedophile” ring (his victims seemed to have been a bit older — young adolescents), providing underage girls to powerful people to gain favor or obtain blackmail information. And his associates’ names read like a who’s who list, including figures such as Donald Trump, Kevin Spacey, Naomi Campbell, and British royal Prince Andrew. It’s also said that Bill Clinton and physicist Stephen Hawking have been to Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. This isn’t to imply that all his associates shared or knew of his illicit activities, but he certainly offered many of them more than champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
Then there’s Democrat Virginia legislator Joe Morrisey, who, Dunn writes, “succeeded in gaining re-election while serving a six-month sentence in the state hoosegow. His crime, similar to Epstein’s, was sex with an underage female, in this case a 17-year-old working in his office.” This isn’t unprecedented, either. Late Congressman Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) was re-elected six more times after it was discovered in the 1980s that he’d had a homosexual relationship with a 17-year-old male page.
While these two men abused older minors, the same cannot be said of Pennsylvania State University football coach and Joe Paterno right-hand man Jerry Sandusky. As Dunn points out, the odious Sandusky — who will now die in prison — had a taste for pre-pubescent boys. And, reflecting Epstein, it has also been alleged that the coach was providing children to other pedophiles via his “charity.”
But while Sandusky was ultimately held to account, this is not the case with respect to the Hollywood pedophilia scandals, which The New American reported on in 2014. Nor can it be said of pederastic novelist Gore Vidal or, thus far, of Girls creator Lena Dunham, who admitted to sexually abusing her younger sister.
But then there’s what this phenomenon portends for the wider society. As Dunn puts it, “Public acceptance of sexual deviance begins with the upper classes — the elite — and then trickles down. …Many things once taboo — openly sold porn, public prostitution, homosexuality — have been integrated into [middle class] social life.” He then asks, “How much chance is there that pedophilia will follow?”
While most Americans would consider the notion laughable, Dunn points out that pedophilia and pederasty have often in history been institutionalized. He first cites imperial Rome and then writes, “Closer in time we discover British upper-class homosexuality, fed by the bizarre ‘public’ school system, in which young boys in the throes of sexual awakening were put under the complete control of slightly older youths, who proceeded to select favorites and make them their ‘fags.’”
Moreover, as I wrote in “The Slippery Slope to Pedophilia” (SSP):
It is said that in the mid and late periods of ancient Sparta, the practice was institutionalized in the city-state’s military camps, with a 12-year-old boy being attached to a mature man who would become the child’s mentor and, apparently, molester. And homoerotic ancient Greek art and, more significantly, the casual way prominent Greeks spoke of pederasty attest to its widespread acceptance. As to the latter, historian Plutarch addresses Theban pederasty in Life of Pelopidas and explains that it was an educational device for boys that was designed to “soften, while they were young, their natural fierceness” and “temper the manners and characters of the youth.” The poet Solon gushed about pederasty in his poem “Boys and Sport,” and tradition tells us that the warrior group the Sacred Band of Thebes comprised pederastic man-youth pairings. In fact, the Greeks even had words describing the players in man-boy relationships: An erastes was an adult man who courted or was in a sexual relationship with a boy (this accounts for part of the derivation of “pederast”), who himself was known as an eromenos.
And while many would say this history is, thankfully, behind us, there’s a powerful effort now to repeat it, advanced by entertainment, academia, and the media. Just as the arts have been used to promote the homosexual agenda via frequent and positive portrayals of homosexual characters, so also have films been made — such as For a Lost Soldier and LIE — that portray pederasts in a neutral to positive light. Moreover, as I also reported in SSP, the New York Times reviewed the former movie and “writes that the story ‘takes up…a romantic relationship between a grown-up and a child, and invests it with an aching tenderness’; that it is ‘more than a love story’; that ‘Walt [the molester] seems almost as innocent as Jeroen [the child]’; and describes the ‘affection’ between the two as ‘touching.’ I continued, “And then there is the kicker: The review describes the ‘affection’ between Walt and Jeroen as ‘the love that dare not speak its name.’”
At least as significantly, pedophilia is now being given the imprimatur of science. As I wrote in SSP, “On January 14 of this year [2013], the Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled, “Many researchers taking a different view of pedophilia: Pedophilia once was thought to stem from psychological influences early in life. Now, many experts view it as a deep-rooted predisposition that does not change.” (Emphasis in original.) The paper also reported, quoting a pedophile named Paul Christiano who underwent unsuccessful court-ordered therapy, “These people felt they could snuff out the desire, or shame me into denying it existed…. But it’s as intrinsic as the next person’s heterosexuality.” As I then related, the Times continued:
In the laboratory, researchers are coming to the same conclusion.
Like many forms of sexual deviance, pedophilia once was thought to stem from psychological influences early in life. Now, many experts view it as a sexual orientation as immutable as heterosexuality or homosexuality. It is a deep-rooted predisposition — limited almost entirely to men — that becomes clear during puberty and does not change….
Scientists at the Toronto center [Center for Mental Health and Addiction in Toronto] have uncovered a series of associations that suggest pedophilia has biological roots.
Note that “as intrinsic as the next person’s heterosexuality,” “the love that dare not speak its name,” and a “sexual orientation” with “biological roots” that “does not change” were also things said about homosexuality — before and during its acceptance phase. Is it insignificant and coincidental that the same exact language is now being applied to pedophilia? And is it really impossible that, as has happened throughout history, it could transition from the elite to the street?
