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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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a CBC Radio columnist saying it was "a dog whistle for xenophobic Pro-Trump, Pro-Life types"

Yeah, I'm head-desking right now because how ideological do you have to be in order to go "pro-lifers think child sex trafficking is bad, and we all know pro-lifers are scum" without realising that you are within a gnat's whisker of going "which means child sex trafficking is a Good Thing that Our Side must and should support"?

They were acquired by Disney, who shelved the movie (Disney later claimed they had no knowledge of the movie, which is plausible given the enormity of both Disney and the former Fox).

I'm not surprised by this because it often happens after take-overs; the new owners aren't interested in the projects the former independent entity were working on, or the new guys scrap projects in favour of their own pet projects. The irony here is that Disney sat on it and sold it back, pretty clearly because they thought it was some niche thing that wouldn't appeal to many, and now it's outdoing their tentpole Indiana Jones movie, a movie they really needed to be a hit after the recent string of less than impressive performances.

I even understand the suspicion about "this is a Christian outfit" but honestly, if you can't even bring yourself to agree with the Bible-bashers that kidnapping and selling kids for sex is a bad thing, I suggest you take a look at your life and your choices. And from what I understand from reviews, this isn't a movie that is all "Y'all need Jesus" and "God saved these children". But the guy depicted/his wife may be religious (in clips the actress playing her is wearing a cross), so is that now a big no-no in the movie making business? 'Oh it has an unrealistically positive ending!' okay, and? That's the movies for ya!

Even crusty old drink-sodden Youtube reviewers liked it!

Ticket buyers are "predominately female", and a third of the audience is Hispanic.

'Cos the victims in it are Hispanic children. Hmmm, why on earth would that appeal to a Hispanic audience, and not our big superhero movie with a Hispanic side character? Ponder, ponder....

Or perhaps I am not blackpilled enough yet to believe that the slope is so slippery that pedophiles are already being introduced into the pantheon of Letter People.

MAPs, darling. "Paedophile" is sooo judgemental and offensive to people struggling with their sexuality who are non-offending. That term and that attitude forces them to interalise social stigma. And it engenders hysteria such as this about scholarly work.

There's always room for another stripe on the Progress Pride flag, and if the LGBT community don't want that right now, give it a couple of years until the softhearted and softheaded sociologists work on normalising such attractions.

There's always room for another stripe on the Progress Pride flag, and if the LGBT community don't want that right now, give it a couple of years until the softhearted and softheaded sociologists work on normalising such attractions.

It amuses me how many people still think there's support in the LGBT community to normalize pedophilia, given that community used to be significantly more supportive of pedophilia and has been backpedaling on it for decades. What they want to normalize is child sexuality, not creepy adults exploiting it. It's no different than the feminist argument against modesty: women [children] should be free to do what they want without men [pedophiles] sexualizing them for it. Hence Cuties.

Counterpoints:

You can be "amused" by this all you like. Beyond a certain point, acting as if people concerned about the pro-paedophilia contingent of LGBTQ+ activism are just tilting at windmills strikes me as gaslighting.

Actually the scary part is that the LGBT movement has more or less flipped the stranger danger on its head. What’s being normalized is keep the parents out of the loop and almost presenting parents as “the enemy of their children,” and normalizing structures in society that actually work against parents being able to find out where their kids are and what they’re doing online (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.calculator.vault.hider&hl=en_US) for a quick example, is an app that exists strictly to hide apps (and thus online communication with strange adults and other potentially dangerous behavior). Schools have been very open — to the point of creating policies forbidding disclosure without the child’s permission— of helping children of varying ages, down to elementary school, hide sexual secrets from their parents.

I was a kid in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and I can remember the fear parents had of the internet being available to kids — because they might talk to strangers. We were warned, repeatedly, not to talk to anyone online we didn’t know in person. There were hysterical news reports about Pictochat on the Nintendo DS — because it enabled a child to talk to a strange adult without notifying their parents (even though you had to share information in person first). And obviously there was the stranger danger stuff where any adults who took a particular interest in children were to be reported to your parents immediately, and adults were not taking any of it lightly.

Obviously, this was overkill, but the switch is mind boggling to me. We’ve gone from a fear that an adult might be talking to a kid without parents knowing about it to treating the very idea that parents might want to keep other adults from talking to their kindergartners about sex without their knowledge or consent— including not informing them about what the child is saying about his/her sexuality— as the default position.

Obviously, this is the part pedophiles like more than anything else. Kids now take it as a given that parents are not to be told about their sexuality. That sexual thoughts and feelings are not to be talked about with the parents who know them best. That loving adults want to help you with your sexuality and that in order to do that keep it a secret from your parents. Which almost every advocate group trying to prevent child sexual abuse says is one of the common occurrences in child sexual abuse (https://rainn.org/articles/talking-your-kids-about-sexual-assault) the child is made to keep secrets and often fears punishment if they tell. Now, we teach that exact thing in every classroom in the country and don’t see the irony.

Actually the scary part is that the LGBT movement has more or less flipped the stranger danger on its head.

Not the only thing that was in the current year flipped without anyone caring and even noticing.

Even more jarring is transformation of people who were preaching "violence bad! guns bad! self defense bad! human life sacred under any circumstances!" into avid flag waving patriots "glory to ukraine! glory to heroes! death to orcs! no surrender, no step back! throw the moskal to the shark!", without even bothering to justify this abrupt change of their principles.

(yes I know there were never any "principles" involved, but it is still jarring)