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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   27539 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Yeah, this might be the most egregious motte-and-bailey that is currently widely accepted.

Call someone a 'pedophile' because they express attraction towards someone just barely under the age of majority, and uninformed onlookers might very well imagine that they're a predator who stalks 10 year olds with designs on kidnapping and molesting them.

And since Pedophiles (the actual child-attracted kind) are virtually the LAST remaining 'identity group' which it is universally accepted are okay to hate, abuse, and maybe even murder, there's huge incentive to get an outgroup member classified as such.

And deeper than just your point:

A person who is eager to draw a distinction between "paedophilia" and "ephebophilia" will be accused of pedantic hair-splitting at best and nefarious motives at worst

Defending pedophiles AT BEST gets you marked as 'low status' and 'weird.' I don't think any person, in the history of EVER, has managed to increase their social standing by being the guy advocating for a nuanced view on child-diddling.

So anyone sensitive to social status just WON'T defend them, even if they do have nuanced beliefs on it.

the most egregious motte-and-bailey that is currently widely accepted

No, the most egregious motte-and-bailey is "consent".
Note that this statement:

Call someone a 'pedophile' because they express attraction towards someone just barely under the age of majority, and uninformed onlookers might very well imagine that they're a predator who stalks 10 year olds with designs on kidnapping and molesting them.

is a specific version of the more general form, which is:

Call someone a 'pedophile' rapist because they express attraction towards someone just barely under the age of majority a woman who isn't interested, and uninformed onlookers might very well imagine that they're a predator who stalks 10 year olds with designs on kidnapping and molesting them.

and the popular definition of "pedophile" is fundamentally just the most defensible/best Think Of The Children extension of that core idea. (Because no, that definition only includes man on girl; we pretend it includes man on boy when it's politically convenient to do so, but we don't treat the two equally.)

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