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Last week, right-wing gadfly David Cole wrote a banger exploring the parallels between the childhood transgender craze and the “childhood sexual abuse”/“ritual satanic abuse” panics of the 1970s and 80s. Cole points out the irony of the “say groomer” obsession on the right, and the larger moral panic in right-wing spaces about how the “trans kids” phenomenon is primarily about “sexualizing children”, given that the first wave of moral panic about the molestation of children was driven primarily by leftist women, which is the same demographic now primarily driving the movement that is in turn being accused of molesting children. I think Cole makes a very convincing case that the “groomer” thing is a red herring, a distraction which has blown up into a full-blown purity-spiraling moral panic in the hothouse ecosystem of the Extremely Online right. If you think that the people teaching kids that they’re trans are primarily doing so because they’re interested in molesting kids, why are they so overwhelmingly women?
His observations ring true for me; from the constant sharing of the Auron MacIntyre sign-tapping meme and the Sam Hyde quote, to Pizzagate and the obsession with Epstein, the right wing is proving that it’s every bit as susceptible to purity spirals and moral panics as the left wing. And as Cole points out, it’s especially odd because the “groomer” panic on the right is itself a response to the “trans kids will all kill themselves unless we affirm them” panic on the left. The “groomer” panic also features the same obnoxious and cancerous motte-and-bailey strategic-equivocation tactics that rat-adjacent rightists despise so much when it’s used against them; figures like James Lindsay, Rod Dreher, and even Marjorie Taylor Greene, are all involved in a linguistic shell game, wherein they use a word which they know for a fact is supposed to refer to grooming children for direct sexual abuse, and when pressed they retreat into “well, they’re saying that children have a sexual identity, which is kind of like sexualizing them, which is the same thing that child molesters do.”
There are certain topics that I won’t publicly touch even in a space like this; I’ve thought about one day trying my hand at starting a Substack and joining the right-wing online commentary/content-creation ecosystem, and there are certain subjects where I fear that if I deviate too much from the party line, I will be cast out into the outer depths before I even begin. The whole issue of child sexuality, how it relates to teen sexuality, whether or not queer theorists want to rape kids, etc., seems like the most high-voltage of any of those third rails. Being seen as an apologist for child molestation is a hell of an accusation to face, no matter how specious and lacking in credibility, and it’s nice to see a writer with some level of clout in right-wing commentary stick his neck out there and identify this moral panic for what it is.
I’m even hesitant to offer too much more of my own larger commentary on the issue, but I wanted to put this piece out there for commentary, particularly for those who do take the “groomer” thing more seriously than I do.
Seems to me like in this post and your replies to people, you did publicly touch it in a space like this.
But I appreciate you doing so. I think the Motte is usually pretty rational, but I've been surprised at how much people subscribe to the "the Left is full of pedophiles" narrative around here, which to me really does seem to be a purity spiral. And I think your identification of the motte and baily strategic equivocation is pretty spot on. I don't really understand how people come to these conclusions. It just seems so much like people on the Right/Center trying desperately to find a weapon to strike their enemies with, and it seems too close to essentially what the Left has been doing for over a decade. Except replace "racist" with "pedophile", because both are equally hateable by society.
I understand the Right's desire to do this. Since all forthright arguments seem doomed to fail against the Left, why don't we fight fire with fire? Except that for people like me, that just makes me dislike the Right/Center more. I hate the use of fire, not the Left.
Why?
I'm not exactly saying every leftist is a paedophile, but I'm pretty sure that most paedophiles would vote for the left, given they're currently going all in on expanding the capacity of children to consent to major things and normalising children keeping major secrets from their parents (and adults helping them do so). Maybe it's not explicitly paedo-advocacy, but it's a hell of a windfall for paedos and a step in the direction they would be delighted to go. And nobody major on the left seems too concerned about that, either...
You sound like someone on the Left saying that even if the average conservative isn't racist, it's creating a haven for racists to normalize their racism, which is bad because we need to stop any and all racists at all costs. Therefore, we need to throw all support behind the left to stop the proliferation of racism. Just replace racist with pedophile and right with left.
And I think that argument is just sheer projection coming from them, the ones who tell us it's not only alright, but imperative to put racial concerns first and foremost when dealing with people.
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