In his latest Real Time monologue, Bill Maher discusses pedophilia, how it’s exacerbated by the media (including Disney), celebrated by parents who dress up little kids as adults, and even excused by progressives. His take on “Drag Queen Story Hour” is pretty funny.
Money quote: “I’ve said it before wokeness is not an extension of liberalism any more it’s more often taking something so far that it becomes the opposite.”
He then goes on to gender, suggesting that teaching six-year-old kids about gender is a form of “entrapment,” making them do something they otherwise wouldn’t. He’s gonna get in big trouble for that one!
Maher points, paraphrased :
At some point inclusion becomes promotion
Bullseye
What do drag queens need kids for exactly? Why not handicapped, etc.?
Bullseye
The theme of quite a lot of books
Bullseye
Entrapment
Bullseye
Kids do not know a lot and largely seek adult approval (and not exactly Maher’s point, but ill add it ): treating kids like adults is wrong
Arrow-shaft splitting bullseye.
For the last point, see Leonard M. Sax’s The Collapse of Parenting — how we hurt our kids when we treat them like grown-ups
I’ll lastly note that Queer Theory is all about boundary-free, discernment-free life. Implicit in that is age limits – generational boundaries.
Not completely keeping with this post…but this is how we live now:
“2024: @Columbia
rabbi tells Jewish students to go home because they are no longer safe on campus.”
https://twitter.com/DGreenbaum/status/1782047749786964156
After watching some of the drag shows / story times, I’ve got to wonder why this is so permitted. I can’t imagine someone saying, “Look, we’re going to bring in a couple of female strippers from the local club in to read to the kids. It will be great, they’ll be wearing fishnet stockings and lingerie, and do a little gyrating and hopefully some pole dancing, but it will give the kids a chance to feel part of that lifestyle if that’s how they want to identify themselves!”.
It’s preposterous that some adult doesn’t say “NO”, and also that there are defenders of this practice when it comes to men.
For that matter, why is it that every single one of these “trans-rights” stories involves men who want to invade women’s spaces rather than women who try to get into men’s locker rooms, spas, jails, or on sports teams (well, the sports team thing is obvious)? Why aren’t women forcing their way into schools to read to kids while wearing provocative clothing? If these men were not self-identifying as trans, there is no way this behavior would be allowed, so why is it that people throw basic common sense and morality out the window when they hear the magic word “trans”, and in fact become actually welcoming of the behavior? Someone somewhere sure did a really great brainwashing job, along the order of 2+2=5.
Because they are white men….white privilege…
Brainwashing job is correct. Supposedly being ‘trans’ is this condition that makes people so unhappy that they will commit suicide unless they get a lifelong, extremely invasive medical treatment that involves puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery that renders them infertile, and somehow we’re not allowed to consider it a mental illness?
Also: “why is it that every single one of these “trans-rights” stories involves men who want to invade women’s spaces rather than women who try to get into men’s locker rooms, spas, jails, or on sports teams (well, the sports team thing is obvious)?” I can think of a few reasons, speculatively. First off, men don’t perceive women who enter their spaces as a threat, at least not nearly as much as the other way round – so, it’s not news if it happens. Second, I’d assume that women still perceive men as a threat if they venture into the men’s spaces alone, so they don’t do it. Third, testosterone – men have a higher likelyhood of being pushy assholes. (Women’s dysfunctions manifest in less openly aggressive ways.)
Spot on
I went to drag shows when I was a young woman. They were absolutely adult entertainment, and not just because they served alcohol. While I assumed the content of drag queens reading to kids is different than the content of adult shows, I still had to ask myself: why dress up in drag to read to little ones? I appreciate someone other than a reactionary religious person speaking to this issue.
I was not aware of the child molestation occurring on child entertainment programming, but then of course it does. Anytime a situation allows some people to have power over others, here come the sickos and exploiters. I hope the program inspires a big shake up creating safety for children.
I am going to write Disney and ask them why they hired a known pedophile. They will ignore the letter, but telling them I will boycott them is useless since I don’t purchase Disney product.
Well, I hope people here don’t get the impression that your average gay person is a potential pedophile.
Exactly. Maher enjoys pulling exceptions, protracting them into generalizations to support his beliefs… and ratings. The thing about Disney is not that people who like Disney support pedophilia, it’s that DeSantis is signing laws to ban, ie. cancel. Based on Maher’s own commentaries, he’s guilty of tribalism.
As any male— or female— could be a potential pedophile, I seriously doubt that anyone here thinks that. It is the extreme left who give “minor-attracted people” cover.
Keep the kids out of it!
But of course kids are the goal. They are the ones most vulnerable to having their synapses fashioned by the adult agenda. This is why religion is pushed on children. There would be little or no religion if one had to be 18 to join. The activists know this as well as do the purveyors of God. It’s not just about teaching tolerance.
The clip of the sexualized little girl immediately took me to Jonbenet Ramsey, sexualized and murdered at age 6.
I’m from the UK (terf island) and it feels like the tide has turned against this particular example of woke excess: the publication of a review by Dr Hilary Cass on the use of puberty blockers. The review concluded the evidence was poor for their effectiveness and basically stopped them being available for all minors. The result has been a general opening up to debate. (Other factors have been the general support as more and more sports bodies ban transwomen/biological men from women’s categories.) Glad to hear that Maher is joining the debate.
After watching the monologue, two things came to mind.
1. Bill Maher doesn’t distinguish between good faith and bad faith arguments. Yes, tribalism stops us from agreeing where we should, but why should we think that Ron DeSantis’ comments about Disney are anything other than political point scoring and equivalent to a documentary that documents particular evidence?
2. The idea that children should be exposed to “queerness” isn’t about flaunting sexuality in children’s faces, but about showing there’s nothing wrong with people who live alternative lifestyles. There’s a danger in us as adults seeing it through a sexual lens, but as he said “kids are morons” so why should we think that they’ll see it through the same lens as adults?
His point that woke isn’t liberal is on point, but the examples he goes about to illustrate it leave a lot to be desired.
You’re mistaken about queerness. It isn’t wrong just because it flaunts sexuality in children’s faces, which it is because it does. It attempts to destabilize a child’s understanding of how his or her body works and to confuse the child herself about what his/her organs mean and what the changes to come in a few years mean. It is not about fostering general acceptance of “alternative lifestyles” for others—some should be suppressed, not celebrated, and kids need to learn the difference to protect themselves from predators. It is about brainwashing a child about what s/he is him/herself so that s/he can be manipulated by men with foul intent. Mr. Maher was spot on about this.
Do you think if you gave that description to a queer person, they’d think it’s an accurate summation of their position? Because it feels like a very uncharitable reading of what I’ve heard queer people advocate. Are you maybe taking the more extremists among them as the norm?
The extremists are the ones doing the damage in schools and in medicine, and are the noisiest on social media, so they are the ones we concentrate on.
I think you and I might be using “queer” in different ways. I don’t mean it as a somewhat archaic pejorative noun for homosexuals or bisexuals. I mean instead the modern, er, post-modern, verb, “to queer”, sometimes referred to by trans activists as “gender-fucking.” I think what is meant by a “queer person” is today context-dependent and I would suspend judgement or approval pending his explanation of exactly what changes or rights he is seeking and what speech, if any, he takes offence to.
I’m going on the way I’ve heard those as queer define themselves. That may include the “extremists”, but when do we take the extremists as solely representing a point of view? Is Christianity defined by the KKK or Fred Phelps? Is Islam defined by the terrorists promoting jihad?
In honour of Dan Dennett, I’m suggesting an application of Rapoport’s Rules:
1: You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”
2: You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3: You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4: Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Or more simply, it’s about arguing in good faith. Of course there are some people who take whatever system of thought too far, but if they are the exceptions rather than the norm, it’s hardly a good argument to say that X is a problem because the extremist version of X is a problem. If you only mean queerness in the sense that queerness by definition goes too far, then I’ll have no objection to that beyond sewing you’re missing most of what queer advocates say is queerness. i.e. “No True Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Exactly. Maher enjoys pulling exceptions, protracting them into generalizations to support his beliefs… and ratings. The thing about Disney is not that people who like Disney support pedophilia, it’s that DeSantis is signing laws to ban, ie. cancel. Maher has his own tribe, based on his own commentaries. UGH!
If it’s all about “showing there’s nothing wrong with people who live alternative lifestyles,” then why only promote drag queens?
Why not “The Man Who Never Bathes”? “The Woman Who Doesn’t Drink Water”? The man who lives entirely “Off the Grid” “The Extreme Cheapskate Woman Who Dumpster Dives.”
Even “The Man Who Likes to Dress up as a Puppy”? sound far more interesting than a drag queen. (He’s not a furrie, there’s nothing sexual about it, he just “gains confidence when he puts the suit on.”)
(Examples from “10 People Who Live Happy but Bizarre Lifestyles.”)
https://sci-hub.ru/10.2466/pr0.1985.57.3f.1227
From Wikipedia:
The Family Research Institute (FRI), originally known as the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS), is an American socially conservative non-profit organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado which states that it has “…one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS, sexual social policy, and drug abuse”.
The FRI is part of a sociopolitical movement of socially conservative Christian organizations which seek to influence the political debate in the United States. They seek “…to restore a world where marriage is upheld and honored, where children are nurtured and protected, and where homosexuality is not taught and accepted, but instead is discouraged and rejected at every level.” The Boston Globe reported that the FRI’s 2005 budget was less than $200,000.
The FRI is led by Paul Cameron, who received a doctorate in psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1966. Cameron founded the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality in 1982, and this institute later became the FRI.
The Family Research Institute has been designated an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center since 2006 because of Cameron’s discredited research and claims about LGBT people.
Hey, if the SPLC calls them a hate group, they can’t be all bad.
Parents have lost the plot, and are largely failing to perform their duties, one of which is to preserve the “innocence” of childhood. I use quotes because it is not just that children are unaware of adult matters: they are supposed to be unaware of them as a necessary part of healthy maturation. Start telling primary school children they can choose to be a boy, a girl, or neither, and you screw up an important stage in their developing understanding of the world! Little brains are not equipped for that and it should wait until they have a good grasp of how the world normally works before we introduce the news that it doesn’t always work in the usual way. And if you can’t see that, consider this: where will be the fun in being transgressive if you have no feeling for what is considered conventional?
Indeed. I was an early participating member of the San Francisco Cacophony Society. I was on the first Cacophony Society Zone Trip, and I’m in a photo from that trip in the colorful book documenting the (dis)organization.
I once had fun at 3 a.m. with several Cacophonists climbing into a steeple of the Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach. (Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had their photo taken on the church steps, but they couldn’t get married there because Catholic doctrine considered DiMaggio still married to his previous wife, Dorothy Arnold.)
I was at the second Burning Man on the Nevada Black Rock Desert with about 250 people (versus the now-common 70,000-plus), which was mainly organized by fellow Cacophonists. (I couldn’t attend the first Burning Man in the desert because I had recently gotten a job — horrors! — at a bank.)
Being grounded in the conventional is probably de rigueur if one is to flaunt it with confidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacophony_Society
*Flaunt the unconventional.