https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/27/balenciaga-and-the-rise-of-paedo-chic/
I feel like there was a time, not very long ago, when literally everyone with half a brain would have agreed that this article describes a series of cases and issues that were very bad and unacceptable for a healthy society.
Now, somehow, paedophilia is a tribal issue with a particular strain of woke zealots and their progressive enablers DEFENDING this kind of stuff, and conservatives taking it seriously (although, in some cases overestimating its prevalence).
It would be one thing if the people defending this shit were saying something like:
"Well, ok, yes... There are a few horrific instances of this stuff happening around the US and the rest of the Western world, and we need to put a stop to it wherever we can, but people who say "Ok, Groomer" as a response to everything aren't helping and a lot of people are overstating how common the bad events are."
But instead, I'm seeing people flat out defend this kind of stuff as totally fine and something we can/should just leave up to parents.
I understand the brain-breaking affects of tribalism pretty well, but I'm baffled by this. I just don't get how anyone could justify some of the things that Brendan O'Neill points to here, and yet all of those things have defenders.
Just yesterday, a libertarian / anarchist buddy of mine got called a "MAGA conservative" for criticizing hormonal sterilization of minors, and in the same conversation, the guy who accused him of being a Trumpy social con literally defended female genital mutilation as a decision to be made by parents for their kids that no one else has a right to intervene into.
I'm not exaggerating.
How deranged do you need to be to 1) express a position that has no limiting principle for what kinds of physical abuse you can inflict on children; and 2) think that anyone who does have said principles is inherently some kind of conservative??
Dude. We ALL should agree on this.
It shouldn't be difficult.