I‘ve never considered myself to be a fan of Milo Yiannopoulos. But as a gay conservative trying to find his place in a sometimes-unaccepting society, I was partial to the notorious provocateur. I disagree with him on a number of subjects but respect his right to communicate them.
When the Conservative Political Action Conference announced that Yiannopoulos would be giving the keynote address at this year’s conference, critics said his speech would taint the conservative brand. Personally, I’ve never thought of Yiannopoulos as a direct representative of conservatism, but he does reject radical gender theory and abortion. All in all, his speech didn’t seem like a big deal.
But when video of Yiannopoulos normalizing sexual relationships between minors and adults was released, it was the wake-up call I didn’t know I needed.
Yiannopoulos has no regard for age of consent laws, which is neither conservative nor legal. I felt sick inside watching the five-minute clip where he dismisses his own sexual abuse and normalizes sexual contact between adults and minors. I replayed the clip to make sure I heard him correctly. Then I watched an uncut version of the same clip to ensure the video hadn’t been altered, and it wasn’t.
Milo’s statement was blatant and completely serious: “Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men. The sort of coming of age relationships. The relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are and give them security and safety, and provide them with love and a reliable sort of a rock where they can’t speak with their parents.”
When Yiannopoulos alluded that these sort of relationships were typically “positive experiences,” I instantly had a flashback. Milo’s admission triggered a suppressed memory from my teenage years.
I remembered when I experienced statutory rape at age 16.
Admitting this happened to me is extremely hard and something I’ve never done before. I rarely write about detailed aspects of my personal life, but this topic is critically important to me. As I watch Milo’s fanbase rally on social media in defense of his approval for “cross generational relationships,” I can’t sit back and watch something that has personally hurt me be normalized — even if it is consensual.
When I was 16 and impressionable, I used an online dating site to arrange a date with a man in his 30s. Reflecting upon this, I am deeply disturbed that this man ever agreed to meet with me. I might have lied about my age to gain access to the website services, but I told him the truth in a series of private messages and that never deterred him.
The first time we met was the last. He picked me up at home while my mother was under the impression I was out for a late weekend night with friends. We went out for dinner. Immediately upon seeing him, I knew I had made a mistake. He wasn’t a youthful 30-something. He might have even been lying about his age. When the stranger I had been chatting with online didn’t have a face, it was easy to fantasize that he was youthful, strapping and not predatory. But being able to noticeably discern that we were at two vastly different maturity levels changed everything.
I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be in this man’s car. But I was too nice, too immature, too naive, and stupid. Yes, stupid. I say this unflinchingly because I could’ve been killed or raped and didn’t realize the danger I had put myself in until it was too late. I was not even remotely attracted to this man but had never been on a dinner date before. I simply didn’t know what I was doing and was completely out of my element.
I don’t really remember getting the choice on whether I got to go home from dinner or not, but we ended up at his house. I could have very well agreed to go in an effort to appear nice to the grown adult who was bigger, stronger, and better-resourced than my juvenile self. It was an extremely intimidating experience.
At his place, he expressed a desire to get physical and I felt trapped. I was 16, didn’t have a car or license, was across town, and felt at his mercy — even if I inherently wasn’t. We ended up having what would definitively be considered consensual sexual relations. But internally, I just wanted to survive the night and be provided stable transportation back to my house. I never wanted or intended to indulge in physical activity with that person. I wonder if he could tell but didn’t care. It doesn’t matter regardless. He should never have put a teenager in that position in the first place. Minors aren’t always capable of making the right decisions in the company of adults who should know better. That’s why statutory rape laws exist. Statutory rape laws that Milo Yiannopoulos is okay with disregarding for teens as young as thirteen.
Saying it’s not pedophilia because the victim has functioning sexual organs doesn’t make the crime legal or appropriate. A teenager can still be considered a child by the law and society. At 16, I was still secretly playing with my Power Ranger toys unbeknownst to my friends. There is no way in hell I was 100 percent sure I was ready to have a casual dalliance with someone more than twice my age. I still felt like a kid inside. If I had wanted it to happen, the memory of how much I didn’t want it to happen wouldn’t have stuck. I was an adolescent indulging in an adult fantasy that I should not have let materialize.
While I don’t ultimately feel debilitated by my statutory rape, witnessing Milo normalize these sort of scenarios was too much for me to not speak up. What Milo is normalizing is blatant pedophilia and statutory rape. It’s also extremely sensitive content for sexual assault victims. Whether or not the involved minor is pubescent doesn’t make the interaction okay, legal, or normal.
While I’ll always defend Milo’s First amendment right to free speech, I no longer feel it deserves a platform. Yiannopoulos even admitted to his own personal sexual abuse in a recent Facebook statement while continuing to normalize adult-minor relationships. He should be speaking to a therapist, not publishers and CPAC.
Richard Mills (@ramrants) is an activist, digital content creator, and resident of Eugene, Ore.
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