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I recall seeing this post the first time it was published (or something close to it), and just like back then, I fail to see how this observation about the leftists of 1980s squares with the present day. I see normal people (that is, leftists, ranging from basic reddit just be a decent person-ists to transhumanist plural Marxists) quite a lot (admittedly mostly on the internet). In no spaces is any hint of any indulgent relationship between an adult and a child seen as more abhorrent than those normal people (leftist) spaces. The border between adult and child is far from being erased, it is shifted to mid-twenties. And I know how people act when there is something they really think but can't say (I've been on the Motte when it was on reddit), so I do not believe all of them are merely pretending to dislike any crossing of the 18-/18+ barrier.
The worldview of an average left-leaning normie is "no viewing anyone under the age of 18 as a sexual being at all". A minimal detached clinical acknowledgement is allowed, so as to be able to know teens could have unsafe sex, for the purposes of thwarting said unsafe sex. The attitude of the queer community towards educating children on sexuality is, at the worst of it, myopic and selfish, caring more about bolstering their political alliance than the livelihood of those children, but I don't see calling it pedophilic as anything but mental gymnastics.
In how many normal people (leftist) spaces was it not abhorrent to schedule a 14 year old girl for a double mastectomy, because she wants to be a boy, 20 years ago? I was still hearing "no one is doing gender surgeries on minors" as an argument until 2-3 years ago, and it was only dropped when you could start linking people to peer reviewed studies, where clinics were bragging about how many minors they performed mastectomies on.
I don't doubt that they're currently not in favor of it, but give me a reason to believe that when their vanguard decides it's time to push that particular door open, they'll refuse.
I don't think any words will convince you that normies actually can't be convinced of anything anyone wants at any moment regardless of current belief if you're determined to believe that they can.
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Because the vanguard did try to push that particular door open, and they did refuse. Paedophile acceptance was part of the counterculture, but was kicked out of the coalition when SJ nucleated. This is an unusual fact pattern suggesting unusual forces at work; the about-face on nerds/aspies is the only other one I can point to. If I had to point to a suspect for the unusual force, it'd be innate "ick" responses of teenage girls.
EDIT: To be clear, I'm actually on the pro-paedo side of this fight, albeit not actually in favour of AoC abolition due to logistical concerns (in particular HIV necessitating sex ed).
So how do you explain the normie core happily going along with the mastectomies? They involve teenage girls as well. Was the pushback against pedo acceptance even driven by leftist normies, or was it a result of conservatives being stronger and better organized?
Trans activists successfully convinced a sufficient number of leftist normies that some kids are inherently trans, those who are know it at a young age, and that those kids will suffer terribly and kill themselves if forced to become physically normal adults of their birth sex, therefore the mastectomies and such are actually necessary medical care.
A lot of normies are still uncomfortable when confronted with the details, though, hence the euphemism of "gender-affirming care".
That's mostly a rationalization for their lack of resistance. What do you think they will actually resist peso rights, instead of coming up with a similar rationalization?
While I admit there are individuals out there who would happily try to rationalize the idea of adults fucking kids 12 and under as somehow necessary and helpful for the kids, I still have enough faith in humanity to believe nearly everyone would see through it, so it would never become popular enough to add itself into woke orthodoxy.
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Remember that I'm talking about an "ick" from teenage girls, not an "ick" on behalf of teenage girls. It's not like mastectomies are being forced on unwilling teenage girls, after all, just given to willing teenage girls who are plausibly making bad decisions (and who do not themselves believe they are making bad decisions).
From my memories of SJ spaces, and from the way SJ works*, I feel extremely confident in saying it's the former.
*One of the most poisonous parts of SJ is that it considers those outside the movement to be hopelessly mired in false consciousness and thus incapable of having anything to contribute; this is exactly why it's so intransigent in the face of external opposition. As such, you don't see conservative ideas getting adopted by SJ; it kinda has to be independently rediscovered within the walled garden in order to be accepted there.
Just how independent is that "independent" rediscovery? If progressives make an about face on trans issues and decide it's all abruse by evil capitalists to make money off of vurnelable gender non-conforming children, is that the leftist normies spearheading the pushback, or a copy-paste of an argument they were condemning as fascist five seconds ago?
If I look up that time when the US threatened to withdraw UN's funding, over it's associations with NAMBLA, am I going to see mostly conservative, or mostly progressive names attached to that? Is that a valid way to test your theory? If not, what would be?
1994 is prior to SJ nucleation; I'd expect conservative names.
I do want to specify that SJ progressives are frequently six-foundationers who would prior to the 90s have become conservatives, and that I do think this has a lot to do with why SJ despises paedophiles. But that's innate traits that are largely genetic or from birth order, so this wouldn't go away if actual conservatives ceased to exist.
Also, I'm not sure if you missed my edit earlier, but I'm for the most part an unreconstructed 90s liberal; I actually am mostly on the pro-paedo, AoC-is-too-damned-high side of this issue, and I've been censured for this in SJ spaces.
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Which you can see from the traditionalists in this thread, too- they're so stuck on a very particular version of sexual ethics that they believe the argument to be won is the axiomatic acceptance of those ethics.
They are unable or unwilling to understand that "but teh pedos" is not actually a slam-dunk defense- they want to discuss why progressive sexual ethics are wrong, but without the elucidation on why (and that doesn't depend on progressive language, since the first thing they'll reach for is 'consent'... itself a progressive sexual ethic, and the master's tools don't work on the master's house) they fail.
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This is just playing defense and trying to ignore all the evidence. What's the purpose of kids' night at a sex toy shop? What's the meaning of "little girls are kinky too"? Why is all "kink" pushed relentlessly at the same time as actual sex is demonized (especially normal heterosexual sex)?
You're doing that typical thing where you tell people to ignore the academics and activists over there, because a majority of leftists don't agree with them (yet). Until recently normie leftists didn't agree that "the idea that there are two distinct opposite sexes is a 19th century colonialist invention," and yet they got on board with it instantly, ignoring any cognitive dissonance that they'd previously spent years spouting "umm actually sex is distinct from gender."
And already in every case where "kink with kids" comes up, leftists have wound up on the pro-kink side with those activists. Why do normie leftists take more issue with a 25yo dating a 22yo than with schools telling 3rd graders to Google leather daddies? Because one is "queer, kinky, and disrupts heteronormativity," while the other is yucky and straight.
Supporting "queer kink with kids" is just the other side of the coin of "problematizing" heterosexual relationships out of existence. The more normal sexuality can be suppressed, the easier all that energy can be sublimated into party-approved "queer culture."
Because one undermines the parent-child relationship and the other one doesn’t. When these people make gaffes and tell us what they really think it’s almost always family abolitionist thought- the same reason they’re inherently skeptical of heterosexual sex.
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The point of that original comment was to provide a historical throughline throughout history in leftist thought, which I think it does pretty conclusive for a relatively short post. Later in that original thread I provide an example of a contemporary article.
Other people in this current threat have provided other examples. It's not hard to find articles/academic publications on this stuff if you go looking.
My point was to look at leftist academic thought, which is always upstream of what (leftist) normies think. It may or may not make its way downstream in the future. Probably not as the tide is turning against leftism, and that pedophilia is so intrinsically evil and disordered that normies can't abstract it way like other things.
I actually think the argument anout adulthood 'shifiting to mid-twenties' is actually in favour of the deconstruction of child and adult, not against it, as it makes the boundaries between child and adults, fuzzier, not clearer. Young adults are being infantalized, extended adolescence. The concept of 'adulting' is classic deconstructionism - adult is now something your perform, rather than something you are.
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