  hello all, sorry for the lengthy period between posts. I found this today, and found it rather amusing. let me know what you think. it originally appeared in the April 2003 issue of Details magazine, and is written by none other than the great Bill Maher. I have some questions about fucking kids. Not that I want to do it, or that I even think about it - I'm not nearly that religious. But apparently a lot of people do, since it seems to be in the news pretty much on a weekly basis (and across such a wide spectrum of society: clergy, rock stars, U.N. inspectors), and I'd like to know why. I'd also like to know if it's as big a problem everywhere in the world as it is here. I do know that in America the absolute worst thing anyone can ever do-even worse than drugs!
- is to even think about sex with minors, despite the fact that we live in a culture where every image in every music video, magazine ad, and billboard dares you not to. Okay, not every image, but please, I think we've all had the experience of leafing through a Vanity Fair and thinking "Wow, she's hot," only to realize it's an ad for GapKids. How could a society not have a pedophilia problem when we not only jonbenet our kids physically but even insist that at the tender age of 9 or 10 they pose for ads with a professional model's disinterested sneer?
How can a society look at such a picture, like the one I'm looking at right now, and not think this is trouble: a 10-year-old girl looking jaded, contemptuous, depressed, put-upon, spoiled, used, and unhappy - like a young Courtney Love. This girl doesn't need a wardrobe, she needs Prozac. I say no girl should suffer from ennui until she can spell it. The hypocrisy of it all: Everything in America in recent years has been done "for the children," from cleaning up toxic waste dumps to fixing social security to the wars on drugs, sex, and tobacco-all for the children. But when we need to snatch one for entertainment or to sell shit, then fuck it! All the lip service about "education is our most important goal" and "leave no child behind," yada yada, but if they need you on the set, then school will just have to fit into that, now won't it? We'll get you a tutor-go study in your trailer with Mr. Pesci. Test tomorrow? Sorry, gotta get you to Milan, orders from your pimp, I mean the head of the agency. Yes, little girl, we are fucking up your mind and your life, but sorry, society does need virgins to throw into the volcano. Children are important, but if you're 14 and hot, sorry - priorities! It turns out "Sex sells" was an understatement. Sometimes it seems like the entire economy revolves around hot, young girls giving older men boners; certainly that's the case at Scores.
Also in Bob Dole commercials. Remember Britney Spears giving him a boner at the 2001 Oscars? After she gives America a video lap dance, he says "Easy boy," supposedly to his dog, but we all get it that it was the Viagra talking. A bit later, Ms. Spears was on the cover of US Weekly with the message "It's Hard to Wait" - you know, because she was a virgin. Of course, she had a look on her face like "Please, someone do me soon or I'm gonna do myself with a pointy shoe. " I'm not saying this is all Britney Spears's fault - she herself is a kid. But where are the parents? A friend of mine told me that his wife once warned him about a 6-year-old girl who was coming over to play with their little girl. "She dances provocatively," the wife said. "Don't be silly, 6-year-olds aren't sexual, they can't dance provocatively," my friend said. Well, the little girl comes over, and the kids put on videos of Britney, Christina, etc., and start dancing along.
In ten minutes my friend said, "Get that little whore out of my house. " Yes, parents are horrified by pedophilia, but they fight it with the same effectiveness that SUV drivers fight terrorism; you know, not "connecting the dots. " Hey, it's your kid - I don't have kids, so I don't have a dog in this fight. But if you're going to let them leave the house with - as I've seen on children-T-shirts that say slut and porn star and I'm with molester (okay, not that last one), dressed in do-me rags and jeans cut so low they're weaving a vulva belt buckle, then please don't stare at the rest of us when we stare. The combination of media images making little kids want to wear sexy clothing and parents too lame to put their feet down about anything (two-thirds of parents admit their kids are spoiled - the other third haven't been released from the basement) of course makes for a pedophile's paradise.
It's very politically correct to say that men are solely responsible for their own sexual restraint and that liberated females - even children, because they are, in p.c. eyes, equal to adults - should feel free to "celebrate their body. " But here on Planet Earth, dressing up children like Lil' Kim at the MTV Video Music Awards and encouraging them to flaunt a sexual power they have no handle on is naturally going to angry up the blood and trigger the launch system in boys and men.
American Beauty is a great movie because it keeps it real about how Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham really wants to fuck not his frigid wife but his daughter's hot cheerleader friend (Mena Suvari). I know, men are disgusting, but it is coming from biology, and Lester Burnham is different from other men only in that he goes crazy and thus becomes truthful. Because on biology, lizard-brain level, "barely past puberty" is still past the point where our biology tells us, "Okay, good to go - mate with the young, healthy one. " So, knowing we need to fight this biology with our civilizing ways for the few years when the first has raced ahead of the second, it seems as stupid to let your teen diva put on a thong and pasties and head off to the dance as it would be to tie a lamb chop to her ass and let her skip into a den of wolves.
I would never defend R. Kelly or any male adult who had sex with a girl as young as 14, but somewhere along the way, other adults, including the parents, had to be enablers of their tryst. If a bartender can be sued for serving drinks to the guy who smashes his car on the way home, and the Columbine parents should have known about the pipe bombs under the dresser, sending little Camel Toe off to a concert has to rate. About Mr. Kelly, his case illustrates that sex with kids is not always the same crime - it has levels, like murder one, manslaughter, etc., although that is rarely the view adopted here. "Zero tolerance" is a fitting invention for our era in America, because it combines self-righteousness with not having to think. Fake moralists love to shut off all attempts to differentiate between levels of the crime, because that's so much easier than thinking and makes you seem more pure. But the truth is, although of course any kind of adult - child sex is wrong, a priest forcing sex on a 10-year-old boy is worse than someone having sex with an eager 14-year-old girl, even with the peeing, which is both horrid and amazing, because I can't even go when there's another guy in the room. Remembering Catholic fear from my own childhood - thankfully about things much less intense than molestation - I can only imagine a young boy in the clutches of an authority figure like a priest, terrified and crying. But I saw the R. Kelly tape, and the girl in it isn't terrified or crying. She looks starstruck and dumbfounded, but not like she didn't want to be there.
He was definitely taking advantage - but she wanted him to. It was wrong, and he should be punished, and under 18 should always be considered too young to consider. But the motivation for sex with priests? Fear of hell, fear of punishment. The motivation for sex with R. Kelly? Excitement and desire. If your victims come to you - if, in fact, they seek you out - that's quite different.
I'm guessing altar boys don't hang around after Mass in hopes of being invited to a sex party with the lead priest. In conclusion, I'll just say that although this pedophilia craze America is going through is sickening, I am nearly as upset when I read about the sex kids are having with each other: girls rarely staying virgins through high school, oral sex given out like handshakes - God, I was born too late! Or, maybe not. I love kissing, and I also read that teen girls nowadays often think kissing on the mouth is too intimate, but oral sex is okay. So they'll blow you, but not kiss you on the mouth-congratulations, America, for raising a generation of whores! 
