by Ed Vitagliano
(AgapePress) – With cultural constraints against premarital sex nearly dissolved and those against homosexuality crumbling, most people who hold to traditional views of morality could at least take some comfort in believing there were still some restraints left standing. After all, there remained in place the taboo against pedophilia — sex between adults and children.
Not so fast, argues columnist Mary Eberstadt. In two articles written for The Weekly Standard, which were composed nearly five years apart, Eberstadt said the social disapproval against inter-generational sex is being challenged by a growing undercurrent of opinion.
Eberstadt first struck a nerve with her 1996 article entitled “Pedophilia Chic.” In that ground-breaking story, she presented evidence that in certain circles — what she sardonically called “the right stylish magazines, the right cutting-edge publishers. the right celebrated authors” — pedophilia, in many circumstances, was deemed fine and dandy.
“Call it the last gasp of a nihilism that has exhausted itself by chasing down every other avenue of liberation, only to find one last roadblock still manned by the bourgeoisie,” she said. “Call it pedophilia chic.”
In her most recent treatment of the subject this past January, however, Eberstadt said she had earlier missed one very relevant aspect of this attempt to deconstruct the taboo against pedophilia. She argues convincingly in “Pedophilia Chic Reconsidered” that this movement is not about adult-child sex so much as it is about man-boy sex.
“The reason why the public is being urged to reconsider boy pedophilia is that this 'question,' settled though it may be in the opinions and laws of the rest of the country, is demonstrably not yet settled within certain parts of the gay rights movement,” she said.
For her efforts, Eberstadt has received a verbal beating from many, including those within the “gay” press. Taken together, however, Eberstadt's two articles make a strong case concerning a very disturbing cultural trend, and warn pro-family combatants in the culture war that there is still a long, hard fight ahead.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
