The word that controversial free speech advocate Milo Yiannopoulos regrets uttering

I personally would burn pedophilic scum at the stake, as it can be very damaging in the context of our culture.  Those of us who study ancient history, however, know that in the brilliant culture of ancient Greece, homosexual pedophilia was not only normal but regarded as beneficial to a boy's education and development. Yiannopoulos was probably aware of that.  He is himself Greek. The words he used are certainly reminiscent of ancient Greek thinking.  I am told that modern-day Greeks can read ancient Greek with a bit of effort.

There are however some things well-known in scholarly circles which cause outrage when mentioned in public -- such as average black IQ -- so it was certainly unwise of Yiannopoulos to say what he did.  He is an iconoclast but that is one area where there is no public support for iconoclasm.  As a homosexual, he was probably out of touch with mainstream views on the matter.

I am walking on thin ice in making this comment.  Chris Brand was fired from a tenured teaching job at the University of Edinburgh for saying that there are varieties of pedophilia and that not all are equally harmful, which, I suspect, reflects his own experience. 

The British upper class are notoriously homosexual in their youth. It is said that in British "public" (Private) schools, homosexuality was not so much condoned as compulsory.  Those old respectable British guys pictured in felt hats and smoking pipes could well have sucked on other things in their past

I hope I have made clear, however, that my comment is a scholarly one and that I do not in any way approve of any sort of pedophilia.  I am a much published academic psychologist so it lies well within my field of academic expertise to make a scholarly comment on the matter.


IT HAS been a shocking 48 hours for Twitter’s most hated man, Milo Yiannopoulos.

The Trump-loving, gay, conservative firebrand has had what his detractors could accurately describe as a stunning fall from grace, which culminated this morning with him being forced out of his job as tech editor at controversial right-wing news site Breitbart. In part, due to what he described as “imprecise language”.

The self proclaimed “virtuous troll” has been accused of inciting hatred towards feminists, trans people and the Black Lives Matter movement, promoting white nationalists ideas, and has been banished from Twitter.

But it was remarks he made in a podcast about underage sex that prompted a new level of backlash against the 33-year-old. On Tuesday a clip from last year was widely circulated in which Mr Yiannopoulos flippantly said young boys “discover who they are” through relationships with older men, later implying that those relationships can be sexual in nature.

For him, it was the choice of a single word that brought him undone.  “I shouldn’t have used the word boy,” he said during a lengthy press conference this morning announcing he was leaving Breitbart.

“Gay men often use the word boy or girl to mean men of consenting age. But I understand how heterosexual people may not have realised that and that was an error,” he said.

“I’m certainly guilty of imprecise language, which I regret. But anyone who suggests I turn a blind eye to illegal activity or the abuse of minors is unequivocally wrong.”

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