You may have run across an image macro going around the internet recently featuring a picture of YouTube ranter and sometime Men’s Rights ally The Amazing Atheist – aka Terroja or TJ Kinkaid – and an appalling quote, supposedly from him, arguing that MRAs should campaign to lower the age of consent, because “[n]ature already has an age of consent. That age is approximately 12-13, otherwise known as the onset of puberty.”
I didn’t post about the quote, appalling as it is, because I couldn’t find any proof that Mr. Kincaid actually wrote or said it; I even searched several of Mr. Kincaid’s books and a document entitled “The Somewhat Complete Ravings of TJ Kincaid” to no avail. Apparently no one else has been able to find the quote either.
If this quote was fabricated, I’m a little puzzled as to why, because Kincaid has actually said very similar things before. Given the confusion about the quote, I thought it might be worth noting what we know he has said on the topic.
In a 2006 posting on a Marilyn Manson fan site, linked to in RationalWiki’s profile of him, a self-identified “atheist libertarian” calling himself Terroja argued that
Having pedophilic attractions doesn’t mean you automatically go out and start molesting kids. From the time I was 14 to the time I was about 19, I used to have extreme pedophilic fantasies, and I somehow managed to never even come close to acting on them. I think with my brain, not my penis.
I do think, however, the pedophilia is unfairly persecuted in today’s society.
I think the difference in punishment between child rapists and child molestors should be more significant, with molestors perhaps simply attending mandatory therapy for their first offense. I also think that the age of sexual consent should be lowered to 12 or 13.
My stance is not designed to be controversial or to offend anyone. I only want human beings to understand that the law must work within the parameters of human nature, not in defiance of it.
In a recent posting on his blog, Kincaid admits that this indeed is something he once believed:
The age of consent thing is based on a post I made on an internet forum when I was like 20. And it was actually a pretty popular sentiment on the boards at that time. Hell, it was a popular sentiment on the internet in general at that time. It was also, I’m sad to say, an opinion that my father held.
After experiencing another decade on planet earth, I realize how horribly misguided that opinion was and is. I think that maybe it’s not so horrible for kids that age to begin sexual exploration with one another, but it’s definitely wrong for an adult to engage is sex with someone that young and inexperienced.
The “everyone else was a pedophile in 2006” argument is not exactly a convincing one, and it’s worth noting that Kincaid “confessed” his attraction towards underage girls in his self-published 2007 book “Scumbag: Musings of a Subhuman” as well, writing that
I think 14-year-old girls are hot. (Yeah, so does everyone else, but I actually admit it)
That’s what pedophiles would like to believe, but it’s not actually true.
Also, in “The Somewhat Complete Ravings of TJ Kincaid,” which seems to be a compilation of writings from several of his books, we find the following passage:
Teenage girls are annoying because they go out into public dressed like sluts and then if you look at their massive titties there is a segment of our society that will happily declare you a pedophile for “oggling those poor children.” Children, my ass. Children don’t have D cups. Children don’t have big, luscious round asses crammed into designer jeans.
For what it’s worth, the word is “ogling,” not “oggling.”
Even more troubling than these quotes is the fact that Kincaid also claimed at one point that he “dated” a 14-year-old when he was 23.
In his recent posting, he insists that he was only joking:
As for this nonsense about me dating a 14-year-old when I was 23, I was actually mocking a friend of mine who was over 30 and was macking on some 16-year-old girl. The sad fact is that when I was 23, I was single and pussyless. And I was too timid and frightened to even approach a girl sexually, let alone one who could wind me up in prison.
I have no trouble believing that he was lying about having an underage girlfriend, but his explanation doesn’t seem to jibe with what he – or someone claiming to be him – said in the very strange (and not altogether safe for work) video that seems to be the source for what Kincaid calls this “rumor” about him.
Roughly 30 minutes into the video, which shows a live BlogTV session between YouTube personality thefakesagan and some guests in an internet chatroom, we see someone identified as theamazingatheist declare flatly in the chat session that “as a 23-year-old I dated a 14-year-old briefly.”
When the expletive-spewing thefakesagan asks him what it was that led him to stop “dating” the 14-year-old so quickly, theamazingatheist replies “fear of her dad murdering me,” adding in a followup comment that “he was a Marine, actually.”
When the host, burping and fiddling with a bass guitar, asks theamazingatheist if he actually felt “an emotional bond with this 14-year-old bitch,” themazingatheist replies “I felt an emotional bond with her pussy.”
“Sorry,” he types a few moments later, “I’m a sociopath, useless in the ways of love.”
The host then spends a few moments fumbling with his instrument, trying ineptly to work out the bassline to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” “You better run, you better do what you’re told,” he sings, “TJ’s in the back room fucking a 14-year-old.”
The conversation moves on, and I think I will too.
But now that I’ve gotten hold of some of TJ’s masterworks, I think I’ll have to see what else is hiding within them. I suspect I’ll be posting about that shortly.
gorillaella
“I just hope the scumbag never breeds”
I hope he never approaches a person of any age ever!
I agree with CassandraKitty. If you can’t control yourself then turn yourself in so you won’t hurt anyone anymore.
But the thing is these types of people just want to do whatever they want without consequences. It has nothing to do with “lack of control” or “biology” they see it, they want it, and they want everyone else to take the fall. (Blame the victims, say that everyone thinks like them, etc)
Ugh this is beyond disgusting, putrid and gross it’s disputridoss! To think that this is happening all over the world, everyday, as we speak. I need brain bleach
http://youtu.be/p2H5YVfZVFw
maistrechat, that’s terrible and reminds me of South Korea, where drunkenness of the rapist was a valid defence in court until two years ago:
http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2961949
Yes, a rapist could say ‘I was drunk’and have his conviction quashed or sentence reduced. There are lots of wonderful things about Korean culture and society, but gender issues are shocking.
Warning: link above contains disturbing details of a child rape case.
@Dvarg – I had the same certainty about never cheating when I was romantically active, and it held up successfully. Sorry you get such a hostile response; eye rolling because so many people made the claim with all sincerity and then cheated, or because it was a bit of a stock claim people were presumably supposed to make is how I was usually received, and it seemed understandable if people didn’t seem willing to bet on anyone’s living up to it.
There’s also the “can’t help with whom one falls in love” claim, which seems to strike me much the way “born this way” strikes you. It has some merit and positive effects, but people who take it too far often end up reminding me of Linnet Doyle from *Death on the Nile*
@weirdwoodhugger- that’s a good point. I’ve always had A cups and I’m starting to appreciate the gross stares that saved me from as a CHILD of 14-17. Idk how anyone in their right mind could say anyone who goes through puberty, i.e. children as young as 10, would be considered an adult.
I thought Orion was trying to say that people like TAA effectively normalize a wide range of morally reprehensible behavior by claiming to be criminals when they are just predatory creeps. It provides covers for actual criminals and helps predatory creeps justify themselves by claiming they just say what every other guy thinks.
NOBODY should be attracted to a five-year-old. Ever. It’s normal for fourteen-year-olds to be attracted to other fourteen-year-olds. The older you get, the more a fourteen-year-old should look like a kid.
I think it’s similar to blurring the lines of consent. A jerk who preys on vulnerable women but stays just on this side of consent might claim to be a serial rapist, thereby excusing his own behavior, because people recognize his hyperbole, and also adding to the idea that consent is an impossible mystery.
And conversely, are late bloomers supposed to be treated as less mature beings than people who happened to hit puberty earlier according to these guys? Though these people probably think puberty happens overnight on your thirteenth birthday or whenever you stumble upon some horrible libertarian tract.
YoullNeverGuess: yes, that’s more or less how I understood it, but when the second paragraph defined paedophilia to exclude teenagers, a lot of people, quite understandably, thought AAARG, NOT THIS FREAKING EBOBBLYPHILIA DEFENCE AGAIN and skipped the next six paragraphs.
And this is why some countries with eyebrow-raisingly-low ages of consent also have laws that insist on a maximum age gap – typically, both people have to be under 18.
@DJG:
I do believe that there are plenty of people who make that claim with all sincerity and then change their minds when enough of a temptation comes along. And if someone had said “You say this now, but just wait until someone hot enough wants to have it off with you, you’re probably gonna change your mind then, because people do this all the time”, I would still have been a bit miffed, but… That’s not what people tend to say in my experience. Instead, they talk as if sex is something that happens to you – as if you can’t be certain that you’re not gonna cheat, because you never know, some SEX might fall down on you when you least expect it! And that’s the kind of denial of responsibility for one’s sexual actions that feed into rape culture IMO.
Thanks, Jo. 🙂
I think a German Mammoth-member said it’s something like that in Germany?
Don’t remember exactly, but think their lowest age of consent was thirteen or something like that, but only fourteen- and thirteen-year-olds can have sex with thirteen-year-olds…
I briefly dated a sixteen-year-old girl when I was twenty. Looking back, I think it was a bit skeevy actually. She was the one who got my number through mutual friends and wanted to come visit and well, initiated the whole thing, but it was probably mostly because she thought it would be cool to have an adult girlfriend for a while (who lived in the Big City, too – that probably factored in). And I thought it was cool, I guess, to have someone thinking that I was so cool. That’s not the best relationship dynamic (although, as I said, it was pretty brief for a variety of reasons – we still keep in touch though). BUUUUT it would obv have been a million times skeevier if I had been thirty or forty rather than twenty. So yeah, the size of the age gap, not just how old the younger party is, definitely matters.
Oh yes. “They can’t help themselves” is another version of “she was asking for it”; the idea that sexual attraction overrides our empathy or willingness to obey the law. It’s bullshit, and dangerous bullshit.
I really, REALLY, don’t like to admit this, but I’m a twisted fuck. I have fantasies which would be horrific to act out in the real world. Yet I’m not a mindless monster; I choose not to hurt other people for sexual gratification. I try and express those fantasies in ways which are safe, consensual, and most importantly, enjoyable for everyone involved. I would rather die a virgin than live as a rapist.
The 20-somethigns who date young teens, the guys who choose positions of power with access to children have chosen to act on their desires to the detriment of others, just as any rapist chooses to act on their desires over the objections of their victims. All the excuses and justifications for their behaviour simply creates a safe place for them to continue to prey on people.
@Wetherby
I grew up in a state where the age of consent was 14 as long as both parties are within 5 years of each other. This resulted in nightclubs having “all-ages” nights where only those in the 14-19 year old age range were supposed to be allowed in.
Erf, sorry Dvärghundspossen… Didn’t mean to hit you with generalization splash from my last paragraph.
Apropos of age gaps: http://xkcd.com/314/
If you solve the creepiness equation both ways, you get:
(YourAge/2 + 7) <= TheirAge <= (2*YourAge – 14)
as the acceptable dating age range. As a corollary, it's never OK to date if you're younger than 14, and 14-year-olds can only date 14-year-olds. QED
Leftwing, it’s okay. 🙂
I said myself that a 20-year-old who likes being considered cool and a 16-year-old who thinks it’s cool to have an adult girlfriend aren’t the best relationship dynamic, but I thought you referred more to relationships with a little bit bigger age gaps than that and where the older party takes the initiative.
So according to that comic strip that Emily Rose posted, a 37-year-old like myself ought not to date anyone under 20, since that would be creepy. (Obv I had to compulsively check whether that equation gives plausible answers.)
Thank you, and yes, that was my intended sentiment. 🙂 I just realized how that could be misinterpreted after I posted and saw yours.
Our mother hit puberty when she was about eight. She was also molested around that age. The idea that child molestation is a less violent crime is welcome to check my family out and learn ALLLLLLL about the ways it fucked everyone up.
I do believe there are some poor schmucks who are attracted to children. However, brain should trump balls every time. I have all the sympathy for people with really unfortunate sexualities, if they aren’t using them to hurt anyone. I have none whatsoever for child-molesters. Do they need help? Sure. But I should never be involved, because this is a topic of deep anger for me.
RE: Orion
You are really starting to piss me off right now. No, thanks for playing, mental illness doesn’t turn you into an child-raper. And if pedophiles really are COMPELLED to molest children, then the only moral thing to do is commit themselves. Or does their mental illness FORCE them not to do that either? What a convenient mental illness!
It wasn’t my grandfather’s FEELINGS that wrecked my family. It was his ACTIONS, and those are all on him.
You’ll be pleased to know that my child-molesting grandfather never got committed, never took pills, in fact, completely got away with raping multiple children and got a seven-gun salute at his funeral. He was treated as a fucking war hero, and the child-raping was completely covered up. Fuck you and the opulent horse you rode in on.
RE: Kittehs
I’m just reading about NAMBLA – I’d heard the acronym before but didn’t know what it meant.
I am sorry but also envious. I knew about them for a long time!
Also, our rapist was twenty and we were sixteen. He really liked using the whole “mature for your age” thing. Of course, the reason we were so “mature” was because our parents were neglectful and couldn’t emotionally care for us, so basically it was just piling on bad treatment before to justify more bad treatment later.
The horrible part is, dude totally groomed us to be his little mother/wifeykins/underage sextoy. We WERE the grown-up in the relationship, trying to get him to go to school, apply for work, get tested for STDs which he’d put off…
Hell, he MET us when we were working, right before going back to school! Just… AAAGH.
That gives me 30-80, which is fine by me.
And my nine-year-old daughter gets 4 to 11.5, which I’m equally comfortable with.
I got back before the sanitation pickup! The last trace of Allen Ginsberg has left my home and is on its way to the landfill, which is where it belongs.
Oh, that’s a tough one. I’ve heard some arguments for not conflating an artist’s work with their personal life. Terrible people can make beautiful things, things that can be incredibly inspiring and meaningful to a lot of people. OTOH, is it really right to lend financial support (in the way of books/albums/movie tickes purchased, concerts attended, etc.) to someone who does awful things with no remorse? I just pitched Ginsberg’s work, but there are still some problematic authors and musicians in my collection that I haven’t quite forced myself to purge. There are no easy answers. 🙁
I was thinking the same thing earlier. It’s like saying a fourteen year old boy who can grow a lush beard is more mature than a forty-year-old man with naturally sparse facial hair. But that may just be my childish ladybrain speaking – I have been an A cup or smaller my entire life, after all.
@ A Rose for Emily
Someone who abuses kids isn’t necessarily attracted to them. It can just be about power, or about enjoying hurting people. Frankly I think “attracted to” is the wrong way to describe the feelings that any opportunistic predator is experiencing towards their victims.
My line on separating artist from their work is whether they will personally benefit from my purchases. HP Lovecraft wrote some of my favorite short stories but he was a raging racist xenophobe and were he alive I’d avoid doing anything to put money in his pocket like I do with Orson Scott Card. Zimmer-Bradley is dead and can’t profit from any sales and I assume her children are receiving some of the royalties which doesn’t make up for having her as a mother but maybe makes their lives a little easier.
It just feels like a red herring to me, cassandrakitty. Who CARES whether someone who rapes a child is doing it out of attraction or some other reason? (Except for whoever is giving the perp treatment?) They’re still raping a child!
I’m attracted to men. Somehow, I manage to avoid raping them. I really don’t like how ‘but they’re doing it out of ATTRACTION and MENTAL ILLNESS’ is getting thrown out here.
Of course, I recently finished doing a takedown of an abusive con artist who’s been using a string of mental illnesses (DID, schizophrenia, ADD, PTSD, depression, and BPD, just off the top of my head) as an excuse for breaking, raping, and swindling thousands of dollars. My tolerance for people using their mental health as cover for abuse is at an all-time low.