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.
For what it’s worth, all the proceeds from the e-book versions of MZB’s work are getting donated to Save the Children, so not only is she not profiting, the money is (hopefully) helping children instead of enabling their abuse.
My understanding is that Elizabeth Waters gets most of the royalties from the print works. Having read the depositions involved, she doesn’t seem like a super great person.
Talking about having sexual urges toward children is a reportable occurrence in the most parts of the US, if not all of it. People in certain professions (mental health work is one) are required to report if you announce this to them. It’s the same as if you went into your therapist and talked about how you want to murder your dad and and you convince the therapist that you are extremely serious and there is a chance you might go through with it. Doctor/patient privilege does not actually protect that, and it doesn’t protect pedophilia either.
I’ve of two minds about this. Pedophiles who genuinely don’t want to offend are cut off from help, because the moment they admit these urges, they are reported. On the other hand, it is important to try to identify people who are very likely to commit crimes like rape or murder before they do it, and keep them from doing it; there is no number of “acceptable victims” that it is OK to have and just a cost of doing business in society.
This is one of those things for which I have no good answer. Pedophiles should have access to competent and compassionate mental health care, not because they are especially deserving but because this is something I consider a fundamental human right that everyone should have. But maybe they should have access to it from inside a facility that physically restrains them from offending.
I figure this is one of those things readers just have to decide for themselves. For instance, I really wish Tiny Us hadn’t bought all that Piers Anthony pedopologia back from the ages of 8-14; we were JUST the right age to think that all the shit he was spewing was fine. I’m not going to be buying any more, but I don’t think Tiny Us did some terrible deed by buying books she didn’t totally understand.
Of course, once you get into media that requires the collaboration of dozens or even hundreds of people (pretty much anything film) it gets even more complicated. How likely is it that no creeper was ever involved in the making of a film? How do you decide what is an acceptable amount of douchery (say, Adam Baldwin being in Firefly) and what is too much (say, any film by Roman Polanski)?
It’s an individual choice, I figure.
@Policy of Madness – I would much rather they get the help they need from inside an insitution where they can’t produce victims. Of course, some people are able to have these urges and not act on them (usually because they realise how damaging their actions would be), but that’s a matter for individual assessment.
I’m a mandated reporter in my jurisdiction, and it has caused a bit of ethical confusion in my personal life (this next bit might be TMI). My mother recently started threatening my brother’s life, and I wasn’t sure what to do with the information. I talked about it (at great length) with my therapist, who also happens to be an RN. We decided, given my mother’s history of random death threats, that my brother was at relatively low risk and, thus I did not need to report her. It was a tough call, though, ethically speaking. I have also been hesitant to discuss sexual abuse that I have experienced for the same reason (ie: would certain family members be reported?).
TL;DR each case has to be assessed on it’s own merits, and risk assessments are tricky.
@LBT – I think art largely exists apart from the artist. That said, I’m really glad that I never liked Piers Anthony or MZB all that much in the first place. Certainly doesn’t make me morally superior, though!
PoM: Talking about having sexual urges toward children is a reportable occurrence in the most parts of the US, if not all of it.
*sigh* I vaguely recall hearing of a case of a woman who admitted, maybe to a doctor, that she got sexually aroused breastfeeding her baby – and wound up with the authorities taking it away from her for a period before sanity cut back in.
@ LBT
Yeah, I’ve been sitting here shaking my head and muttering “the point, why do you keep missing it?” over and over again.
Ho-lee shit. Did someone actually try to use the ‘It’s not pedophilia. It’s ephebophilia.’ argument, and then try to claim pedophilia is a sexual orientation? Goddammit.
Like we say over at SRS: What’s an ephebophile? A pedophile with a thesaurus.
Gross. Pedophilia is a recognized disorder in the paraphilia family of disorders. Also, homosexuality is a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is a sexual orientation, bisexuality is a sexual orientation, etc. Pedophilia IS NOT a sexual orientation. I see that bullshit argument too damn much and it makes me see red because usually what’s behind it is an attempt to normalize harmful behavior and pathologize homosexuality. I see someone make that argument, I immediately think that person is a creeper and a shithead.
@Chaos-Engineer
You make some good points. Irregardless, I still disagree with you about a lot of these.
RE: GrumpyOldNurse
@LBT – I think art largely exists apart from the artist.
Ennnnhh. As an artist myself, I’m… I’m not sure where I stand, but I definitely can’t separate art from artist entirely. Probably because PART of why I make the money I do isn’t because of my skill, but I’m pretty sure people just personally like me and what I say. I make money specifically BECAUSE I write about queer people, trans people, mentally weird people, and because I take on topics like multiplicity that a lot of folks haven’t.
Also, I still haven’t quite forgiven Piers Anthony for being the person who introduced us to the concept of rape at the age of seven… by saying that it was totally an acceptable thing that happened to beautiful women. (And later, to beautiful girls.)
RE: cassandrakitty
Yeah, I’ve been sitting here shaking my head and muttering “the point, why do you keep missing it?” over and over again.
*dry* I get the sense that this person has not actually experienced child-molestation or pedophilia personally. Admittedly, I’m a generation removed (I hate my rapist, but I’m not sure a 20-year-old raping a 16-year-old can be called a pedophile, legitly) but it’s a very personal, very heated topic with me.
It’s the fact that multiple people keep going, well, is it an orientation? It’s very important that we know this, and if any given child molester has that orientation, that’s really making head hit desk. IT DOESN’T MATTER. If we were just talking about thoughts that someone kept to themselves then maybe, but the moment you act on that thought then your motivations are irrelevant because there is no ethically acceptable way to have sex with children, or to suggest that it might be OK for other adults to do so.
Well, you know, they might be mentally ill, and INCAPABLE of resisting assaulting children… even though they might hide it and cover it up for years. (Since, you know, if someone is truly compelled to do such a thing due to mental illness, they’d probably do it in front of cops.)
As a mentally ill person, this is EXACTLY the kind of shit that honks me off. Especially since I have never, EVER heard of my grandfather having any mental illness whatsoever. It sounds more like an excuse people use, rather than actually one that’s true.
You’re right, it really doesn’t matter. I’m kicking myself because I once had a link to a peer reviewed source that showed that the majority of pedophiles actually ended up molesting children, but my computer crashed and I lost it when I had to do a factory reset. I can’t find it now. :/
But it did demonstrate that there isn’t much juice behind the argument that pedophiles aren’t, by definition, child molesters. Pedantically that may be true, but pragmatically it’s a load of horseshit.
@ LBT – But, in that instance, Piers Anthony was making rape part of his art, and presenting it as OK. I’m so not OK with that. OTOH, I really like William Burroughs’ work (relax, I’m already in therapy) so maybe I’m just trying to justify my own dodgy ethical decisions.
@ theladyzombie – I think so many of them let themselves molest because they go through huge mental leaps to minimise the damage that they do. At least, any pedophiles I’ve ever met have had justifications out the wazoo.
@LBT I think I read your takedown of the creepy fandom-cult guy WHO IS STILL ACTIVE IN FANDOM ARRGH. Was it the one about how his portrayal of his DID is… not at all accurate? Because that was very good! The tumblr user had a similar name to yours, but I was unsure.
RE: theladyzombie
Ennnnh. Despite my rage kneejerk, I actually have no trouble believing that there are people who actually ARE attracted to children and just never act on it or tell anyone. (I mean, come on. Would YOU?) People who were just really unlucky in how they were wired and keep their mouths tight shut. I don’t know.
RE: GrumpyOldNurse
Enh, it’s a dodgy line. I’m never sure where to draw it.
RE: wewereemergencies
Yes! That was me! LB-Lee is my handle elsewhere on the Internet. Honestly, I should probably change it here as well…
So. Effin’. TRUE!
I think a lot of the fillip in it for them lies in the fact that they get the so-called best of both worlds: the inexperience and vulnerability of an easy-to-manipulate child, juxtaposed with a prematurely “adult” body, complete with killer curves, that also provides them a legal “out”: “But officer, just look at her. I thought she was 18, because no 11-year-old looks like that!” Plausible deniability doesn’t get any more fucking cynical.
I think a lot of people wanting to make the distinction between having sex with <17 teens vs. preteens and younger are just saying the DEGREE of wrongness is different, not that the former isn't wrong. It's pointless, though–it's like they think the law and the overwhelming majority of people's opinion doesn't already reflect that. It's like making a detailed argument about how second-degree murder isn't the same as first-degree murder. EVERYONE KNOWS. Your spending eight paragraphs on it just might make me think you're be okay with second-degree murder though.
@LBT:
A side-benefit of not living in the US, maybe!
@Flying Mouse:
Huzzah! ::blows party whistle thingy::
@Binjabreel: kudos to your dad!
@leftwingfox: if it’s any consolation, I have fantasies that couldn’t be acted in a play situation, as well as shouldn’t be in real life.
@LBT again:
My take exactly. It’s the same as I said to Orion at the start of this: I do not give a flying fuck why someone is abusing children or wants to. I feel the same way as Gloria Steinem on the matter.
@zoon:
I saw what you did there.
I was molested by my stepfather at age seven to twelve, and before that by some friends of my father when I was at most two and a half. I have a small scar on each inner thigh. I’ve had them as long as I can remember. I have no recollection of how I got them. Whatever they did traumatized me so much that when my Nana took my brother and I in, I used to scream at the top of my lungs whenever a new man came in. And that was pretty much the only time I made a sound at all for the first few months my Nana had us. VERY heated topic for me. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to accept that, okay, maybe there are people who feel attraction to children but never dwell on it or act on it, and those people aren’t evil. But that’s as far as I’m willing to go. I hate them. I don’t condone violence, or the death penalty, or torture, or anything like that, but when such a thing happens to a pedophile, I am not fucking sad.
What those men did to me left me with a lingering fear of big men with large hands all the way up to the age of twenty-four (two years ago). A fear I wasn’t even fully aware of until I took a chance and hooked up with such a man, and the experience was not only not bad, but enjoyable.
As a toddler living with my Nana, I developed rituals in the steps I took before going through a door…Unless I’m self-conscious, I still fucking do these. And even fourteen years after the last time my stepfather touched me, sometimes I still have nightmares about it. And sometimes (though very rare now) I wake up around 4 in the morning with a nameless fear I can’t describe, something I know and yet I don’t.
My current sexual partner is ten years older than me. The only reason he’s my sexual partner is because I didn’t know he was that much older than me when we met and by the time I realized it, I was already really comfortable with him because he talked to me on an equal level. Before him, I outright refused to date anyone more than five years older than me because I was afraid it would feel like dating someone who had authority over me.
So I’m just so fucking sick of hearing about how we should be sympathetic to pedophiles. Pedophilia isn’t a fucking mental illness, PTSD is!
I’m sick of hearing that it’s an orientation because sexual orientations don’t fucking hurt anyone! Child molestation does!
And I’m sick of hearing the misinterpretation of sexual assault being about power. Rather than understanding that it’s an exertion of power by the powerful, some describe pedophiles as “looking for power” because they “lost power”, often because “they were molested themselves as children”. FUCK. YOU. I was molested. I don’t molest. I would kill myself before ever doing such a thing. And fuck anyone who tries to make me sympathize with a pedophile. THEY DON’T DESERVE MY SYMPATHY. One person tried to tell me that the shame pedophiles experience causes them to avoid seeking help. BOO-FUCKING-HOO! They deserve the shame, and they should do whatever they can to not molest children regardless of what shame they might experience for making their thoughts and/or actions known.
/rant
On a less ragey note, I just want to say I’m glad most of the regulars here seem to see this issue the way I do. I know not all feminists do, and that’s something that really stings for me. Because I see feminism as the only movement with the ability to stop this, so when feminists whose opinions I otherwise respect start saying it’s okay for pedophiles to dwell on their fantasies about molesting fucking children, it kind of upsets me and I usually just don’t engage. So thanks all, not Orion, though. Even with zir explanation, I’m still pretty skeeved out by those comments.
Alex, have you ever read Something Terrible? It’s a short, autobiographical comic from a professional comics artist on his own molestation history, and how superheroes and Batman in particular helped him. It’s hard, but not explicit, and it was very moving and good for me to see it.
@LBT,
I have now. Thanks. 🙂
Alex, all the hugs. I know I’ve said that before, but here’s a fresh-baked batch. (Take not, hugs are the only things I know how to bake.)
THIS. So much this. My beloved was molested as a child. He did not repeat that behaviour, and if he’d wanted to, who would have stopped him, with his rank and power?
@Alex – hugs, if you want them. QFT about the ‘regaining power’ nonsense being nonsensical. After some of the things I’ve seen, I often think there is a much more simple and horrifying answer – some people are just plain evil. Hurting just pleases them, especially if the victim is small and helpless. I rejected this conclusion for years, but it is the only thing that fits sometimes.
@LBT – thanks for that link:-)
@ Alex
Everything you’re saying reminds me so much of what happened to my mother. Watching the effects that she was never able to shake off and that haunted her for her entire life is a big part of the reason why I have absolutely zero tolerance for a lot of the shit that’s been brought up here. My sympathy and support is with the victims, not the predators, and the moment someone crosses that line from private thought to action then I simply do not care what the consequences for them may be, no matter how harsh those consequences are.
We’re supposed to be feminists, people. Support the victims, not the predators.