The Amazing Atheist's not-so-amazing thoughts on the age of consent

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.