Reply to Markaba

Still, it is exaggerating to call it 'hate rhetoric', mate. Just more emotive language that you claim the anti's use.

Tell that to the people who have called for the summary executions of pedophiles, or agreed when others have said it.

He was talking about my use of language and I don't use 'hate rhetoric' but others prefer to see it that way simply because they disagree with me. If much of what I believe, as I've no doubt said before, does coincide with the majority view then so be it. I have repeatedly said that I don't care which particular grouping I appear to fall within - it is whether there is truth in any particular argument. That is honesty in my view.

Tell that to the COs in prisons who whisper the crimes of sex offenders to violent inmates, knowing how they might react towards the offender (even if the offender's crime was consensual sex with a teenager scarcely younger than themselves). Tell that to the frothing-at-the-mouth politicians who have made laws upon laws of such stricture that they are impossible to live by and/or absurdly unfair in proportion to the actual offenses of most SOs.

Because of the heightened nature of the moral panic surrounding this issue, there is little middle ground here. So when you judge us as inherently morally inferior to straights, you too are contributing to that mindset.

Have I said as such? I believe you are often deluded as to your beliefs and they will perhaps affect your moral behaviour. No inferiority is necessary, just wrong thinking.

Trust me, I tried for the middle ground too, hoping it would help counter some of the grave injustices I've faced since outing myself, despite never having committed any actual sex offense against anyone and having a perfectly clean legal record. I positioned myself where you are--or at least closer to where you are than where I am now, philosophically speaking--hoping that people's basic decency would shine through their prejudices if they knew I was on their side. With some it did (my family, of course, who knew me well enough to know I could never hurt a child, and some very dear friends of mine who know my sexual orientation and yet still have allowed me to take their daughter/granddaughter/niece to movies, to the fair, to the swimming pool, back to my house, etc., but that level of trust was built over years, and a handful of other friends who keep me sane), but there are still many, many people out there who would just as soon put a bullet in my head as look at me.

Like yourself I don't expect too much from society or the vast majority of inviduals. Their children are at stake - at least in their minds so many cannot be rational about paedophilia. This will not change for a long while I think. Paedophile activism is not going to help this and will almost certainly hinder any progress - quite a Catch 22 situation.

You want to know why I am the way I am? Because after awhile, for people like me, who were timid and emotional kids--perhaps born with some imperfection or malformation, maybe unpopular as a child because of your oddity, introverted--seeing and hearing too much of this shit poisons your soul. I am unemployed now because of this, barely able to pay my bills every month, in constant pain because of my health problems that I can't afford to get treated, lonely, kept away largely from those I adore most, still a virgin at nearly 40, constantly stressed and worried if I'm going to have a home next month, and the next month, and the next . . .

I hope you have seen the comments I made about my life and the damage that emotional inhibition has wreaked on my life. Many of us do have difficult lives and for some the agony lasts longer than for others but if there is one thing I do believe it is that change is possible, even of the most dramatic sort. Until a few years ago I would not have believed I could feel so differently towards others emotionally and how becoming less emotionally inhibited has affected my motivation and actions towards others. This resulted in my 'love at first sight' moment recently and has demonstrated to me that I have changed markedly. As I said, I was seconds away from asking the girl whether she was married. That thought would have been pushed away quickly before since I would not have had the confidence to follow through. As it happens I lost the opportunity - she was probably not interested anyway - and that episode is history - no regrets other than my thanking her for opening my eyes a little.

The first of next month is approaching and so are the bills. I didn't get any sleep at all last night. None. For my heart racing. I go through this every month, and every month I get a little more depressed, a little more bitter, a little more surly. I start thinking, you know, if society already sees me as a monster, what have I to lose by actually being one? I identify with monsters and have from my earliest years: Frankenstein's monster, a singular being, tormented for want of love and acceptance; Godzilla, powerful, crushing whole cities beneath his feet; Iron Man--not the comic book character but the rejected robot in the Black Sabbath song, once a hero, once loved but now feared. And all the other bêtes noires of my youth.

I know it can be depressing - not that I know how you feel exactly - I have had major issues with depression and have lost many friends over the years. I abandoned all attempts at making new friends but since I am a strong individual I can survive without too many friends around me all the time. I don't neeed others to tell me how good, nice etc. I am because I know I am. I just miss the companionship that I did once have. I don't blame the paedophilia, society or anyone else for what has happened to me, it has just happened and fortunately I think I have resolved the greater number of issues I have faced.

There are days I almost wish the world would self-destruct; maybe I can milk a little joy out of my miserable little existence still by watching it burn. And always afterwards I hate myself for thinking and feeling that way, for my hatred of people I've never met, for my anger and self-pity, and the bullshit starts all over again. And no, I will never physically hurt a soul. I'm not the type; I just internalize everything, or lash out with my words sometimes. Healthy, huh? It's not pretty but it's the truth. And yes, society is to a large degree responsible for this. It demands honesty, but when you offer it, you are demolished if your truth doesn't fit the acceptable mold, or at best you are ignored like the outcast in that Twilight Zone episode whom no one was allowed to talk to.

I'm sorry mate, but I can't persuade you to have a different outlook and to see things differently. I try to put my views across and if they are offensive then you will have to accept that this is my honesty rather than having any malicious intent.

Sooooooo . . . I'm not asking for your forgiveness for my being an asshole to you. I neither need nor want it. I'm just explaining how I got to this place from the shy, polite, sweet kid I once was. This shit doesn't happen overnight. Bane doesn't come to be because he's just not a people person. No, he is created from without as much as from within, a victim of a life of tragedy. And Pink doesn't lose touch with his humanity because he's antisocial; the bricks accumulate with time, with each slight, each horrific misunderstanding, each little inhumanity hurled at him from day to day. And so, there you have a Markaba. And I am one of many.

And I was such a child too, nice, honest, intelligent and attractive. Perhaps my abuse was the trigger and perhaps it was simply the emotional inhibitons or a combination of them but I think the clock can be turned back as evident in my case.

And to me there is little difference between your condescension and denial of my essential selfhood and freedave's condescension and denial of my essential selfhood. In the end they're all just bricks in the wall to me. What good is it to me to discern between the straw and the wheat piled on my back? It all contributes to my broken spine in the end. Hate rhetoric it is, for it gives just a little more velocity to the slings and arrows of the brutal battalions of , perhaps . . . sometimes . . . just the amount needed to kill.

I can't help how I present thing when that is exactly how I see them. If I was debating with a Muslim I would be equally forthright - as long as he wasn't actually holding a Kalashnikov at the time - and with any others with whom I disagreed and I would expect it of them. I can't take away the offence you feel by diluting my views. Sorry, not possible.