For those who follow Tom O'Carroll's great blog TOC Heretic, you may be aware of Tom's recent interview conducted by journalist Danny Whittaker, along with Tom's subsequent well-written blog about it, which can be found here: https://tomocarroll.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/a-respected-opponent-not-an-enemy/comment-page-1/#comment-17352

All relevant links, including to the recorded interview, can be found there. Of more relevance here is the great conversations and exchanges that occurred in the comments section, based on reactions to the interview, followed by Danny himself entering the fray. When he did so, it was very difficult for him to deal with the presence of so many pro-choice voices, so he frequently made his displeasure known by arguing passionately against it, throwing out all the familiar non-choice tropes and assumptions we have heard and argued against online for the better part of two decades now. Years longer than that if you were with BC during its earliest days!

One of the most interesting developments in the whole exchange, at least as I see it, is Danny's strong attacks on Virtuous Pedophiles, and his exchanges with Ethan Edwards on the comments section. Yes, as is most often the case, non-choice MAP support organizations dedicated to mainstream thinking on the subject are not spared the ire of Non-MAPS who are anti-choice.

I would like to take a few posts to respond to some of the points Danny made, starting with this one, as I believe they are important for the pro-choice and youth liberationist side of the issue to do so, as people interested in our side of the story need to be able to find voices for it. Tom did a very good job of handling the responses, as did Ed Chambers, Christian, our Non-MAP pro-choice supporters Bjmuirhead and Explorer, and others. Yours truly also got into it, as I'm sure you can expect, but I cannot respond to everything I wanted to there since Tom is sole moderator and is greatly challenged dealing with the deluge of posts. Hence, he is not fond of my over-wordiness for that reason, to put it mildly. So, if you have ought to say in response to this (and I hope you will!), please say it here in this thread rather than going over to Tom's blog, as he has called a moratorium on any more discussion related to Danny's posts in that comments section for the time being.

Before I begin, please allow me to say this: We need to be a bit understanding of Mr. Whittaker. It was cool of him to give this interview to Tom while allowing him to get his full say without censoring any of it or engaging in passionate attacks on him on the air. Also to Danny's credit, he did no devious editing to take any of Tom's comments out of context.

This topic is very difficult for Danny to deal with, as he admitted his concern over pissing off the many sexual abuse victims who listen to his show. That doesn't mean his attitude should be condoned, but it does mean we should try to understand his fear due to the position he is in professionally. The sex abuse industry is a powerful focus group, and they can end careers with the combination of political and emotional power they possess. I will stop short of calling Danny courageous in the face of all of this, but I do understand his fear, and I will go so far as to call him generous for giving such an even-handed interview. He went off the deep end a few times upon responding in the comments, but he had quite a bit of opposition to deal with (albeit more often fair and polite than not, a few examples notwithstanding). People on the anti-choice side of the fence are not used to dealing with a forum where the numbers are largely against them, as is the case in the reverse; hence, he should be forgiven for not being able to deal with it as graciously as many of us have.

So, I would appreciate if responses can avoid low blow insults and ad hominem attacks at Mr. Whittaker and focus on his views instead. It took a lot for him to deal with us as graciously as he did, so I think we should extend him the same courtesy, even as we cannot abide his ideology.

This will be a bit long, so I am going to post it in three parts. Please do not feel the need to read it all in once sitting. If interested, read as much as you can and then come back to it later, it's not going anywhere! Now, shall we begin? Danny's comments are in bold, and my responses are in standard text, as usual.

Sorry, Tom. It would be convenient for your side of the argument if I were reading too much into the choice of pronoun, but I think this is more likely a perfect example of the casual objectification of children inherent in the pedophilic sexual interest in them.

Here Danny is complaining about a pro-choice commentator he was verbally duking it out with who referred to hypothetical kids in singular form by the pronoun "it," to signify gender neutrality.

If “he” or “she” were truly cumbersome – which, let’s be honest, they aren’t – I think “they” would be the most likely pronoun to spring to mind for anyone with even the slightest consideration for the humanity of the people to whom they refer.

Yes, I think Danny is most certainly reading too much into this admittedly unfortunate choice of neutral pronoun. Way too much, in fact, which is all to easy to do whilst in the midst of an emotional tizzy. I think any non-choicer has a lot of nerve to accuse us of not recognizing the humanity of younger people when most of us support empowering them on all levels. And by respecting their choices, including the choice to receive full education and knowledge required to have any type of personal relationship they may individually desire when they personally feel they are ready, is hardly dismissing their personhood.

Rather, I think insisting they be relegated to the legal status of "minors" for 18 years and disallowing them to vote, to achieve economic independence, to leave domestic situations they are not happy with, to speak freely and openly, or to even acknowledge a sexual side to their persona, are truly the ones guilty of denying their full humanity. This is treating them like glorified pets rather than human beings, and it's an example of a desire for control over their collective lives that frankly makes it ridiculous to accuse us of being the adults who want to control them.

This also makes it easy for them to do because MAPs typically have a sexual component to our overall attraction, whereas Non-MAPs most often do not. Due to our society's rampant sex negativity, this is a total deal-breaker for us as far as they're concerned. However, they focus obsessively on this one aspect of our attraction base, ignoring how much more complex it generally is, while also ignoring the fact that the largest degree of actual sexual abuse (and abuse of all kinds) perpetrated against minors by adults is done by non-MAPs who have the greatest degree of control and authority over them. That is a type of control and authority that pro-choicers are not seeking.