© Drew Angerer / AFPMilo Yiannopoulos
Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has sparked outrage on social media after apparently "defending" pedophilia.
The British Breitbart news editor has been accused of "defending child abuse" after saying "we get hung up" on it.
"We get hung up on this sort of child abuse stuff to the point where we are heavily policing consensual adults," said Yiannopoulos.
Warning graphic language:
"In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men - the sort of 'coming of age' relationship - those relationships in which those older men help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable, sort of rock, where they can't speak to their parents."
Yiannopoulos was speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC )in Maryland. He made the comments while discussing instances of abuse he allegedly suffered at the hands of a priest at school when he was in his teens.
Reacting to the comments, several conservatives have called for Yiannopoulos to be scrapped from the CPAC's list of speakers.
Yiannopoulos has denied defending pedophilia, saying he is "completely disgusted" by child abuse and that those accusing him of being "soft" on the subject are "idiots" trying to "discredit" him from "establishment Republicans."
His "outing" of pedophiles through his journalism is a "peculiar strategy for a supposed pedophile apologist," he quipped.
Although he agreed the current UK age of sexual consent should remain at 16, Yiannopoulos said there are people who agree to sex at a younger age.
The Breitbart news editor, who is a rising star of the so-called 'alt-right' movement, has already been
banned for life from Twitter after he described Ghostbuster film actress Leslie Jones as "barely literate" and a "dude."
He also claimed Lena Durham, star of TV show 'Girls,' represents the American "insane" liberals, and that the Democrats were the "party of Lena Durham."
"These people [liberals] are mental, hideous people, and the more that America sees of Lena Dunham, the fewer votes that the Democratic Party is going to get."
Berkeley University in California recently cancelled a speech by Yiannopoulos after thousands of students violently protested against him speaking on campus.
In response Yiannopoulos posted a statement on Facebook saying "the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down."
Comment: Milo lost his $250K Simon & Schuster book deal on Monday over the comments. Fellow Breitbart workers are reportedly
threatening to quit if Milo isn't fired.
Publisher Simon & Schuster said: 'After careful consideration, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint have canceled publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos.'
'Dangerous' was set to be published under Threshold Editions, the conservative branch of the publisher according to USA Today.
The book deal received backlash since the announcement in January, with many on social media threatening to boycott the publisher.
Yiannopoulos's lewd comments saying relationships in which 'older men help those young boys to discover who they are' seemed to have pushed the company to back out.
After the announcement, the 33-year-old speaker posted on Facebook: 'They canceled my book.'
And minutes later: 'I've gone through worse. This will not defeat me.'
He also wrote this second apology on Facebook:
© Facebook
Milo
has resigned from his senior editor position at Breirbart amid the public backlash over his statements on pedophilia. He said in a statement: "I would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues' important reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effective immediately. This decision is mine alone."
He added: "Breitbart News has stood by me when others caved. They have allowed me to carry conservative and libertarian ideas to communities that would otherwise never have heard them. They have been a significant factor in my success. I'm grateful for that freedom and for the friendships I forged there."
Interesting that the age of consent in the UK is two years younger than what is considered the general age of consent in the US.
This is just another example of the confused human emotional state.
We have no idea what we are doing as a species and it is obvious that we are just making stuff up as we go along.
The sooner that the world realized that NO ONE has the right answers, the sooner that we can move beyond the provinciality of hard truths and just take life as it comes.
If two people consent to a relationship of whatever nature, then they should be allowed to pursue said relationship.
So, if I, as a forty year old male, met a sixteen year old girl and we fell in love and wanted to get married; we should be allowed to do so.
If that 16 year old and I wanted to have a sexual relationship, then we should be able to do so without fear of reprisal from society.
Bear in mind, this is purely a hypothetical situation for the sake of debate.
Sexual abuse is sexual abuse, the age of the victim should not bear any more weight than the abuse itself.
Is it worse for a young child to be abused than it is for an adult? Where do we draw the line?
Also bear in mind that there are infinite types of abuse in this world being perpetrated on us at all times.
Sexual abuse is one of the most straight forward and least evil form of abuses, in my opinion. At the least, it is the easiest to understand from a human perspective.
The abuses of the mind that are so subtle as to be easily ignored until it is too late are the abuses that get the least amount of press.
Mental abuse from overly sexualized media, right wing freaks and their political agendas and the Federal Reserve are only a small portion of the abuses we have to endure on a daily basis.
I would love to live in a world where we only had to worry about some horny person taking advantage of us physically. At least that is an understandable passion. It makes sense.
The people who obfuscate, inveigle and confuse are our true enemies. There are the ones with the hidden agenda. They are the ones who want to keep us stupid. They are the ones who distract us with this pedophilia mania.
We need to face the facts here. This type of sexuality is a part of human history and it will always be with us. The more that we try to rid humanity of one of its most basic desires, the more confused and distracted we will be. Putting us right where they want us.
I know that this is not the popular consensus, but that is part of the problem. We are being programmed to react to this issue viscerally.