The Two P's of Mark Foley

Posted by Joshua White on 10.11.2006

Lately words have been used that are very poorly defined. In this column, I'll ask some questions about these terms and see how their implications affect our understanding of Mark Foley.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, PYONGYANG!!!!

Last week I mentioned people on the Left were obviously reading my column and were swayed by my intellect, and persuasive nature. Well, my notoriety has spread to the ridonkulously far Left. Two weeks after my original column the North Koreans have shocked the world by either a nuclear test or an explosion that was claimed to be a nuclear test. Drama. My appeal has moved from North American and the West all the way across the world to North Korea.

Also, I realize that I promised an attack on Christmas this week and that is not happening. Followers, for that, I am sorry. That particular column is coming soon. But I was annoyed by something different this week that made me want to write the follow column.



I'm tired of the following words: pedophile and pervert.

If you follow the news at all, then you have most likely heard these three words quite a bit lately. Mr. Mark Foley by texting and emailing some congressional pages has been labeled with all of these words. I called Foley a pedophile in my last column. Here is the question though: was I right? And regardless of whether I (and everyone else) were Foley's actions deserving of all these words and this attention?

It's not that these words are inherently bad words or can't be used correctly. But they are very loosely defined. They all involve a scope of subjects that make the definition practically meaningless (though I will not deny that they have meaning). Let's look at the word pervert for a minute. What is it? What sort of acts are perverted, and is there an objective definition? Don't get me wrong. I'm no moral relativist. I do believe that there are certain actions that are morally wrong or obligatory. But there are a whole range of actions that are up to the agent to decide if he wants to do or not. So what exactly is perverted? I remember back in college I had a chat with a girl who claimed that she would never have anal sex. It was gross and any guy who wanted it was a pervert. Why would you want that? However, others find that to be a normal part of their loving relationship. I have a friend who is very open sexually and while she was married she was very willing to try anything to please her ex-husband. Normally, this wouldn't be so bizarre, but the ex-husband (and I swear to God this is true) enjoyed something kind of different when it came to sex. What he wanted was to make up a batch of pancakes and sausage, put butter and syrup on the pancakes and then sit his wife naked on the pancakes as he eats them. This turned him on. What's more? On certain occasions my friend's ex would enjoy inserting the sausages...well, I'm sure you can figure that part out. Is this perverted? It certainly is different, bizarre even, but is it perverted? It wasn't to this man. It was part of his sexual relationship with his wife. (And don't think that this was some sort of crazy sex fiend. This man was, and still is, a church-going, God fearing, GOP voting Christian.) If it is perverted, why? What makes what he is doing "perverted" and what you're into not?

Now, I'm sure that some of you are saying, "The difference is that this guy wanted to have sex with children!" This must be perverted! Children can't give full consent to sexual relationships, so to desire them to be a raging pervert. Fair enough. But to use the "protect the children" just seems to be misguided here. Mark Foley did text message children, who are by definition underage. He enacted sexual acts in words. Ok, there are the facts. But the question is: is that perverted? Does that make him a pedophile?

There problems here are numerous. First, let me remind you what happened about two and a half years ago. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen were seventeen years old and the world couldn't wait until they turned eighteen. There were news stories about it, there were countdown clocks, and the people were jumping for joy because soon they would be "legal." As far as I'm concerned this means only one thing: men wanted to have sex with these girls now but it wasn't legal. So, because the girls have to be eighteen in order for it to be acceptable to have sex with them, everyone had to wait. But boy they sure did want them then it seems. Is that perverted? Does that make every male (or female) who would have liked to have sex with one (or both) of the Olsen twins before they turned eighteen? If you say "yes", do you maintain your consistency by saying that even if they were two day away from their birthday it would still be perverted to desire one of the twins?

People did desire these underage girls, and the media loved every minute of it. In a culture where we fetishize youth and beauty why would it be unheard of for American men to want these two young beauties? Was everyone who couldn't wait for the Olsen twins' birthday perverted? Were they pedophiles? Our society loves youth. We crave it. We force it down the throats of our population. One more example of this is the ABC show Desperate Housewives which had a whole storyline that involved an older woman having sex with an underage boy. Nobody cared. The media didn't. Why not? Few had issues with the idea that they were making it seem cool, sexy, and fun to make love to a child.

Foley wanted what millions of men wanted: youth and beauty. But this is real life, and not a saucy TV show. So what makes Foley different from John Doe who wanted an Olsen? Perhaps Foley is a pedophile because he acted on his desires. If this is so, then a pedophile is someone who not only thinks about sexual encounters with the underage, but acts on them. This would also mean that every man who ever hit on the Olsen twins before they were eighteen was a pedophile. (This is something many might not want to accept.)

This leads to the last word that has been bothering me this past week: pedophile. I will never claim that pedophilia is a good thing, but I will claim that it needs a definition that is much clearer. If we don't have this more accurate definition then we'll have moral equivalency when it is not correct for it to exist. Let me explain. If we claim that everyone who engages in any sort of sexual behavior with an underage kid is a pedophile then we claim that someone who rapes a four year old and someone who makes love to a willing sixteen year old have committed the same crime. Now, I will grant that the former example is much more grievous, but to give them the same title is dangerous.

Foley didn't touch anyone. He didn't rape anyone. In fact, from what I can tell, none of "victims" (so far as we've been told) explicitly told him no only to have him continue. In order for cybersex to take place, two people need to engage. These kids wanted, in some sense, to do what they did. And with all of this in mind, to lump Foley into the same group of people who have sex with their eight year old daughters is a disservice. Let's also remember that despite the calls for the protection of our children, these are not pure, innocent, infants that we're talking about. These are some of the most intelligent, motivated young adults out there. (Speaking of which, it is odd that when we talk of pages, they are "young adults, but when we talk of Foley's victims they become "children.") Further, children these days are not the innocent angels that they were in yesteryear. These kids know about sex. They know about oral sex, anal sex, and rainbow parties. To think that these "children" didn't know what they were doing is naive and foolish.

I am not saying that what Foley did was morally right. What I am saying is that to use these blanket statements is being used to cast Foley in the worst possible light. Yes, what he did was unprofessional, and probably illegal, but my question is how bad of an action did he commit? This is my question here. I implied in my last column that Foley shouldn't cost any the GOP any votes. My task in this column was to point out the problems with defining and using the words that are being thrown at Foley.

Am I completely wrong? Am I implicitly condoning Foley's actions? Am I a sick pervert? Write me and let me know what you think. The best email will get an index card signed by me.*

The following columns should be read as they are keeping it "White and Nerdy":

Finally, Church is a follower. You read my original column, now read his Cliff Notes version.

My Dear Leader is whining that nobody plugs his columns. So, I'll bite the bullet and do it. I understand what it is like to be sensitive.

As Keith goes krazy, our lovable columnist Joe Rivett supports every minute of it. Read here.



Until next time…believe nothing unless you read it here.


*This will not happen.