Mass Delusions, Satanic Panic and the Boogie Man
August 13, 2020
Everyone’s favorite boogie man is the pedophile. And what’s worse than a pedophile? A pedophile cult of course! The thing is they don’t exist and believing they do does further harm to an already despicable problem.
Moral panics are a fairly common form of mass delusion. Think the Salem witch trials, the commie scare of the 50s, the satanic panic of the 80s and 90s, the war on drugs and so on. A significant portion of the population gets whipped up into a fearful frenzy over some evil that threatens the well being of society, usually with zero evidence and nothing but sensational rumors and titillating anecdotes. Moral panics are the epitome of societal stupidity.
The current moral panic over pedophile sex trafficking rings in Hollywood or political circles is just as stupid and just as baseless. And it harms the efforts to help the real problem. Of all of the legal cases for child sexual assault and/or child sex trafficking going back to 2000 not a single one involved a ring of traffickers or any kind of organized group selling access to children. Not a single one. In the 80s and 90s dozens of towns arrested groups of parents at schools and kindergartens and churches and accused them of being satanic pedophile cults. After ruining dozens of families and communities and the lives of 100s of children it came out that the detectives in every case had asked young children guiding questions and manipulated false confessions out of them. Every single case was thrown out. Every single one. Because moral panics are stupid and pedophile sex trafficking cults don’t exist.
Less than 1% of the population are pedophiles and an even smaller amount act on their urges. Child sexual assault usually happens by a family member or close friend. Pedophiles live with the delusion that the children they are assaulting enjoy it, that this is a ‘relationship’. Paying for a trafficked child shatters that delusion. True pedophiles do not want to pay for sex with children.
What does true sex trafficking actually look like? Try a queer kid who’s been kicked out of their home or run away from foster care abuse and turned to survival sex work. Try a trusted family member taking photos of horrible things and selling them on the dark web. Or a rich billionaire hires you with promises of travel and money and the high life and slowly manipulates you into trusting him as he has his way. You know what it doesn’t look like? The basements full of caged children that you see in movies, kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder in organized groups. That is a sensationalist fantasy fed to you by Hollywood and perpetual misuse of the term ‘trafficking’.
Social workers and organizations are currently being overwhelmed by reports of Qanon sex conspiracy theories, that pizza is actually code for fucking children, that Wayfair is selling children for sex, and all the other utter nonsense that seems to be taking over the internet these days. And because they are professionals who care they have to take all of this utter nonsense seriously. It is doing harm by taking away from children who are actually being harmed.
The Epstein case (Epstein wasn’t a pedophile he was an ephebophile, it’s an important distinction not that anyone cares obviously), Qanon, pizzagate, Wayfair, the conspiracy theories are all distractions. There are a very small number of people who do horrible things to children. But there are a whole lot more really really really stupid people doing even more harm by being really really really stupid. Conspiracy theories drive me nuts because they are the ultimate in human stupidity, but this one going around at this time is not only one of the stupidest it is the one that has the potential to do the most harm. Stahp!
If you’re interested in some real facts about the real issue and the real harm that is done by moral panics, conspiracy theories and actual sex trafficking here are some of the articles and podcasts I’ve found most informative:
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