Pedophile/Ephebophile, those are just fancy words for Awesome!

When I had a job, I would often find myself overhearing and then in the midst of these types of morality debates. As if they matter to begin with, I would often just say things to get a rise out of people. I would typically never let my real thoughts on subjects be known.

Anyway, the radio was on and it was something to the tune of a concert announcement for one of these disney pop starlets. We will say, because I don't remember and it makes the most sense, it was Hannah Montana.

Honestly, I have no clue how it shifted over to men being pigs for ogling her. I know I didn't start it because at this point I was still just listening from a distance, and no one knew I was in the room.

Then I heard the fated statement.

"Sick Pedophiles"

Normally, I tread very carefully around this subject even when doing my usual ploy to dupe people into thinking I am a certain way, only because it seems to be such a taboo subject that the mere insinuation that one is devious towards children can lead to a whole shitload of unwanted attention.

This time, I had to say something. I think any male reading this (I don't think I have any female readers) knows exactly where this is going. I turned to her, and in a very uncharacteristic move, spoke my true feelings on the matter quite bluntly. I told her that I found Miley to be very attractive and that it ddn't make me sick. Her rebuttal was that she was underage and it truly was sick to think of her in a sexual manner.

This is normally the point where anyone with even a remote amount of knowledge in a subject realizes that the person they are speaking with is a total imbecile and regardless of the amount of factual, logic based information you present them with they are very happy to just shut you out and refuse anything. This phenomenon is most prevalent in religious debates although I hesitate to use the term "debate".

I simply looked at her again and said, "I'd do her in a heartbeat" then turned and walked back to my office.

I felt a little empty, I wanted to convince her that being attracted to this:

and this

and this

 was not wrong. It is simply the brain responding to what it has been trained to respond to.

Fertility.

But, by today's standards if you think this is attractive:

then you are fucked in the head. Forget for a moment that this is an actual promotion shot for a movie that has been released. Meaning this is how we were all meant to see it. Not a candid shot. Not an accidental photo of Dakota Fanning slipped out to the public by sneaky paparazzi.

For that matter, lets examine a candid shot of another young disney star. Selena Gomez:

Young, I would be branded a pedophile, or more appropriately an ephebophile, if I had a single sexual thought about her. What about you. Do you find her attractive? She has breasts and curves, all of which are apparent through her clothing, all of which we are programmed to seek out and BE attracted to regardless of age.

Lets take a trip back in time shall we? Say 2003. Cover of Vanity Fair.

Find any of these girls sexually attractive?

Yes?

Well then.

Only one of these girls was of an age which would be considered appropriate for an adult male to have sexual feelings towards, and despite the title "It's totally raining TEENS" (which isn't suggestive enough) Alexis Bledel was 22 at the time of this cover.

Duff and Wood were 15, Lohan was 16 about to turn 17, Raven the Twins and Bynes were 17 some just barely, and Moore was 19.

Anyway, I have a lot of points here.

We teach our kids to be more cautious and scared of sex and nudity than murder and violence.

Media will flaunt little girls in our faces and tell us something is wrong if we like it.

They will flood TV with violence, aggression, and gore all of which has only had it's restrictions alleviated through the years. Yet peace and lovemaking are the enemy and considered perverse.

We leave our children untended with games with severely graphic depictions of murder and gore.  Yet we will panic and scream bloody murder over a nipple being exposed to our youth's eyes.

Don't misunderstand, I love games, violent ones and fucked up sexual ones the same. But when we shelter ourselves from sex and nudity more than we do from violence and hate, don't you think we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere?