In the last two days, every time I read a diary about the Foley scandal, I feel that I am in a chat room for, at best, teenagers and at worst, NAMBLA. I know I'm probably older than many of you, but I don't think this is the venue to be discussing: your own, subjective definitions of what constitutes pedophilia (unless you are a psychiatrist); whether it is "perfectly O.K." for a teenage boy to have sex with a 50-some year old man (and never mind the legality of it all), and whether the teenager "egged him on" by flirting with him (Yeech!); and finally, framing this as an abuse of power by a much older person over a younger one.
The facts are simple. Foley texted sexually explicit messages to male pages (between the ages of 16 and 18).
Depending on what definition you accept, it either is or isn't pedophilia. However, there are theories of human sexuality proposed by the doctors who study this subject, and also standards of the World Health Organizaiton, that can be construed to encompass his behavior as pedophilia. Yesterday's diary by Boris Godunov was one of the most reprehensible, vile posts I have ever seen, with everyone opining on what constitutes pedophilia, without offering any facts. For God's sake, people, read something, ANYTHING, before offering your own ad hoc opinion. I hope it was just an excess of political correctness, and not moral depravity, that inspired the majority of comments.
Gee, I'm really glad that we're all on board for gay rights, but simply because you want to extend gay rights to teenagers doesn't mean that it is O.K. for an old man in a position of power to try to elicit sex from a teenage boy. In addition, there are laws, that's right LAWS, against what Foley did, regardless of what response he was getting from the teenager. Could we stop talking about this as if it were about the teenager's right to be gay, and not Foley's breaking a law?
And finally, my political advice. For the people here who still aren't sure (I'm not sure why) that what happened was a crime, may I say that framing this as an older, powerful person exerting pressure on a younger subordinate for sex puts us in Clinton/Lewinsky territory. That is not what this situation is. The page was not an adult (like Monica) and what Foley did was a crime (unlike Clinton's actions). So let's put all the parsing of sexuality (gay, teenage, pedophilia) where it belongs -- in a chat room. And keep the discussion at Daily Kos political. That's why we're here.