I was outraged today to read in a Daily Mail article about John Grisham’s recent bout of verbal diarrhea, wherein he just couldn’t express passionately enough his outrage over prisons now filled with guys [his] age. Sixty-year-old white men in prison who've never harmed anybody, would never touch a child. According to the article, in an interview in The Telegraph, Grisham laments the criminalization of the porno viewing victims of an overly harsh American criminal justice system. And here I was thinking we still had a long way to go in this country, not to mention in the world, toward eradicating sexual abuse and trafficking, child porn, etc. Silly me. But I digress. Unpacking that one statement alone, among Grisham’s other racist, sexist, classist, cringe worthy, and depression inducing statements would require several diaries. And the Telegraph has not even released the entire interview yet (stay tuned this weekend). Alas...I am only one, frustratingly slow, diarist. Nevertheless, the sadness and anger I’m feeling right now compels me to at least attempt to respond to the most immediately asinine aspects of Mr. Grisham’s unrighteous rant. Follow me below the jump if you’re interested in seeing the five question cross examination I’m dying to conduct on Mr. Grisham.
Question #1: Mr. Grisham, you seem very confident that many men, at least the ones in your age and racial demographic, currently in prison for consuming child pornography have never and would never actually touch anything. How exactly do you know this Mr. Grisham, unless of course you are speaking from direct personal experience?
Question #2: Allowing, for the sake of argument (and ONLY for the sake of argument) that these upstanding 60 year old white male porno consumers would never actually act on their sick fantasies, are you also asserting that the demand for child pornography their cumulative consumption creates, poses neither threat nor harm to the children who will end up in these videos nor to children and humans in general?
Question #3: WTF?
Question #4: Mr. Grisham, you say you believe that “real pedophiles” should face harsh prison sentences. Just for shits and giggles, could you tell me if you believe that the adults actively abusing/raping/torturing children in pornographic videos so that your “friend” can watch and get his rocks off qualify as real pedophiles and should therefore be subject to prison sentences? Or as the Daily Mail article response from Mamabear that inspired the title of this diary asks, do you think the children in these sick videos are actors?!
Question #5: WTF?
I have many more questions for you Mr. Grisham but I need to ask the judge to grant a recess so that I can go barf up my lunch. I guess it goes without saying that I will never read, purchase or otherwise support in any way your previously highly esteemed and lucrative writing career.
It would be a cold day in the Hell that is surely the abode of child sexual predators before I would so much as ponder it.