There has been a minor uproar about Bill Maher’s recent comments about the recent Fox News obsession, wherein he put forth the notion that children being “gently serviced” by a pop star was preferable to receiving a savage beating such as he had once received in the schoolyard.
I think there’s a few interesting points there. It is at least arguable that such service, even if one is talking about Michael and not Janet or LaToya, might be preferable to a savage beating, if one is simply looking at the short term consequences. Maher is a left-liberal – he calls himself a libertarian but he has no idea what one actually is – and so naturally he has the liberal’s complete inability to foresee even the most predictable long-term effects.
For while the short-term effect of a hand job is rather enjoyable, the longer term effects can be problematic when the servicer is of the same sex. The sexual imprinting that takes place at a young age can be very difficult to overcome, which is part of the plot of the movie Mysterious Skin, in which homosexual childhood abuse eventually results in the young victim becoming an amoral gay prostitute as an adult.
Given the possibility of lifelong sexual confusion, even Maher might consider the savage beating to be preferable, since the eventual consequences of being taught a painful lesson about being smaller and weaker tend to manifest themselves in a positive determination to grow stronger and less defenseless. I ran into the smallest guy in my high school class a few years ago; he’s now the state powerlifting champion.
In summary, I don’t think Maher said anything outrageous, I simply think he made an understandable but incorrect and superficial point.