The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure

“The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure” recently made it onto the blogosphere’s radar when it’s author Phillip R. Greaves, successfully listed it on Amazon.com. Most people, as expected, were outraged. And their first response was to flood Amazon’s comment section with demands to take the book down. I, on the other hand, immediately logged on to buy the book for the low, low price of $4.79. I briefly considered that my five dollars may be used to buy chips and salsa for a NAAMBLA meeting. But in the end, my curiosity won out.

My fascination with the inner workings of the broken mind began around middle school. My mother, a psychiatrist, worked at one of the state’s mental hospitals. And one afternoon, while doing my homework in her office, I overheard her discussing the prescription needs of a patient – who thought that he was a box of orange juice.

The concept was arresting. I spent hours thinking about the number of points at which someone’s thought process would have to derail for them to draw the conclusion that they were an inanimate object. For starters, there’s the concrete evidence of the mirror. And the naturally occurring questions: Why do I have the capacity for thought? Why don’t I need refrigeration? Why haven’t I spoiled in the last ten years? Why do I have to go to the bathroom?

So it was in that spirit that I picked up the “The Pedophile’s Guide”. I mean here was a man not only afflicted with criminal urges, but so delusional that he believed that his book had a wide enough audience to be worth selling on Amazon.com – a place where, we can only assume, he thought it would be well received. Fascinating.

I imagine Phillip R. Greaves (the author of many other titles) as a small, slight man in his 40s; on edge, even conversationally. Always defensive, censoring every conversation, every action for signs of his secret; burdened with the fear of discovery and the knowledge that even his family members will become enemies if they get to know the real Phillip.

It is not hard to imagine that sort of constant self-monitoring and alienation as excruciating. So painful in fact that, in order to cope, the mind must make some adjustments: either succumb to the self-loathing that is the realization that you are deserving of scorn (perhaps an important step to healing), or protect your self-esteem and decide that it is not you, but everyone else that has the problem.

Mr. Graves has chosen the latter path.

From the outset – the first chapter is entitled “Facts and Fallacies” - Graves attempts to move the debate (he believes there is one) on the merits of pedophilia to an intellectual one. He swaps the term “pedophile” for “pedosexual” (his own invention as far as I can tell) to make what he sees as the similarities between pedophiles and homosexuals clear. In a pseudo-academic fashion, he uses word play to sway his audience: “molest” by definition, is simply to harmlessly bother someone. A “pedophile” is, by definition, simply someone who loves children. And “love” means only acting in the best interest of its object; which Graves believes that “true pedosexuals” only want to do (sex being a normal, natural manifestation of that).

His word play also functions to combat what he sees as “linguistic abuse”, a tool used to marginalize and persecute pedophiles. Just like Jews and other minorities, pedophiles too are victims of demonizing propaganda which the media wields with the same purpose as the Third Reich. In fact, sensationalized news reports of abuse against children (he makes it a point to complain that you never hear a news report of a pedophile behaving well) are the sole reason that pedophiles are driven to violence.

Because, of course, in the absence of this demonization, this media-created persecution, pedophiles are good at heart. In fact, they are pure beings. A pedophile, unlike any other human, has a close relationship with their inner child. And this purity and sensitivity gives pedophiles an exceptionally bright aura; which is the root of the pedophilic relationship. Children, pure beings themselves, are able to see the bright auras of pedophiles and are drawn to it; which is why every true pedophilic relationship features the child as the instigator.

Clinically interesting but creepy.

And it gets worse. I’ll spare you the details of the second portion of the tract. It suffices to say that it consists of two “90% factual” re-creations of what the author considers ideal pedophilic relationships. Intended to describe ‘pedophilia light’, it espouses his values of ‘gentle’ non-invasive, consensual pedophilia. And although clearly fictional, and much less explicit than they might have been, they are haunting.

Having said that, and having read the book, I can’t say that I agree with Amazon’s decision to discontinue their sale of the book. Print should never be censored no matter how distasteful its contents. Those that would have erased the works of Oscar Wilde or the Marquis de Sade would certainly have done humanity a disservice.

This sparse tract is by no means a guide, nothing as concrete as the Anarchist’s Cookbook, nothing that a pedophile would be able to use to commit a crime. Those who revile the book have clearly not read it. As its subject suggests, it is merely the rantings of a disturbed, possibly egomaniacal human being. It deserves pity and study and not the lionization that often results from disproportionate, poory-informed knee-jerk censorship.

Now, having said that, I think that Mr. Graves may benefit from some light police surveillance. And I say that as someone who has always been opposed to the increased intrusion of the state in personal lives and matters. And is aware of the dangers of the Orwellian world of thought crimes. But someone who is delusional enough to call his cohorts "O people of vision", certainly warrants a little extra attention.

Hopefully there is a lot of inpatient, intensive therapy in Mr. Graves’ future.

Soda Pop Stop

My favorite place in the world, hands down, is the grocery store. This is my mother’s fault.

I was one of those rare, unfortunate children cursed with a parent who cared about her nutritional needs. Our pantry was only, ever, inevitably stocked with unimaginatively packaged whole foods and local vegetables from the farmer’s market. Meals were a solemn affair, chewed woodenly and swallowed responsibly - the soundtrack to my television-less childhood.

And, had I been more carefully sheltered, more thoughtfully segregated, I may have ended up more like my mother. I too would have grown up pale and wan and vegan, raised my children to crunch and consider dogmatically.

But once a month, on a glorious Sunday, my mother would take me to the real grocery store a tantalizing half mile from our home. And there, my earliest and happiest memories were formed. Trailing behind my mother, mouth agape, I would ogle the brightly-colored packages and their happy cartoon mascots and trace the slick surfaces with my fingers. Then, overcome with lust that should be foreign to a small child, I would snatch one. It’ crinkly package gripped in my sweaty palms, I would stalk the grocery cart wild-eyed waiting for my mother to drop her guard.

She always spotted the smashed, hotly-handled confection; usually while we waited in line at the checkout counter, its cheerful vibrance too conspicuous amongst the beans and tofu to go unnoticed for long. I would have to trudge through the aisles defeated to take it back, muttering under my breath about the day when no one would be the boss of me and she’d be sorry.

And, oh, the freedom, the American-ness of it all; when college dawned, and all of my grocery store wet dreams came true. I was unleashed. I spent Saturday’s meandering those big, bright air-conditioned grocery store aisles. I bought soda by the two liter and poured it down the drain when it was flat. I developed a love for fruit rollups at 20; gorged on Captain Crunch even though it cut the roof of my mouth, gained 20 lbs and came dangerously close to developing scurvy. I was blissful.

And eventually, once the fevered madness subsided, a foodie was born. I graduated from Ben and Jerry’s, to Haagen-Dazs and moved on to homemade gelato from a well-hidden wood stove pizzeria. I discovered the nuances of artisanal cheeses, slow food and the surprises in little Korea. But I still kept a stash of artificially flavored, plastic wrapped goodies in the pantry. ‘Cause that’s just who I am. Some people have an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of commerce and world affairs. I can name six distinct flavors in a quality doppelbock, at least 20 Indian spices by sight, and I fucking love Twizzlers.

As with any notorious obsessive, my friends are always sending me little foodie factoids in the e-mail. And like any obsessive, I am rarely surprised by their contents. Until a friend of mine sent a Kottke link: a Venn diagram, created by a Michigan State University professor, illustrating the structure of the United States soft drink industry. The bunches of smaller, pastel-colored sparsely connected bubbles of beverages I had never heard of were dwarfed by the three largest on the page: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper to which 89% of the other little bubbles were attached.

My immediate reaction was to be personally offended. This irrefutable evidence of the illusion of choice, encompassing more than just soda, suggested that my grocery store adventures were less adventurous than I had been lead to believe. But there was something else; something unsettling about those three behemoths. I couldn’t place it, but it felt discomfiting and enormous.

So, systematically, I forgot about it. Until a week or so later when, improbably, I stumbled upon something else soda-related: “Soda Pop”, one of a series of short videos about foodies on Chow.com. The entire 13 minute video takes place in the epicenter of the Soda Pop Stop, right smack in the middle of about 100 store-length aisles packed tightly with an unfathomable number of sodas in glass bottles, its sole product.

As he discusses his store and his obsession, John Nese wears his shelf-stocking apron. He looks like someone’s dad. Except, you know that he has no family, no other life really. His voice has an intensity that suggests that he does most of his talking within the walls of that store. But with the childlike mirth and lack of inhibition that all of the best nerds have.

Whenever the camera is not on John, it is panning down the endless aisles of shiny soda bottles. The white tile floors, tall ceilings and fluorescent lights overhead make the store look like some sort of diabetic’s nirvana. And, as they pan, John describes a hundred different kinds of soda: soda brewed like a beer, soda made out of rose petals, organic fruit soda with bits of fruit still in them. Red Ribbon, the cherriest of all the cherry sodas; Banananina, the soda that tastes like banana jolly ranchers; and Moxie, the soda that made it into the dictionary in 1884: if you could drink two of the small bottles of extra-strong soda, it meant you had a lot of Moxie.

And by minute 13, I felt overly-informed, and a little sad. I would probably never taste any of those sodas. And what else was I never going to have?

And it wasn’t just the flavors; it was the intimacy of the stories he told. Like The Manhattan Special Espresso Coffee soda, owned by the same small family who had been brewing the coffee and the soda and self-bottling for over 100 years. Or the rose soda made by the last man in Romania who still knew how to press the rose petals and process them into soda. Soda Pop Stop bought the total run, the last of the rose petal soda, the last speaker of a dead language.

Thinking about that it occurred to me that his shelves contained the vestigial remains of a rich history, that the Soda Pop Stop was more museum than grocery store. I thought about my trip to Greece several years ago. It was impossible to find a non-English speaker or a Baywatch-less home. And you had to very careful to take your pictures around the McDonalds and Exxons to retain a sense of authenticity for your friends back home. I saw very little indigenous. Even the home we were invited into served hamburgers (albeit with mint). Our tour guide joked wryly that we were not far from the day when spanikopita would only be available on Burger King’s menu.

But, what are you going to do? Globalization does not happen in reverse. But with all of this forward momentum and consolidation, I think that it is valuable to worry that these loses may reveal their importance. And that by then it may be too late.

Now when I shop, a little of the magic is gone. I know that there will be no new surprises in the aisles of my favorite chain grocery stores. And my once-loved 2-liter bottles and shiny brand names now represent an emptiness that makes me sad. So now, I’ve come back full circle, and I go to the farmer’s markets I derided as a child. I talk to the vendors, try the recipes they suggest and try to salvage something old world out of my experience before its gone for good. I highly recommend it.

I Whip My Hair Back and Forth

This morning, while pretending to check my mail I indulged in my daily guilty pleasure: peeking in on the frivolity and distraction that passes for news on Yahoo’s home page.

While I hovered over the tiny icons to read the teaser blurbs, I happened on a picture of Willow Smith, the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Old enough to fondly remember Parent’s Just Don’t Understand and It’s a Different World, I clicked on the blurb for the full page article.

Apparently, nine-year-old Willow Smith released a pop single earlier this week entitled “Whip My Hair Back and Forth”. Shortly prior to its release, she was signed by Jay-Z and the blogosphere all a-twitter. The article used both the words “club banger” and “super-catchy” in the same sentence, and described its author’s talent as nothing short of preternatural.

Gullible as always, I clicked the video link in the middle of the article expecting nothing short of Beethoven. As I probably could have predicted, the song comprised of little more than Willow repeating “I whip my hair back and forth” to an infectious but predictable beat.

Just below the video was a snippet from an interview that Jay-Z gave to Ryan Seacrest on the occasion of the song’s debut. And in that snippet, Jay-Z compared Willow to both Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder (who both released their first tracks at around eight years of age) to attempt to put her genius in perspective. I read on for a few lines after, but the author included not even a hint of sarcasm after the quotes closed.

Now, I will admit that the tune is catchy. And, as I write this article, “whip my hair back and forth” is being repeated in my head wholly against my will. But is that talent? Really? Because I like to think that if I hear anything repeated seventy or so times in the span of three or so minutes, I’m going to remember it. And, at this point in music history, that’s a significant part of the music industry’s winning paint-by-numbers formula.

And apparently, the formula has been so stripped of creativity that a nine-year-old can put it to use to create a “hit” track. Which isn’t really surprising. What is surprising is the faulty syllogism that seems to have followed.

Listen. If you’re in the kitchen cooking with your nine year old and she finds bread and cheese on the counter and makes a grilled cheese sandwich, the conclusion you draw upon your return is that grilled cheese sandwiches are easy to make. You do not draw the conclusion that she is a culinary child prodigy and begin phoning the media.

You do pat her on the head and tell her she did a good job. And the fact that Willow Smith, at nine, has the self confidence to get into a studio and lay down a track is commendable. And the song is great. For a Nine-Year-Old. But, isn’t this – just maybe – a sign that we should all be aspiring to something just a little bit more similar to actual art? Shouldn’t we feel a little bit silly for supporting multi-millionaires for doing a job that a nine year old could do?

I’m Just Saying.

Peer Pressure

I drove to Starbucks this morning with every intention of buying a regular coffee; no bells, no whistles. But by the time I got out of my car, I had convinced myself that I should at least add an espresso shot. Simply to avoid being snubbed by the barista who will otherwise disdainfully slop my 'just coffee' into its cup as penance for sullying the atmosphere of her high end establishment with my obvious lack of taste. By the time I left, my bill was $5.83 for the grande macchiato and old fashioned donut that peer pressure made me buy.

And that's weird because I'm an eighties baby, raised on after school specials, and I know that the cool kid should never be able to make me feel like shit for not buying any of her drugs. I've been prepared, since grade school, to 'Just Say No' when offered a hit of crack, but I can't even manage to make eye contact with the chubby bitch behind the counter at the local Starbucks.

Where's the friendly eighties TV personality to tell me how to act in this situation? Starbucks needs a fucking PSA. A bespectacled twenty something school teacher in last year's Old Navy sidles nervously up to a Starbucks counter and asks for a regular coffee in a timid voice while staring at her shoes. Then the snotty hipster barista raises an eyebrow and asks in a loud, mocking tone, "A large Coffee? Is that all?" And the camera zooms in for a montage of cackling faces as the patrons and baristas point and deride the poor school teacher until she bursts into tears.

Then, the action will freeze and Bob Saget will walk onscreen to give a little speech about the power of addiction and the billions of dollars corporations spend to tie their customer's sense of self worth to their ability to buy their products. And then the picture will blip to snow and then to the orange 'broadcast interruption' screen because the commercial was pulled from the air at the request of nearly every major corporation.

Back to Black

This past Friday, in response to Ralph Nader’s challenge to his ‘blackness’, Chicago Senator Barack Obama hosted the “Black Enough for You Now?!” gala at Hollywood’s iconic Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. The gala featured performances by KRS One, Ded Prez, and Dave Chappelle, and $500 a plate fried chicken and truffle dinners.

The event was attended by several, beflakjacketed, members of the press. However, they were unable to obtain an interview with the Chicago Senator. “Normally, when covering an Obama event, we just look for the only black guy in the room and interview him. It’s always Obama,” said Fox News correspondent William Lench. “However, that strategy proved problematic with so many, erm, democrats, in attendance.”

Obama made no speeches or attempts to identify himself, calling it his “little joke”, in a subsequent press release that was out of character for Senator Obama. The release included several other points, including a personal thank you to Mr. Nader for “showing him the light. In addition, there was a cryptic references to impending “changes”, including his intention to publicly embrace the Muslim community: “I am ready to embrace the religion that will have helped to put me in the white house, and thank them publicly for taking a lot of the heat off of us.”

The R. Kelly Verdict

My sophomore year at college, my roommate worked at BET as an intern and got hold of the infamous R. Kelly sex tape before it was circulated around black America. For weeks afterwards, kids would flock into our dorm from all corners of the campus to get a peek at the R. Kelly scandal. The tape played hundreds of times in our living room and, like a train wreck, most times I felt compelled to watch it. And after countless viewings and the span of a few years I have trouble deciding which part disgusts me more.

At first I thought it was the girl, who was clearly pre-pubescent, wiggling her hips at his command and then peeing on herself. Then I thought it was watching him pee on her face while she tried to control her impulse to move out of the disgustingly hot stream running over her eyes and lips. But most times I decide that it’s the fact that although he had sex with several women on this particular tape, pissing on the fourteen year old was the only thing that really got him excited. That’s just creepy. Almost as creepy as the amount of time I have spent thinking about that disgusting tape.


The R. Kelly verdict
R. Kelly’s decision to videotape his illegal and unsavory sexcapades has made it clear to the world that he is a criminal and a sexual deviant. It did not, however, manage to convince a Chicago jury of twelve that he should be convicted of any of the 14 counts of making and owning child pornography that he was charged with. I can’t say that the R. Kelly verdict surprises me. I am, however, impressed that the classic “it wasn’t me” argument of Shaggy fame actually worked. At one point in the video, R. Kelly puts his face about six inches away from the camera and his unmistakable face is, well, unmistakable.

I can’t decide how to feel about the R. Kelly verdict. I want to be angry that such a flagrant pervert escaped the long hand of the law, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe it’s because I appreciate the fact that money is finally buying justice for black people like it has been for white people. Or maybe I just have trouble turning my back on my favorite childhood musicians. Am I crazy to wonder why the parents who brought their children to R. Kelly and Michael Jackson’s houses aren’t being put on trial? Why would you allow your 13 year old daughter to hang out at a grown man’s house? R. Kelly didn’t even have an amusement park.

Barack Obama and the Fist Bump

Every minority in America who finds themselves dividing their time between white culture and their own also finds their identity somewhat divided. And when your job is involved, behaving one way around your ‘root culture’ and another around white culture is essential; especially when your root culture is (consciously or not) associated with negative stereotypes.

In America today a lot of things are, well, black and white. You’re either for us or against us. And for minorities, success often means choosing one culture or the other, especially for those minorities in the public eye. You’re either Al Sharpton or Clarence Thomas and both choices have consequences. ‘Keeping it Real’ is honorable, but gives the opposition the endless ammunition of negative cultural stereotypes. On the other hand, completely distancing yourself from that culture and being lauded as an exception to the racist rule just helps reinforce stereotypes.

Unfortunately, for minority candidates and professionals in general, the latter is the obvious choice despite the consequences. In order to be successful it is often times necessary to ‘play the game’. Which, roughly translated, means making white culture comfortable with your difference by closeting it. Or, at least, that’s the way it was.

When Obama announced himself as the Democratic Party’s Candidate in the face of Hillary’s refusal to let it go, his wife gave him a ‘fist bump’ (or pound or dap depending on whose culture you identify with). Those more foreign to black culture’s equivalent of a handshake called it ‘silly’ and used it as an excuse to question his leadership capabilities. But, while cross-cultural miscommunication does happen, like his initial, natural defense of his (albeit misguided) mentor, I think that they have gone out of their way to misunderstand.

And I think that any black person, especially Obama and Michelle who constantly find themselves called to the defense of the inconsequential and irrelevant, would know that the opposition would latch on to this like a dog with a bone. If you’re a black professional, that might be the way you say ‘what’s up’ to a friend at a barbecue, but you probably wouldn’t greet the boss that way at a business function. Especially not one held in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Unless, of course, you felt that you had already scored the democratic nomination, and the only thing keeping me from becoming the 44th President of the United States was an ineffective octogenarian who was worthy of being ignored for the greater part of the presidential race. Then you could do whatever the *beep* you wanted to. Like “Dubya”.

When George W. Bush first took office, he was an inarticulate southern hick. Characteristics that, pre-2000, most Americans preferred to disassociate themselves from. But several years later, a drawl and a gun license were no longer characteristics of a dumb hick, but of a ‘man of the people’.

As a black American, I think that my favorite part aspect of Obama’s presidency will be watching the cultures collide. The first year or so will be overwhelmed by ‘cultural misunderstandings’ fueled by intolerance which will make black people giggle and white people consider repatriation. But, in the end, I think that Obama will be able to do what Colin and Condi could not: make it o.k. to be a minority again.