Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo on Bill Maher

Milo Yiannopoulos (born Milo Hanrahan, 18 October 1984) is a British media influencer (banned Twitter account @Nero) and online alt-lite personality known for his role in gamergate, ridiculing of feminism and "regressive" leftism, and further controversies surrounding his views on pederasty. Prior to the adverse publicity, his career peaked in the lead-up to Donald Trump's election as US President - with his contributions as editor of Breitbart News being almost entirely limited to American alternative-right politics, prior to the MAGA movement's takeover by social conservatives.

In February 2017, a social media controversy took place concerning video clips in which Yiannopoulos said that sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adult men and women can be "perfectly consensual" and positive experiences for the boys. Yiannopoulos subsequently resigned from his position at Breitbart, his invitation to speak before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was revoked, and a contract to publish his autobiography with Simon & Schuster was cancelled.

Milo's cancelling was a symbolic moment in the neutralization of any remaining cultural libertarianism in the alt-lite and MAGA movement, which has since mainstreamed itself as a new moral majority, for example, enabling "groomer" rhetoric and campaigns against queer literature.

Controversy

Attitudes

In an interview from a January 2016 episode of the podcast Drunken Peasants, Yiannopoulos explained how sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adult men and women can "happen perfectly consensually", because some 13-year-olds are sexually and emotionally mature enough to consent to sex with adults. He used his own experience as an example, pointing out that he was mature enough to be capable of giving consent at a young age. He also correctly stated that "pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13 years old, who is sexually mature" but rather that "pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty." Later in the interview, after his previous comments received some pushback from the hosts, he stated: "I think the age of consent law is probably about right, that is probably roughly the right age ... but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them."

We get hung up on this child abuse stuff… This is one of the reasons why I hate the left, the one size fits all policing of culture, this arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent. I’m grateful for Father Michael [a Catholic priest Milo claims to have had sex with as a teenager]. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him. [...] In the gay world, some of the most important enriching, and incredibly life-affirming, important, shaping relationships are between younger boys and older men. They can be hugely positive experiences very often for those young boys.

Yiannopoulos thereafter claimed that his statements were merely attempts to cope with his own victimhood, yet in 2019, he appeared to agree with Jordan Peterson in affirming the content of Rind et al, a study that challenges the assumption of universal trauma (see external links).

Following his defensive comments in 2017, Yiannopoulos was later criticized for attending Hollywood "boat parties" and "house parties" in which boys he described as "very young – very young" were engaged in pederasty, but failing to report the abusers to the authorities or to identify them during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. When asked about this by Ryan Lizza of New York magazine, Yiannopoulos said he "didn't check anyone's I.D.s." and that he "had no idea what the ages of any of those people at the parties were." He stated that when he said "very young" he was assuming that they were sixteen or seventeen. He reiterated that he doesn't "advocate for any illegal behavior" or excuse it. When, on 10 March, an additional video emerged in which he said on a 2015 episode of Gavin McInnes's show that minor-adult sex is "really not that big a deal. You can't let it ruin your life," Yiannopoulos was criticized for mocking child sexual abuse victims by calling them "whinging selfish brats" for "suddenly" remembering they were abused and "suddenly" deciding it was a problem 20 years after the event occurred. He also stated that a disproportionate number of pedophiles are homosexual.

In 2022, according to Wikipedia, Yiannopoulos served as an intern for Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

External links

• Wikipedia - Full bio.
• Rind et al comments - With Jordan Peterson.
• Guardian on the cancellation of his book deal
• BBC on the controversy
• Commentary On Milo Yiannopoulos’s Fall From Grace - Critical perspective.