Two viral videos of famous men casually discussing being molested as teenagers this week is no aberration but rather a common experience for many engaged in a homosexual lifestyle.
And a leading expert on the issue says the far left is not horrified by pedophilia but has actually worked to mainstream the sexualization of children for a long time.
The issue exploded earlier in the week when former Breitbart Tech Editor Milo Yiannopoulos lost a book deal and was disinvited from delivering the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference after video surfaced of him refusing to name pedophiles in Hollywood while also discussing how he engaged in sexual relations with adult men – including a priest – while he was a young teenager.
Just days later, interviews done by”Star Trek” actor George Takei flooded the internet. An outspoken gay activist, Takei revealed that he had his first homosexual experience with an adult when he was just 13 years old and attending a summer camp.
Yiannopoulos and Takei are not alone.
“It is fairly common among men who identify as gay in their adulthood. I think this is one argument for homosexuality being a product of circumstances. It’s not something you’re born with,” said Americans for Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera.
Decades of research and confronting the LGBT agenda convince him this is one of the driving factors in men turning to homosexual lifestyles.
“I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I now see that I really underestimated this factor. I think it’s extremely high. I think it could be upwards of half the men or even much higher than that,” said LaBarbera.
He says the research backs that up. LaBarbera cites a 2016 study in The New Atlantis which concludes that “compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse.”
LaBarbera says molestation was also a factor in the orientation of gay activism icon Harvey Milk, a homosexual political figure from San Francisco who was murdered in 1978. President Obama later honored Milk with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom and named a U.S. Navy ship after him. Milk was sexually assaulted as a boy in a New York City theater after his mother sent him there alone.
“He went on to become a homosexual activist who also liked to date so-called younger men, even a teenager once. There was a 16 or 17-year old boy whom Milk had a sexual relationship when he was 33,” said LaBarbera.
LaBarbera says the key issue is the premature sexualization of children can happen in many forms, including exposure to pornography at an early age.
“Something happens when you expose a child prematurely to sexuality or abuse and dysfunction. There’s other factors, but this is clearly a major factor in male homosexuality and also among some lesbians,” said LaBarbera.
And that is why LaBarbera is horrified at the Boy Scouts of America for opening its doors wide open for homosexual scouts and leaders.
“The Takei thing is fascinating because it was a camp counselor. Here we have the Boy Scouts of America are now allowing openly homosexual – not just boys – but openly homosexual men. That means you’re going to have homosexual men taking boys on camping trips. We know from history that is not a good thing and a lot of abuse comes out of that, including in the Boy Scouts,” said LaBarbera.
But why would the trauma or confusion of being assaulted by a man convince boys they are homosexuals?
“Some of these boys, and it’s very, very tragic, they believe when they are recruited or seduced by an older man that somehow confirms they were homosexual. They blame themselves and it’s very, very tragic,” said LaBarbera.
He says the impact is similar to other abusive relationships.
“It’s sort of like the girl who is a abused by a boyfriend or a relative. Then she seeks out other abusive men,” said LaBarbera.
LaBarbera urges deeper research to be done into the issue but he’s not expecting it to happen anytime soon.
“A fascinating study would just be famous homosexuals. Just take people like George Takei, who are well known as homosexual and look at their backgrounds. I think you would find an amazing amount of abuse, neglect, dysfunction in childhood, parent alienation,” said LaBarbera.
“These things should be studied, but of course, in academia, they’re not because the rigid political correctness says you have to be pro-gay,” he said.
It’s not just academia. LaBarbera says the media also turns a blind eye even though some – like CNN anchor Don Lemon – suffered abuse as kids.
“There’s a lot of examples of this but the for the media it’s not a politically correct topic, because when you start raising questions like this, people say, ‘Well, maybe this is a contributing factor to homosexuality,” said LaBarbera.
“That’s the problem with this debate. We focus on the gay rights-civil rights aspect, which I believe is fraudulent. We don’t talk about these negative causes and factors,” he added.
LaBarbera says Yiannoupoulos inadvertently pulled the mask off one of the dark secrets of homosexuality and the exposure may do some good.
“I don’t think he intended to, but he has educated a lot of people about homosexual ideation,” said LaBarbera.
However, he doesn’t expect much help from the far political left in the U.S. LaBarbera says there has been a persistent effort over the years to remove the stigma from pedophilia. Figures ranging from Bill Maher to liberal academics are on the record defending it or trying to explain it.
“It is gaining traction. There is actually a movement which is redefining pedophilia as MAPS – Minor-Attracted Persons. I was reading the [American Psychological Association] manual on mental disorders. They called pedophilia an orientation,” said LaBarbera.
“The idea that being attracted to children is an orientation. That is already officially out there, and that’s pretty scary,” said LaBarbera.
And he says the far left end game is clear.
“The radical left wants to achieve the normalization of pedophilia, defining the age of consent down and treating children as sexual objects,” said LaBarbera.
But LaBarbera says there is hope for anyone engaged in a homosexual lifestyle or is badly damaged from childhood sexual abuse.
“The good news is people have come out of homosexuality. My good friend Stephen Black was abused as a boy. But he is now ex-gay. He came out of the homosexual lifestyle. He’s married with children. The good news is you can come out of these awful circumstances,” said LaBarbera.