Tragically, child rape has deep roots in Western Civilization
Get the Point!
In Ancient Greece, many wealthy men engaged in "pederasty," the Greek term for sexual relations with young boys. The concept was so widespread that it was socially acceptable for an adult male "mentor" to appear publicly with their boy "mentees" who not only were educated and apprenticed in a profession, but were the objects of their erotic desire as well.
The practice of pederasty involving boys, and pedophilia involving girls and boys, spread to varying degrees across Europe through the ancient ages. The consensus among modern historians is that the rise of Christianity in European culture, and its frowning upon sexual relations of any sort outside of marital bonds, was the catalyst to eventual social disapproval of what's now considered child rape across the Western world.
Social unacceptability, mind you, has never meant that pederasty or pedophilia went away; in recent years the Roman Catholic Church, Christianity's oldest continuing organized denomination, has literally paid out billions in child rape claims levied against priests and nuns.
During the Middle Ages, noted French Catholic philosopher Peter Abelard, well in his forties, seduced his pupil Heloise, a 15 year old child prodigy. Their torrid, albeit inappropriate, relationship was captured in a series of idylls that survive today in The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise, a collection that's considered a Western literary classic that led to similar tales, from fiction like Lolita and Payton Place, to the real life saga of Thomas Jefferson repeatedly raping and impregnating his enslaved teenaged half sister-in-law Sally Hemings, that continue to inspire discussions about adults raping children who've yet to form the maturity to offer consent for sexual relations.
I give this historical and literary background to provide perspective on the hottest topic from last week, which is Attorney General Pam Bondi's written and oral statements that the client list belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier who allegedly killed himself while incarcerated on child sex charges in 2019, no longer exists. Clearly, the problem with Bondi's announcement stems from the fact that this past March, she announced that the Epstein list was "on her desk" at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.
Trump/Bondi during Cabinet meeting…
And while the Trump administration's progressive critics laughed at the absurdity of the Epstein list that no longer exists, many of its conservative supporters, and I mean hard core MAGAs, are angry to the point of apoplexy that the now missing list is an example of Trump and his minions doing precisely what they accused former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama of doing time and again, which is subverting the truth on matters of public importance.
Oddly, the object of MAGA ire has been AG Bondi more than her boss, Donald Trump. This provides yet another example of the pitiful lack of critical thinking skills among the Trump faithful who either can't see, or stubbornly refuse to see, that Bondi is "following orders" from her boss Mr. Trump who, as his former billionaire best bud Elon Musk noted on Twitter, "is in the Epstein files."
At this juncture we do not know beyond a reasonable doubt whether Trump is on this infamous list or not. But I submit that if someone accused me of raping children, and I had evidence to the contrary, I surely would expend all of my efforts to clear my name from such perfidy. That Trump has been relatively silent about confronting his relationship with Epstein is rather telling when considering how he claps back at slights on all sorts of issues, both great and small.
Trump and Epstein et al. through the years…
At this juncture what we do know beyond all doubt is that Trump has a pronounced history of being accused of rape; was found civilly liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, and has a long public record of making creepy, sexually explicit comments about women and girls. This includes that time that Trump allowed radio shock jock Howard Stern to call his his daughter Ivanka “a piece of ass” and ask whether she had “breast implants,” which was followed by the media mogul turned POTUS calling his elder daughter “very voluptuous” and “an amazing beauty”— instead of wrapping his hands around the radio host’s throat and choking him out for disrespecting his child!
Speaking of Stern, in 2005, Trump's perverted creepiness was on full display during an interview about the Miss USA pageant as he bragged on air that, “I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it… You know, they’re standing there with no clothes… And so I sort of get away with things like that."
Lest we forget that during the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant, also owned by Trump, that several contestants, some as young as 15-years old, complained about him entering the dressing room while they were undressed and changing clothes. The girls alleged that Trump said, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before."
Trump with Miss Teen USA contestants circa 2005
While one teen contestant somewhat defended Trump by saying that chaperones had warned them to cover up, I can't imagine any circumstance at all where I, as a 53 year old man (roughly the same age Trump was back in 1997), would ever want to enter a dressing room with a group of teenaged girls! In fact, if my daughter or nieces ever told me that some man tried to enter into their dressing room at an event, I would remove my belt and whip that man like Jesus whipped the money lenders out of the Temple!
So what's clear to me is that Trump is a prevaricating, pedophiliac creep who is curiously silent about addressing his past perversions. What's also clear is that he is not alone; it has been alleged for years that Epstein's list includes Great Britain's Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton, Microsoft mogul Bill Gates, and famed constitutional law professor and O.J. Simpson lawyer Alan Dershowitz, among others.
Bill Clinton with Epstein
What will never make one bit of sense to me is how some MAGA members are just now getting upset when the accusations of rape, and Trump's own past statements including the infamous “grab them by the p***y" remark, was more than enough evidence to disqualify him as a serious candidate in 2016 and 2024. Trust, there were well qualified conservative candidates during both of those election cycles who did not have rape related skeletons clamoring loudly in their closets, but MAGAs chose Trump anyway and now, we are all stuck with a liable rapist and 34 time convicted felon who is doing what could have been easily predicted—hiding evidence of his association with Jeff Epstein.
The Trumps with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his associate who is serving 20 years in federal prison for her part in sex trafficking…
Last, my personal opinion is that a person surely should be scrutinized by the company that they keep. No human is perfect, I get that, but the majority of humans do not rape children or associate with people who rape children. If you know my own best friends personally, or see pictures of us at, say, SpelHouse or FAMU’s homecoming events, you won't find a rapist among my crew!
But when I see multiple pictures of folks with Epstein in full party settings, I remember the old saying that "birds of a feather, flock together" and in this instance, I’m also reminded that predatory conduct towards children is as old as Western Civilization.
Lest we forget…