If there's anything to be gained by late 2020's political climate, maybe it is that we can finally have an adult conversation about sexuality and children. No, no, stop laughing. A thread.

First off, the elephant in the room. QAnon. This is really just blood libel by a new name, and if you're not capable of seeing that, I invite you to step off this train now. /2

Repeat after me: there is no international conspiracy of baby-eating pedophile elites. This is the same tired blood libel trope people have been trotting out for two thousand years. It has never existed. It will never exist. /3

Very few things are nearly-universally-moral, and protection of children is one of them. That's why you must cast those who deliberately hurt children in the worst possible light -- as worshipers of darkness so depraved they must be rich beyond belief to still exist. /4

Only a Lex Luthor can be a QAnon-type villain, because any lesser mortal would be found out, prosecuted, and probably murdered by a vigilante by the end of the day. Which is to say, they do not exist. /5

There are people out there who victimize children, but their numbers are very, very small, relatively. Of course, "one of them" is one too many, but still; your monkey brains cannot conceive of the VAST amounts of people there are relative to child-victimizing pedos. /6

The other thing is that you probably haven't sat down and talked with these people. I have. They have a cast of humanity to me that you don't, simply because you don't know them in the way a criminal defense lawyer would. /7

And believe me, I have sat down and talked to MANY people accused, justly or unjustly, of being pedophiles. They run the gamut in terms of how much moral censure you should throw at them, from the truly vile to the pitiable. /8

So it is with that background that I approach the non-troversy du jour, the French film "Mignonnes" (e.g., "Cuties."). First, Netflix really dropped the ball on marketing. Hard. The images used are not representative. /9

Second, the film contains many scenes that will make people uncomfortable. Presumably, that was the effect, but they are still shocking. However, they're in line with typical art-house faire that pushes boundaries. /10

What they do NOT resemble is child exploitative material, which is GREAT. It makes me very, very, genuinely happy that people call this "child porn," because it makes me believe you think this is what that looks like. /11

You presume child pornography looks like adult pornography but featuring younger people, and that's a good thing. For those of us whose jobs require us to look at the real thing, your belief fills us with hope. /12

Because real child exploitative material is worse in every conceivable dimension. If you follow me on here, you know I'm not an emotional guy. The last time I had to go to DHS to sit with an agent and look at some of it. I made it about 3 seconds in before I started crying. /13

I had him shut it off. I couldn't stomach looking at more than that, and in those 3 seconds, I saw enough to confirm that the judge very likely would be applying a sentencing enhancement to my client, which is what I had to verify. /14

So when I see the scenes from Mignonnes that has everyone all het up, I GET why you're uncomfortable. No one should be watching scenes which sexualize children. But the level of outrage over it, including comments by national legislators to investigate Netflix... /15

Well, that feels /performative/. Especially for someone like Josh Hawley, who is from a state where 17-year-olds can consent to sex with 50-year-olds, if they want (NB: so am I, and several states were even younger, until very recently!). /16

We as a people are good at drawing lines between when it is ok to sexualize young people and when it is not, and then expecting young people to understand and respect those lines. Which is what the film is ultimately about: bereft of guidance, kids will innocently fall into… /17

sexualizing themselves because modern media bombards young people with heavily-sexualized messages in order to titillate and enthrall the adults watching, who STILL love sexualized youth, so long as it is over the (rather arbitrary) age line of 17 or 18. /18

Telling an 11-year-old girl she shouldn't sexualize herself while she watches her 17-year-old sister get dolled up for prom is one of those messages the 11-year-old will never understand. At 35, sure, YOU understand it, but you have a context the 11-year-old doesn't. /19

A frank conversation needs to be had about the way in which we depict sex to young people. But it also needs to include the way sex and sexuality is framed by moral systems, traditional and modern. "Be fruitful and multiply" necessarily implies sexuality. /20

Repression of sexuality has never worked (e.g., look up how lewd supposedly-repressed Victorian England was), while libertine-style sexuality has been the norm in more places than you'd think (Rome and Greece, for example). /21

But an honest, frank conversation about sex, morality, maturity, and how to protect children while also not psychologically damaging them is just something I don't think we're ready to have when half the population believes that President Trump… /22

spends his days fighting an international ring of Satan-worshipping, child-raping cannibals led by the international film industry and their financiers, the same way 14th-century peasants couldn't have a frank conversation about public health while also believing… /23

the local rabbi was poisoning the wells just because Jewish sanitary customs reduced the likelihood of transmission of plague. You can't talk reason with people so mired in unreason. /end