The last thing I want to be accused of is beating a dead horse. If I refer back to people, organizations or incidences that I have already covered it’s for a good reason. In this case it is to ask a question that some may not have thought of.
If you read my last Substack you may remember I included a Tweet that contained a picture of Sam Brinton, Joe Biden’s choice (probably not HIS choice) for Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy. Here’s another picture of what I can only assume is a perfectly qualified civil servant.
And this is where I’m going to be accused of caring about what people do in their personal lives. No, it’s not that. There’s something else I would like to talk about.
Uncovered in this National Pulse article is an op-ed that Mr. Brinton penned on September 2, 2015 for The Advocate, a website and bi-monthly print magazine whose mission is described to “have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people.” My focus here is not the publication itself (go ahead, create your own space if you think you are being marginalized elsewhere), but the topic on which Mr. Brinton chose to comment.
He begins the op-ed as follows:
The federal government’s recent attack on Rentboy.com is a devastating assault on some of the most vulnerable members of our community — young adults who, for the first time in their lives, were able to earn a secure living safely through Rentboy after surviving family rejection and homelessness because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
For those of you that do not know, Rentboy was a site “young adults” could sell sexual favors to older, richer men so as to “support themselves.” By leading with the term “young adults” this appears to be just another attack by government agencies on adults engaging in consenting (yes, illegal as well) activities. But then his language changes:
Transgender people engage in sex work at a rate 10 times that of cisgender (nontrans) women. And many LGBT youth engage in sex work just to survive. A 2013 Center for American Progress report suggests that LGBT youth are more than three times as likely to have engaged in survival sex.
Are adults, even young adults “youths”? Leaving aside a term such as “survival sex,” what exactly is he defending here, and why?
I am not a person using sex work to survive. I am, however, overwhelmed with messages from GBT young men who are afraid of having to return to their families, where they face mistreatment, and even worse, because the main and most secure connection they had to income through escorting is now gone.
There it is. Mr. Brinton would rather these YOUTHS continue to sell their bodies through this website whose name (Rentboy) is defined as “a boy or young man who has sex with men for money” than go back to their families. I’m sure these boys don’t have to worry about suffering “mistreatment, and even worse” at the hands of total strangers using them for sex.
And here’s the question I haven’t seen posed (Although I’m sure someone will link to it being asked in the comments, lol): Why would The Advocate run this op-ed which clearly advocates for prostitution between successful older men and boys/youths/young adults? The answer is clear; because they know a good portion of their readership will agree with every word. Hell, some were probably the people using Rentboy to hire these boys/youths/young adults. The article is still up on The Advocate. That tells me if there were any protests they were definitely in the minority. Which informs me that the type of prostitution being advocated for here is basically a given amongst their readership. A readership I would assume, that is politically motivated enough to read a politicized publication like The Advocate.
While it’s unfortunate that we are forced to paint issues with a broad brush, if we didn’t at least half of every article or podcast would consist of qualifiers in one form or another. The fact that we are the ones shedding light on a civil “servant” that holds beliefs only championed by the extreme margins of Leftist society, instead of public “institutions” and leaders, should be alarming. Especially when you take into consideration how hard the Left is working to normalize behaviors similar to those exercised and championed by Rentboy. For all the talk of January 6th and Right-Wing extremism, I have to ask where exactly that extremism is manifesting itself. Seriously, where?
Noticing their perversions is “right wing extremism.”
Thank you Peter! The idea of any “youth” selling themselves is heartbreaking to me and you continue to speak out for young people being preyed upon in this rapidly declining culture…