one of the worst things about this website is this push to convince people that their natural disgust responses to some of the most horrific crimes in society make them reactionary puritan moralists. sometimes your instincts really are correct in telling you that something is wrong and disgusting. anyone asking you to interrogate your feelings of revulsion towards pedophilia is not a safe person, especially for children. holy shit I can't believe this is even mildly controversial
Outside of the context of malicious actors trying to manipulate the discourse, there’s a pattern I see all the time where a nuanced take will gradually be whittled down to a hard statement and then responses to the new statement are treated like a response to the old one to paint your response as unreasonable, which makes it all the easier for malicious actors to do their thing
You start with something like “You shouldn’t use gut feelings as your sole measure of morality and should be sure to interrogate your own feelings so you can better articulate the actual issues behind genuine problems beyond ‘I think it’s gross’,” and it gets distorted to the point you’ll see people saying being grossed out by paedophilia makes you a fascist scared of a boogieman that only lives in your head
