... doesn't mean you know what the problem is. "The question is, why does the average person think what he does about us? Was he born with those ideas (I think that you'd agree that that is unlikely) or did he get his ideas from somewhere else?" They get it from cultural norms, not from any "groups/organizations" you can pinpoint. And it isn't even necessarily explicitly taught, but it is formed by a confluence of different cultural norms, primarily the trauma and innocence myths I pointed to before. However, that may be too diffuse for the liking of most BLs. Most BLs want to find someone to blame and simply pointing to the culture and the historical forces that have shaped it is not a satisfying story with a clear villian, so we prefer to create villains that conform to our own biases. These groups/organizations you mention have a role in the problem, but they grow in the soil of the culture and must ultimately bend to the culture. How many times has Calvin Klein gotten into hot water for using teenage models in salacious ad campaigns? They'd sell sex and youth if they could get away with it, but the culture will only let them go so far. Or what about John Lewis Home Insurance having to retract an ad for showing a hot boy dancing around in a dress and make-up? Not only is your assessment wrong, but you have the direction of influence entirely backwards. Any solution is going to need to address the fact that people are autonomous in forming their own ideas and opinions. Their opinions may be informed by cultural norms, some more blindly than others, but it's not groups/organizations implanting beliefs into people entirely passively. People accept these ideas because they jive with everything else they pick up in the culture as a whole. Any BL who claims that children's autonomy should be acknowledged should be aware of how hypocritical it would be to deny that the adults who disagree with us also have their own autonomy. ![]() |