UK attempt to smear pride group leaders as "conspiring" pedophiles for ERP

[Jim Burton]

The elephant in the room with this story is that UK prosecutors attempted to frame the two men as conspiring "paedophiles" for what was erotic roleplay. And failed.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/crime/stephen-ire ... pe-grindr/

[Jim Burton]

Previous stories detail the failed attempts to prosecute conspiracy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62zqqd32lyo

[Outis]

It has to be remembered that in the UK, it is criminal to think or talk about such things, not just to commit them. There are no safeguards to allow freedom of thought or speech in the UK and people should be very careful about expressing what they may think or feel.

[BLueRibbon]

It has to be remembered that in the UK, it is criminal to think or talk about such things, not just to commit them. There are no safeguards to allow freedom of thought or speech in the UK and people should be very careful about expressing what they may think or feel.

Countries like the US and UK are truly bizarre, with their absurd notion that adults and children must somehow travel in totally independent spheres of existence. The adult world and child world are fully distinct, and the two may only interact according to a very strict set of rules and roles. The very thought of MAPness and AAMness shatters this ridiculous construction, and therefore has to be stamped out.

The country I live in doesn't exactly tolerate AMSC, but locals don't see pedophiles lurking everywhere and are pretty chill about non-sexual interaction, and the children seem all the better for it.

[WavesInEternity]

The UK and conservative US states sound utterly insane. That said, where I live, it's pretty much impossible for me as an adult male to be friendly with younger girls in my AoA. I'm not even referring to being affectionate, flirty, or cuddly... just neighbourly and attentive. All men are automatically considered suspicious around younger girls. My uncle is a high school teacher and the rules prohibit him from ever being alone in a room with a female student. The same rule doesn't apply to female teachers, of course.

[Outis]

I was once on vacation in Asia and went to a Disney Land there with my daughter and people kept stopping us to take photos of my daughter in her pretty Disney princess dress. She loved the attention and felt like a real princess and I didn't mind because I knew it was just people touched by this western little princess in her Disney costume.

If that had been in the UK or US then people wouldn't dare to take pictures of a kid they didn't know like that, it would be assumed they must be taking pictures as part of some plot to abduct and rape her.....crazy crazy west.

[Jim Burton]

The conspiracy argument is something that has not seen widespread backlash, despite being repeatedly used against other sexual deviants in the past. It's useful because it provides a quick and easy way to criminalise fantasies and roleplay when they are shared.

The idea we are unmasking a satanic cult, or conspiracy among the powerful, is also beneficial to the same establishment it is supposedly used against. If 5-10% of society are so unhinged, they will never knowingly support a mainstream political cause, at least give them some way of acting "based" that ultimately supports the hysteria around children and families, and emergency-measures narrative.

The irony of the OP is of course, the defendant's role in a gay pride organisation, and the fact that the public prosecutor still tried to nail them on conspiracy, with respect to the part of their sexual orientation still deemed "deviant". Luckily, the jury saw what was going on.

There still remain laws in many countries that play on the conspiracy trope. For example, laws that allow gay men to be deliberately targeted and investigated at length because they possibly "intended" to infect someone with HIV, despite not materially being able to.