On Emails, Allegations, and Collective Engagement

TW: mentions of homophobia, pedophilia, hebephilia, ephebophilia, sex trafficking.

So... let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

At this point, I’m sure you’ve seen that one email from the 20,000+ Epstein emails alluding to an alleged sex act between two former presidents (one of them being the current acting president).

In less than 24 hours, that damn email has produced countless memes, skits, sketches, and jokes, and has become one of the hottest topics of conversation across the internet. We’ve all had us a nice lil’ laugh about it, our minds speculating wildly. I, too, got caught in the salaciousness of the situation, bringing it up to my wife a couple of times last night. My wife, being the person that she is, did not engage in the laughfest. Instead, she hit me with some realness.

We’re all participating in some groupthink homophobia, and it is not a good look, y’all.

Real talk? An alleged sex act between two consenting adults, regardless of their public personas and heteronormative nonsense they’ve both spewed over the years, is the most “whatever” part of this email leak at this point. Seriously. There are thousands of emails talking about sex trafficking, sexual abuse, and the assault of minors by prominent and wealthy people, y’all’s president likely being one of the people who either openly participated, knew all of this was happening, and decided not to stop it, or both. And yet here we all are, stuck on an alleged sex act between two cis men. We’re laughing about sexual relations between two men, likely because many of us are either unconsciously latching onto the piece of information from this info dump that is the least upsetting to us or taking this as another opportunity to engage in anti-gay rhetoric. Either way?

We’re collectively in the wrong, and many of us are doing inadvertent harm to our gay and queer friends, family, and neighbors.

Let’s not allow this distraction - because that’s precisely what it has become - to dominate our collective consciousness and pull us away from the fact that two of this country’s presidents were likely a part of a sex trafficking ring that catered to pedophiles, hebephiles, and ephebophiles.

And their victims deserve justice.