Internet provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos – now uninvited as a CPAC keynote speaker – is under fire after he was captured on video advocating “cross generational” sexual relationships between boys and older men.
The American Conservative Union has now rescinded its invite for Milo to speak at CPAC – a major gathering of prominent conservatives – as the outrage grows over the videotaped comments about 13-year-old boys and older men. Yiannopoulos resigned from the conservative site Breitbart on February 21, and Simon & Schuster cancelled his upcoming book. Milo held a press conference at 3 p.m. on February 21 in New York City.
Watch it here. He admitted he made “outrageous” statements but said he was being targeted unfairly. He apologized to “other victims of abuse” for his comments and pledged to continue advocating for free speech. He also said he has an upcoming new media venture planned, and he revealed he was molested when he was underage by two men.
What did he say, though, in the video that provoked the outrage in the first place?
Here’s the full transcript of the video making the rounds on social media. The comments were made on the Drunken Peasants podcast. (Spots with a “…” indicate where people talked over each other or it was unintelligible. Otherwise, this is the word-for-word transcript of what Milo said.)
Milo: “This is a controversial point of view I accept. We get hung up on this kind of child abuse stuff to the point where we’re heavily policing even relationships between consenting adults, you know grad students and professors at universities.”
The men in the joint video interview then discuss Milo’s experience at age 14.
Another man says: “The whole consent thing for me. It’s not this black and white thing that people try to paint it. Are there some 13-year-olds out there capable of giving informed consent to have sex with an adult, probably…”
The man says, “The reason these age of consent laws exist is because we have to set some kind of a barometer here, we’ve got to pick some kind of an age…”
Milo: “The law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who are sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world by the way. In many cases actually those relationships with older men…This is one reason I hate the left. This stupid one size fits all policing of culture. (People speak over each other). This sort of arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys you know understanding that many of us have. The complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex. In the homosexual world particularly. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents. Some of those relationships are the most -”
It sounds like Catholic priest molestation to me, another man says, interrupting Milo.
Milo: “And you know what, I’m grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.”Other people talk. Oh my God, I can’t handle it, one man says. The next thing in line is going to be pedophilia…says another man.
Milo: “You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty. Who are too young to be able (unclear and cut off by others)…That’s not what we are talking about. You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you are saying I’m defending it because I’m certainly not.”
Another man said, “You are advocating for cross generational relationships here, can we be honest about that?”
Milo: “Yeah, I don’t mind admitting that. I think particularly in the gay world and outside the Catholic church, if that’s where some of you want to go with this, I think in the gay world, some of the most important, enriching and incredibly life affirming, important shaping relationships very often between younger boys and older men, they can be hugely positive experiences for those young boys. They can even save those young boys, from desolation, from suicide (people talk over each other)… providing they’re consensual.”
Here’s the video:
You can read a full transcript of Milo’s follow-up press conference explaining the above here.
Some people immediately demanded that CPAC pull his invite. Politico reported on February 18: “Controversial author and Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.” CPAC moved swiftly to yank the invite.
Milo posted a response entitled “a note for idiots” on Facebook after the video began widely circulating on social media. He claimed circulated videos were selectively edited and denounced pedophilia. You can read it here:
He posted again on February 20:
Read more about Milo resigning from Breitbart here: