But let’s not forget, Bill Maher lives and works in Los Angeles (Hollywood) and works in the entertainment industry where screwing the young has a long tradition and the powerful usually get away with it.
People don’t care about sex.
Monica Lewinsky was an adult. Foley went after boys. Actually, I wasn’t terribly taken aback by Foley. He was like a college professor, in a job where every year there’s a new wave of fresh meat. He would look over the field and decide. He probably had pretty good radar to know which kids were amenable. From the evidence we have, he tried to do something only after they were out of the page program. If a 19-year-old gay kid wants to go out with an older guy, why not? The guys his own age are probably dumb doofuses.
Look, I’m a 51-year-old man, and I go out with girls in their early 20s. I’d be hypocritical if I said it’s ridiculous for a gay man to do that. I’m very libertarian about love. I’m the only guy I’ve ever heard who defends Mary Kay Letourneau.
I believe in the double standard. If a 28-year-old male teacher is screwing a 13-year-old girl, that’s a crime. But with Debra Lafave (another teacher who had sex with a student) screwing her 14-year-old boy student, the crime is that we didn’t get it on videotape. Was he being taken advantage of? I wish I had been taken advantage of like that. What a memory she gave him! I would think he’s a champion among his friends. Are you kidding? Even with Michael Jackson — I’m not defending him, but I do believe his case has a nuance that makes it different from other child molestation cases–not that I’m saying he necessarily did it, but come on. Jackson’s worst accusers never said he did anything brutal, like bend them over a table and ram them–you know, like a priest. The worst they said he did was a little grabby-grabby under the covers. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a crime. You shouldn’t be able to grab a kid that age, but when I heard about it, all I could think of was my being brutally beaten up on the playground when I was 12–a kid punching me in the face while another held me down. If I could go back and trade that experience for being gently masturbated by a pop star, I would do it in a New York second. Frankie Valli could jerk me off. Bobby Sherman could. Marvin Gaye could.
— Bill Maher, Playboy interview, 4/17/07
Most people in the business wouldn’t survive statements like the one above and going back a decade, but again we are talking about liberal Hollywood where standards only apply to those they disagree with.
If Bill Maher worked for a channel that had to produce programming advertisers felt comfortable paying to put ads on, he’d probably have been fired like he was from ABC for basically saying we brought 9/11 on ourselves. Again, as most cable subscribers are subsidizing channels like HBO, their employees will say whatever they want, produce whatever they want and will face no recrimination.
Then again, no one believes Hollywood lives in the same world we do so elitist adults screwing children is something only the vast majority of us will have to answer for.
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