Although this Aaron Carter story is technically very, very old news, it has gotten little airplay, so little, in fact, that the magnitude of its revelations could possibly disappear from Michael Jackson history altogether if not canonized--without spin--somewhere on the Internet. For this reason, I have decided to write about it.
It was at the close of June that media reports surfaced alleging former child pop entertainer, Aaron Carter, had made very telling statements about his friend, Michael Jackson.
In fact, if his statements are considered true and reliable, they tend to lend yet more weight to the reasonable suspicion that the late King of Pop engaged in inappropriate behavior with his youthful male companions. The Australian offshoot of OK! magazine claimed Aaron—a recovering addict—told freelance journalist Daphne Barak that Michael Jackson gave him alcohol and cocaine when he was just fifteen-years-old.
Naturally, such revelations about Michael Jackson would stir his fans into a frenzy, as Aaron's anecdotes erode the 'innocent angel'/'benign Peter Pan' mythos to which they desperately and rabidly cling.
The next step taken by Michael Jackson fans was to deny the factuality of the OK! magazine story, calling the publication a 'tabloid' that had either misquoted Aaron Carter or fabricated those quotes altogether. Daphne Barak fared no better and was, too, implicated in somehow using Aaron to get a good story off Michael Jackson's name. Because it is well-known that Aaron had defended Michael during his second child molestation fiasco (going so far as to claim Michael "really did" like women and, therefore, it was unlikely—perhaps impossible—that he could have been a molester of young boys), this was an understandable explanation for such salacious claims.
Surely, a Michael Jackson friend and defender—accurate descriptors for Aaron Carter—would never say anything to damage Michael's already 'abused' and tarnished reputation!
It is worth noting that the original story emerged in mid-June and went unnoticed until that month's final week. Aaron Carter remained mum about the story as it circulated the Internet and it was only after much heat from angry Jackson fans that he 'clarified'—after mysteriously erasing his original Twitter account of all messages—that the whole story was completely untrue and he'd never been given any kind of alcohol or drugs by Michael Jackson.
Caving to the pressure of Michael Jackson's rabid defenders to deny a story that made Michael look, at the very least, wildly irresponsible was ultimately Aaron Carter's downfall. As soon as he claimed he had never made any inculpatory statements about Michael's behavior, essentially turning journalist Daphne Barak into a liar, she released video clips of their conversations. With proof on her side, Barak's defense effectively shifted the blame for these very disturbing quotes back onto Aaron Carter.
At this point, I believe it is quite obvious Aaron Carter said what he'd said about Michael Jackson. Additionally, there should be no question—although, bizarrely, there seems to be—of whom he was discussing during his interviews with Daphne Barak: it was Michael Jackson. However, it is worth discussing what Aaron Carter's statements actually mean to the holistic and already sad Jackson saga.
As I've said, Aaron Carter's words are as self-evident as they are shocking. His interviews, recorded in Marbella, Spain in early June while at a charity gala, absolutely took place; there is no denying this. Previous accusations of tabloid embellishments would be rejected by reasonable people...
The only questions one has left to ponder deals with accuracy: how truthful are Aaron Carter's words? To note, for most Michael Jackson defenders, Aaron has credibility issues:
- He is seemingly irrelevant;
- He is working on an album;
- He suffered from an addiction;
- These newest interviews seem to 'contradict' more positive, and, thus, more 'digestible', past interviews given about Michael.
It should be noted that Michael Jackson was also irrelevant and died from an addiction; as such, fans should be immediately disregarded for suggesting Aaron Carter's believability takes a nose-dive due to the fact he is no longer on pop music charts and he had used substances in the past.
I am not suggesting that it can never be reasonable to suggest 'fame' is addictive to the point one who has had it may do anything to feel that sort of adulation again, nor am I suggesting that drug abusers can never be liars--we already know that to be false. What I am making clear is that it must be remembered that Aaron Carter was no longer using drugs when he gave his interview; he was clean and 'sober'. Additionally, I am pointing out that it is ridiculous to assume that every faded star will slander a friend for media attention.
It should be remembered that Aaron Carter is a Michael Jackson friend and defender.
It is from that context that I find his statements credible: if a Michael Jackson friend and defender makes inculpatory statements about him, especially while liberally peppering these anecdotes with praises and fond remembrances for his late mentor, then something in Michael Jackson's behavior must have been amiss.
What guides me in looking at something as controversial and potentially explosive as this story, I take note that I cannot make too many assumptions, as I was not there. Therefore, I rely heavily on corroboration; if the story can be corroborated with similar statements from unrelated parties or time periods, I lend it more credibility.
This is why it is more than believable that Brett Barnes was molested and that Michael Jackson was gay.
This is why it is more than believable that Brett Barnes was molested and that Michael Jackson was gay.
Now, Aaron Carter has denied his statements, or, at least, has disavowed the most serious allegations.
In the above video, Aaron admits that what he said, as it was recorded, was what he said; he admits to what was in his interview clips.
However, he only goes so far as to admit that he did drink wine at Neverland, but did not implicate Michael Jackson, as he did in his Barak interview. Also, Aaron Carter raises eyebrows with his other denials, using the overly emphatic "never, ever," to characterize how allegedly adamant he was about having never been given cocaine by Michael Jackson.
However, he only goes so far as to admit that he did drink wine at Neverland, but did not implicate Michael Jackson, as he did in his Barak interview. Also, Aaron Carter raises eyebrows with his other denials, using the overly emphatic "never, ever," to characterize how allegedly adamant he was about having never been given cocaine by Michael Jackson.
Disregarding his agitated body language, according to the statement analysis deception detection technique, using the words "never, ever"--especially when not prompted with an "ever" by the interviewer--can be indicators of untruthfulness: deceptive individuals wanting to be believed--given the negative feedback received by angry Jackson fans with regard to his Barak interviews, Aaron Carter was seeking acceptance of his 'earnestness' by the public--tend to gravitate towards overly emphatic phrases truthful people tend to avoid, such as "never, ever".
For the record, while I find Aaron's denials desperate and largely untruthful, I do not believe he was merely shielding himself from further abuses because he had been caught 'lying' about Michael Jackson for publicity, which is what many fans believe. Aaron Carter's denials, as in the E! News clip above, were because he genuinely felt he was being mischaracterized and his motives misjudged.
Regardless of what Michael Jackson fans believe, Aaron Carter was not out to hurt Michael in his interviews; he was not out to slander him for publicity. After weighing the nature of some of the clips themselves, especially the more explosive ones featuring just audio, I do not believe Aaron Carter knew he was being recorded by Daphne Barak.
That is not a suggestion that she is anything more than an opportunistic journalist; it is not a judgment of her as a journalist. But it seems self-evident that Barak recorded Aaron Carter without his knowledge and, perhaps, he believed he was 'confiding' in her 'off-the-record'.
This would tend to explain the sounds of clinking silverware and other noise in the background obscuring the sounds of Barak and Aaron Carter's voices.
This would tend to explain the sounds of clinking silverware and other noise in the background obscuring the sounds of Barak and Aaron Carter's voices.
Nevertheless, the clips stand on their own. In fact, all of the allegations emerging against Michael Jackson from this story tend to be reasonably corroborated, from the wine to the cocaine.
This first clip released by Barak is fairly tame, however, Aaron Carter did mention something of incredible interest:
"I mean, there were definitely things that happened, you know, that were just... different, you know... weird. He... uh... I mean, you know, he... he drank, you know... he drank around me a little bit."Aaron's note of "weird" and "different" things happening foreshadows later clips.
He mentions Michael Jackson drinking in front of him, perhaps getting drunk, when he was just fourteen-years-old. For some, this may seem minor; after all, Michael was an adult and in his own home, of which Aaron Carter was the guest.
But noticeable is the careful way in which he says Michael 'drank', as if, at least in hindsight, he now realizes it was inappropriate behavior on Michael Jackson's part. This would be verified by the "things that happened" that were "different" and "weird".
Anyone familiar with the Jackson saga knows that Michael Jackson was an alcoholic. According to former Neverland house manager Jesus Salas' April 4, 2005 testimony, Michael Jackson often drank:
6 Q. Did Mr. Jackson drink?
7 A. Yes, he did.
8 Q. Are you aware of what his drinks of choice
9 were, what he liked to drink, in terms of alcohol?
10 A. Well, he drink wine and vodka also.
A bit later in his testimony, Salas remarks that Michael often became drunk when drinking, or, rather, he drank until he was drunk:
11 Q. Have you ever seen him exhibiting the
12 effects of drinking?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. On how many occasions?
15 A. Well, lately it was on a pretty much regular
16 basis.
17 Q. A regular basis?
18 A. Right.
19 Q. Did you ever see Mr. Jackson where he
20 appeared to have been drinking a great deal, that he
21 appeared to be drunk?
22 A. Yes.
(Note that Salas uses the term "lately" to characterize Michael Jackson's drinking until getting drunk, and that this occurred on a "regular basis", an indication that the stress of yet another child molestation accusation was causing him to find relief in intoxicants.)
The house manager then testified that Michael Jackson would often display his drunkenness in front of his own children, often making no effort to conceal his inebriation. This tends to corroborate Aaron Carter's claim--and explain his apparent uncomfortableness--that Michael displayed improper behavior in front of those who were underaged:
3 Q. BY MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Mr. Salas, when you saw
4 Mr. Jackson when he was drunk, did you ever see him
5 in the presence -- in that condition, in the
6 presence of his children?
7 A. Yes, I did.
8 Q. On more than one occasion?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Can you tell me how many or approximate?
11 A. Well, I couldn’t tell you exactly how many
12 times, but it was quite a few times.A bit later:
4 MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Sure.
5 Q. My question is, during the period of time
6 when you saw Mr. Jackson when he was drunk in the
7 presence of his children, did Mr. Jackson do
8 anything to hide the fact that he had been drinking
9 or that he was drunk when that occurred, when you
10 saw that?
11 MR. MESEREAU: Same objection.
12 THE COURT: Overruled.
13 You may answer.
14 THE WITNESS: Not to my knowledge.Even later:
16 Q. BY MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Okay. Have you ever
17 served wine or any alcoholic beverage to Mr. Jackson
18 when he was in the presence of children?
19 A. Yes, I did.
20 Q. On more than one occasion?
21 A. I would say that was a couple times.
Interestingly, the National Enquirer tabloid ran a story alleging Michael Jackson had overdosed on Jack Daniels whiskey and Demerol during his self-imposed, post-molestation trial exile to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. (The story predictably contained a denial of the 'rumor' by then-publicist Raymone Bain, explaining that the story was untrue and that Michael was 'fine'.)
We know that Michael Jackson drank--as half-drunk, open containers of Jack Daniels and red wine were found in his bedroom when the police raided Neverland in November 2003 also verify--and we know that he apparently had no misgivings about drinking in front of minors, even his own young children.
Aaron Carter later extended Michael Jackson's propensity to drink in front of him as a young teen to Michael Jackson giving him wine, as the original OK! magazine report claimed and as it was recorded by Daphne Barak.
We know that Michael Jackson drank--as half-drunk, open containers of Jack Daniels and red wine were found in his bedroom when the police raided Neverland in November 2003 also verify--and we know that he apparently had no misgivings about drinking in front of minors, even his own young children.
Aaron Carter later extended Michael Jackson's propensity to drink in front of him as a young teen to Michael Jackson giving him wine, as the original OK! magazine report claimed and as it was recorded by Daphne Barak.
A transcription of the video:
DAPHNE BARAK (DB): "What kind of drink did he give you?"
AARON CARTER (AC): "Uh... wine. It was wine, I mean... but I wanted to--I wanted to drink, so..."
DB: "You're a kid, fourteen-fifteen."
AC: "Right, right... fifteen, you know... You wanna do those kinds of things, you know? And, you know, I was experimenting, you know, at that time so.... I think if I was... uh... if I was a forty-year-old man, I wouldn't be offering anything to a fifteen-year-old teenager... even if he or she was asking for anything like that, you know?"
So, Aaron Carter did, in fact, state Michael Jackson gave him alcohol.
This would, of course, contradict what Aaron told Ken Baker from E! News, as shown in the first video of this entry, that wine was merely at Neverland and its presence at Neverland enabled him to drink. What should be noted is that Aaron Carter acknowledges, honestly, that he did want the alcohol, as he was experimenting as many teens do.
Wine--or "Jesus juice"--seemed to be the libation of choice Michael supplied to his 'special friends'. Well known are the soda cans filled with "Jesus juice" airline stewardesses prepared at Michael Jackson's request, allegedly used to conceal his drinking to others, or, more likely, to conceal his giving of alcohol to his underaged male companions.
As a corroboration of Aaron's admission, Neverland employees did state that alcohol was easily accessible to Michael Jackson's young, often male, guests at the ranch. According to the testimony of former house manager, Jesus Salas, Neverland's wine cellar frequently had youthful intruders:
26 Q. Did you ever see kids go into the wine
27 cellar, any kids, during your period of time as
28 house manager?
1 A. Yes.
Salas later goes on to detail incidents where he saw local teenagers from Los Olivos around Aaron Carter's age (when he was given wine)--also frequent, unsupervised guests to Neverland like many of Michael Jackson's boy visitors--in the wine cellar and about the house, seemingly drunk.
8 Q. Okay. The wine cellar. You said you didn’t
9 ever have any complaints of -- hear of any
10 complaints regarding the Arvizos. Did you ever have
11 any other complaints of any other children in the
12 wine cellar?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And do you know which children they were?
15 A. When I was given those complaints, it was
16 about the kids from Los Olivos.
17 MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Okay. If I could have the
18 Elmo again, Your Honor, please.
19 Q. Showing you People’s Exhibit 45. Is that
20 one of the kids you’re talking about?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. 46?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. That’s one of the kids?
25 A. That’s correct.
26 Q. And 47.
27 A. That is correct.
28 Q. Okay. Are there any other kids that you’re
1 referring to, or is that everybody that we’re
2 talking about?
3 A. No, I did get some other complaints about
4 some other kids which wasn’t these kids.
5 Q. Okay. Now, these three kids that -- I think
6 you’ve identified them as being from Los Olivos
7 previously, correct?
8 A. That’s correct.
9 Q. We’ll call them “the Los Olivos boys,” okay?
10 A. Okay.
11 Q. Now, the Los Olivos boys, you said you had a
12 complaint, complaints regarding them in the wine
13 cellar. What was the nature of the complaint?
14 MR. MESEREAU: Objection; hearsay.
15 MR. AUCHINCLOSS: It’s offered to explain
16 conduct.
17 THE COURT: Whose conduct?
18 MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Mr. Salas’s. And I can
19 tell you at sidebar where I’m going, if you like.
20 THE COURT: The objection is sustained.
21 Q. BY MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Did you personally ever
22 see the Los Olivos boys in the wine cellar?
23 A. Not in the wine cellar, but I saw them come
24 out.
25 Q. You saw them coming out of the wine cellar.
26 And when you saw them coming out of the wine cellar,
27 what time of day are we talking about?
28 A. Early in the morning, around eight o’clock
1 in the morning.
2 Q. And during that previous -- let’s say the
3 ten hours -- well, let’s see, let me back up.
4 Do you know if Mr. Jackson was in the wine
5 cellar with them?
6 A. That early morning, or late night, early
7 morning, Mr. Jackson was with the kids.
8 Q. And when you saw these kids come out of the
9 wine cellar, did you notice whether or not they
10 exhibited any signs of being intoxicated?
11 MR. MESEREAU: Objection; leading.
12 THE COURT: Overruled.
13 You may answer.
14 THE WITNESS: Yes, I did.
15 Q. BY MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Tell me what you saw.
16 A. When I saw the boys coming out of the
17 arcade, which is where the wine cellar is, the kids
18 weren’t acting normal. So I approached one of them,
19 and I said, “Are you okay?” That’s when I noticed
20 that the kids were drunk.
21 Q. How drunk were they, if you could
22 characterize it?
23 A. I would say that they were -- what would you
24 call it? I mean, you can tell that they were drunk.
25 I mean, I could see that they had been drinking.
26 Q. What were they doing that made you believe
27 they’d been drinking?
28 A. The way they were acting. I mean, they
1 weren’t just normal. Something was wrong with the
2 kids.
3 Q. Did you notice any other times when these
4 three boys had been drinking, and it was apparent to
5 you that they had been drinking?
6 MR. MESEREAU: Objection. Leading;
7 relevance; foundation.
8 THE COURT: Overruled.
9 You have may answer.
10 THE WITNESS: Your question was what date?
11 Q. BY MR. AUCHINCLOSS: No, my question --
12 you’ve told us about one incident where you noticed
13 the three Los Olivos boys had been drinking. I want
14 to know if you ever observed a second time that
15 these same boys had been drinking.
16 A. Yes, there was a second time.
17 Q. And when was that?
18 A. I want to say it was -- it was after that
19 one. Not exactly sure, you know, how many weeks
20 after that. But I would say it was two, three weeks
21 after that one.
22 Q. And when was the first time, approximately?
23 A. I want to say it was in October when I saw
24 those kids the first time.
25 Q. 2002? 2003? You tell me.
26 A. It was 2002, I believe.
27 Q. Okay. And where did you see these boys the
28 second time when they appeared to have been
1 drinking?
2 A. At the house.
3 Q. Inside the house?
4 A. Yes. Well, they were everywhere, but, yes,
5 they were in the house.
6 Q. Was Mr. Jackson on the property at that
7 time?
8 A. Yes, he was.
From Salas' testimony, it is easy to come to the conclusion that Michael Jackson was, at the very least, somewhat aware of the underage drinking at his home, if he was not in the company of the boys. The wine cellar, according to Salas, was usually locked; however, this was no barrier between experimenting youth and booze. Disturbed by the constant pillaging of Michael Jackson's booze den, Salas testified that he initiated the institution of keeping the key to the wine cellar in a safe that would be inaccessible to boys. During cross-examination by Michael Jackson's attorneys, Salas stated that the safe was put in without Michael's knowledge, nor was he ever consulted following its installation.
14 Q. Okay. Now, the prosecutor asked you about a
15 safe that was brought onto the property to lock
16 keys. Do you remember that?
17 A. Uh-huh.
18 Q. And if you remember, whose idea was it to
19 put a safe where the keys could be locked?
20 A. It was the ranch manager idea and my idea.
21 Q. Did you discuss it with Michael Jackson?
22 A. No, we never did.
23 Q. You just ordered a safe?
24 A. We just ordered a safe.
25 Q. And you put the keys in the safe?
26 A. That is correct.
Taking all of Jesus Salas' testimony into account, it is not unreasonable to believe that teenaged boys were freely allowed to take alcohol from the wine cellar by Michael Jackson, while Michael Jackson was on the premises.
Neverland housekeeper, Kiki Fournier, also testified that to having seen boys drunk around Michael Jackson on at least two occasions, although she stated she'd never seen boys actually served alcohol by the King of Pop. She described the 'anything goes' atmosphere of Neverland Ranch as a Pleasure Island for young teenaged boys.
Gavin and Star Arvizo also claimed Michael Jackson had given them alcohol and, as a result, he was charged with four counts of "administering an intoxicating agent" to minors. While Jackson defenders tend to repudiate the overall Arvizo allegations, the alcohol charges seemed the most straight-forward. In fact, the Michael Jackson jurors initially had trouble deciding whether to convict on those counts.
Neverland housekeeper, Kiki Fournier, also testified that to having seen boys drunk around Michael Jackson on at least two occasions, although she stated she'd never seen boys actually served alcohol by the King of Pop. She described the 'anything goes' atmosphere of Neverland Ranch as a Pleasure Island for young teenaged boys.
Gavin and Star Arvizo also claimed Michael Jackson had given them alcohol and, as a result, he was charged with four counts of "administering an intoxicating agent" to minors. While Jackson defenders tend to repudiate the overall Arvizo allegations, the alcohol charges seemed the most straight-forward. In fact, the Michael Jackson jurors initially had trouble deciding whether to convict on those counts.
There had been dispute about whether the alcohol the Arvizo boys drank at Neverland was given to them by Michael Jackson or had they merely 'stolen' it from his wine cellar. The boys' sister, Davellin, testified that she had seen the boys drinking alcohol with Michael in the wine cellar, although Michael's defense team insinuated it was the boys who'd gotten their own drinks, as they were wild and uncontrollable.
The aforementioned house manager, Jesus Salas, gave meandering testimony that he had delivered wine and glasses to Michael Jackson and boys, which included the Arvizo brothers. However, he changes his story midway, suggesting he also brought sodas along with Michael Jackson's order of wine. Instead of the wine glasses he'd insisted on, he then recalled that the glasses were 'normal glasses', presumably glasses not necessarily used for wine-drinking. These new details dramatically contradicted previous statements he'd given police.
4 Q. BY MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Okay. Tell me -- you5 said there was a couple of times that you brought6 Mr. Jackson wine in the presence of children. Tell7 me about the first one you remember. When was it?8 A. It was at nighttime.9 Q. Do you remember when it was in terms of the10 year that you served as house manager,11 approximately?12 A. Well, it was -- I would say it was January13 somewhere. January, somewhere around there.14 Q. Of 2002, 2003?15 A. 2003.16 Q. And about what time of night?17 A. It was about -- I would say it was about18 nine o’clock.19 Q. And where did you go, what room?20 A. I went to Mr. Jackson’s bedroom, upstairs.21 Q. And what did you bring to Mr. Jackson’s22 bedroom?23 A. I brought some glasses, and some wine.24 Q. What type of wine; do you remember?25 A. I don’t remember the type of wine.26 Q. Do you remember whether it was red or white?27 A. I want to say that it was a white wine.28 Q. What type of glasses did you bring?1 A. Glass -- it was just glass wines.2 Q. I’m sorry?3 A. Glass wines.4 Q. Wine glass?5 A. No, let me back up. It was just glasses,6 normal glasses.7 Q. Normal glasses?8 A. Yes.9 Q. Were they tall glasses or short glasses?10 A. Short glasses.11 Q. Can you describe them?12 A. Short glasses.13 Q. And who ordered this wine?14 A. Mr. Jackson.15 Q. Did you talk to him personally?16 A. Yes.17 Q. What did he tell you?18 A. He called me and asked me to bring some19 glasses to his room and some wine.20 Q. Did he tell you how many glasses?21 A. Yes.22 Q. How many?23 A. Four of them.
Salas continues:
5 Q. Was Mr. Jackson or any of the children6 present when you delivered this wine?7 A. Yes, there were.8 Q. Who was present?9 A. The kids that were there. Gavin, and I10 believe it was also Frank’s brothers, the ones that11 were there. But let me tell you something else. He12 also ordered some sodas with that.13 Q. Okay. So what do you mean, “some sodas”?14 A. He also asked me to bring some sodas with15 that order.16 Q. Tell me what you mean by “sodas.”17 A. Yes, just the normal soda cans.18 Q. Soda drinks?19 A. Yes.20 Q. Now, you have previously talked to the21 sheriffs about this incident, haven’t you?22 A. Right. Right.23 Q. And described for them that you brought a24 bottle of wine and glasses?25 A. Uh-huh.26 Q. Let me back up. Let me back up.27 So you brought some wine and glasses, and28 some sodas?1 A. Uh-huh.
More:
9 Q. All right. Now, let’s go back to this10 time -- this first incident where you said that you11 served wine and soda. You have been interviewed12 about this by the sheriff’s department, right?13 A. That is correct.14 Q. And you were interviewed back in, I believe15 it was, 2003; is that right?16 A. That’s correct.17 Q. And when you talked to the sheriff’s18 department about this, you never mentioned anything19 about any soda?20 A. No, I didn’t.21 Q. And why is that?22 A. I don’t know. It just -- it just flip out23 right now to my mind.24 Q. You just remembered it just this second?25 A. Right.26 Q. And you said that you came back and the27 bottle of wine was empty?28 A. That is correct.
It had just "flipped out" into his mind right there on the stand two years later? Salas' claims are obviously fabrications and one would have to wonder how he managed to leave out such an exculpatory detail in his previous interviews.
Also corroborating the Arvizo claims was former bodyguard, Chris Carter.
Carter--a young black man who, despite no previous experience, was chosen by Michael Jackson to be his bodyguard after having been spotted across a crowded casino and on the basis of his smile and attractiveness alone--was set to be a 'star witness' for the Prosecution team but was eventually withdrawn from the witness list because of serious felony charges that may have lessened his credibility with jurors.
According to a police interview, Carter--like Jesus Salas and Kiki Fournier--saw boys drinking at Neverland and saw Michael Jackson around boys with glasses of alcohol, apparently in the midst of drinking with them. However, Carter was the only person unrelated to the Arvizos to see Michael Jackson drinking with Gavin Arvizo, not to mention Gavin allegedly told Carter that Michael insisted the former cancer patient take the alcohol "like a man."
Carter also remarked to police that the case against Michael Jackson would have been "stronger" if every witness was willing to participate.
Given the eyewitnesses to Michael Jackson's handling of booze and the numerous curious boys that went through Neverland, it seems self-evident that Aaron Carter's claims of having been given alcohol are more than reasonably substantiated. Michael Jackson apparently had no qualms about boys unlocking the wine cellar to serve themselves to his stash while he was still on the property; he kept the cellar key in plain view of his young guests.
Had Aaron Carter simply taken wine for himself, as the other boys often did, it is obvious that this was not only permitted by Michael Jackson, but encouraged: he served wine to 'special friends'. The unanswered question is what was the purpose for Michael Jackson's lax stance on underaged boy drinking at the ranch?
In addition to the wine given to him by Michael Jackson, Aaron Carter also alleged that the two smoked marijuana together when he was fifteen-years-old.
Aaron Carter says in the video (Daphne Barak is largely indecipherable):
"There's--there's another story; something--something must've happened... and--and it involves drugs. Now I don't know if this is something I want to talk about... maybe, maybe not but... [mumbles] At fifteen, I smoked weed with Michael. Hands down, swear to God. [indecipherable] But this happened. It really did. It really did."
Aaron's statements in this clip contradict statements he'd given Howard Stern, who asked him to "swear to God" he had never smoked marijuana with Michael.* It also contradicts statements given by his sister, Leslie Carter, in November 2004, as reported in the New York Daily News, where she claims Aaron told her he and Michael Jackson had smoked marijuana around the time Michael Jackson had celebrated his 45th Birthday Bash:
Aaron's sister Leslie Carter says he told her some things about his night with the King of Pop - but she's not sure how much was true.
"I think I remember him saying that he had smoked some marijuana with him or something like that. That was a really wild story he told me, but I don't know if I should believe it or not," Leslie Carter tells Barak.
Aaron Carter denied his sister's claims in an issue of People magazine, stating that the evening he'd spent with Michael Jackson had been completely harmless:
After Carter's mother Jane told "Access Hollywood" that her son had spent an unsupervised night with Jackson at his Neverland Ranch, and Carter's sister Leslie, 18, implied that drug use may have been involved, Carter told PEOPLE: "I don't do drugs. I didn't do them with Michael Jackson and I don't do them with anyone else."
We should pay attention to Aaron's language in the quote from People above. He did not deny 'smoking marijuana' with Michael Jackson--as his sister actually alleged--but 'doing drugs'. According to the statement analysis technique, every person has their own internal dictionary; perhaps to Aaron Carter, 'doing drugs' is an entirely different thing than smoking pot.
It is worth noting that two baggies of marijuana were found in Michael Jackson's Holmby Hills mansion after his death. Chris Carter also stated in his previously mentioned police interview that Michael Jackson smoked the drug.
It is worth noting that two baggies of marijuana were found in Michael Jackson's Holmby Hills mansion after his death. Chris Carter also stated in his previously mentioned police interview that Michael Jackson smoked the drug.
Michael's marijuana possession and smoking, as well as his penchant for hard alcohol, are conspicuous departures from what he told Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in his book The Michael Jackson Tapes when the two were discussing celebrities; from page 210:
Aaron Carter's admission to Daphne Barak of using marijuana with Michael Jackson is far more believable given Michael's own marijuana use. One has to wonder why Aaron Carter admitted the activity to his sister, denied it, and then confessed this second time around.
With regards to drug use, the claim left unsubstantiated from the original OK! magazine story is the cocaine. As of yet, Daphne Barak has not released any clips of Aaron claiming to have snorted cocaine with Michael Jackson, so there is a possibility that that part of the story was fabricated by either OK! or Barak herself.
The alternate explanation is that she simply did not get it on tape.
Aaron Carter did deny Michael giving him cocaine but that does not mean that it is true; after all, every other part of the story Aaron denied has been proven to have been said. In all fairness, however, prima facie, it is untrue, until a tape emerges to show Aaron Carter stating, "I did cocaine with Michael."
But just because Aaron was allegedly never given cocaine by Michael Jackson does not mean Michael never used the drug himself. Like every thing else thus far, even Michael's assumed cocaine use can be corroborated reasonably with other accounts.
At the same time three different male semen samples were found on Michael Jackson's mattress and in bed sheets and underwear he'd kept in a bag with his own soiled underwear, lab analysis discovered cocaine in those same underwear of his he'd kept together with the semen-soiled pair from his male accomplice.
"...I don't think they are real people. They love the limelight and I don't have anything in common with them. They want to go clubbing and afterwards they want to sit around and drink hard liquor and do marijuana and do all kinds of crazy things that I wouldn't do. We have nothing in common."Because Michael was witnessed smoking marijuana and had some of the substance in his home, it is reasonable to assume that what he had told the rabbi was something to make himself look more similar to the image he'd maintained for his fans.
Aaron Carter's admission to Daphne Barak of using marijuana with Michael Jackson is far more believable given Michael's own marijuana use. One has to wonder why Aaron Carter admitted the activity to his sister, denied it, and then confessed this second time around.
With regards to drug use, the claim left unsubstantiated from the original OK! magazine story is the cocaine. As of yet, Daphne Barak has not released any clips of Aaron claiming to have snorted cocaine with Michael Jackson, so there is a possibility that that part of the story was fabricated by either OK! or Barak herself.
The alternate explanation is that she simply did not get it on tape.
Aaron Carter did deny Michael giving him cocaine but that does not mean that it is true; after all, every other part of the story Aaron denied has been proven to have been said. In all fairness, however, prima facie, it is untrue, until a tape emerges to show Aaron Carter stating, "I did cocaine with Michael."
But just because Aaron was allegedly never given cocaine by Michael Jackson does not mean Michael never used the drug himself. Like every thing else thus far, even Michael's assumed cocaine use can be corroborated reasonably with other accounts.
At the same time three different male semen samples were found on Michael Jackson's mattress and in bed sheets and underwear he'd kept in a bag with his own soiled underwear, lab analysis discovered cocaine in those same underwear of his he'd kept together with the semen-soiled pair from his male accomplice.
From the reports, cocaine was found on bloodied and blood-free cuttings from the same pair of Michael Jackson's size 30 Calvin Klein briefs, along with Michael's drug of choice, Demerol. The Prosecution claimed the most likely explanation for why Michael Jackson had cocaine on different cuttings from the same underwear was that he had excreted the substance in his blood and in his urine; his attorneys disagreed. Although Michael's defense team argued that because cocaine metabolites were not detected in the forensic analysis from the underwear it was not a verification of Michael using cocaine, the point remains that cocaine was found.
Perhaps the powders came to be nestled in the weave of Michael Jackson's underwear because he hid the drugs in his pants or underwear, or, while buzzed on Demerol, he'd spilled it on himself.
What is more interesting is that, in addition to simply finding the drug on Michael Jackson's undergarments, Jermaine Jackson also alleged his brother used cocaine (among other drugs) in a 2003 book pitch, adding perhaps Michael Jackson did not know what he could be doing to the young boys who'd spent the night in his bedroom because he was high on drugs. Star Arvizo claimed Michael Jackson 'snorted' cocaine, as well.
The corroboration on the cocaine bit is more than interesting, especially given that it had been found on Michael Jackson's clothing. Although no tape exists showing Aaron Carter mentioning he'd been given cocaine, one has to wonder why the drug has, once again, been brought up in connection with Michael Jackson.
As I've stated, only as a matter of hard fact, prima facie, this part of the interview with Aaron did not occur. However, there is more than enough reasonable suspicion that that part of the interview was simply off-the-record and unrecorded.
But beyond the booze and the marijuana, the most explosive piece of interview with Aaron Carter was his admission of being in a 'funny situation' with Michael Jackson.
Transcription of the video:
AC: He wanted me to stay in his room. So, he got a cot--a bed--and, uh, I stayed on a cot in his room.
DB: And when was all of this?
AC: It must've been... it must've been 5 o'clock in the morning and--
DB: I also have a story for you that nobody has heard before...
AC:--and 5 o'clock in the morning, he's on my bed. He's on the foot of the bed. And I wake up--
DB: This is scary! (laughs)
AC:--and I'm like (gasps), "What are you doing?" Like, you know, I'm 15-years-old, you know, like, "What are you doing?" And he's [like], "Oh my God; I didn't know! I didn't know!" And he went in his bed and I'm like, you know, I'm like, "Okaaay?"
DB: You're scared because you're like, "What are you going to do?"
AC: Yeah, I mean--
DB: And what about all his kids in this thing? When he was doing all this, where were they?
AC: They were in the room right next door... in the room right next door. [pause] And usually, he didn't want anybody hanging out with his kids. No one. But me? I spent hours with his children. He allowed--he allowed me to spend time with his children because he didn't usually do--
DB: So, after you spent two days, how long--how often did you talk to him?
AC: All the time. All the time.
DB: ...just like you did before, yeah. And it was really, really tough and you couldn't tell them.
AC: I mean... it was... I mean... [end clip]
This is a very damning piece of audio against Michael Jackson.
According to Aaron, Michael Jackson invited him into his bedroom for a 'sleepover', of sorts; most likely very conscious of how an invite into his actual bed would look given the pedophilia allegations he'd faced in the past, Michael offered him a cot instead. It was then while Aaron Carter was sleeping that Michael Jackson crept onto this single-person cot. Aaron then woke up and saw Michael Jackson; Aaron's alarm causes Michael to divert from whatever original intention he'd had--apparently the activity necessitated that Aaron Carter remain asleep--and go back into his own bed.
Whatever sort of situation was avoided here, we know from Aaron Carter's tone to Daphne Barak that it was something peculiar, especially noting that Aaron Carter, at the time, would fit the mold of 'Attractive Young Boy' Michael was allegedly interested in.
We should recall Aaron Carter's description of he and Michael Jackson's relationship in the first clip released by Barak: he said there were things that had happened between the two or during their friendship that was "different", "weird". Is it possible this incident is what Aaron Carter was referring to?
Aaron did tell People magazine that he and Michael Jackson's relationship was completely innocent, which would seemingly contradict his conversation with Daphne Barak:
On his playdate at Neverland with Jackson, who has been charged with child molestation: "Michael and I have been friends for three years. I went to Neverland for his (45th) birthday bash. We were smashing cake in each other's faces. It was really cool. Until 5 a.m., me, him and Chris Tucker were out on four-wheelers, riding around in the mountains. Nothing happened between me and Michael. We didn't sleep in the same room, we didn't share a bed. We have a normal friendship. There's nothing sexual to it."
Michael Jackson's defenders have pointed out the "5 AM" mention in this People magazine interview, noting its similarity between the "5 o'clock in the morning" mention to Barak. His story to Daphne Barak, they claim, is suspect because, according to this past interview, he'd been doing something else entirely at the same time!
But let's note that in his conversation with Barak, it is pointed out that he spent two days with Michael Jackson. Why assume the day Aaron was riding four-wheelers with Michael and Chris Tucker was the same day as the bed incident? The same can be said about the fact Aaron stated he and Michael Jackson's friendship stretched back since he was thirteen; he had a whole year while he was fifteen-years-old to be in an ambiguous situation with Michael Jackson.
Aaron Carter claimed he and Michael did not share a bedroom, although, given the year of the interview--during the interim between his arrest for the molestation of Gavin Arvizo and his trial--perhaps Aaron was simply saying they never shared a room because it would have made Michael Jackson look worse than he already did.
Michael Jackson would be seen as an accused pedophile, who, even after shelling out millions to a young boy in the early 1990s, still needed his boy sleepover fix. Trying to help Michael Jackson's already dubious reputation would explain all of the previous contradictions between his past statements and the Daphne Barak interviews.
Aaron Carter claimed he and Michael did not share a bedroom, although, given the year of the interview--during the interim between his arrest for the molestation of Gavin Arvizo and his trial--perhaps Aaron was simply saying they never shared a room because it would have made Michael Jackson look worse than he already did.
Michael Jackson would be seen as an accused pedophile, who, even after shelling out millions to a young boy in the early 1990s, still needed his boy sleepover fix. Trying to help Michael Jackson's already dubious reputation would explain all of the previous contradictions between his past statements and the Daphne Barak interviews.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this entry, some fans seem to doubt the identity of the person to whom Aaron claims was at the foot of his bed, since he did not name the person explicitly. (Fans do acknowledge, however, that the situation described by Aaron Carter is disturbing.) Notably, boy-band entrepreneur Lou Pearlman--creator of Backstreet Boys and 'NSync--gets the blame for this incident at Neverland.
But this shifting of blame onto Lou Pearlman is not entirely without merit.
There had been an open secret in the world of boy-bands to which Pearlman was a key player about his attraction to the young males he auditioned or added to his numerous musical acts, as was documented extensively in a November 2007 article of Vanity Fair magazine called, "Mad About the Boys". Beyond describing Pearlman's various financial scams and his seeming predilection for thrusting himself onto his proteges, the article details the alleged impropriety between Pearlman and Aaron Carter's brother, Nick:
It was during this period, in 1997 and 1998, that the first allegations of inappropriate behavior involving Pearlman appear to have surfaced. One incident centered on the youngest of the Backstreet Boys, Nick Carter, who in 1997 turned 17. Even for many of those closest to the group, what happened remains unclear."My son did say something about the fact that Nick had been uncomfortable staying [at Pearlman's house]," Denise McLean says."For a while Nick loved going over to Lou's house. All of a sudden it appeared there was a flip at some point. Then we heard from the Carter camp that there was some kind of inappropriate behavior. It was just odd. I can just say there were odd events that took place."
Neither Nick Carter nor his divorced parents, Robert and Jane Carter, will address what, if anything, happened. But at least two other mothers of Pearlman band members assert Jane termed Pearlman a "sexual predator."Phoenix Stone says he discussed the matter with both Nick and his mother. "With Nick, I got to tell you, this was not something Nick was comfortable talking about," says Stone. "What happened? Well, I just think that he finally, you know, Lou was definitely inappropriate with him, and he just felt that he didn't want anything to do with that anymore. There was a big blowup at that point. From what Jane says, yes, there was a big blowup and they confronted him."
In a telephone interview, Jane Carter stops just short of acknowledging Pearlman made improper overtures to her son. "Certain things happened," she tells me, "and it almost destroyed our family. I tried to warn everyone. I tried to warn all the mothers." Told that this article would detail allegations that Pearlman made overtures to other young men, she replies, "If you're doing that, and exposing that, I give you a big flag. I tried to expose him for what he was years ago.… I hope you expose him, because the financial [scandal] is the least of his injustices." When I ask why she won't discuss it further, Carter says she doesn't want to jeopardize her relationship with Nick. "I can't say anything more," she says. "These children are fearful, and they want to go on with their careers."
The piece continues, expanding on Pearlman's behavior:
Since Pearlman's financial collapse, a number of his onetime band members have told Vanity Fair they experienced behavior that many would consider inappropriate. Much of what is described occurred at Pearlman's two Orlando-area homes, the white house he owned on Ridge Pine Trail and, after 1999, the sprawling Italianate mansion he acquired from Julian Benscher, in suburban Windermere. Tim Christofore, who joined Pearlman's third boy band, Take 5, at the age of 13, remembers one sleepover when he and another boy were dozing and Pearlman appeared at the foot of their bed, clad only in a towel. According to Christofore, who now runs a small entertainment business in St. Paul, Minnesota, Pearlman performed a swan dive onto the bed, wrestling with the boys, at which point his towel came off.
"We were like, 'Ooh, Lou, that's gross,'" Christofore recalls. "What did I know? I was 13."
On a separate occasion, Christofore and another band member telephoned Pearlman to say they were coming to his home to play pool. When they arrived, Pearlman met them at the door naked, explaining he was just getting out of the shower. Another time, Christofore remembers, Pearlman showed him security-camera footage of his girl group, Innosense, sunbathing topless. On still another occasion, Pearlman invited all five band members to watch the movie Star Wars in his viewing room. At one point the film switched off and was replaced by a pornographic movie. At the time, Christofore says, "We just thought it was funny. We were kids. We were like, 'Great!'"
"No one ever complained," says Tim's mother, Steffanie. "Most of the stuff, we learned about only after the group broke up [in 2001]. Lou played this game of trying to alienate the parents. Every time he dropped the boys off, it was 'Don't tell the parents anything.' They pretty much had a pact with him and they kept it." Only later did Merrily Goodell, who had two sons in Take 5, learn that Pearlman had taken one to a strip joint. "Did Lou rape my boys? No, he didn't," she says. "But he put them, and a lot of others, in inappropriate situations. I know that. To me, the man is just a sexual predator."
To this day, the question of Pearlman's behavior remains a sensitive topic among former members of his boy bands. For every young man or parent who says he experienced or saw something inappropriate, there are two who won't discuss it and three more who deny hearing anything but rumors. More than a dozen insiders told me they heard stories of Pearlman's behavior while insisting they experienced nothing untoward themselves. Asked who might have been targets of Pearlman's overtures, the names of seven or eight performers are repeatedly mentioned. Only two of these men would talk to me, and while one acknowledges hearing stories from other boys of inappropriate behavior, both strenuously deny experiencing it themselves.
"None of these kids will ever admit anything happened," one attorney who has sued Pearlman told me. "They're all too ashamed, and if the truth came out it would ruin their careers."
What may (or may not) have happened to Nick Carter remains unknown, although, given Lou Pearlman's lascivious conduct, if the allegations of impropriety are true, it was some form of sexual harassment, at the least, or sexual assault.
Regardless of the Vanity Fair story, Nick somewhat denied the situation to MTV's John Norris:
Needless to say, none of this is anything that now-27-year-old Nick Carter is keen to talk about, especially in what ought to be an interview heralding the release of a new record, but he did have a comment for those people speaking out.
"There's a lot of people who maybe were involved in our stuff in the past who want to take an opportunity maybe because they are a little bitter, you know, maybe because of where they are right now," Carter said. "And they tend to, like, throw us under the bus, you know what I mean? Because of where we are right now. I mean, I'm not naming anybody but ... any attack on any one of us in this group is an attack on the whole entire group."
When I suggested that if anyone is being "attacked" it's Pearlman and not Backstreet, Nick would only offer, "Well, not necessarily an attack, but it does affect the whole entire group. Because we've all gone through stuff together, and it just feels like, it's unfortunate that people have to talk, 'cause they have nothing else to talk about."
Fans most likely got on the 'Blame Pearlman' bandwagon because of his situation with Nick Carter.While the Pearlman connection makes sense, if only given his alleged interests and behavior, the connection between he and Aaron Carter fails in other obvious regards.
Aaron stated the man who got on the foot of his single-person cot while he was sleeping had "children". To note, the audio in the interview was not pieced together, but is continuous as he goes from the bed incident to bringing up the man's children. We know that he is most certainly talking about Michael Jackson when Aaron states the man did not want anyone "hanging out" with his children: Michael was known to isolate his children from most people. We know it is not Pearlman because Pearlman has never been married and is childless.
Additionally, Aaron Carter filed a lawsuit against Lou Pearlman in the middle of 2002, alleging that he'd been stiffed hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from the album he'd released with Pearlman's record label. Because of this--as well as the bad blood between Pearlman and the Carters--it is unlikely that Aaron Carter would sleep alone in any room with Pearlman.
We should also note the reaction of the 'unknown' man in Aaron's anecdote when Aaron questions him about what he was doing on his single-person cot: the man repeatedly apologizes and then returns to his own bed. This reaction, if the Vanity Fair piece is accurate, goes against the Lou Pearlman portrayal. Pearlman, according to the article's sources, was very sexually aggressive and bold. The man in Aaron's account, however, was meek, almost gentle; this would be more befitting Michael Jackson than Pearlman.
Finally, when Aaron Carter mentions that he and the man continued to talk "all the time", we know that is not Lou Pearlman. If Nick Carter felt so uncomfortable around Pearlman that he started to not want to go to the man's home after whatever alleged incident occurred between them, it is unlikely that Aaron--after an incident like he'd described to Daphne Barak--would 'keep in touch' with Pearlman.
Now, I only mention the Pearlman connection for the sake of holism; it is self-evident that Aaron Carter was discussing a "different" and "weird" incident with Michael Jackson.
But what should one take away from this unsettling sleepover date between Michael Jackson and yet another young, teenaged boy?
From Aaron Carter's statements, it is reasonable to suspect that Michael Jackson used his sleepovers to perhaps fondle or molest his 'special friends' and that, if Aaron had not awaken, he may have been a victim of Michael's sexual intentions. Also reasonable is the suspicion that Michael Jackson's seeming inability to give up sleeping the same room or the same bed with boys reeked of need: he needed to have boys in his bedroom.
What can we glean from these Aaron Carter revelations as a whole?
Certainly, they were said; they are also believable. And certainly, they reveal--with considerable adjuvant support--Michael Jackson's behaviors with the young males he'd befriended. Neverland is even more painted as a proverbial 'boys only' Pleasure Island; we must ponder why he allowed boys to drink alcohol with reckless abandon and why he saw no problem with giving them drugs, and is the freedom boys have at Neverland in any way linked to bringing them into his bedroom.
At the very least, what Aaron Carter describes shows Michael Jackson abandoned all judgment and responsibility when 'hanging out' with his young boy companions. At the worst, it reveals the actions of a pedophile.
It does not take too much thought to figure out into which category Michael Jackson falls.
What can we glean from these Aaron Carter revelations as a whole?
Certainly, they were said; they are also believable. And certainly, they reveal--with considerable adjuvant support--Michael Jackson's behaviors with the young males he'd befriended. Neverland is even more painted as a proverbial 'boys only' Pleasure Island; we must ponder why he allowed boys to drink alcohol with reckless abandon and why he saw no problem with giving them drugs, and is the freedom boys have at Neverland in any way linked to bringing them into his bedroom.
At the very least, what Aaron Carter describes shows Michael Jackson abandoned all judgment and responsibility when 'hanging out' with his young boy companions. At the worst, it reveals the actions of a pedophile.
It does not take too much thought to figure out into which category Michael Jackson falls.
_________________________________________________________________________________
* When asked by Howard Stern to "swear to God" that he had never smoked marijuana with Michael Jackson, Aaron Carter puts his hand over his heart and says, "I swear," but not "I swear to God," as Stern had ordered. Given that Aaron told his sister that he and Michael Jackson smoked together and that he went on to mention this to Daphne Barak, it's possible that when pressed to "swear to God" about a possible fib, Aaron was too superstitious or his belief in God prevented him to say anything but, "I swear." He does, however, swear to God when talking to Barak about this very issue of having smoked marijuana with Michael Jackson.
130 comments:
Excellent blog entry, Desiree! Aaron Carter's interview tapes are bloated with revealing info, which is why fans became so unhinged by them. Fans quickly spammed every article and blog that mentioned the story with comments denigrating both Carter and Barak. It's their typical M.O.--divulge something less than flattering about their beloved Michael Jesuson, and they will work their Dorito-stained fingertips into a frenzy poisoning the internet with lies about you.
Let's just assume, for arguments sake, Daphne Barak did embellish the drug use from marijuana to cocaine, the clips that were released were so much more telling. They corroborate two very damaging allegations raised against Jackson by the Arvizo family. The Arvizos claimed Jackson provided alcohol to Gavin--something that could have caused the boy kidney failure and forced him onto dialysis, and now we hear Jackson also provided Carter with alcohol as a minor. The Arvizos claimed that Jackson molested Gavin while he slept, and now we learn that Carter woke up to find Michael Jackson on a single person cot with him, and that Jackson panicked and couldn't come up with a clear explanation when confronted with an awakened 15-year-old Carter. These revelations are explosive, and I'm glad you're not letting them be forgotten.
Frenchie:
Thank you. I was slow on the come up but I think it needs to be mentioned.
At this point, convincing fans is pointless. They will always believe the Jacko PR mythos; nothing will ever make them see the light. They are 'Stans', and they will do anything to defend him.
These Aaron Carter convos are highly significant but the fans shred Aaron to pieces because he exposed something about Jacko. It's enough to make you sick. It really is.
Even if you held their hand and pointed everything out to them as tenderly as you could, they would still find some way to quibble with it. So, this stuff isn't for fans. I've had some people emailing me who were just looking for info on Jacko thanking me for my research.
I haven't read the transcripts with regard to the Arvizos as extensively as I did everything that had to do with the past allegations, simply because I didn't know what to think about the boys. But there are several things I do know that makes me feel pretty good that Gavin Arvizo was molested.
Of course the stuff I'd mentioned in this post, but also: the Hair-licking. Janet Arvizo stated she saw hair-licking (according to the Statement of Probable Cause) and this corroborates Bob Jones' statements that he saw Michael Jackson 'inexplicably' lick the head of Jordie Chandler. How would Janet know what she said corroborates Bob Jones if she had never talked to Bob Jones nor was it known in the media?
It's little details like this that I look for, and, really, it is what I base my entire blog on.
After all, it's the only thing you have unless you were there and have actually seen the stuff happen. I believe this to be reasonable.
Personally, I just find it strange that, even without a clip of proof, you have someone connecting Jacko with cocaine...again. The fans say the coke on his underwear was planted but I doubt it. They literally believe Sneddon and his buddies sprinkled cocaine on Jacko's panties, which is possible, but very, very unlikely.
What we are establishing here is a pattern of behavior.
Like I told you about Aaron, I think one of the most revealing things he said was the bit about MJ creeping onto his bed at night. Not only it confirms MJ was attracted to him and probably trying to molest him, it also corroborates the Arvizos claims that MJ got the boys drunk and then fondle them while they were asleep. The fans however, fail to see the conection and their first reaction it's just insulting Aaron, who was a great and trustworthy guy until now, and saying he's just a crackhead (while worshipping a drug addict) and all of this is just BS.
It's funny how they now try to put the blame on Pearlman for trying to molest Aaron. That means they think the guy Aaron was talking about was indeed intending to fondle him and they do understand it's creepy and think Pearlman is a pedophile. However, I'm sure that if it was somehow proven that Aaron was talking about MJ, they'd try to come up with some explanation about what MJ was doing, which of course wouldn't be anything sexual or bad. How is it possible they don't see it themselves? They just don't want to. Like you said, this is not really for fans because it's useless trying to convince them of something they don't wanna know. I think they're a lost cause.
Great post Desiree, as usual. I think this story is important because it is from a credible source that has always defended Mike and really, still says he's a great guy, just with "problems". It's self-evident what he said and no one should be able to deny it's factuality. Aaron Carter did mess up big time trying to deny the story and if he didn't, like you said, he'd be smooth sailing. He should have known that Daphne Barak likes a hot story so he should of just kept his mouth closed about any of the "weird" and "different" things.
About Lou Pearlman. Very juicy and entertaining article by Vanity Fair. Love them, LOL. Like Elena said, I don't understand why they'd assume it was him. It's clear they absolutely think that the bed incident is incredibly creepy and suspect, that only a pedo or someone up to no good with a 15 yr old boy would do that. Hence, it cannot be fair Michael. But as you pointed out, the dude had kids, something Lou Pearlman does not have, and the lawsuit thing with Aaron a year earlier. It's plain as the surgically altered noise on Michael Jackson's face that it was his ass that tried to do something to Aaron Carter while he was asleep. Really, it's a ridiculous issue that shouldn't even be mentioned but because Jacko fans are straight up looney tunes, LOL, it has to be. IT WAS MIKE ON HIS COT. OKAY?!?!
This shows the need for the sleepovers in my opinion. They had to be asleep for the "fun" to happen. Or if not asleep, drunk on wine and drugs. Hence the need to keep booze in reach of the kids. When will they wake up? This is real shit!
Oh thanks for the Michael L. and Chris Carter police reports! Very exciting read. I wish Sneddon would have called him to testify, it might have helped convicted him on something, at least the alcohol charges. I love that Mike hired him and that young white guy for their looks. LOL!
I wish people would get it together and just see this for what it was: he was a damn pedo. Pedos give alcohol to minors they want to molest, they give drugs. And they sure as hell would creep onto their beds while they were asleep! Maybe this drugging behavior could be what Anthony Pellicano is talking about; drugging with intent to molest. But you can't convince those that don't want to be convinced.
I've noticed that the fans who troll the internet generally seem to be outsiders...often they're overweight and rarely do they possess any physical or social charms. Maybe they see Michael Jackson, a misfit himself, as being cut from the same cloth? So to criticize Michael is to criticize one of their own. If that's the case, I can sort of understand where they're coming from, but I'd much rather they redirect their devotion to an oddball who isn't a child predator. Carrot Top could probably use some fans; I bet with enough practice, he'd even master moonwalking!
The bed incident doesn't just confirm the Arvizos. It also confirms statements from both the Quindoys and the LeMarques, who said Michael Jackson would assault the children with play, light, and sound and then molest them.
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1994/01/orth199401?currentPage=all
It's all about corroboration, at this point. As I've said.
When I put up the YouTube videos of Aaron talking about the bed incident, some fans jumped in the comments and started screaming (lots of CAPS and "!"), "He's talking about Pearlman!" I immediately sad, "No, you idiot; he's talking about Jacko."
Yes, the fans are acknowledging that what Aaron Carter described was a very creepy situation. However, they seem completely unable to put 'creepy' with Michael Jackson, who Aaron Carter was discussing.
Honestly, I've got to say, it is maddening. I've debated crazies before on other topics and they are all the same. When belief becomes 'religion', that's when the person is far-gone to any reasonable and rational discourse. So far-gone are these cultists that they will accuse you of being the crazy one and that they are enlightened!
Blaming Pearlman is nonsensical projection.
Frenchie:
I like to imagine the fans are like Jabba the Hut or some large, angry, scary big-mouthed monster. They devour anyone or anything that says something bad about Jacko.
Right now, they are all on Pellicano, bringing up his criminal past and all of that to rationalize away his statements about Jacko.
Has anyone seen the Daily Beast article's comments? They're completely spammed!
I mean, who knows? Perhaps he is just saying things. I doubt he deflected from Jacko because he had scruples.
But my thing is why would he say something about Jacko? The de facto response from fans is that he's trying to get publicity. But he doesn't need to get publicity using Michael Jackson. Obviously Newsweek got him talking because of the News of the World fiasco.
They jumped on this:
"Later in the interview, Pellicano reveals that when he agreed to work for Jackson during the star’s 1993 child-molestation case, he warned Jackson that he’d better not be guilty. “I said, ‘You don’t have to worry about cops or lawyers. If I find out anything, I will f--k you over.’ ” The detective took the assignment, but says, “I quit because I found out some truths…He did something far worse to young boys than molest them.” But he refuses to say anything more about it. It’s as if Pellicano wants to send Hollywood a reminder: I know which closets hold the skeletons."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/07/hollywood-phone-hacker-anthony-pellicano-breaks-his-silence.html
There must be something wrong with their brains if they cannot even think that there is not at all any possibility that Pellicano could be keeping it real. That is irrational.
When I think about what they did with Aaron Carter, forcing him to do a fake mea culpa, it really makes me sick.
There is no point convincing them. They repulse me with their rabid hatred.
Janet Arvizo stated she saw hair-licking (according to the Statement of Probable Cause) and this corroborates Bob Jones' statements that he saw Michael Jackson 'inexplicably' lick the head of Jordie Chandler. How would Janet know what she said corroborates Bob Jones if she had never talked to Bob Jones nor was it known in the media?
This is a very compelling point and worthy of a very short blog posting of its own. I assume she made the statement before Bob's book was published. I guess fans could argue that Bob copied her but that sounds pretty far fetched: Bob Jones reading the statement of probable cause and saying "head licking! I'll claim I saw the same thing." LOL!
When I think about what they did with Aaron Carter, forcing him to do a fake mea culpa, it really makes me sick.
And the interesting thing is that I don't think there even are that many hard core fans. Diane Dimond said she would often get bombarded with tons and tons of hate mail, but when she analyzed where it was coming from, it all originated from a small number of IP numbers. I think the core of the fan community is a small number of people with very LOUD voices, people who literally spend every waking hour spamming every article, forum or message board with even the most peripheral reference to MJ using endless sock puppets to exaggerate their numbers. That's not to deny that MJ has a large fan base, particularly after he died, but the fanatical fans are probably much less numerous than they seem. The internet is so empowering, one person can have a big impact if they're obsessively devoted to their cause.
Maybe they see Michael Jackson, a misfit himself, as being cut from the same cloth? So to criticize Michael is to criticize one of their own.
Excellent point Frenchie! I've thought the same thing. I think the fans tend to suffer from mental illness and see themselves reflected in MJ's eccentric seemingly wacko behavior. I actually think their devotion to MJ is so fanatical and seemingly irrational that there has to be an evolutionary explanation. I think in ancestral times people had to rally around the leader of their tribe because without a strong leader, the entire tribe went extinct and their gene pool disappeared. I think this predisposed people in general to rally around strong leaders who are genetically similar to them in some way to enhance their genetic fitness. So Hispanics might love Jennifer Lopez, tall athletic people might love Michael Jordan, and mentally ill people might love Michael Jackson. Ancient tribal instincts combined with mental illness is a dangerous combination.
Opinionation:
I think you're right. I should do a very short entry on the hair-licking because, as I was looking into it, it actually is a very interesting piece of corroboration, which is how I base my blog.
I agree with you that fans would just dismiss it but it's obviously true: Janet Arvizo saw head-licking with Gavin and Bob Jones saw it with Jordie Chandler, although Bob Jones tried to deny it even though there was tons of evidence showing he did want to talk about head-licking. In his book, he said that when he saw Jacko sitting there as a defendant, he couldn't reveal everything that could send him up the river.
Bob Jones knows a lot.
It's probably because he remembered black Michael. But this head-licking tends to validate Gavin's molestation.
It's little details that one should take note of, I think.
-Janet, in July 2003, claimed head-licking.
-Sometime in Aug. or Sept. 2004, Bob Jones and Stacy Brown start on the head-licking for the book.
(I don't really know how they knew it was alleged, seeing that GJ transcripts weren't released until early Jan. 2005.)
-There were emails in Oct 2004 from Bob to Stacy about the head-licking of Jordie.
-Bob had wrote something for the book about head-licking in early Mar. 2005.
If any copying was done, it was by Bob on Janet but I think it's a stretch, given all of the facts surrounding the situation.
Fans might disregard Bob Jones as sleazy but I think he's probably the most credible and eloquent of Jacko's former, so-called 'disgruntled' staff. The head-licking happened in 1993 and happened in 2003. There's no doubt about it.
If you look at that Daily Beast article about Pellicano, it's spammed by the same people I'd seen under an article written by Diane Dimond about the FBI files. I remember when Aaron Carter first came out, I saw that there were people under the videos I'd uploaded to YouTube that were under the TMZ story about him.
I do think it's a small group. On IMDB's Jacko board, I am actually surprised by some of the people on there who are 'fans' but they don't know very much. I know there are many diehards who still believe Jordie Chandler actually recanted following Jacko's death.
I don't believe these fans realize how stupid they look to most rational people. And they have the nerve to call me obsessed.
Looks like Miky is still hard at work spamming Aaron Carter's facebook. LOL. I imagine her children are like those neglected Romanian orphans you see on tv...you know, the ones who are imprisoned in dingy cribs all day without any sort of human touch.
Had Pellicano a facebook or twitter...the fans would over him!
I think the real question is why do these fans worship him? I get the misfit argument, but are they really misfits? I mean Mike didn't start out as a misfit, he was the cool kid and the super talented uber-popular celebrity. He wasn't really all that weird until he started with the chimp and the surgeries, but even them, that is more eccentric than being a "misfit". He's not like Marilyn Manson or someone like that. I guess if you refuse to stop sleeping in the bed with boys, that makes you are misfit? LOL.
I just want to know why they are so devoted. He was just one flawed individual, nothing special. why hang your hopes and dreams on him? And why defend him so vociferously when he did things that are so obviously suspect? You have to be a nutter to email someone like Pellicano in jail!
I agree, Suzy, if he had a facebook or twitter, he'd be bombarded with fanatics' rage. I wonder if they'd send him death threats? LOL. I wouldn't think he's the one to be easily intimidated by a sad Jacko fan's "over the Internet" death threat.
I imagine her children are like those neglected Romanian orphans you see on tv...you know, the ones who are imprisoned in dingy cribs all day without any sort of human touch.
LMFAO! So true! How can you take care of your kids if you spend all day Wacko Jacko obsessing? And her job is to run that Romanian site? How does she make any money on that? I hope she's single because if she was with her babies' father, he'd be mighty jealous of all the attention she pays to a dead guy. And she needs to leave AC alone. She needs to accept the harsh reality that he has brought to the light. Someone said she was "mjlover4life" on Topix, and that person really spams over and over, although I don't believe that they are Romanian, they're from Providence, RI. LOL. But MJ fans are all the same.
I wonder when was the last time Pellicano publicly proclaimed Mike's innocence? Is it possible that even during his actual date he was fired he still thought he was innocent and then later on, he dug deeper and discovered the truth?
Also, I think Pellicano may have had scruples, but I think the money he got from celebrities might put a muzzle on some of his rage at their misdeeds.
According to a March 2004 Vanity Fair article called the "The Pellicano Brief", Pellicano gets tons of money from his clients to clean up their messes.
"Just from Michael Jackson in 1995, he reportedly pocketed a $1 million fee, another million bucks as a bonus, and a sporty Mercedes convertible as still further reward."
That's a lot of cheese, and I think a really really good incentive to not squeal. He wouldn't jeopardize a payday by blabbing until he knew he could. i think it's more than reasonable to think that the money he received shut him up to things he learned about Mike.
"I hope she's single because if she was with her babies' father, he'd be mighty jealous of all the attention she pays to a dead guy."
Did you see what she wrote to Desiree on youtube? It was something like, "I'm proud to call Brett a friend." LMAO. He answered her facebook message, and now she thinks they're bffs. She's totally going to sell a couple of her daughters to buy a plane ticket to Australia. Pauline's got herself some competition!
"He wasn't really all that weird until he started with the chimp and the surgeries, but even them, that is more eccentric than being a "misfit". He's not like Marilyn Manson or someone like that."
Oh, I completely think he was a misfit...and not just because he collected little boys. Michael had great stage presence, but even when he was considered "cool," he came off awkward in interviews. The man was so uncomfortable with himself and how he was perceived by others that he ended up mutilating his face. He tried to fit in, but the more he attempted to, the more he stood out.
To be honest, I wouldn't call Marilyn Manson a misfit; with him I think it's more of an act. In interviews, he seems surprisingly normal and actually sort of charismatic.
Miky needs to quit. Just because he returned her facebook message and accepted her friend request does not mean they are friends. I think that is what people in general need to realize about social media, LOL. Brett needs to get a life. He's such a coward, why doesn't he respond to "haters" questions? I think it's pathetic. the funny thing is, the fans think anyone with a sliver of connection to Michael Jackson is a celebrity. And they latch on accordingly. Brett most likely doesn't have anything else going on because he laps up the attention from sad fans like a thirsty dog.
he came off awkward in interviews. The man was so uncomfortable with himself and how he was perceived by others that he ended up mutilating his face. He tried to fit in, but the more he attempted to, the more he stood out.
Oh okay, I see what you mean. But I wonder if it because he was mentally ill in some respects. He was after all an abused child that never got treatment and was allowed to fester in his psychological problems because he was a cash cow/celebrity. i guess I have this notion in my head that misfits are just misunderstood nonconformists. Marilyn Manson is totally weird naturally; I don't think it was an act. He, however, is totally at home in his weirdness and that's why he comes off as cool and comfortable. You have to be weird if you'd be in a film where you play the boyfriend of an unfit mother who, in a drunken state, has sex with her cross-dressing pubescent son, LOL (the movie is "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" starring Asia Argento). Not to mention rubbing your genitals on the bald head of a security guard at a concert. LOL.
But i don't get why some of the fans are so obsessed with defending his weird behavior? Is it like Opinionation said, that they too are mentally ill so they see them as their leader? Or is it that they have put all their eggs in Michael Jackson's basket, so much so that their entire lives are intertwined with his music and image. One little crack in the mythology and they are headed to the psych ward. LOL.
And in the Rabbi's book about Mike, it didn't seem like Mike was that interested in his fans the way he publicly portrayed himself to be. He didn't even read their B-day cards they (psychotically) sent to him, and he said that sometimes you have to play along when they say they know you. But that's probably the normal reaction of all celebrities: they like the fans inasmuch as they have allowed them to be famous, but they don't really like them because they are crazy and obsessed by someone they never even met.
I just want to know why they are so devoted. He was just one flawed individual, nothing special. why hang your hopes and dreams on him? And why defend him so vociferously when he did things that are so obviously suspect?
I think they're enormously inspired by his talents as an artist, his childlike innocent compassionate persona, and the fact that he overcame poverty and racism to become rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams. I also once saw a show about this woman who straight women suddenly became gay over because she had a unique combination of masculine and feminine traits (she lifted weights). I suspect that there are a lot of people who have very unusual sexual preferences who are not satisfied by the typically sexy male or female, and need someone really weird and abnormal to get turned on. Enter MJ with his bleached skin, and mix of masculine and feminine features and persona, not to mention his incredible talents, inspiring life story and loving persona and they're hooked. Plus they watched him grow up which adds to his appeal.
But I think one of the biggest reasons they're so devoted to him is they're invested. In order to be a fan of MJ you have to have defended him from ridicule and attacks for DECADES. You can't spend that much time defending someone without becoming extremely emotionally invested. You eventually reach a point where you can't let go without implicitly admitting to yourself that you were wrong and all that time and energy was wasted, so all you can do is waste more.
Or is it that they have put all their eggs in Michael Jackson's basket, so much so that their entire lives are intertwined with his music and image. One little crack in the mythology and they are headed to the psych ward. LOL.
Bingo. You hit the nail on the head perfectly.
Yes, I think the weird psychosexual thing could be apart of it. My mom, for instance, has absolutely no interest in michael Jackson's look and does not think he was sexy because he isn't manly. However, I've seen a lot of female MJ fans say they like the androgyny that he had. Maybe they also have a little of the Lisa Marie Presley thing that she wanted to "save him" because he had this wounded animal thing about him. Desiree wrote somewhere that perhaps some of these female fans are lesbians because they say they are into his weird feminine thing. LOL.
In order to be a fan of MJ you have to have defended him from ridicule and attacks for DECADES.
You know what's weird? some of his diehards weren't even fans until he was dead. Like the owner of Vindicate MJ for instance, the old Russian woman. And she's about as batshit as some of the fanatics that grew up with him.
It is about emotional investment, absolutely. The thing is, apart from some former fans that now think he's guilty, most people that have a negative opinion about Mike so not spend time looking into his cases. That's why Desiree's blog isn't huge like the fansites. And I suspect that a lot of the readers are fans "keeping a look out" on what info she is revealing. Topix has a few that are rabidly against him but our kind, LOL, are a very small number. Most people just don't care.
"you can't let go without implicitly admitting to yourself that you were wrong and all that time and energy was wasted, so all you can do is waste more."
That reminds me of a comment I saw on a forum when the Aaron Carter story first came out. A fan wrote something to the effect of, "If Michael turns out to be someone who would harmed children, it'll be terrible. It'll mean the haters have won." How warped is that? They aren't worried about the victims they have harassed for years, they're worried about losing some imaginary battle!
"Most people just don't care."
I think part of the problem is, if you casually attempt to research Michael Jackson online, you're bombarded with fan pages. When every single site you come across tells you that MJ was a victim of greedy extortionists, you assume it must be true. I was convinced! If the fan sites weren't overrun with so many mean-spirited psychos, I never would have looked elsewhere; I'd still foolishly assume MJ was an innocent man-child.
When the Conrad Murray trial begins, readership may pick up. I think more people will be curious to find information beyond the typical fan drivel.
"You know what's weird? some of his diehards weren't even fans until he was dead."
It seems like the majority of them became fans after his death. Of course, whenever you ask them, they'll tell you otherwise.
How warped is that? They aren't worried about the victims they have harassed for years, they're worried about losing some imaginary battle!
But really, that is worse to them. Us being right all along? That we know can say "I told you so!"? LOL, I can see why they would immediately think of us first. I think the victims are secondary, they are an afterthought in their minds right know, why would they suddenly think of them when they realize we were right? But when you interact with fans, especially the crazy ones, you can put up all this evidence or reasons that you think his behavior was suspicious, and they seriously will just ignore it. It's mind-boggling.
They don't see the forest, they see the trees, and the part of this entire issue is that you need to look at things as a whole, not just in parts. They latch onto parts that they think don't make sense (they actually might make sense if they would take the time to look), and say that's the reason he wasn't a pedo or he was being extorted, etc, etc. But as the saying goes, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." The fact that you have Aaron Carter pretty much confirming he was up to no good with his sleep overs, the payoffs, the nude boys books, the near pathological need to have boys in his vicinity, Terry George's phone sex session with him, etc, it's pretty clear that what we have is a lot of circumstantial evidence that he was what he was accused of being. Now, anthony Pellicano may in fact be revealing what he knows about 1993?
At least they can try to be objective, and not claim that "haters" are just jealous because he was a successful black man rivaled only by two white musical acts, Elvis and the Beatles. Actually, what is a "hater"? What do they mean when they call people that believe he may not be innocent a "hater"? It's very juvenile.
If the fan sites weren't overrun with so many mean-spirited psychos, I never would have looked elsewhere;
If fansites weren't overrun by horny pathetic female fans that just want to obsessively talk about a man's genitals in a pair of pants and who get mad when someone suggests he wasn't a womanizer, I'd probably never have looked elsewhere. That crap was sickening and, quite frankly, offensive to Mike.
LOL. I could ignore the sexual fantasies, but their revolting comments about MJ's accusers was just too much.
By the way, Jason Pfeiffer is supposedly on the witness list for Conrad Murray's defense. Do you think his relationship with MJ will be mentioned during his testimony? I kind of hope so just to watch homophobic fangirls go into hysterics.
I believe the whole 'not letting the haters win' produces about 80% of the drama between those interested in Jackson ('haters' vs. fans). As Opinionation stated, these fans have invested so much of their time into defending Michael Jackson that failure or being wrong about Jacko is an impossible possibility.
It just cannot happen.
And, if you think about it, it's quite sad. Instead of acknowledging being wrong in the face of all of the evidence against him (of the stuff publicly available), they continue to shout about half-baked conspiracies, vendettas, and people being hateful or 'haters'.
But that's just how people are. People don't like to be wrong. I'm very careful in my analyses and I try to make sure that I am not leaving any stone unturned when I write these pieces.
I want to make sure all questions or potential questions have been answered.
I just believe the fans don't WANT to open their eyes. They play these 'reasonable doubt' = innocence games.
It's very frustrating arguing with them because they either don't argue, just shout, or answer questions with questions.
I've come to the conclusion that fans believing with blind faith about Jacko are probably dumber than the general population. Most people can put together the alcohol-giving, the sleepovers, the lack of women, the accusations of gay pedophilia and reasonably assume that the man is guilty.
So, to me, it's fruitless and pointless arguing with them. I'm not saying I don't get pleasure in making them feel stupid--oh, I do--but convincing them is not a goal.
The more they bark their talking points and harass victims, the worse they look to the general public.
Frenchie:
"I think part of the problem is, if you casually attempt to research Michael Jackson online, you're bombarded with fan pages. When every single site you come across tells you that MJ was a victim of greedy extortionists, you assume it must be true. I was convinced!"
Me, too. I was convinced he was innocent because of the fan sites. I believed he was innocent from his death until about June 2010 (you can see the change on this blog in older, badly-written posts). And, I have to admit, I actually still keep the greedy extortionists thing in the back of my mind; maybe subconsciously it's being held onto because of having believed in it so long.
I actually think it's a blessing in disguise, having that much anticipatory knowledge about whatever the fans can say in rebuttal since I lived it and said the same things.
It definitely helps with writing the pieces on this blog.
Everything they say makes little sense.
I'm with Jessica. I wrote a piece like a day before the Jason Pfeiffer thing came out in May. I said I was sick of the womanizer thing about Jacko because, frankly, it's disgusting to hear fangirls type, "rub my G-spot, MJ!"
*vomits*
Also, being a rational personality type and a pragmatist, I just didn't think the delusion stood up. I thought, "You don't have to pretend Michael Jackson was some womanizer to prove he wasn't gay." It also didn't appeal to me as a feminist.
Anyway, so when Jason came out and told of their relationship, I was cautiously optimistic but always erred on the side of it being false because he was 'overweight'. Talking to him, however, after writing the piece on Klein with the help of Pippa Hudson ('Adrian), my dear friend, I got into contact with Jason and talked to him and he was very genuine.
I believed him in an instant. I believe if any fan talked to him they would be forced to believe the 'boring fling'--as he says--he'd had with Jacko. I'll be sure to write more about Jason in the future...when I have time.
I doubt their relationship will come out in trial because it really isn't relevant unless they want to say he's a scorned lover or something.
The fangirls would hate it. I think poor Murray is going to get hosed. I feel sorry for him. Michael Jackson took advantage of him because he was in a difficult money situation.
I don't care what anyone says: Michael Jackson was a pedophile and a drug addict. This stuff we know. Who cares that he died? His kids are better off and other people's sons are better off.
Who gives a shit? That's my opinion on that. I'd nullify if I was a juror. Murray should never see the inside of a cell. It was an accident, not homicide.
Again on the 'who gives a shit?' tangent, we have this post here with Aaron Carter that proves this guy was a molester. We have Pellicano, who constantly hid stuff about Jacko, saying he was a molester. We have all of this stuff.
We also have the fact he had not made and probably could not make another good album.
He was a non-factor. He destroyed his talent and his reputation with his obsession with boys and drugs.
Michael Jackson being dead may have been a blessing to Michael himself.
I am not trying to sound heartless but, really, everyone dies and this was an accidental overdose death of a drug addict who'd used the stuff that killed him before.
Everyone is going to die. This was Michael Jackson's way he was fated to die. We need to stop trying to blame people for people dying, especially if the person who died was a drug addict.
I'm not a heartless person and hearing Jacko's (good) music makes me feel sad for him. But I will not pretend like he did not outlive his expiry date a long time ago. (Is that SO MEAN and out-of-line?)
And then you have his family trying to make money off of him? (When I think of the Jacksons money proboscis I feel really sorry for the way Michael's life went.)
Okay, I'm torn on my feelings for Jacko. But, one thing is for certain: Murray should NOT go down for this BS.
[end rant]
I think this guy says what most rational people think--seriously:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2009/07/michael_jackson_1.php
When are we going to cry for the 13 percent of the US population that live under the poverty line? Or the children who are abused to make the child erotica he thumbed through?
Yes, Michael had a hard life and I cannot help but pity him because I know his sexual abuse made him the way he was, however, I refuse to feel too much compassion for some very talented but very fucked up rich pedophile... sorry, enough is enough #TeamMurray.
Why, yes, I feel like ranting. This blog needs to be linked everywhere. Fans condemning his victims, his gay lover (Jason) and his detractors or searching "Desiree NAMBLA" or "Desiree pedo" to get to my blog and thinking I'm a white male pedophile just because I believe Jacko was a child molester puts me in a dark space.
In spite of my harsh words about Jacko, he, as an individual person, does not bother me. It's his fans--the LOUD-voiced vicious fans that suppress the reality about him--that really grind my gears.
I hate his fans. Period.
Desiree,
I'm enjoying reading your articles (and the comments), as always. Maybe "enjoying" is not quite the right word!
Aaron Carter's interviews, then the conversation re: Pellicano's comments about what could be "worse than molesting," brought to mind the following article about a teacher.
It's a long read (and disturbing) but worth the time.
"Ricks -- universally described by those who know him as intelligent, friendly, generous and convincing -- used those natural abilities to get close to the teenage boys around him and to groom them for his exploits. He also became close to their friends and parents, they said, presenting himself as a caring teacher and mentor."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/24/AR2010072402605.html?sid=ST2011030302620
This was published exactly a year after MJ's death. It was a tipping point for me to read how a different (and now convicted) pedophile operated. Too many similarities between Kevin Ricks and MJ, for me, to be able to rationalize MJ as "just different" or "acting like a kid." Sadly.
Those people who say MJ had no mementos of kids forget that he filmed just about everything. So what if he didn't have a camera in the bedroom. He had plenty of other footage to watch.
I found this interesting article from Spy magazine (1995) and it mentions that there is a powerful group of gay men that run Hollywood, called the "Velvet Mafia".
http://books.google.com/books?id=jdWIRUVZ27wC&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Scroll to page 42 where the article begins.
Interestingly enough, two people from Mike's former inner circle are members: Sandy Gallin and David Geffen. The article says that sexuality plays a large part in their professional relationships. Two things strike me as it relates to Michael Jackson: one is the connection to this mob lifestyle that Mike allegedly liked to be around. You think of why he hired people like Anthony Pellicano and Bert Fields to intimidate witnesses in the 1993 case. Two, and most importantly, is the fact that these two men are openly gay. Mike's inner circle was almost completely composed of men, and many of them happened to be gay, like Geffen, Gallin, Klein, Bob Jones. There was also a rumor that circulated in the early 90s that Geffen and Mike were "romantically involved". My thing is why did Mike surround himself with such powerful gay men, men who were known to use sex in their professional relationships?
We already have pretty good evidence that Mike was having sexual relations with males in his bed form the semen they found in 2003, and Jason Pfeiffer's completely believable anecdotes about he and Mike's "boring fling". Not to mention Liz Taylor not denying him being gay on twitter. I think the fact that Mike was surrounded himself with powerful gay men and "fag hags" is tellign in itself.
Also, here is some interesting info from an email I found about David Geffen and Michael Jackson
"It gets more interesting: right before Wacko Jacko was investigated for his
own blatantly obvious perversions, he and Geffen were getting very close, as
Geffen was trying to sign him. They were seen regularly in public together.
When the "Jacko is a child molester" accusation was finally brought to the
public, Geffen suddenly ducked. I don't think it was just about a bad
business image: it was about the fact that Geffen doesn't want people even
THINKING of looking at him for pedophilia.
This is where it gets real weird: there were also rumors that Jacko was
involved in Satanic pedophilia. Yes, Jacko is a celebrity that can be used
to warp kids heads as an image (after all, Mickey Mouse, The Joker, and
Superman are also often seen by kids), but I think we can already establish
that "The King of Pop" is a pedophile, Satanists or no. Further, I can show
you some pictures off of Jacko's megalomaniacal "HIStory", and there's no
doubt that he is an even more disturbed fuck than has been alleged. My own
suspicion is that Geffen got him involved in Satanic pedophilia, because he
knew that Jacko liked little boys and had a hatred for religion after a
miserable childhood. It's a common thing for Mafia types to feed someone's
weaknesses to take them over.'
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg11317.html
I don't know if all is true but it's pretty interesting. There are a lot of people that know things about the rich and famous, but not everyone is telling.
Oh I forgot to mention Marc Schaffel, the gay porn producer. Mike loved him. LOL.
Rebekah,
Thanks for the link to the article, I put it on my things to read list. I agree, there is just too much strange things that prevents rational people from just chalking it up to a lost childhood. Really, i think about what Lisa Marie Presley said about how Mike would act a certain way around people if he felt that they had something he liked (or didn't like). I think that is why I don't believe the childlike thing was real. And I have a hard time believing that an adult would really find a child that interesting, to the point that they claim pubescent boys as one of their favorite playmates. It was all a rouse.
The fans think that just because Mike didn't have 100s of boys claiming molestation that he wasn't a child molester. But they fail to realize one, that boys disclose abuse at significantly lower numbers and two, that he had enough money to keep families quiet. With the amount of boys that staff say slept in Mike's bedroom over the years, and they fact that he showed in interest in younger boys in the late 1970s, there is no doubt that he has more than 3 victims(or 4 if you count the $300,000 payment to Ruby and David Martinez of Argentina).
"when Jason came out and told of their relationship, I was cautiously optimistic but always erred on the side of it being false because he was 'overweight'. Talking to him, however, after writing the piece on Klein with the help of Pippa Hudson ('Adrian), my dear friend, I got into contact with Jason and talked to him and he was very genuine."
At first I thought it was damn near impossible for MJ to consider someone like Jason Pfeiffer. Why would a guy into 80 lbs children want anything to do with an obese adult? Then it occurred to me--Michael might have preferred a larger man in order to feel more childlike himself.
Many CSA survivors are plagued with flashbacks of their abuse. Some are simultaneously tormented and titillated by the memories. I remember one man saying that in order to reach climax with his wife, there were times he had to think about being with his abuser. He loathed himself for it, but because his abuse happened at such a young age, he couldn't separate it from his sexuality. Maybe Michael developed these same sort of erotic feelings, and he sought out ways to reenact his own childhood abuse...sometimes as the predator and sometimes as the victim.
Frenchie,
That is some disturbing stuff. I don't think Jason Pfeiffer would ever want to be a part of Mike's twisted abuse fantasy, he'd probably be disturbed by it.
Maybe Mike also thought of bigger men as more cuddly and less prone to violence? Jason seems pretty gentle and understanding, maybe he liked that aspect of Jason.
Maybe Michael developed these same sort of erotic feelings, and he sought out ways to reenact his own childhood abuse...sometimes as the predator and sometimes as the victim.
I think this is the reason he became a pedo, and probably is the reason a lot of abusers have abuse in their past. Dr. Drew says it's "the gift that keeps on giving", especially if the person never receives psychological help, which apparently Mike never did.
I don't know why this popped in my head, but I wonder if Brett Barnes' fixation on Mike has to do with being abused and now he is erotically obsessed? it seems to fit.
Desiree, I found this funny excerpt from Blanca Francia's 1993 deposition. It shows how weird Mike was, LOL, especially regarding his odd use of pocketed underwear for a "special dance", clearly the crotch grab. Also she says he would walk around his room holding hands with a boy. Too weird.
FELDMAN: Did he [Jackson] ever call himself "doo-doo head"?
FRANCIA: Yeah. And he will tell me sometimes "doo-doo head," too.
FELDMAN: He'd call you "doo-doo head"?
FRANCIA: Yeah.
FELDMAN: How about "apple head"?
FRANCIA: No. I never hear that.
FELDMAN: Was it a term--do you know what, like, a term of endearment is? Would he affectionately use the term "doo-doo head" or would he use it to criticize somebody? I'm trying to get a sense of how he would use the term "doo-doo head."
FRANCIA: Yeah. Like--like he will say, "Oh, I'm hungry and I don't know what to eat. Maybe some doo-doo" He will say that and-or he said to me, "This is doo-doo."
FELDMAN: When you'd see them [Jackson and an unnamed boy] together--forget what you've already told us about seeing them in bed and stuff; but when you'd see them together, would you see [the boy] on Michael Jackson's lap?
FRANCIA: No
FELDMAN: Would you see them hugging or holding hands?
FRANCIA: Holding hands.
FELDMAN: Were you uncomfortable with that when you'd see it?
JUDGE COCHRAN: I don't think that's relevant material, but go ahead.
FELDMAN: Go ahead.
FRANCIA: I feel funny about--
FELDMAN: Were they holding hands in a way that made you feel funny, or were they just kind of holding hands as a man and--you know, as a dad and a kid might hold hands?
COCHRAN: That calls for some rank speculation, and is argumentative, the term "funny".
FELDMAN: Tell me how they were holding hands.
FRANCIA: They would walk around the house holding hands.
FELDMAN: Just walking around the house?
FRANCIA: Yeah. Walking in the room.
FELDMAN: Now, the children that you saw in bed with Michael Jackson, were they always boys?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: Did you ever see any little girls in bed with Michael Jackson, I mean young girls?
FRANCIA: No
FELDMAN: Did you ever see any adult women in bed with Michael Jackson?
FRANCIA: No.
FELDMAN: Did Michael Jackson ever have a monkey?
FRANCIA: Yes, he had a monkey?
FELDMAN: And was the monkey in Encino?
FRANCIA: Yes. Bubbles.
FELDMAN: Bubbles? Where did Bubbles sleep in Encino?
FRANCIA: In his bedroom in a cage.
FELDMAN: In his bedroom?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: And did Bubbles wear and kind of diaper or anything?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: Was he bare-chested, too?
HOWARD WEITZMAN: I'm sorry. That's naked, bare-chested for the monkey.
COCHRAN: I see.
WEITZMAN: Diaper.
FELDMAN: Now, Miss Francia, you told us before that you would buy Mr. Jackson's underwear for him, right?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: Did there ever come a point where you started realizing Mr. Jackson was missing underwear? Would he be losing it someplace?
FRANCIA: Yes. I keep buying and buying a lot of underwears, and sometimes he will have so many. Sometimes he would have like 60.
FELDMAN: 60, six-zero?
FRANCIA: Yeah. 60. Fifty or sixty underwear.
FELDMAN: In his drawer?
FRANCIA: In his drawer. And it was like a lot. And then I say, "You have a lot of underwears." And he say, "Well, sometimes they get too tight."
FELDMAN: Happens to us all.
FRANCIA: Uh-huh.
FELDMAN: did you ever--did Michael Jackson tell you--did Michael Jackson ever tell you when to buy his underwear?
FRANCIA: No.
FELDMAN: Did there ever come a time where Michael Jackson was missing underwear?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: Where the supply would go down?
FRANCIA: Go down.
FELDMAN: And you'd have to go buy them?
FRANCIA: Yeah. There were times when I notice that he only wear--like only five he will use, and the other ones were put aside. He would look for the special ones that he wanted to wear. And I remember this time--well, I don't know if I'm supposed to say it.
FELDMAN: What? Go ahead.
FRANCIA: No. That he had one with a little pocket in the front, and he asked me what I think about that, that--
FELDMAN: And what did you say?
FRANCIA: --that expression. And I say, "Well, I don't know." And he say, "Well, it's just that I use it for a special dance."
FELDMAN: The underwear with the pocket?
FRANCIA: With the little pocket.
COCHRAN: This is a pocket or a puppet?
FRANCIA: A pocket.
COCHRAN: Pocket?
FRANCIA: Uh-huh.
FELDMAN: Did he tell you what special dance he was doing?
FRANCIA: No, no. I didn't say it. And he say--he say sometimes he will throw them away.
FELDMAN: So sometimes literally the underwear would disappear?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: And he would tell you he threw them away?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: And then you'd go out and get new ones?
FRANCIA: Uh-huh, yes. And he says--one time he says, "Don't get surprised if you see any dirty underwears, because sometimes I can't hold go to the bathroom and I will just go in my underwear."
FELDMAN: So you'd see his underwear stained sometimes?
FRANCIA: Yes. That's why he--
FELDMAN: And it would be stained in the front or in the back, his underwear, from moving his bowels or from urinating kind of stain?
FRANCIA: From urinating, yeah.
FELDMAN: Could you tell whether the stains in the front were from urine or maybe from semen?
COCHRAN: That calls for speculation, conclusion.
FRANCIA: I wouldn't--
FELDMAN: Would you know? Could you tell?
FRANCIA: I can't tell the difference, because I saw--I just picked them up and put them with my dirty laundry and that's it. I just don't want to--
FELDMAN: So are you saying--
FRANCIA: Don't want to find out.
FELDMAN: You don't want to find out?
FRANCIA: Yes.
FELDMAN: You would know the difference, but you never tried to find out?
FRANCIA: Yes.
Jessica,
I´ve researched about Geffen before and I´ve found that interesting thing:
http://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/3/lot/447/
Michael Jackson signed letter to David Geffen dated "June 21, 1990" written on MJJ Productions stationary, thanking Geffen for flowers sent during an illness. Letter reads in part, "Thank you for standing by me. You're wonderful!" signed in red marker by Michael Jackson. With original transmittal envelope. 10 1/2 by 7 1/4 inches
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/corey-feldman-pedophilia-problem-child-actors-contributed-demise/story?id=14256781
If that is true, then Desiree has stumbled upon a far bigger, frightening picture of Hollywood as a whole - not just MJ who could be both victim and offender. The question is as always, if everybody could talk (including Pellicano who could be remarking exactly about this in his Daily Beast interview) as they wanted, then Hollywood film industry would shaken up entirely...
"I don't think Jason Pfeiffer would ever want to be a part of Mike's twisted abuse fantasy, he'd probably be disturbed by it."
There would have been no reason to tell him. The man I referred to earlier never told his wife about his abuse fantasies for the same reason--she would be too disturbed by them.
MJ was obsessed with young boys, so it's not implausible that he may have derived pleasure from imagining himself as a young boy in a sexual situation. Choosing someone much larger than himself would have been one way to accomplish that fantasy.
"I wonder if Brett Barnes' fixation on Mike has to do with being abused and now he is erotically obsessed? it seems to fit."
It does seem to fit. Oh man, can you imagine being with someone and images of Michael Jackson keep popping into your head? I think I'd become a nun.
"If that is true, then Desiree has stumbled upon a far bigger, frightening picture of Hollywood as a whole - not just MJ who could be both victim and offender."
Now that you mention it, when the cocaine story first came out, I remember a gossip forum discussing the possibility of there being a "Hollywood Pedo Ring"...
http://goo.gl/OhV2b
Well if there is a pedo ring in Hollywood, I wouldn't be surprised. it's easy to get fragile narcissists from bad homes to do what you want them to do because they want so badly to make it and be accepted in Hollywood. They want to be apart of the club.
I know many in show business had to work the casting couch. Howard Stern has said that Jamie Foxx is gay and he worked the casting couch hard, sleeping with various different men. Even straight people might have to go gay to get their feet in the door.
I've heard many singers talk about older music producers praying on impressionable young female singers. Dallas Austin got severely blasted for being honest, but he said that singers like Joss Stone have "sucked dick for dollars" to work with the best producers, he also said Christina Aguilera was one of those types too.
People will do anything to be in that small influential circle of Hollywood elites. Look what happened to Mike, he was pimped to businessman on the "Chitlin' Circuit" by his own father. Abuse like that is not easily fixed with out intervention and Mike became what abused him.
It's funny, though, that MJ fans will bring up conspiracies about a Hollywood pedo ring, and be so damn quick to label others as pedophiles that prey on young people but the never, ever label Mike's obvious obsession with pubescent boys as pedophilia. He is immune from criticism. Look how he operated with Wade Robson. He brought him over from Australia and promised to sign him on his MJJ Records label, but it took until December 1993 before he even got the deal, and poor Wade had ben pimped by his mother, Joy Robson, and spent night after night in Mike's bedroom for 3 or so years! How is that not predatory? And look at Omer Bhatti, he was pimped by his mother and father and he lived with Mike after Mike "discovered" him in Tunisia when he was at the perfect age of 12. Protege my ass, how many proteges live and sleep in the bed with their mentors?
He was a pedo, too.
The thing about Lindsay Lohan and Tommy Mottola would not surprise me. Mottola did Mariah Carey when she was first starting out, and that was her "first". Yuck. I wonder if Rene Angelil was one of those types because he met Celine Dion when she was 13, although they are still married. Mackenzie Philips said that Mick Jagger told her he had wanted to sleep with her when he first saw her at 10, but he waited until she was 16 or 17.
About that article corey Feldman article, I don't know if I agree with him that the pedo issue is the number one thing in Hollywood that is affecting child stars. I actually disagree with that. I think it's possible that Corey Haim struggled because of the abuse but I agree with Haim's mother, I think Feldman should just talk about himself.
The biggest problem with child stars is the no rules and no boundaries that they are exposed to at a young age, and the fact that they can have anything they want. That includes life in the fast lane and drugs. Danny Bonaduce would probably disagree with Feldman since his issue is with drugs.
Really, that's the biggest problem. I highly doubt that most child stars are victims of Hollywood pedophiles. I'm not trying to minimize Corey's story but I think he might be painting with broad brushstrokes.
Pedophilia probably isn't the #1 problem facing child stars, but I bet the statistics would be alarming. The children are surrounded by enormously powerful adults who don't have to answer to anyone. It's a vulnerable situation to be in.
Really, it doesn't seem like child molestation affects a person's success in the entertainment industry quite as much as it would elsewhere. Just look at Victor Salva; he filmed himself abusing a 12-year-old actor, and he has still gone on to have a lucrative directing career. Hollywood has been supportive of Roman Polanski despite him drugging a 13-year-old, penetrating her in two orifices against her will, and then fleeing the country to avoid sentencing. And of course there's Woody Allen cheating on Mia with her daughter...a girl he watched grow up (that doesn't necessarily mean Allen acted inappropriately with her when she was a child, but it's certainly disturbing). Then there are those rumors about Lou Pearlman and Chris Stokes, and I'm sure some other people I'm forgetting. I doubt there is actually some organized pedo ring, but there sure are a lot of creepers in the industry.
Frenchie, I think your explanation for why MJ might have been attracted to Jason is very clever; spot on actually. Google Michael Jackson erotic identity disorder and you'll find an article by professor Michael Bailey. Desiree didn't like the article but I found it compelling. Bailey argues that MJ is a homosexual autohebephile who is turned on by being like a child. He argues that the plastic surgery was an attempt to look something like Peter pan and MJ's alleged anorexia also makes him look more boyish. What better way to feel like a skinny kid than to spend time with a large and heavy man? I don't know whether he's trying to relive the alleged sexual abuse MJ suffered as a child or if he was just born with impaired sexual wireing in his brain, or both of the above, but I agree he was turned on by being childlike.
Most people here seem pretty convinced that people become child molestors because they were sexually abused. I don't dispute this but it seems safe to say ere are millions of abused people who never grow up to abuse children. Statistics probably show that child molesters are far more likely to have been abused as children but correlation does not equal causation. Perhaps it's not the abuse that's causing the future pedophilia but rather that molesters are more likely to target children who they think might be responsive and those are the type of children who grow up to molesters had they been molested or not. Or it could be that children tend to be molested by family members and since their family includes child molesters, the children themselves might carry the pedophile gene and so they would have become molesters regardless of whether they were abused. All of this is wild speculation; just trying to think outside the box a bit.
Opinionation, I like your "wild speculation", LOL.
I have read that article by that guy and I have to agree with Desiree on that one. I think he is taking a little too much liberties with the whole issue. And he seems to be clinging onto media stereotypes and gossip about Mike to form the basis for his analysis. i think that the simplest explanation for what he was is just a pedophile or more specifically a fixated pedophile. Not a "homosexual autohebephile". It's just too strange, in my opinion, and even he said basically an off the wall theory is needed for an off the wall kind of guy that Michael Jackson was. Actually, that's one of the reason some people don't like psychology is because they seem pretty liberal and unscientific in their diagnoses.
the children themselves might carry the pedophile gene and so they would have become molesters regardless of whether they were abused
If there was a "pedo gene", and I have no doubt that this is not the case, what would be the evolutionary purpose of this gene? Genes usually have a purpose when they are made in the cell, because organisms will likely not expend energy manufacturing genes that are not useful or necessary... that, or they will regulate them so that unnecessary genes are not expressed. I just do not see a purpose in a gene like this. It's not practical to be solely desirous of humans that are not mature enough to bare children, so in that case, a person with this gene would probably not have descendants that would pass on this gene. So this is an unlikely theory, sorry to say. It's possible that a random mutation in a "sexuality gene" could have occurred to make this happened, but again, it's doubtful. Sot his theory probably wouldn't hold weight. I know many criminologists and law enforcement are turning more and more science for answers to what makes a criminal tick (and what makes someone a criminal), but I personally think it's a fruitless endeavor. Statistics have shown that a lot of convicts tend to have lower average IQs, but than you have serial killers and other violent killers that have well above average intelligence. If they are all "criminals" shouldn't they have a biological flaw that would ubiquitous in all of them, as to mark them as criminals?
I don't dispute this but it seems safe to say ere are millions of abused people who never grow up to abuse children. Statistics probably show that child molesters are far more likely to have been abused as children but correlation does not equal causation.
Well I think here, correlation does equal causation. Most people abused as kids don't grow up to be abusers, but most abusers were abused as kids. You have to learn it somewhere, and it's said that unless you treat trauma early, it will have a profound effect on later life. These pedos clearly have a warped view of boundaries, which they most likely learned from being abused as children. I just can't find any other explanation as to why they'd be attracted to kids. I think of feral children and I understand the importance of early childhood learning and experiences. These pedos had to learn this behavior, in my opinion.
And of course there's Woody Allen cheating on Mia with her daughter...a girl he watched grow up (that doesn't necessarily mean Allen acted inappropriately with her when she was a child, but it's certainly disturbing). Then there are those rumors about Lou Pearlman and Chris Stokes, and I'm sure some other people I'm forgetting
I don't know if I believe that Woody Allen was a pedophile. He just doesn't "fit", because although his wife was a young teen when he started to like her, they are still married. It's not as if he was, and still is, patrolling for underage girls like R. Kelly or something. I believe it was a matter of the heart wants what it wants, they just happened to have met when she was a girl. It may look creepy but I don't think it really is. Same with Celine Dion and Rene Angelil.
The story about Chris Stokes is interesting, although I have a hard time believing it (for my own cultural reasons). But I have to admit that guys usually don't lie about being molested by a man, it's the whole homosexual connection they don't want. So in this case, it's probably good to believe the accuser. here's the phone call of Raz-B and another guy accusing Marques Houston (hmmm... i don't think so) and Chris Stokes of sexual abuse:
http://www.queerty.com/b2k-producer-chris-stokes-singer-marques-houston-3rd-victim-comes-forward-claiming-rape-20101026/
Like in the Michael Jackson case, fans like to say that Jason was forced to say he was abused by police, but of course it's BS. I believe him when he said he didn't want anyone to think he was gay. He was a teen, he was religious, and he's Hispanic. Hispanics, like the black community, have almost a zero tolerance policy about gay behavior. so why would he say he was abused and testify to it in open court, crying on the witness stand? Plus, the molestation was so minor in comparison to Jordie Chandler that it has to be true. Francia was going to testify in 1993 had Jordie testified but he was too embarrassed to do it alone and it was too minor of an incident that it would be pointless to prosecute.
"I don't know if I believe that Woody Allen was a pedophile. He just doesn't "fit", because although his wife was a young teen when he started to like her, they are still married."
Nah, I wouldn't consider him a pedo based on that, but as I said, it's disturbing, and I always side-eye the guy. It also doesn't help that Mia accused him of molesting their 7-year-old daughter. It might have been motivated by revenge though...
"but most abusers were abused as kids."
Childhood abuse definitely increases your chances of becoming an abuser, but I'm unconvinced that most abusers were victims since there have been studies which suggest otherwise:
"Early childhood sexual victimization does not automatically lead to sexually aggressive behavior. While sex offenders have higher rates of sexual abuse in their histories than expected in the general population, the majority were not abused. Among adult sex offenders, approximately 30% have been sexually abused. Some types of offenders, such as those who sexually offend against young boys, have still higher rates of child sexual abuse in their histories" (Becker and Murphy, 1998).
"67% of sex offenders initially reported experiencing sexual abuse as children, but when given a polygraph ("lie detector") test, the proportion dropped to 29%, suggesting that some sex offenders exaggerate early childhood victimization in an effort to rationalize their behavior or gain sympathy from others." (Hindman and Peters, 2001)
I think there are all sorts of factors that may lead towards pedophilia. As I mentioned once before, one study found that left-handed men were three times more likely to be pedophiles. That would seem to suggest there may be a neurological predisposition for pedophilia.
"Google Michael Jackson erotic identity disorder and you'll find an article by professor Michael Bailey."
Thanks for the suggestion, Opinionation--interesting theory. We know Michael liked to be viewed as childlike by others, and we know he had an erotic interest in children. It's not a leap to assume he may have been aroused by imagining himself as a child.
Jessica I think that when there's no obvious evolutionary explanation, it's very logical to look for environmental explanations and sexual abuse is a good candidate since it's usually the victim's first sexual experience.
On the other hand pedophilia seems to have a lot of biological correlates like left handedness, reduced height, brain abnormalities and fraternal birth order. These dont necessarily imply a genetic explanation (fraternal birth order is not genetic) but it does imply at least a partly biological explanation. When most people talk about the environment, they think only of the social environment, but I suspect the most potent environmental effects come from the biological environment, especially the prenatal period.
On the other hand, causation is hard to untangle. It could be that the biological correlates of pedophilia are largely spurious because pedophiles often target vulnerable children who later become pedophiles and vulnerable children often
have biological defects, but it could be the biological defects causing them to become abused which causes them to become abusers rather than the biological defects causing the pedophilia directly.
On the other hand it might not be far fetched to think pedophilia is not only biological, but genetic. In ancestral times child mortality was sky high because women simply did not have the resources to look after all the many children women used to have, so having a pedophile relative who was all too willing to
volunteer to babysit may have increased the family's genetic fitness, even if the kids were severely traumatized by the experience. In other words, families with more pedophile genes would produce more babysitters, and thus more offspring would survive long enough to pass on those pedophile genes.
Pedophiles may also pass on their genes simply by having more children so they have more children to abuse. It's all very creepy and very speculative, but until more research is done, we just don't know. If forced to guess I would say genetic, prenatal, and social factors all play a role to varying degrees. I disagree with your assertion that people need to learn pedophilia from somewhere. Sex acts come pretty naturally to most animals.
RE serial killer IQ
I've read that serial killers average IQ's of 110 which is indeed way higher than the criminal average of about 90. The explanation for this is probably that higher IQ people tend to be more successful at whatever they set their mind to, so probably it's mostly the smartest 10% or so of criminals who have the brains to outsmart the police and their victims long enough to kill enough people to qualify as serial killers. So while low IQ people might be far more likely to attempt crime, it's mostly the high IQ subset of criminals who succeed at the more skilled crimes.
Similarly, Jon gotti also had an IQ of 110. Any Fool can be a thug if they're
tough enough, but it takes an IQ of 110 to rise to the top of organized crime. Of course 110 would not be high enough to rise to the top of a legitimate organization where gotti would be forced to compete with IQ 120 PhDs and lawyers instead of IQ 90 criminals that he could easily dominate.
"On the other hand pedophilia seems to have a lot of biological correlates like left handedness, reduced height, brain abnormalities and fraternal birth order. These don't necessarily imply a genetic explanation (fraternal birth order is not genetic) but it does imply at least a partly biological explanation."
I agree. I believe the abused to abuser link tends to be exaggerated. While childhood abuse increases a person's chances of developing pedophilia, assuming it's the main cause of pedophilia oversimplifies the issue. I posted a comment about this earlier, but the spam folder seems to have eaten it.
Frenchie, I rescued your comment.
Frenchie,
I don't doubt the validity of the numbers from the studies you linked. They are probably accurate. Sexual abuse might not be common in all child molesters but I am willing to wager it's still a common feature; of course, the authors may just say they are lying. and I agree with the study about pedophiles attracted to boys tend to have more child abuse in their histories.
But the problem I have is the possible motivation of those who are doing the study. Is it possible that the authors have biases against sexual offenders that would cause them to look for reasons not to have sympathy for those who abuse children? Maybe they want to downplay the "past victim" angle because it makes it easier for a jury to have sympathy for a defendant who is accused of abuse, and therefore perhaps issue a lighter sentence. There have also been judges that would rather send a pedophile to treatment than put him away because of past abuse. Law enforcement and members of the community hate child molesters so there is an extrinsic drive for the authors of the study to come up with a way to invalidate sex offenders' most used defense.
I'm not saying that this is the case and this is definitely what the authors are doing, but I would not be surprised if this played a small part in their studies.
It's not a leap to assume he may have been aroused by imagining himself as a child.
I agree with this, Mike may have liked thinking he was a child in sexual fantasies. Fixated pedophiles like to engage with their victims as a child engaging with another child.
Isn't the term "autohebephilia" abut being sexually aroused by oneself as a teenager, primarily? I don't know if Mike would fit this. Fixated pedophiles like to think of themselves as younger and still have primary interest in children.
I also think it that it is possible that the authors of these types of studies that look for correlates in pedophilia may be trying to dehumanize sex offenders because most people are highly disgusted by their crimes. By saying that they lie or "exaggerate" their abuse histories or that they have a brain abnormality, etc, it could be a way to justify mistreatment.
If you dehumanize the enemy it makes it easier to subject them to mistreatment and deny them their civil and constitutional rights. People may claim that pedophiles and other sex offenders are incurable so that would justify the highly unconstitutional move to further incarcerate sex offenders after their time has been served.
I feel that this may be a very strong motivating factor in those studies.
Opinionation,
I agree with you about the environment, it's more than just social. But I guess in my head I categorize things that happen prior to being born as biological, since they can be genetically incorporated into the fetus. But that's my own definition.
On the other hand pedophilia seems to have a lot of biological correlates like left handedness, reduced height, brain abnormalities and fraternal birth order..... It could be that the biological correlates of pedophilia are largely spurious because pedophiles often target vulnerable children who later become pedophiles and vulnerable children often
have biological defects, but it could be the biological defects causing them to become abused which causes them to become abusers rather than the biological defects causing the pedophilia directly.
This is why I don't fully accept biological/innate/genetic arguments for causing pedophilia. All of these imply that there is something wrong with a pedophile which causes their criminal behavior. But perhaps we want to label their behavior as caused by a flaw because we as a society find their behavior disgusting and unsavory. It could be more about us socially labeling pedophilia as wrong and therefore we try to look for ways to justify our belief by pointing to discrepancies in their makeup. There have been many cultures that have embraced pedophile behavior as a normal and viable option on the sexuality continuum, such as Ancient Greece, people of the Pacific Islands, various Native American groups, the Middle East, etc. I'd hardly believe that many of the great Greek philosophers would be labeled as having a brain abnormality because they championed man-boy love!
I disagree with your assertion that people need to learn pedophilia from somewhere. Sex acts come pretty naturally to most animals.
Pedophilia is about being sexual aroused by children. It's mental more than physical, because one can be a pedophile without ever having touched a child. It's not an act per se, as many child molesters are not actual pedophiles. If our society condemns viewing children as viable sexual objects, how would one come to view it as such? I can image in their early childhood was filled with instances where sexuality was defined by child and adult relations, I could see how this mentality could develop, because this is the most powerful example that the person is witnessing. Likewise, I hardly think that in Ancient Greece they all of a sudden said, "Hey let's hump kids!", and therefore commenced to validate pedophilia. It actually seems like in Ancient Greece and in parts of the Middle East, pedophilia was outwardly preferred in some circles because there was an intense hatred and subjection of women.
I also think of feral children and mentally disable children, and about what seems learned and what seems entirely biological. Forgive me if this example seems twisted but I think it's illustrative of my point on pedophilia. I saw a doc about a woman how adopted many, many, mentally retarded children. The mother said that some of them were entering puberty and were noticing the opposite sex. Of course this is expected because they cannot control the hormones responsible for reproduction. However, how many would you say would become pedophiles? As the term is defined in the DSM, pedophilia is the sexual desire to be with children accompanied by intense fantasizing about children. It's mental. Since these people are mentally retarded and yet still feeling the effects of endocrine hormones, how many would be able to fulfill the psychiatric definition of pedophilia? I think none, because it involves mental processes of fantasy and desire. But why then are they sexually attracted to the opposite sex? This drive seems much more biologic than orienting towards children. Therefore I believe one has to be capable of learning to orient or fantasize about children, and this is done through environmental (social) stimuli.
some could say that there are those in prison who may seem to have low IQs/ seem mentally slow that are convicted of molesting children. But are they clinical pedophiles? I don't know...
Jessica, the DSM definition of pedophilia doesn't sound very precise or objective. Here's my definition: anyone who gets more sexually aroused by children than by adults or teens. Sexual arousal can be precisely measured by phallometric tests which are a physical measurement of penis enlargement when viewing stimuli. The study I saw found that the lower the IQ, the more sexually aroused men were by children, so by this definition, I suspect pedophilia would be MORE common among mental retardates, probably much more common. We just don't notice it because the retarded population is so small, and because we assume they just don't know what they're doing, and because they don't have the intelligence to groom victims.
Saying they can't be pedophiles because they lack the mental capacity to really fantasize is so arbitrary because by that standard they can't belong to any sexual orientation.
You raise an interesting paradox by citing the ancient Greek philosophers. How can pedophiles have brain abnormalities when so many were so gifted? Perhaps their brains are abnormally bad in some areas but abnormally gifted in others? Or perhaps a lot of geniuses explored pedophilia simply because geniuses are often unusually liberal in their views on sexuality and like to question traditional values? Or it could be that pedophiles are like left-handed people in that they have more EXTREME IQ's. Left handedness is more common among retardates but it's also more common among the gifted. Pedophiles might have a similar IQ distribution but we just don't know it because we only sample the low IQ ones in prison, not the high IQ ones running Hollywood.
It would be interesting if pedophilia was more common in ancient times. It's well known that before the 21st century, brain size, IQ, and height were all lower because sub optimum nutrition was more prevalent (see the flynn effect) so some of the environmental insults that might give rise to pedophilia might have also been more common.
Speaking of phallometric tests, tom sneddon should have got a court order to make MJ take one. That would have been a powerful piece of evidence in court, depending on the test results.
Jessica:
The story about Chris Stokes is interesting. Because I, too, am black, it's hard for me to come to grips with such an allegation from both sides. It's sort of similar to the Eddie Long situation (although it's obvious that he was guilty).
On the one hand, it's hard for me to imagine a black man molesting a male or raping a male or coercing another male into sexual activity in such a way. But opposite to that I know that, because of our community, a black man would rarely lie about being the victim of sexual abuse or engaging in homosexual behavior.
So, because of both, I am torn. I tend to believe it simply because a black man--especially one many girls find very desirable--simply would not lie about being anally penetrated.
It just doesn't happen in our community. It's the same with the Eddie Long allegations. I knew that the boys had to be telling the truth because lying about being in gay sexual relations is not something a black person would do.
I believe this is the reason many blacks--definitely not all--don't want to believe or have a hard time believing Jacko was a pedophile.
I know that Bob Jones said Michael Jackson sort of intimated that Joe Jackson sexually abused him and he had a hard time believing it because Joe wasn't 'like that' (although Bob Jones was gay).
Corey Feldman strikes me as attention starved and a little 'off'; I don't like to say that because he was an abuse victim but I really feel he's 'off'. In Carl Toms' book, he said that he didn't believe Corey's claim of a pedophile sex ring in Hollywood; mainly, this was because Toms is the type of person to defend man-boy sexual relations. I can see it being possible, pedophiles in Hollywood.
I don't think it is anything like something in "Eyes Wide Shut" or "Rosemary's Baby"--some creepy cult where young stars have to perform sex acts--but I definitely believe in a 'casting couch'. Perhaps young stars have to do something, too.
I've been seeing Emma Stone in a lot of movies lately; I like to imagine (not for perverted reasons) that these people are trading sex for fame.
It fits. I believe it.
Oh, Opinionation! LOL.
Okay, let me just say that I do not follow the school of thought that attributes behaviors to biology. I do not, and for that reason alone, I will not agree with you on any biological basis for pedophilia. It's a psychosexual disorder, and I believe the definition in the DSM.
By the way, I strongly believe that the individuals tested to be representative of pedophiles are NOT actual pedophiles. Actually most people who molest children are situational molesters, in that when the situation arises they are willing to take out sexual feelings on children, because of their relative availability. These types tend to be lower class, have lower intelligence, are more violent, and are more prone to maladaptive behaviors and activities. Pedophiles, on the other hand, are solely interested in children and center their lives around children. Contrary to belief, pedophiles can and do form relationships with adults, but perhaps not romantic relationships. These types are considered preferential child molesters. They tend to be law abiding, have higher incomes, have higher levels of education, and tend to occupy a higher social status. They actually like children and are generally do not engage in violence. Of course the bell curve applies to every group and I'm sure there are pedophiles that are more socially inept than others. But I wouldn't classify pedophilic impulses as chiefly or more likely the domain of the mentally retarded. I believe the opposite is true, generally.
It's common in the media to mislabel what an actual pedophile is. and I think that contributes to why people tend to study he wrong individuals for their data on pedophiles.
Saying they can't be pedophiles because they lack the mental capacity to really fantasize is so arbitrary because by that standard they can't belong to any sexual orientation.
I only speak to the definition as what constitutes a clinical diagnosis of pedophilia. They would not fit the definition because they are not consumed with fantasies of bedding children. The brain is more important than the reproductive organs in this definition. What is more interesting is the fact that these mentally retarded children exhibited heterosexuality, which may give credence to the argument that this is what is "normal" for humans and all else is some how either the result of a biological error in the gene or fetal environment or that it's a learned behavior.
If it is somehow hard wiring to engage in pedophilic thoughts and actions, and that the trait is basically immutable, do we then have a right to label pedophilia as bad and punish those that molest children? They cannot change so there is only three options: 1. accept it as an alternative lifestyle, 2. kill them, either pre or post birth, or 3. lock them away forever so they can't get access to children. If it is biological we really have no right to treat them as criminals because they cannot help who they "love". It would be a violation of human rights, especially since many of them are productive members of society.
That's why I don't agree with the bio argument, it leads to ethical and moral problems.
You raise an interesting paradox by citing the ancient Greek philosophers. How can pedophiles have brain abnormalities when so many were so gifted? Perhaps their brains are abnormally bad in some areas but abnormally gifted in others?
See it's the language. We see it as "abnormally bad", but is that not our own perception that it's bad, giving our societal norms? Or is it bad because reproduction is not possible, either because the child is the same sex or because of age?
Speaking of phallometric tests, tom sneddon should have got a court order to make MJ take one. That would have been a powerful piece of evidence in court, depending on the test results.
I totally agree Sneddon should have tested Mike. But I wonder if he'd be able to do it? In US a defendant cannot be forced to undergo a lie detector test (it's not admissible in court anyway), I would think that a phallometric test would be a violation of his 9th Amendment right to privacy.
Opinionation:
You and your biological determinism... LOL! I hope you are not offended but did you major in Sophistry in college? :-)
As always, though, I enjoy your comments.
I didn't like Bailey's article because he relied too much on stereotypes to prove his point about Jacko being a homosexual 'autohebephile'. This seems to be common with people trying to prove a biological basis for things.
I don't want to re-hash points made by Jessica but it goes without much elaboration that I, too, disagree with the biological basis for pedophilia. It's obviously environmental.
I don't understand your antipathy for nurture arguments!
A point on the Greeks. Seeing that they pretty much invented pedophilia--the word has Greek etymological origins--and they also laid the foundation for Western culture, we know these people are not stupid. I don't think it is reasonable, really, to say they could have 'abnormally bad' regions of their brain (presumably those causing them to engage in pedophilia) nor is it reasonable to say that they could simply be the stereotypical libertine elites.
We have to remember that pedophilia was deeply ingrained in the Greek culture, as was homosexuality. This was mainly due to a hatred of women (as Jessica mentioned).
Greeks saw sexuality on a continuum, by the way.
About Michael Jackson's obvious penchant for boys. This was a quote describing Michael Jackson to a T, in Ray Chandler's "All That Glitters" as from the American Counseling Association:
"Current research suggests that pedophiles have certain characteristics in common.... A significant number of offenders have experienced or observed deviant sexual behavior at an early age, usually prior to puberty. In essence, the pedophile becomes fixated on children as a result of an 'arrest of psychological maturation resulting from unresolved formative issues...."
I will say that I know it's dangerous to play 'sofa psychiatrist' with Jacko but I believe--given all of Michael's behaviors (especially as verified by the post above)--I truly believe had he been forced to get a psychiatric evaluation by the court, he would have been diagnosed as a gay pedophile.
I remember Rabbi Shmuley Boteach describing Michael Jackson as having 'adolescent sexuality'. I still don't understand fully what that means but (before he turncoated) he described it in conjunction to his alleged pedophilia.
As per the quote, we know that Michael Jackson was witness to strippers and his brothers and father having sex with groupies as a child. We also know that Jacko was sexually abused as a child.
This really is a recipe for disaster without early therapy.
I am strongly convinced that Jacko's homosexual pedophilic tendencies are the direct result of his past experiences.
Opinionation:
I also disagree with you about pedophiles being 'retardates'.
Have you ever seen the 'Chicken Hawk' documentary I've embedded in another post on this blog? This allows you to see real pedophiles from NAMBLA. I'd be interested in your taken on them. Here's a direct link to the post with the video; I think everyone should watch it, as it pertains to Jacko:
http://desireespeakssolisten.blogspot.com/2010/11/little-known-witnesses-is-everyone-liar.html
Here's an interesting (and creepy) interview with the spokesman from NAMBLA. I think it illustrates the mindset of what I consider and what the DSM considers to be a pedo. Of course there is gradations of pedophilia and, the ones involved in commiserating with other pedos in a group like setting tend to be more self aware. He also mentions Michael Jackson.
http://goo.gl/R7D9S
I should amend my last comment and say that I don't necessarily believe that lower IQ equals retardation.
Opinionation, you also said:
"I disagree with your assertion that people need to learn pedophilia from somewhere. Sex acts come pretty naturally to most animals."
But is that really true? We know gene-environment interaction is key in much expression but think about something like an underwear fetish (something I believe Michael Jackson had) or a rubber fetish. Fetishists need the object to achieve sexual arousal and orgasm. But how can one have an underwear or rubber fetish without having experienced underwear or rubber?
I guess you could argue that the fetishist would always find something--anything--in order to get off but most of these fetishes go back to some experience in early childhood.
Early childhood exposure to something has demonstrably been proven to have an effect. I just don't think we should deny these obvious links.
I agree with Jessica: if someone was in-born or biologically designed to be a certain way, it is cruel to blame them for what they do. There really is those three options she mentioned in her comment, and I don't think that's a fallacy argument either.
Frenchie:
"I believe the abused to abuser link tends to be exaggerated. While childhood abuse increases a person's chances of developing pedophilia, assuming it's the main cause of pedophilia oversimplifies the issue."
I actually disagree with this. I don't think it's trite at all to bring up the link; in fact, I think de-emphasizing it is dangerous. When people try to find biological bases for manifestly environmental things, I think it can breed complacency or even regression in human interaction.
To paraphrase Candace DeLong from the FBI when asked how should society prevent serial killers (and other miscreants, in general), "Just treat your children right."
Of course, we shouldn't oversimplify the causes to pedophilia but I think chalking it up to something biological is an oversimplification.
"I don't think it's trite at all to bring up the link; in fact, I think de-emphasizing it is dangerous. "
It's appropriate to bring up when it actually applies to a situation, but to use it as a way to rationalize the cause of most pedophilia simplifies the issue...especially when there have been studies which suggest it is not the case.
Frenchie:
"It's appropriate to bring up when it actually applies to a situation"
As it relates to Michael Jackson, he was the cutest and the most talented of the Jackson 5 members, which increased his likelihood of exposure to the dangers present as Joe Jackson agitated for fame and the group's success. We know that he witnessed sexuality, first hand, as a child; we know that he was sexually abused.
As it relates to him, it is almost certain that his pedophilic tendencies are related to these past experiences.
Note the quote from the American Counseling Association; I think it's a good one, at least for Jacko...
"but to use it as a way to rationalize the cause of most pedophilia simplifies the issue"
I think the problem we've encountered here in this space is two-fold:
(a) What is the best answer to the question, "What is a pedophile?" and how do we best define the characteristics of this type of person.
(b) Most people find pedophiles and their behavior so 'icky' and revolting that rational and objective discourse is understandably hard to submit to.
I don't believe it has been suggested that abuse is the only causal factor for 'pedophilia'; however, my point is that looking for biological bases for the proclivity negates the obvious impact abuse history makes in the formation or, rather, expression of the proclivity.
I don't understand your use of 'rationalize', though. I don't believe anyone has rationalized pedophilia or even wants to. I admit that I am sympathetic to pedophiles because I believe them to be afflicted with a most terrible proclivity, one that cannot be acted upon because it can cause psychological damage to a minor, because it can lead to jail time, and, most importantly, it's very internal--mental--existence within the person causes distress and shame.
In that way, I guess you can say I am pedo-sympathetic. Not a supporter of their proclivity but of the people because they are damaged.
When you say 'rationalize', I think there is a misunderstanding that not thinking they are somehow completely wretched creatures means you support their lifestyle. NO! However, I don't think they are 'monsters'...
I think this is where the antipathy and wanting to label them as 'cursed from birth' comes from, because we as a society loathe their actions.
"...especially when there have been studies which suggest it is not the case."
The studies you pasted were the ones Brenda had brought up. I recognize them. I think Jessica mentioned it but my question is are they talking about/to 'pedophiles', as defined, at least, by the DSM-IV, or are they talking about/to 'sex offenders', most of whom are NOT actual pedophiles?
When we know how these scientists and their statisticians define their terms, we will better understand the validity of their study. I actually believe that they probably are not talking to actual pedophiles completely, but situational molesters, who are just criminals, possibly sociopaths, prone to lying to make themselves look better/appear more sympathetic.
(You can watch these guys any time on MSNBC's 'Lock Up'.)
Have you watched the 'Chicken Hawk' documentary, by chance, and did you read the article linked by Jessica about the NAMBLA guy?
Jessica and Desiree
We're not saying that social experience has no influence on making people pedophiles; we all suspect it has a big influence. However to completely dismiss a priori the possibility that biological factors might be involved because you don't subscribe to the biological basis for behavior school of thought or because it leads to ethical dilemmas is out of character for both of you. Both of you are women of logic, reason, rationality and empirical evidence. That's what makes you both so superior to the MJ stans who are slaves to emotion and wishful thinking. It's the MJ stans who will ignore and rationalize away even the most compelling evidence because they don't subscribe to the MJ is guilty school of thought or the MJ is gay school of thought or because they can't emotionally cope with the ethical dilemma of having wasted their lives defending a pedophile or the possibility that the "haters" might win. Once you remove an entire school of thought from your intellectual repertoire you close your mind to a world of possibilities, many of which might be true.
It's never the job of science to conform to the school of thought we prefer or make our ethical choices nice and neat. It's the job of science to deliver the truth whether we like it or not. A lot of people were terrified to learn that humans are descended from monkeys and refused to believe it, but that doesn't change the facts. Sometimes knowing the truth is dangerous.
Now I'm not saying you have to agree with me to know the truth, but I am saying that as great advocates for objectivity and rationality, it's out of character to disagree for ethical and ideological reasons. The fact that society might either exterminate pedophiles or have sympathy for pedophiles if they believe pedophilia is partly biological, has nothing whatsoever to do whether that belief is true or false. Our goal should be knowing the truth, regardless of whether the pedophile haters or lovers win. :-)
"As it relates to him, it is almost certain that his pedophilic tendencies are related to these past experiences."
I don't disagree with that. I brought up Michael's abuse earlier in this topic...
"When you say 'rationalize', I think there is a misunderstanding that not thinking they are somehow completely wretched creatures means you support their lifestyle. NO! However, I don't think they are 'monsters'..."
No, when I say to rationalize I mean to reason--as in to reason why they are the way they are. You and your sister seem to believe the reason most people become pedophiles is because they were sexually abused. I disagree with you. Even if those statistics weren't what they are, I'd still disagree with you. None of the pedophiles I've encountered have ever claimed childhood abuse. Now granted, I don't hobnob with pedophiles, so I'm not basing my knowledge on hundreds of them. However, I've come across enough to believe there must be other influences which have zero to do with childhood sexual abuse.
Anyway, we're obviously never going to agree about it, and I feel I'm beginning to talk in circles so I'm just going to quit.
We know Michael liked to be viewed as childlike by others, and we know he had an erotic interest in children. It's not a leap to assume he may have been aroused by imagining himself as a child"
Interesting. I heard some time ago that Michael wanted others think about him like a child so he made is voice high pitched, when it was strong.
And the doo-doo word on the 60 minutes interview. Why would a 40 something man use that word instead of feces? (which he used after).
While reading I remembered those adults who like to wear diapers,receiving suppositories or enemas and even be breast feed. Wasn´t in Victor Gutierrez book that Michael liked to relieve himself in the pants? LOL
Desiree
I agree that pedophiles are not retardates. As Jessica has pointed out, some of the greatest minds were pedophiles. I was simply pointing out that pedophilia might be more common among retardates based on a study correlating phallometric response with IQ. But I suspect it also might be more common among geniuses but we just don't know it because we only study the low status pedophiles.
Are these people real pedophiles? I think if these people are showing more phallometric response to children than to adults, then they are real pedophiles and not just sociopaths or situational molesters. Presumably if they are most aroused by children then they are almost certainly fantasizing about them too, except for those with IQs so low they can't fantasize because it's too cognitively demanding.
I did watch chicken hawk back when you first posted it and I agree they did not seem mentally impaired; at least not with respect to intelligence. As I said, I suspect pedophiles might be just as common among geniuses as they are among retardates (depending on your definition) but I don't think NAMBLA is a very representative sample. Activists in general tend to be more intelligent than the populations they represent. Most pedophiles are closeted and ashamed as they should be, not proudly defending their behavior and demanding civil rights.
GirlUndercover,
In the Blanca Francia deposition transcript that I pasted she mentions Mike would say doo-doo describing what he should eat and he'd call people and things that. she also said he would pee in his own underwear. LOL. It sounds like an odd form of regression, know doubt linked to a traumatic childhood.
You and your sister
I'm not her sister. LOL. We have the same name and I do know both of them outside of this blog, though. LMAO. Jessica is a pretty popular name, I remember being one of 3 or 4 Jessicas in my class back in elementary school. LOL.
No, we can agree to disagree :-). But do you think it's possible that the pedos that you've encountered may not be actually labeling early sexual encounters as abuse? It's possible, especially given the way the ones on that Chickenhawk video think about child-adult sex. They may more likely view what is considered childhood trauma as a positive rather negative experience. Just a thought.
No hard feelings, okay? Debating pedo origins is no reason to give up Internet camaraderie! :-)
Opinionation,
I agree, the truth can be ugly or it can be pretty or it can be in between. I always remember what my biology professor said, though, that science can't be used to answer moral questions. I tend to agree with her.
I don't dismiss biological arguments as a whole, I just put more weight on "nurture" for behaviors that may violate what societies define as their norms, most specifically social or attitudinal behaviors.
I'm a big believer in sociological arguments and these tend to be more based in nurture and how the effects of socialization are seen on human behavior. When I think of the fact that only 50% of the human brain is developed at birth and that the other 50% is shaped by learned experiences and feral children studies, it makes me understand more fully the role environment (not the prenatal "biological" environment) plays in our lives as social creatures.
I think that reproductive hormones play a big role in an organism's drive to copulate, but I also think that nurture plays a role in behaviors that are seen as atypical and abnormal. it may very well be that there could be a cog loose somewhere that makes it more likely that someone will fall into atypical/abnormal behavior, but when it's something like this, I think that possibility is small or rather, the effect of that "loose cog" is smaller than the effect socialization plays. Desiree had a good point about the fetishes.
Do you truly truly think that there is a prominent genetic basis for pedophilia? I mean I guess I can't honestly see the evolutionary point of being attracted to children. I wouldn't even say it was ubiquitous in every culture to view it as a good thing, so it couldn't be, in my mind, that it would be a holdover form even early human society. You mentioned your "babysitter hypothesis" (LOL), but I'd think the harm done to the child would negate the important of preserving this gene, and also a pedophile would not have as many (if any) descendants if they are primarily attracted to children.
I guess the bottom line to me is that I don't think that behaviors we consider deviant should be labeled as hardwired or ingrained or innate as an excuse to take away civil or constitutional rights. And I'm not trying to be ideological either. Science has an agenda as well, even if they claim the opposite. It used to be that blacks and minorities in general) were considered genetically inferior in yesteryears science. It turned out that that was false and that the goal in labeling was to validate mistreatment and the violation of civil rights.
I believe in tabula rasa. I believe people are capable of change and they are not preordained to be considered "criminal" or "deviant". I think that people do not naturally want to go against the group and violate norms. I think something happens early in social development that causes people to be re-routed toward dysfunctional behavior. Pedophiles may be firmly attached to their dysfunction but I think they can change.
Most pedophiles are closeted and ashamed as they should be, not proudly defending their behavior and demanding civil rights.
Why would they be ashamed if they cannot help it? Is it not cruel to condemn them if they cannot change? do you see what I mean? It's so much more than science can answer, I think.
Just my opinion, good sir. LOL.
By the way, opinionation, are you a scientist? You seem to know a lot about science. Or are you an avid reader of scientific journals and just subscribe to their methods of observing the world? Just curious...
You probably know that I'm not one, LOL.
"I'm not her sister. LOL. We have the same name and I do know both of them outside of this blog, though."
Well, then you're her sister from another mister. You think way too much alike to not be related somehow. LOL.
"But do you think it's possible that the pedos that you've encountered may not be actually labeling early sexual encounters as abuse?"
That's far-fetched. I really hate going into too much detail on a public forum, but these weren't just guys who casually mentioned they were pedophiles. They were four very different men who were later convicted of their crimes (ranging from possessing a computer full of child pornography to committing sexual abuse). One of them was my former teacher and another was a bible camp counselor. Had there been any sort of sexual abuse in their backgrounds, at the very least, those two would have revealed it in court because parents wanted there to be a explanation for their actions. When my teacher was arrested, I remember my own mother trying to make excuses for his behavior. It feels safer that way, I guess. People don't want to believe that anyone can be a child predator so they look for simple causes like the 'abused to abuser' connection, but that only explains a portion of the cases.
Well, then you're her sister from another mister. You think way too much alike to not be related somehow. LOL.
Does coming from the same ancestral homeland (Africa) count as being related? LOL. But people like hanging with others who think the same, I personally like peace and harmony in my personal relationship. I don't agree with Paula Abdul, opposites do not attract. LOL.
One of them was my former teacher and another was a bible camp counselor. Had there been any sort of sexual abuse in their backgrounds, at the very least, those two would have revealed it in court because parents wanted there to be a explanation for their actions. When my teacher was arrested, I remember my own mother trying to make excuses for his behavior. It feels safer that way, I guess.
Oh totally, totally. I agree, it does only apply to some cases, Michael jackson for example. I think that even if people were abused, it shouldn't be used as a defense for committing a crime. If you do the crime you do the time.
People don't want to believe that anyone can be a child predator so they look for simple causes like the 'abused to abuser' connection
I think people do think that anyone can be a child predator, I just don't think that they want to believe their anyone could be a pedo.
If you were harmed, I apologize for my seeming apologist words. I don't defend pedos, I just want to understand and rehabilitate them. Like I said to Opinionation, I believe everyone is capable of change. Someone just needs to be there to guide criminals to the light.
Jessica,
No I'm not a scientist, I just find science fascinating. Also in the age of the Internet with so much propaganda floating around from every direction, I like to think science can cut through some of the crap and help us get to the truth.
I don't think we really disagree. You said you don't dismiss biological explanations, you just give more weight to social explanations. I do the opposite, but we both agree that social and biological effects might be involved to varying degrees.
I agree with you that an evolutionary hypothesis is a little far fetched, and that pedophilia is probably environmental, but If forced to guess I personally would give more weight to the biological environment than the social environment because pedophiles do seem to show a number of biological differences.
I understand your point that talking about biological differences dehumanizes pedophiles and turns them into monsters, but I doubt scientists have some agenda to take away their civil rights (unless the scientists themselves were molested as children)
But I agree that science mirrors political movements. In the 19th century biological determinism was very popular because of Darwin, but after Hitler, it became associated with extreme forms of racial prejudice and the research was supressed. Entire generations were taught in university that we are a tabula rasa. But since the 1990s the research has been making a comeback because of new technologies like MRI brain scanning and DNA analysis. It's still extremely taboo to look for racial differences in the brain, but I guess pedophiles
are so reviled that it's politically correct to study them in this context. Gays on the other hand seem to want people to think they are biologically different and born gay.
It's not my intention to minimize the social environment, but the reading I've done suggests it's over-emphasized, but then people have a way of only reading what they already agree with. You mention that the brain is only half grown when babies are born and wired by the social environment, and yet scientists have repeatedly failed to discover ways to manipulate the social environment to improve a child's brain, despite enormous money spent. Even feral children are hard to interpret because do they act like animals because they were raised by wolves or were they raised by wolves because they were born with such mental defects that their parents didn't want them? Any mother that would abandon her child to a a pack of wolves is a bit of an animal herself, so the feral child might have genetically inherited some of his animal behavior from his biological mother rather than simply learned it from the wolf who raised him.
I realize some of these arguments are pretty far fetched, but I'm just trying to give a sense of where i'm coming from.
Opinionation, thanks. I wanted to know about your background, or at least as much as a person on the internet is willing to reveal. So maybe you're a lawyer, than? They way you can turn out a counterpoint would be admired by the great Johnnie Cochran himself! LOL.
but I doubt scientists have some agenda to take away their civil rights (unless the scientists themselves were molested as children)
I agree with this, but it may not be the scientists how are the problem. It's like statistics: they are just numbers until someone injects meaning into them; they don't really mean anything by themselves. Law enforcement, advocacy groups, defense attorneys, etc--all who do have an agenda--will use the numbers to their advantage (and the other side's disadvantage). and I also wonder if people who do studies are even qualified to look at numbers.
I just don't want to see people given up on, even if they are "bad". It may be irrational but I don't want a repeat of the eugenics era, which to me sometimes seemed based more on prejudice than fact. Animals don't have to deal with moral conundrums the way humans do, and in a sense they are lucky. I find it curious that people are so anxious to find biological reasons for "evil" so that we can deal with them accordingly. society finds these people so reprehensible (and rightly so) that no one will care if we lock them up indefinitely, kill them etc. These people do undercut the cohesiveness and functionality of society, there is no disputing it. But what if I were to suggest that parents should be allowed to end the lives of their disabled children without interference from the law? Biologically speaking, they will not survive because they are not fit, and animals are well known to abandon and/or kill their young if they are genetically flawed. So why is that wrong to do that to the disabled when if we find a genetic basis for criminality we can do it "criminals"? A genetic flaw is a genetic flaw, and science is supposed to deliver the truth without emotion, right?
But there is the problem with relying on science to answer moral questions. Sure, we can find a gene that makes a behavior more likely to occur but how do we deal with it? How do we solve the problem without diminishing our humanity? Science can't really help us in that department.
I guess pedophiles are so reviled that it's politically correct to study them in this context.
LMAO! Maybe so, I wouldn't be surprised. Scientists studied the effects of untreated syphilis on Southern black men for the sole fact that they were seen as expendable people, because of race and class. Have you seen "The Constant Gardener"? Same idea, only on Africans. Pedos may be the new Tuskegee-esqe lab rats, only no one will give a crap what happens to them, LOL.
Even feral children are hard to interpret because do they act like animals because they were raised by wolves or were they raised by wolves because they were born with such mental defects that their parents didn't want them? Any mother that would abandon her child to a a pack of wolves is a bit of an animal herself, so the feral child might have genetically inherited some of his animal behavior from his biological mother rather than simply learned it from the wolf who raised him.
Have you heard of the little girl Genie Wiley they found locked in a room for 13 years? She was neglected from birth and never had any human contact. She wasn't raised by wolves or anything. They did a brain scan on her once she was rescued and her brain was severely underdeveloped. She ddin't learn language and she never was able to grasp it even after years of therapy. I think she represents what will happen if a child is not in the proper environment and also the huge role socialization palys in human development. To the credit of the wolves, LOL, at least those types of feral children seem to have a bit of skill! Shows that animals are not the dumb hunks of meat that humans (excluding scientists) think they are!
As for abandonment, many times the mothers are on drugs or have other dependency issues. I don't think they would consciously leave their baby to a pack of dogs. And the wildness is learned form the animal. A Russian girl, Oxsana, was raised by dogs and she has their exact mannerisms, right down to the bark, the gait, the way she shakes of beads of water. It's amazing really, what humans learn from their surroundings.
Michael Jackson and his siblings say words rhyming with "gold" he same. Now is that because their tongues are shaped differently or is that because they learned it from their environment? I remember that you had said that they inherited a high sex drive from their father, and that could be true. But do you think the brothers learned to treat women like crap because they inherited that behavior from their father, or because he was their only male role model and they witnessed it when they were young and came to internalize what they saw as they way to treat females?
I think the quote "biology loads the gun but environment pulls the trigger" is the best explanation for behavior.
Interesting conversation. Jessica, I like that quote "Biology loads the gun but environment pulls the trigger."
I'm currently reading the book /Banished Knowledge/ by Alice Miller. For her, environment plays an enormous role in a person's later actions -- you repeat the wrong you learned/experienced in order to justify it being done to you.
This passage relates to the nature/nurture discussion:
"Sexuality is the copulative urge of human beings, who do not receive their hormonal directive until puberty. Proceeding from this biological definition, it is logical that I do not find this sexuality in children. It goes without saying that sexual abuse of children leave its mark on its victims. Thus an abused child can simulate "sexual" behavior so as not to lose the regard of the adult...
"Sexuality is a natural urge that can't be held responsible if some people resort to it to impair or destroy the lives of others. Such people become culpable, not because they succumb to the copulation urge but because in their history this urge was coupled with other factors such as cruelty, humiliation, and the exercise of power and because, on the basis of this history, they act destructively. When they include sexuality in their destructive acts, sexuality cannot be blamed for those acts."
Jessica, how do you know that being locked in a room is the reason Genie Wiley became mentally impaired? Maybe being mentally impaired is the reason they decided to lock her in a room sine disabled kids are often abused. You might say, well it's totally obvious that locking someone in a room for 13 years will stunt the brain's development; that's just common sense. But common sense is often wrong. Common sense said the Earth is obviously flat; just look at it. Common sense said the sun revolves around the earth, we can see it rise and set. Common sense said Saddam Hussein must have weapons of mass destruction because he had them before. Common sense gets a lot of things wrong which is why I try not to jump to conclusions.
Now if forced to guess I would say that the extreme social deprivation did damage her brain, simply because I've heard of mice experiments where stimulation affected brain growth. In extreme cases like being locked in a room for 13 years, the social environment might impair the brain. That probably sounds like a colossal understatement to you but I base it on adoption studies which find that the home environment has virtually no lasting impact on a child's cognitive development; though in fairness these studies have been criticized for not sampling a wide enough range of environments.
Obviously specific behaviors like a child raised by wolves sniffing people is learned behavior. Strange pronunciations of words is probably learned to, but might have some genetic component, making certain sounds more difficult to pronounce for certain families. Attitudes towards women are certainly learned, but certain genetic personalities might make those attitudes more acceptable. For example If the Jackson's had adopted some kids, those non-biological children may have been disgusted by Joe's views and rebelled against them.
Rebekah,
Those are interesting quotes, it makes me think of people who are into sado-masochism. I hardly think they are genetically predisposed to associate violence inflicted on themselves or others as an aphrodisiac. That is learned. Of course, it may be possible that they are mentally disturbed already (biological) and sado-masochism is a symptom of their dysfunction. I really doubt it though.
Opinionation,
I agree about common sense. Common sense also says that if you sleep in the bed with pubescent boys, you have books that feature boys naked, you have been accused of molesting boys and you've paid millions to settle cases, you are probably a pedophile child molester. But many don't know common sense. LOL.
From what I know, Genie Wiley was not mentally retarded. Her parents were older people who already had an adult child. I guess you could surmise that since they were older, she might have had a mental impairment since older mothers are more prone to giving birth to children with defects. But no one has ever mentioned any inherent problems to Genie. So as far as I know, her brain development was solely due to a lack of human interaction. The only time her parents saw her was to put her in a crib at night and strap her to a potty chair during the daytime. Very cruel. She was also malnourished which will damage the brain as well. (That's why school lunch for the poor is so important).
You know about the language acquistion centers in the brain, they need to be stimulated and hers was never stimulated, so it atrophied. She had passed the age where brain activity for language acquisition is at its most active. This is the case with a lot of feral children. some of them do learn language if they are caught early enough, but Genie was 13. In a testament to your theories, it seems like for Genie, all the environment stimuli she received after she was rescued didn't do enough to overcome a damaged brain.
About the Jacksons, what do you think about the fact that everyone said that Prince Jackson sounded like Mike when he spoke at the Grammys? do you think that is a result of Mike being the sole male around Prince so he learned his manner of speech or is this proof that he is Mike's real son? On the other hand, he sounded very deep with Oprah, and his adam's apple is more prominent than any of the Jackson males; that is a genetic feature.
Jessica
The fans invoke a very dangerous kind of common sense: MJ loves children and gives to charity, and such a kind hearted compassionate generous humanitarian obviously couldn't possibly be a child molester. Of course child molesters are often respectable community oriented people like the trusted priest, the award winning school teacher, the popular soccer coach, the favorite uncle, the father of the year. These sickos are everywhere.
I didn't see Prince at the Grammys but his raspy voice reminds me of Arnie Klein. But then why would anyone, especially someone as superficial as MJ pick someone who looks like Klein to be the sperm donor. Also, I thought MJ hated Jews so why would he want to raise some and leave his fortune to them? Maybe MJ was impressed by Klein's intellect. He told Basir that intellect was very important when selecting a mother for his kids, so the same probably applies to the father. MJ seemed to believe in radical forms of biological determinism. He claimed Africans had the most rhythm, that you could even see it in the way the babies movie (implying they were born with more rhythm) but perhaps MJ was just trying to sound pro-black to recover from allegations of racial self-hatred. MJ also allegedly believed that blacks were intellectually inferior in certain areas like business (according to some anonymous Internet poster who a lot of people believe)
Regardless of whether one believes in social, genetic or prenatal determinism, they can find an explanation for MJ's alleged hebephilia. If you believe in social determinism, you can cite the alleged sexual abuse he experienced. If you believe in genetic determinism, you can cite his grandfather getting a 16 year old student of his pregnant. If you believe in prenatal determinism you can cite his sky high fraternal birth order (including a dead older brother suggesting katherines womb may have been afflicted).
Btw, we've discussed the dark side of biological and social determinism. What about the positive side? Do you think MJ's incredible talents as a singer, dancer, and composer were innate or do you think almost any child could have become so talented if they practiced as much as he did?
I think Mike's talents, and all talents, are completely biological. I think if a person stands out in sports or music or writing, etc, it's based on having a genetic aptitude for those particular activities. However, i do believe that people can be taught a skill and they can become good at it, but they will never be as good as those with natural, biological talent.
And for those with natural talent, I think that they need a stimulating environment to get the most out of their ability. In other words, they may have a seed already in the soil but they need someone to water it.
I think had Mike not been raised in an environment that encouraged musical talent, he may have not became what he became. He may have always had a special something but it may never have been expressed to the magnitude it was expressed under Joe and Katherine Jackson. His brothers, let's face it, were not naturally gifted to the level Mike was gifted, so even with all the help they got as young boys, they still were only mediocre, in comparison to Mike.
About Klein, I really sometimes think Prince looks like him but at the same time he is too light for prince to come out as dark as that. When I first heard Prince I thought he did sound like Mike, but then think about it: he was sounding like an adult Mike when he was 12 years old. It doesn't really make sense. At 12, Mike didn't have an adult voice yet. Prince is very precocious in that regard. along with his prominent Adam's apple and tall stature, this is just more evidence that the kid isn't Mike's. Perhaps Prince inherited precocious development and large stature from Debbie; I suspect that Prince's father was a caucasoid with a prominent Adam's apple and a deep voice. Him sounding like Mike I think is pure mimicry.
I just finished reading a book called The Tipping Point. In it, the writer mentions a study of adopted children and their adoptive parents as well as biological children and their biological parents. Throughout their childhood, the children (and their parents) were given all sorts of tests to determine their personality and intelligence. The bio children scored similarly to their parents, but the adopted children, "were no more similar in personality or intellectual skills to the people who reared them, fed them, clothed them, read to them, taught them, and loved them all their lives than they were to any two adults taken at random off the street." I found that pretty shocking!
http://goo.gl/Wv0yX
"were no more similar in personality or intellectual skills to the people who reared them, fed them, clothed them, read to them, taught them, and loved them all their lives than they were to any two adults taken at random off the street."
I don't really think this is shocking. It makes sense, especially in the fields studied. I think you can't do to much to change the threshold of intelligence or personality since it's largely innate, although I do believe environment will influence in what direction intelligence is used (possibly for good or "evil" depending on the environmental stressors). Same with personality. If a person is naturally shy, he/she might stay shy if the environment doesn't call for changing this behavior, or he/she might overcome their shyness in certain situations if they attended Toastmasters or something like that. The shyness is always there, but the level of expression may be different under different environments.
I wonder if Mike's children are in anyway similar to him, like dancing ability or attitude (their cousin, Austin Brown, can dance really well like Mike and we know he's a blood relative). I think if they were/weren't, it could tell a lot about whether they are his. Of course any differences could be attributed to their mothers' genes, but they don't look like "mixed with black" children. I think the only "evidence" the fans have is the depigmentation under Prince's arm. Anyway, If they do have similar personality quirks like Mike, they could have learned them. I wonder if being cloistered with one (or two if you count their nanny) person would make them more susceptible for picking up his personality traits?
(A rewrite of my previously typo-ridden comment)
Opinionation:
What do you think about the Jacko 3's love of sweets? Obviously, most children like sweet as a taste but they also seem to have an infatuation with candy like Michael Jackson did. Now, is that 'sweet tooth' environmental or biological? And if you believe it to be biological, wouldn't that tend to give credence to those children being his?
I know you don't believe they are... me neither.
My own mother never had a big sweet tooth, and neither do my twin or myself. Now, is this because it's a biological inheritance or is it because we never developed the taste for it, simply because she didn't keep sweets in the house and did not reward us with candy? On the other hand, my mother likes breads, and so do we, and she did give us breads. Our snack of choice as children was 'bread and butter'.
For the record, like most humans, I do enjoy the sweet taste but in moderation.
I am of the school of thought that this is environmental, at least 75 percent.
Now, there are things I believe are genetic. My father and a maternal aunt are artists (drawing and painting, respectively, the latter of which has a skill in realism, not impressionism, or any of those subjectively determined 'good' painting schools, like cubism). I, too, have skills as an artist, as does my twin. Likewise, my mother always wanted to be a writer and I can write and have been doing so for a long while; my father loves to cook and, although not around us to teach us, we, too, have a passion for cooking (my mother hates to cook!)
These are obviously genetic; talent is genetic, there is no doubt about it. Michael Jackson can dance and sing because it is in his genes. I know if you read La Toya's autobiography, she likes to act as if all of the Jacksons are talented and talent is just freely-flowing in that family.
I tend to disbelieve their version of their own history. But it seems to be that there was something there that manifested itself in Michael Jackson so explosively. I agree with Jessica that had he not had that abusive environment to express such talent, it probably would have still been there but perhaps to a lesser degree.
Some things are just innate.
(cont'd)
What should be noted, obviously, is that there are things that are manifestly genetic/biological/innate and there are things that are manifestly social/environmental. We should all readily acknowledge these separate spheres and also acknowledge when they collide.
Along the sexuality tangent--after all, we are discussing Michael Jackson's alleged pedophilia--that is something I believe is most environmental. Sex drive is obviously biological but manifestations of it are shaped by experiences. Without going into too much detail, I will mention something about my ex. He was into submission, though not to the point it needed psychiatric intervention, lol, but it was a deeply-held kink. He said he'd remembered watching "Dracula" when he was a young boy and getting very aroused (erection) when Keanu Reeves was having his blood drank by the female vampires; earlier still he had seen a movie--he said with Jim Carrey--where some older woman was seducing him. When he was older, a teenager, he gravitated towards the femdom drawings of Harukawa, which featured large women with very small men. Other things withheld, this kink of his was obviously environmental. Now, I won't be extremely specific but his own self-hatred issues, coupled with his sex drive, may have exacerbated this kink but the kink was made.
Do you know what I mean? The submission aspect 'fit' because of the way he was, but he'd have to experience it as an arousal tool to know it 'fit'. I hope that explains what I mean...
I apologize for the TMI. I could go on and on but he really is a great example! :-p
I can outline many reasons why I don't believe pedophiles are born that way, but made. Perhaps it's not as simplistic as having a sexual abuse history they've mimicked but something made them that way, and I don't mean some thing genetic or biological making them into kids. I tend to believe that many times people think things about themselves are hard-wired when in actuality they simply feel that way because the drive feels so natural and ancient.
I can be reflective, Opinionation, and say that I should definitely not dismiss bio/genetic arguments for emotional or political reasons, no matter how much it hurts my belief system to do so... But I am a social determinist, as you call it, and I do tend to apply bias and/or mainly look at things that fit my POV. As do most people. That seems to be the safe place with people in general and I think that is genetic in humans.
;-)
Opinionation:
I don't mean to interrupt the flow of the conversation but...
"In the 19th century biological determinism was very popular because of Darwin, but after Hitler, it became associated with extreme forms of racial prejudice and the research was supressed. Entire generations were taught in university that we are a tabula rasa. But since the 1990s the research has been making a comeback because of new technologies like MRI brain scanning and DNA analysis. It's still extremely taboo to look for racial differences in the brain"
...what do mean here, exactly?
"You mention that the brain is only half grown when babies are born and wired by the social environment, and yet scientists have repeatedly failed to discover ways to manipulate the social environment to improve a child's brain, despite enormous money spent."
What do you mean by this? This is not me being dense--obviously I know what you mean--I just am interested in specifics.
Granted, I could look it up myself but since you mentioned it, I'd like for you to elaborate, if you'd be so inclined...
Frenchie:
The link you provided was interesting to me, but not due to the quote to which you've referred, although I believe it to be tangential. It's the idea that peers trump parents in the way a person develops. Well, this is a no-brainer, simply because children only try to be like their parents when their parents are the only ones around; but we know that if someone mirroring the child more closely than the parent does (age-wise) they will identify with the other person. I like to think of it like it's telepathy between people your own age, which is why its so obvious.
Since I seem to be on a personal anecdote kick (LOL), I will mention another.
My stepsister was (is) a delinquent. I would ascribe to her an antisocial personality.
Now, I should mention that I am a 'social determinist', as Opinionation calls it, and will always be. Everything I encounter, even things that seem to be against my opinion, seems to continue to support this. Or maybe it's a bias.
Anyway, my stepsister's home environment was 'troubled' since she was young--probably since age 4 or 5, very young; her dad (my stepfather) and her mother had a very bad divorce and it was said that my stepsister used to pick up a play telephone and pretend like she was talking to her dad during the hullabaloo because she missed him. Very sad.
Although I'd say he was mentally distant during the other important years, he was very much protective of her--blind--and, by all accounts, you'd say he was a decent parent. But she began to misbehave. I attribute the continuance of the misbehavior to lack of discipline, absolutely.
Well, I believe this behavior was developed at a young age--albeit dormant--and was fostered with a lack of discipline.
Most importantly, I wanted to stress that she had two personalities. A personality that was soft-spoken and, "Thank you, Mommy," as she'd say to my mother; I'm sure this manifested itself while she was at her church activities, too. But then there was the personality she had with her friends; doing inhalants, staying out all night, typical miscreant behavior. STEALING.
This was mimicking the delinquency of her friends, who, obviously, got her into this stuff.
Another example: a school friend of mine. This friend was also from a 'troubled' home. Her white mother had an abuse history but her black father seemed stable. Her stepmother was a strict West Indian and my friend lived with her father.
Now my twin and I come from a stable family, although it was single-parent for a few years; stereotypically middle class and suburban (we are talking mentally, most specifically, because it is a mindset, not financial, even though we had the money, too). My twin and I were good kids.
When we were together with B, the friend, she did not act up as she would eventually, although, I admit, she obviously rubbed off on us! We used to ditch school together and we did vandalize an abandoned house but we were 11-12 year old girls at the time. You can see how the peer thing worked here!
(cont'd)
But then, a family moved in next door to B and they were ghetto trash (we're talking about black people and mulattos in this discussion so it is apropos for me to use 'ghetto'), financially and mindset-wise. Well, when she started hanging out with the girls from that house, B became more delinquent.
Her father actually said, "B, hang out with the twins; they're good kids. Don't hang out with those $2 hos." LOL. I should note my stepsister hung out with these girls, too--she and B's younger sister, P, did.
Anyway, the more B hung out with these girls, the more delinquent she became. Even after they moved away, B still had a nexus to the extended group of hoodlums that were associated with the girls; she broke into a school and went to juvenile hall. Her sister, P, screwed up alongside my stepsister and she had a baby in high school.
So, Harris' point of peer influence is obvious, and it is just another proof of the importance of environment on behavior. Actually, writing all of that made me feel sad, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. Some people don't realize how lucky they are... :-(
As for the quote you mentioned, I am a believer in personality being innate. I live with my mother, who is a very gentle pleaser/giver type, and my father was a hot head who said what was on his mind. I definitely take after my father, even though I did not develop and grow around him. However, I definitely believe certain things my mother did, in terms of rearing, that have shaped how I am today.
I also tend to believe in the child-to-parent effect, that parents respond in accordance to their children's mannerisms and personalities. This is definitely a reason I disbelieve in in-born homosexuality and the reason you see more gay children now than you did in generations before the sexual revolution, because parents are encouraged to encourage regardless.
I think studies, however, are not the best tellers of truth. I don't say that because some may not say what I want to hear but it's because I believe it is virtually impossible for people to be objective and honest in their conclusions.
Jessica:
Didn't Joe Jackson say, "Blanket can really dance!"? I have to see it to believe it. I just don't think that's true. Those kids don't look like they can dance! And I am not just saying that because they aren't visibly black (or Asian), although I did see a video of Paris lip-syncing and she did seem like she couldn't keep a beat.
LOL.
Oh, I forgot to include the drawing link...
http://goo.gl/gBCCN
The above is a drawing of a Native American man. Her drawing has that so funny-looking it's good quality. Something special about it...to me at least...
Here's a drawing of mine. For some reason, I have no sketches, so this will suffice.
http://goo.gl/gO09L
I should clarify from my previous comment: I meant gay young children who don't know about sexuality like adults do, as opposed to adolescents.
Opinionation:
If not science, then what are you studying? Or did study? :-)
"I wonder if being cloistered with one (or two if you count their nanny) person would make them more susceptible for picking up his personality traits?"
I think it would. As Desiree mentioned, Gladwell's book also cites research indicating that children from troubled families in good neighborhoods tended to fare better than ones from stable families in bad neighborhoods. The belief is that peers have more of an influence on children than their parents do. Obviously a child isolated from everyone but his or her parents/caretakers wouldn't have that peer influence, so I imagine they must leave more of an impression on the child.
I don't mean to sound Sapphic, but your drawing has pretty fabulous breasts!
"I don't mean to sound Sapphic, but your drawing has pretty fabulous breasts!"
Thank you. Isn't it a shame we have to preface our compliments? LOL. For some reason, my females tend to have cartoonish bodies. I remember my dad used to say, "Desi, that looks pretty cartoonish," when I drew a face because I used to do one and a half eye lengths between the eyes on the face instead of one eye length. Then I read that one and a half is close to the Golden ratio of 1.61... something like that, which is considered desirable mathematically.
1.5 is close, so I was looking at it correctly in some ways.
As for the breasts, I freely admit that I like to draw them and it you look closely, you can tell that the drawing is centered around them! I drew the boobies first! :-p
I have others but I can't find them at the moment... Female bodies are very easy to draw. I will share another once I find it...
What do you think about the Jacko 3's love of sweets? Obviously, most children like sweet as a taste but they also seem to have an infatuation with candy like Michael Jackson did. Now, is that 'sweet tooth' environmental or biological?
Probably both but I wouldn't read much into it. Most kids love candy. MJ loves sweets? I didn't know that, but it might have just been part of his childlike persona rather than a genuine love for sweets. I think MJ was pretty indifferent to food aside from the occasional craving for KFC; he told Jesse Jackson that even when he was a little kid, he never had much interest in food and his mother often had to force him to eat. Even as an adult, during times of stress he would often not eat. That's probably one of the reasons he became so thin. It's probably also one of the reasons he consumed drugs and alcohol; he couldn't get much pleasure from food like most people so he had to turn to other substances.
And if you believe it to be biological, wouldn't that tend to give credence to those children being his?
Well you have to weigh it against the overwhelming biological evidence that those are not his genetic offspring, such as their completely different appearance.
These are obviously genetic; talent is genetic, there is no doubt about it. Michael Jackson can dance and sing because it is in his genes.
I agree. He has a family history of musical talent. I also think the physical coordination that allowed him to dance so well was genetically inherited from Joe who was a competitive boxer in his youth. On the other hand I read that MJ was bad at sports but perhaps because he never practiced them. Clearly even genetic gifts have to be developed and invested in a particular direction.
I know if you read La Toya's autobiography, she likes to act as if all of the Jacksons are talented and talent is just freely-flowing in that family.
LaToya is probably right. She's the most reliable source in the Jackson family even if she's forced to take back some of her revelations. Also it makes sense. Generally the traits of siblings correlate. Exceptional people tend to have exceptional siblings. Not as exceptional as they are because of regression to the mean, but exceptional nonetheless.
But it seems to be that there was something there that manifested itself in Michael Jackson so explosively.
I can't prove it but I still suspect there must be some kind of biological link between his artistic talents and his alleged pedophilia. It just seems like too much of a coincidence that same person would be so abnormal in two different traits (artistry and sexuality) unless there was some common cause. I think he was just born biologically different, and his unique upbringing just added to it. However that's just a hypothesis, I have no studies to back it up.
I agree with Jessica that had he not had that abusive environment to express such talent, it probably would have still been there but perhaps to a lesser degree.
I agree, but I would extend Jessica's logic to his sexual deviance. Had it not been for his abusive environment, that would still be there, but to a lesser degree and perhaps manifested in a less unhealthy way.
What should be noted, obviously, is that there are things that are manifestly genetic/biological/innate and there are things that are manifestly social/environmental.
I agree though I prefer to use the term social/cultural rather than social/environmental. Environment is a confusing term because the environment can either be social/cultural (education, peers, parents) or biological (prenatal conditions, childhood nutrition, head injuries, the effects of drugs, alcohol, and toxins). For example, I think most experts on pedophilia would agree with you that it's caused by the environment, but they would disagree with you that it's caused by the social environment. They would emphasize the biological environment. Now I'm not mindlessly assuming the experts are always right. Experts have repeatedly been proven wrong.
Without going into too much detail, I will mention something about my ex. He was into submission, though not to the point it needed psychiatric intervention, lol, but it was a deeply-held kink. He said he'd remembered watching "Dracula" when he was a young boy and getting very aroused (erection) when Keanu Reeves was having his blood drank by the female vampires; earlier still he had seen a movie--he said with Jim Carrey--where some older woman was seducing him. When he was older, a teenager, he gravitated towards the femdom drawings of Harukawa, which featured large women with very small men. Other things withheld, this kink of his was obviously environmental. Now, I won't be extremely specific but his own self-hatred issues, coupled with his sex drive, may have exacerbated this kink but the kink was made.
Or maybe the self-hatred was caused by the kink? If he was aroused by being dominated it would be very difficult for him to respect himself as a man; thus the self-hatred. It's difficult for me to respect him and I don't know him. Sorry to be such a holier than thou puritanical saint, but I have a visceral dislike for submissive people, but I'm sure he must have had a lot of good qualities for someone of your high quality to have been attracted to him. I also think he was probably attracted to you because you come across as a dominant personality like when you kicked Len off you blog with rhetoric like "Len, move on and out!" LOL! You mentioned on another forum that you were suprised that you could slaughter him in a debate because he claimed to have such a stratospheric IQ; but is it possible that he let you slaughter him in debates because being verbally and intellectual dominated aroused his kinky nature?
With respect to the etiology of kink, I think it's innate because I've heard of submissive types claim they felt pleasure from being dominated at age four. Such early onset implies it is innate, but I do think the social environment determines what type of people they enjoy being dominated by. I think that if they experience some traumatic humiliation perhaps during puberty, the only way to emotionally cope with it is by becoming sexually aroused by that humiliation.
but it might have just been part of his childlike persona rather than a genuine love for sweets.
You know what, the more I think about it, the more I think this is actually the correct explanation for his "love" of sweets. It's just another manifestation of his quest to be childlike and appeal to children, and a symptom of his fixated pedophilia. there is just too much evidence to show that his kids aren't his, so why would they get something from him? Kids do love sweets; that's one of the first developed tastes in humans.
Interesting too about the lack of like for food that Mike talked about. I'm wondering if his abusive upbringing had anything to do with him not eating? Many women, for instance, develop eating disorders because abuse history, since food intake is something they feel they can control (unlike being able to control being abused) and withholding food is sometimes used as punishment (for "letting" the abuse happen). I know there has been speculation that he was anorexic and Mike has always been vocal about weight, toward his sister Janet for example. According to Blanca Francia, Mike would sometimes drink Enfamil formula in a baby bottle rather than eat food. He also used enemas, something Janet said Katherine got the family into. I wonder why he was so concerned about his weight; his autopsy showed that he weighted around 137 lbs, but in his mug shot he wrote he weighed 120. He wasn't even as skinny as he was during "This Is It" yet he wrote down an even smaller weight.
Opinionation:
I am still pretty convinced Michael Jackson had a sweet tooth; Joe Jackson used to say that he would spend some of his Jackson 5 money on candy whenever they got a check. Debbie Rowe also said he had a sweet tooth, and she's known Jacko since the 1980s. So, prima facie, he had a sweet tooth. Food and candy are quite different, I think, although on his passenger profile that was revealed in the trial, he often asked for gum as a sweet ending to a meal, instead of hard candy.
However, I tend to agree with you that kids are always sugar fiends, except me.
I happen to believe Michael Jackson lied about his eating. He claimed to be a vegetarian but also had a penchant for fried chicken. Who knows what's the truth?
"Well you have to weigh it against the overwhelming biological evidence that those are not his genetic offspring, such as their completely different appearance."
Good point! LOL.
Re: La Toya, I actually don't think she is consistently truthful, despite the fact I do believe her about her brother's pedophilia and the family's penchant for abuse and violence.
We know that Tito picked up the guitar fairly quickly and I don't have any real reason to doubt that Joe was a good guitarist and Katherine may be able to sing. However, if you simply look at it in the entire context of her autobiography, it seems reasonable to suspect that she's embellishing how talented the other family is. I'm sure they are talented but her characterizations are suspect to me, at least. Jermaine, Jackie, and Randy cannot sing and I don't think they are the best dancers; Tito and Jermaine play guitar and bass, I know; La Toya is useless and has no talent; Janet is a good dancer but her voice is thin; Rebbie's voice is not so bad.
Marlon, Jackie, Randy, and La Toya are completely talentless.
It just seems as if the family was shifted into the spotlight because Joe and Katherine wanted it. Michael Jackson can sing and dance; I can admit that there was something in the Jackson genes but to claim they were all talented? No, I don't buy it.
I tend to trust La Toya Jackson to the extent I can somehow corroborate her claims. Those claims are not as nicely corroborated.
"I would extend Jessica's logic to his sexual deviance. Had it not been for his abusive environment, that would still be there, but to a lesser degree"
I just don't agree with that. I believe it was created. Perhaps had he not been abused, he may have been a gay man or maybe straight like every other brother and sister in the family.
"I think most experts on pedophilia would agree with you that it's caused by the environment, but they would disagree with you that it's caused by the social environment. They would emphasize the biological environment."
Would they? I would think pedophilia experts who are not biased by biological determinism would say that pedophiles were created by deviant social environments. I think we have to remember that pedophilia is only recently taboo and we cannot help but be emic in our discussion. I am not trying to say that there could be no argument for a biological basis, I'm suggesting that we should work from a cross-cultural, historical perspective, first and foremost, and then define our terms.
Your definition of pedophilia was more arousal from children, than from adults/teens. Well, okay, but what is a child? Is it prepubescent? But then we also have earlier and earlier onset puberty in the United States and Canada (I don't know about Europe), where, because of weight, girls and boys are blossoming faster but still appear as children.
I'm not trying to rationalize away the seriousness of pedophilia in our cultural context but I am just pointing out how nebulous our terms tend to be.
Until proven otherwise, I will stand by the idea of pedophilia arising from a deviant event in the history of the pedophile, such as actual sexual abuse, an early voyeuristic experience of sexual deviance (such as viewing sexual deviance), or some tangential trauma in early childhood and/or around puberty.
You said previously that NAMBLA activists are probably not representative of most pedophiles because activists tend to be more intelligent than the general population. But is it a difference in intelligence or is it a difference in personality?
(cont'd)
Re: my ex's 'kink', I believe that he may have gravitated towards the submission because of the self-hatred, not what you've suggested. However, I agree with you that a kink such as submission can make you hate yourself more than you already do. Paraphilias--I don't think his was psychiatric, mind you--tend to cause shame because the individual is so preoccupied with it.
"It's difficult for me to respect him and I don't know him. Sorry to be such a holier than thou puritanical saint, but I have a visceral dislike for submissive people, but I'm sure he must have had a lot of good qualities for someone of your high quality to have been attracted to him."
LOL. You can say whatever you'd like; I will always like him but I cannot deny truth. I am not saintly enough to think of people as all good. Being a male yourself, I imagine that submissive men are repulsive because in our Western cultural context men are supposed to be manly. This is even more important if a person is black or Latino, although he was neither. He was conservative, though, politically, and I know there is a premium on manliness for them. I happen to like more submissive men; I actually prefer less dominant people generally because they provide balance but that is different than self-deprecation, self-hatred, weakness, etc.
I do, however, very much like the stereotypical 'bitch'. Don't they say that about Miss Oprah Winfrey? She's a good role model for all women.
No, he actually is a dirtbag but you cannot help who you like.
"but is it possible that he let you slaughter him in debates because being verbally and intellectual dominated aroused his kinky nature?"
This very much aroused him. However, he is actually not much of a challenge simply because he liked to parrot his readings. He lacked creative intelligence. I legitimately out-debated him; I think this only exacerbated his jealousy of me.
What I will say is that I believe this kink of his 'fit' because of his self-loathing (and we're talking occasional suicidal ideations). But because he said it was not essential to his character, but he does like to play on it (come on), I also think it is a manifestation of chauvinist men who get pleasure from role reversal. Many radical feminists--and I am one--believe that the male-submissive/female-dominant pairing makes light of women's actual socio-political suffering and then associate it with male sexual arousal. Basically, the dominatrix is respected to the point it causes the man to cum.
This may be more accurate for my ex, but the previous MOST DEFINITELY applies.
"I think it's innate because I've heard of submissive types claim they felt pleasure from being dominated at age four. Such early onset implies it is innate"
Well, that could be a personality trait, which I think is inborn. I sometimes think maybe men who like to be submissive to women have an irrational attachment to the mother. According to medical texts, paraphilias show up during puberty. Perhaps those submissives only believe it is hard-wired because it feels ancient, simply because of their own innate temperments that had nothing to do, previously, with their sexual paraphilia, but later came to be associated with it.
I hope that makes sense!
(cont'd)
With regard to the etiology of kink, Opinionation, Dr. Arnold Klein has a serious fetish for fat men. According to my friend, who used to get services from Klein and was friends with him before I wrote about him on this blog, Klein's staff at his office was largely (no pun intended) fat men.
Jason Pfeiffer recently filed a lawsuit against Klein; I've read the whole sordid thing. Jason has related in private conversations between he and myself this thing as well, but Klein obviously had a penchant for surfing the Internet for fat male sex partners. Klein called himself a 'whore' who 'loves dick'.
All of his friends, outside of the women he associates with, are fat men.
Now, how do you think this came about? It's such an odd thing to be obsessed with fat when we live in a culture that desires and maintains as beautiful the opposite. Do you think that's biologically determined?
For the record, my ex was also into bigger girls... LOL.
"I have a visceral dislike for submissive people"
I don't think being aroused by a dominate woman necessarily means a man is submissive in other areas of life. A while ago I read an interview with a dominatrix, and she claimed that most of her clients were either powerful businessmen, or they were from misogynistic cultures (apparently many Hasidic Jews frequented her 'dungeon'). She believed that these men felt overwhelmed by always having to be in control and bossing others around that they fantasized about escaping from it for a while.
what i see...u are all interested in michael jackson's fans....funny- how sad that u think u are better than them.
Jasmine:
I cannot measure how people are away from the Internet. However, based on dialogues alone, I can say with much certainty that Jacko fans have low IQs.
That much I do know. How do I know? Well, take this post, for instance. If you disbelieve Aaron Carter solely because he's not saying Jacko was an angel, you probably have an IQ in the shitter.
So, in that way, yes, we are better than you.
We are not interested in fans, though; would you say someone was interested in mosquitoes just because they are asking someone what's the best anti-itch cream to use if they are bitten by one?
No, you wouldn't.
Think of it in much the same way.
Thanks for your non-comment.
Desiree,
Did you know that on page 190 of his book "Thanks for the memories" Brice Taylor claims that when MJ was young, the Jackson boys were raped by a large man? I know you did a post documenting MJ being allegedly molested as a child but I couldn't find this particular anecdote in your post. The pdf of Taylor's book is online. I would link to it but copy and paste doesn't work on my iPad on blogger.
Opinionation:
The only Brice Taylor I've ever heard of was a woman who claimed that she was the victim of satanic, New World Order pedophile sex cults her parents put her into. It was several months back that Jessica had stumbled upon this woman who claimed this about the Jackson brothers. I was intrigued--because of what I'd written in that post about Jacko's being a molestation victim--but when Jessica linked a video of this woman talking, I knew she was lying within 10 seconds.
Unfortunately the video is no longer available but I'd watched her babble here:
http://nona-people.blogspot.com/2009/06/michael-jackson-brice-taylor-and-bob.html
In short, I don't believe her. I find her incredibly disturbing with her fervent fantasies of being raped and assaulted by Bob Hope and Kissinger, etc. I was not surprised--as well as being relieved--that she was not in custody of her children.
What do they say? A person can be lying even though they believe their own lies. I don't even think that is the case with Taylor. If I were to play sofa psychiatrist with Taylor, I'd say she was mentally ill.
I don't mean to sound as if I am shooting you down, Opinionation, but I have a visceral reaction to people who get off pretending they were sexually abused or raped. It's twisted and disturbs me to the core.
So, yes, I don't believe she's telling the truth, although, even though I don't really believe in mind control and MKUltra, one of my favorite marginal Pan-Africanists (and believer in the New World Order) agrees with the notion of Jacko being sexually abused--which is a given--but also that he was an MKUltra casualty, like Taylor believes. According to him, Jacko's lot was to destroy black people in hopes to further white supremacy.
Desiree, good to see you've looked into it. I only just read about it today.
I have the pdf of her book on my computer, and I only read the first few pages, but she is absolutely nuts. It's clear she relishes in the thought of being used sexually as a child by men, and she describes everything as graphically as she can. It's pretty crazy.
About Mike being molested, although I agree with Desiree that she is off her rocker and is most likely lying about all the satanic abuse she suffered, I still wonder why she even mentioned Mike in the first place. Why is she involving him in her anecdotes? is it because she may know something, or is it just her adding a sick twisted to the physical abuse she heard about in the media from Mike's own mouth? The only reason I give it some thought is because I don't think that many people thought Joe Jackson or anyone else sexually abused the boys. Most people just think they were beaten.
It's possible that Brice Taylor was thinking of the media report that Bob Jones talked about in his book that happened around the time he married Lisa Marie that claimed Joe Jackson molested Mike, and also the Johnny Jackson anecdote. But they are so obscure, it's uncanny she mentions sexual abuse. I remember Len had mentioned before that all the Jackson brothers were sexually abused according to her source. so who knows, Desiree doesn't really know for a fact if Taylor is lying even if she looks creepy.
I posted that email that mentioned satanic pedophilia and Michael Jackson and David Geffen. A cursory look around suggests that the people who believe in it are conspiracy theorists like Brice Taylor.
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg11317.html
Hello Desiree,
This is Foras-who suggested making an eBook.
I'm just curious, does anyone here know who is behind all these people recanting what they may have said in the past.
For example:
1. Arnie Klein corroborates Jason Pfeiffer's claim that he was MJ's gay lover, then recants
2. Aaron Carter says MJ gave him drugs, then recants...
3. Latoya and Jermain have both said damning (yet possibly true) things about MJ, then they both have recanted.
I'm just curious,
1. Do they think people (except the Hard-core MJ fans who fall for that) are stupid?
2. Do they recant outta respect for his family now that MJ is dead?
3. Do they succumb to threats from the estate...
4. Will Jordie one day EVER say what really happened...(since Jason Francia-the 2nd accuser did and MJ still amazingly got through the '05 trial)
I was hoping Chandler would be on Oprah's show about victims of pedophiles...or be one of her last interview slots before signing off, but alas no!
Please share your thoughts...and yes, if you can make an eBook of your posts, let me know...I'll definitely get it!
Foras,
The only thing I can think of to be the reason for recanting is because they don't want to sever ties with the Jackson machine (for his family, well, Mike was footing the bill for most of their life and who wants to work when you don't have to? plus you don't bite the hand that feeds you).
Arnold Klein, for example, is a famous Hollywood dermatologist and having celebrity clients that love him is his raison d'etre. That's why he supplies them with illegal Rx drugs to keep them coming back for more. He has to be in the "in" crowd. Exposing Michael Jackson's secrets would not look good to his other celebrity clientele, who no doubt have just as much dirty laundry as Mike did. He would seem untrustworthy.
For the likes of Aaron Carter, he probably couldn't take the backlash that came as a result of him speaking out. Maybe he didn't want to be "that guy" who exposes the King of Pop.
Reputations are at stake; taking on an alleged beloved pop star might not be the best idea. I also think that the family and/or the Jackson estate may have something to do with everyone quickly shutting up. Money could have exchanged hands.
Regarding stupidity, think of it like this: who are these people banking on when they speak about Mike in general? His fans. If the fans don't like what is said, they will scream, kick, and boycott until the person has no ability to make a buck of them. It's the fans that will buy the tell all. So you have to please them. They'r ethe poor saps that get exploited for their blind idol worship.
I don't think Jordie will ever speak out. I don't think he would risk his personal safety to put the truth out there. I don't blame him, really. The fans celebrated his father's suicide, they'd love nothing more than to see Jordie have an "accident" after he appears on TV talking about Michael Jackson. And I don't think he is interested anyway; he's probably moved on with his life.
Jessica,
Wow...so in summary, MJ is going to just escape being exposed, (except for insider blogs like these)...
Damn...oh well, ain't no escaping God!!
It's funny I make these posts, I actually was huge MJ fan and still listen to his music, I mean he did have a great voice and one of the best I like hearing (along with TTD, Ralph Tresvant, Stevie Wonder and James Brown) but these days it's with a sad resonance to it and I only listen to stuff before '93... anyway so (sigh) guess he wasn't a pedofile then...(but wait a minute...the Terry George Fiasco was around the time of the Destiny Album...Damn Mike!!!
-I was just telling someone the lyrics of Don't Stop till you get enough were straight up gay..!! only a female should be singing such lyrics or the 'recipient' in a gay affair...right from the spoken intro to the end...I read in Christopher Anderson's book some of his family thought likewise...
Anyway, Luke 8:17:
New International Version (©1984)
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
I'll be posting from time to time...I do hope Desiree can make an eBook of her posts...maybe she'll be the vessel after all huh?
Really, I never had any inkling that "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" was gay or seemed gay, LOL. But I wouldn't put anything past Wacko Jacko. He did write that song "Muscles" for Diana Ross, talking about putting oil on a man's body and all that. And "Speechless" was written about a 14 year old German boy Anton Schleiter.
Regarding Mike being exposed, I have a feeling some truths will be revealed during the Murray trial. Maybe not pedo stuff but other "myths" that the fans like to cling to may be destroyed during the trial. some of them don't believe he had a drug problem, even though Janet Jackson even said he did. They seem to believe his only drug problem was during the Chandler scandal in 1993, although reports hint to him being completely healthy and most likely, he was trying to flee the cops.
"I am not suggesting that it can never be reasonable to suggest 'fame' is addictive to the point one who has had it may do anything to feel that sort of adulation again, nor am I suggesting that drug abusers can never be liars--we already know that to be false. What I am making clear is that it must be remembered that Aaron Carter was no longer using drugs when he gave his interview; he was clean and 'sober'. Additionally, I am pointing out that it is ridiculous to assume that every faded star will slander a friend for media attention.
It should be remembered that Aaron Carter is a Michael Jackson friend and defender."
It will never cease to amaze me the lengths to which people will go to vilify and besmirch Michael's reputation based on lies, suppositions and innuendos. This poor man has never stood a chance in the face of public opinion, which is easily formed on any suggestion, rumor or tabloid story.
I try to avoid the very clear, constant projection that happens when most people discuss Michael, but when I come across it I am almost always floored by the mind bending logic that is utilized, simply for a person to believe what they want to believe: that Michael was gay; that Michael was a child molester.
What part of acquitted of 14 counts in a court of law is not understandable?
Michael was around thousands of children, where are his accusers?
Jordan Chandler, whose father wanted millions to make a movie or The Arvisos who had a history of extorting people for money?
Where are the other accusers?
Child molesters don't just "stop" their behavior; they can't control it. Where are the other children that Michael touched?
Believe me if they were to be found, the prosecution would have produced them. They don't exist.
In the quote above, you are willing to believe that an addict (which is a life long disease with no cure, no matter how long a person has been sober, once an addict, always an addict!) -- you are willing to believe that this young man who initially LIED about making the statements in the first place is now telling the truth, and that he was Michael's friend and supporter simply because he says so. So you're just willing to believe a liar, because well, you want to.
The circular thinking is making me dizzy. You are of course free to write what you will. It's a free country, but is there no compassion inside of you?
LEAVE MICHAEL ALONE.
The public at large, from his die hard obsessive fans, following him from State to State, never giving him a moments piece, to his most heinous haters, the tabloid reporters included and most especially -- all of these people made it impossible for this man to have any semblance of a normal life.
Then when he has peculiarities and eccentricities from being forced to live life in fish bowl, scrutinized and sexualized by the public from the time he was a child, the public turns around and lambasts him for being different.
Isn't it time for US to STOP projecting our stuff onto Michael?
I'm sure you'll have a very well thought out smart retort, if you even dare to publish this comment, but I would suggest that your time would be better spent analyzing your OWNSELF and trying to figure out what makes YOU tic, rather than tearing down this man who is dead and gone.
For God's sake, allow the man to rest in peace.
p.s. and totally unrelated, if you dislike the "anonymous" feature and don't want anyone to use it, why not just remove it from your options?
I'm sorry just one further comment about the recanters.
Jermaine, Latoya, Arnold Klien, Jason Pfeiffer, Aaron Carter and others recant because they are LIARS, because that is what LIARS do. They LIE, and then when their lies might have an adverse effect on them, they recant their story and LIE SOME MORE.
Anyone who reads Jason Pfeiffer's lawsuit against Arnold Klien and DOESN'T come away with a clear understanding that both of those men are clearly, clinically, mentally sick, sick people have distorted thinking themselves.
Since when do we believe, unchallenged, allegations that crazy people make?
Jermaine, the wanna-be, hoish, dead-beat Dad, abusive irresponsible user is a reliable source?
Latoya, the no-talent, exploitative, opportunist is a reliable source?
The whole family from Joseph on down has scapegoated and used Michael's fame and success to carry their non-working, sorry selves for years, long after the successful days of The Jacksons, and they have not been at all grateful, but instead bitterly jealous, which is why Michael distanced himself from them. Only Janet has been able to make a name for herself and stand financially on her own two feet.
How many ways has Katherine and Joseph tried to capitalize on Michael's death with schemes to make money? Her latest, the Michael Jackson tribute to which she invites Gavin Simmons, a man who still calls Michael a pedophile, as you do.
This family was and is DYSFUNCTIONAL, as is the society which seeks to condemn Michael as a liar, a fraud, someone who is deceitful and perverse.
Who are you REALLY talking about?
James Baldwin said it best:
"The Michael Jackson cacophony is fascinating in that it is not about Jackson at all. I hope he has the good sense to know it and the good fortune to snatch his life out of the jaws of a carnivorous success. He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables, for he damn sure grabbed the brass ring, and the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo has nothing on Michael.
All that noise is about America, as the dishonest custodian of black life and wealth; the blacks, especially males, in America; and the burning, buried American guilt; and sex and sexual roles and sexual panic; money, success and despair--to all of which may now be added the bitter need to find a head on which to place the crown of Miss America.
Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated--in the main, abominably--because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires. - James Baldwin, "Here Be Dragons" (1985)
Would that he had some how delivered that message to Michael, downloaded it straight into his brain, maybe Michael would be alive today!
Again I urge you, leave Michael alone. Focus on the WO/MAN IN THE MIRROR!
Undebatable:
I love [sarcasm] when fans leave their long-winded, talking-points loaded, meandering diatribes for me to chuckle at. I'll tell you now, that was not convincing.
"Yes, oh woe is poor sweet, innocent Michael! So maligned and tortured for being naive and 'different'. He's a modern day Elephant Man..."
Cut the fucking shit.
Michael Jackson had a stratospheric career; he was one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century. He's sold millions of records. Kids wanted to be him; girls wanted to sleep with him. He could sing and he could dance.
And what happened? He blew it on drugs and boys.
"This poor man has never stood a chance in the face of public opinion"
Are you batshit insane? Jacko could hire the best PR firms to spin intricate webs of lies on his behalf. He could hire bullies to silence witnesses and kill his detractors' credibility. The reason he didn't stand a chance is because these people--as talented and manipulative as they were--are not miracle workers.
Michelangelo could craft a bust out of elephant dung but, at the end of the day, it's still shit and it still stinks.
Jacko 'lost' in the so-called court of public opinion because smoke and mirrors can only fool 10-year-olds or people who think like 10-year-olds...or his fans.
Cry me a damned river with the Jacko was a Tortured Christ bullshit. My tear-ducts have long since dried up for this freak.
"So you're just willing to believe a liar, because well, you want to."
If you can prove that Aaron Carter is less believable than, say, Michael Jackson, provide your proof. Note: gut-feelings are no substitute for actual facts.
"You are of course free to write what you will. It's a free country, but is there no compassion inside of you?
LEAVE MICHAEL ALONE."
I am free to write what I like, so true. The question is why do you give a damn?
'Leave Jacko alone'? Are you kidding me? I'm hardly pissing on his grave. Since when is going against the current history re-write akin to persecution of a thrice-accused pedophile who paid not one, not two, but three boys off? Explain that to me.
(cont'd)
"Isn't it time for US to STOP projecting our stuff onto Michael?"
Projection implies a sort of similarity between the projectionist and the receiver. I never knew most people were drug-addicted pedophiles. Michael Jackson is no maligned innocent; repeat that over and over, and repeat some more.
I am not 'tearing down' anyone. Because Michael Jackson has died, it suddenly gives people license to completely re-write and/or distort his history, a large part of which had to do with his pedophilia. Seeing that he has victims who have never recanted their stories, it is absolutely out-of-order to act like Jacko was the 'victim'.
Is it just because he can dance and sing? Think hard on about that one...
"Jermaine, Latoya, Arnold Klien, Jason Pfeiffer, Aaron Carter and others recant because they are LIARS, because that is what LIARS do. They LIE, and then when their lies might have an adverse effect on them, they recant their story and LIE SOME MORE."
Yes, and Jacko is so maligned and innocent and sweet and la-dee-da-dee-da.
If you can prove these people (Arnold Klein notwithstanding) are liars, have at. I happen to know Jason Pfeiffer and the only reason Jacko fans think he is some terrible person is because he simply spoke on the record--at Klein's command--about his 'boring fling' with Michael Jackson.
Since that destroys the fangirl masturbation fantasy, he deserves to be strung up by the ankles and beaten.
Again, if you've got proof, provide it; otherwise, you know what to do...
"Anyone who reads Jason Pfeiffer's lawsuit against Arnold Klien and DOESN'T come away with a clear understanding that both of those men are clearly, clinically, mentally sick, sick people have distorted thinking themselves."
Klein has a problem but you don't know Jason Pfeiffer and have already skewed him in your mind; therefore, I see no point in convincing you otherwise. Typical fan blather.
"Since when do we believe, unchallenged, allegations that crazy people make?"
'Crazy' is subjective, first of all; second, I do not take people at their word when it comes to Jacko because I used to be a fan of his and, naturally, I still give him (too much) benefit of the doubt. If what they say corroborates with something completely unrelated to themselves, I give it more credence.
For example, this Aaron Carter entry: what Aaron Carter alleged is the same stuff that has been revealed by others. If you actually read it--and I have doubts that you did--you'd know what I'm talking about here.
Everything else you said was just boring 'Woe is Michael' crap, which is not fact-based. I'm not interested in what you have to say (everyone here has been on Team Jackson before so we know all the tricks) and I hope I've made that particularly clear in these comments.
Let me just add: I find it incredibly rude for people to come onto this blog and spew their fan BS. If anyone wants to worship Jackson as the Second Coming of Christ, take it to a forum or some other drone website.
Don't repeat that crap here. It's just wrong and damned reprehensible.
Jessica,
Well,
About don't stop: "keep on with the force...don't stop till you get enough..." come on, don't mean to be graphic but most of the time it's the dude that is doing the 'force' motion and should be told to not stop till he get enough...unless the girl is riding, which really will equate to rubbing (suction) not force per-se...
2. Have you heard the demo with Janet and Randy, he went from a partially normal male voice to talking like a Drag Queen..."don't stop till you get enough, don't stop till you get enough.."
3. Never listened to Muscles in its entirety
4. Watched MJ unauthorized DVD once in the past, with him walking a llama singing...."i'm peter pan...I can do anything..." straight out feminine AND that was when he looked partially normal...it was around that time '06 I started to REALLY wonder what the deal was with him.
5. I hope God allows Murray to go free, then people/fans will have to eat it up since MJ went free after molesting boys...it's only fair.
-Hell, hippocratic oath aside, I think murray should NOT be blamed...it was MJ's request to get shot up! And if so, blame every damn plastic surgeon that butchered his face!
Speechless was about a boy...damn! WTF...Really?
Wow.
Oh, he was crazy!!
Foras Aje,
wow I never thought about that in don´t stop til you have enough...it really makes sense! omg I will never heard that song like before! LOL
About Speechless, according to him he wrote the song after a water balloons fight with kids. He felt so happy that he wrote it after that.
Foras, I never thought about it. LOL! shoot like I said i wouldn't be surprised if that song was "gay". Actually, you have a point about the "force" being a guy's motion. I'm sorry, this is too funny! Also he says "just love me til you don't know how". That is something a woman would say.
Listen to "Muscles". Some fans like to that that song was written as a twisted tongue and cheek love song for Diana. like he was saying Diana wants muscles and Mike didn't have muscles and he was sad, or some kind of fan BS that makes no damn sense. They say all of this because he supposedly liked Diana "like that". (Yeah right he wanted to be her). But the song is very worshipful of the male body.
http://www.elyrics.net/read/m/michael-jackson-lyrics/muscles-lyrics.html
Isn't it funny how he can write "love" songs but he never really made videos for them? It's like he didn't want to actually be with a girl. he had the opportunity to make a romantic video for "Liberian Girl" but instead he made it a star studded tribute to Liz Taylor who was sick at the time. Same goes for "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", why didn't he want to show that side of himself? Maybe because it didn't exist? LOL. Only after being accused of child molestation did he got to the extreme with the "You Are Not Alone" vid with Lisa Marie. As you may already know, Mike had wanted Latoya to be the leading lady in both "Thriller" and "The Way You Make Me Feel".
Yea he said that "Speechless" was written after playing with a 14 year old German boy (and his sister), who was a special friend. He may have been happy after a water balloon fight, but why are the lyrics so romantic? All of the romance was from playing with an adolescent boy! And come to find out, he vacationed with this boy ( who was in his twenties) after the trial in Bahrain, along with some of the Cascio guys and Omer Bhatti (his live-in special friend). The man was nuts.
Foras Aje,
Don´t stop ´til you get enough was written by Michael himself, right? I´ve noticed that Off the Wall was released in 79, the same years which Scott Thorson claimed to have had sex with Michael.
GirlUndercover
Now that you say that, today I just came across this picture:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5179/mjliberace.jpg
I know Scott Thorson was Liberace's lover at the time. Is him the guy between Liberace and Michael?
That doesn't look like Scott Thorson to me, based on the photos of him available online. I want to know why Jacko has on all of that fur. He looks so gay...
Mike must have felt real comfortable around gay men. Damn. Liberace was one of the first of many who surrounded Mike throughout his life.
That alone might not be "proof" he was gay but it definitely leads to the reasonable suspicion that his gayness is the reason he preferred their company.
Post a Comment