The Press vs The Sound of Freedom

Bloomberg has published this opinion piece by Noah Berlatsky about Sound of Freedom. The piece is fairly straightforward, but it ends this way:

So, is Sound of Freedom a QAnon dog whistle, or is it just another thriller? The answer is that — whatever the filmmaker's intentions — it functions as both. These narratives do little to help victims. But they can create coalitions of feeling, disgust and righteous rage that connect conservative conspiracy theorists with the mainstream. That's why Trump's screening it. And that's why its popularity is ominous.

That last line is really the one that stands out. “Its popularity is ominous.”

Do you know what’s ominous? The growing attempts to mainstream and normalize pedophilia.

There’s a San Francisco-based group out there called Prostasia that wants to “destigmatize” “minor-attracted people.” The organization describes itself as “a child protection organization that combines our zero tolerance of child sexual abuse with our commitment to human and civil rights and sex positivity.”

Critics of the organization claim Prostasia “support[s] the sale of child-like sex dolls, advocate[s] in support of the sexual depiction of minors in drawings and cartoons, and believe[s] sex offense registries don't protect children. Organizational leadership is pretty unconventional too. Throughout 2019, there was a convicted sex offender on the advisory council and a governing board that consisted of a fashion designer and two lawyers with backgrounds in free speech.”

The Prostasia Foundation advocated to the United Nations that “computer generated and drawn portrayals of child sexual abuse constitute ‘representation of children’s sexuality,’ as opposed to the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.”

The Foundation also conducted an interview with Mireille Miller-Young, a feminist professor, who claimed that exposing children to pornography, at least in her own experience, was “joyful and fun.” More specifically,

Your book starts off with a discussion of how you saw nude pictures of Vanessa Williams when you were 8 and “became captivated with everything about sex, and…wanted to see more nude pictures.” That sounds like exactly what anti-porn crusaders fear!

Yeah. Who knew that getting into that as a kid would lead to a career! (laughs)

The anti-porn crusaders fear that children being exposed to sex is going to lead them to some kind of ultimate demoralization. It’s going to make children unable to be prope citizens of patriarchy. They won’t reproduce the “normal” family

I think that there’s this belief that children themselves do not have a sexuality, which of course they do. Not to say that it’s the same as an adult sexuality. It’s a developing sexuality.

And, of course, the socialization that pornographic materials can provide at that age can be interpreted in different ways. And my experience was of it being joyful and fun. It was an image of beauty and sexiness that influenced my ideas about sexuality through life.

The interviewer happens to have been Noah Berlatsky.

Mr. Berlatsky, who thinks Sound of Freedom’s popularity is “ominous” served as the communications director for Prostasia, which operates or operated a chat room for pedophiles… errrr… minor-attracted persons that was open to people thirteen and older.

In other words, Bloomberg published an opinion piece decrying Sound of Freedom’s popularity and dismissing some child trafficking claims by Operation Underground Railroad. The author of the piece previously served as communications director for an organization that wants to normalize people sexually attracted to minors.

I think that might be more “ominous” than the movie’s popularity. It also plays perfectly into the reality of the conspiracies Berlatsky dismisses. The press really does hate this movie.