Pedophiles are good people

I believe the world is doing too much when it comes to the discourse on pedophiles. It’s a rare discussion, but when it comes up, I am surprised by the hashtags flying around. Is it that serious? While I identify as a feminist, I think feminists are doing too much and are overreacting. And due to my inability to comprehend the essence of the brouhaha, I will shamelessly stab my fellow feminists in the back and relegate the importance of their roles to “Twitter feminists” because they are…just doing too much.

I hear you on rape, abuse, misogyny, and this patriarchal society that limits us, but I do not hear you on pedophiles.

Because growing up, I lived in a community of pedophiles. I ran errands for my parents on the street with a lone elderly man who touched girls with perky breasts and those with round bodies. He was a good man because the woman who sold provisions wholesale on my street allowed him to target the girls with perky breasts and round bodies in her shop and only jokingly asked him to stop.

Or like the man upstairs with a fine set of teeth and a welcoming demeanor who introduced 5-year-olds and above to pornography and grabbed a few kisses and squeezes before they returned to their mothers in the kitchen. He would innocently claim he didn’t know I was in the bathroom with a broken knob when he opened the door. I guess the white, foamy water flowing into the narrow gutter was invisible.

I can remember Michael in SS1 who vehemently refused the offer of grown men on our school street who wanted their penises in his butthole. They were gay…and pedophiles, and they never forced themselves. Only what the world would describe as manipulation to achieve their objective.

I mean, the men who hung out at the barbershop in my compound were fun people, and they slept with and paid 14-year-old Dorcas and Etienie from the next compound. I can remember the night the barber’s boy told us how 14-year-old Etiene cried so hard from being fucked so hard on her birthday.

What about the 16-year-old teenage boys who both had natural light skin? One had a deep-throated laughter, and the other had a beautiful smile. They were good people who smiled and were gentle while they explored the bodies of 5-year-olds. No, they didn’t know each other. They only lived next to each other.

And if we stop being emotional, the girls were at fault too. Like it was my fault the day I finally had the courage to slap my quiet neighbor after repeated squeezing. It was my fault when his daughter sat me down in my father’s living room to ask who sent my 8-year-old self to soil the image of her father. It was my fault when his wife stopped me at the backyard of our face-me-I-slap-you, right at the door of the toilet, warning me to stay away from her husband and every member of her family. It was my fault that after I slapped him and innocently announced to him that I would tell my father, I didn’t tell my father—he did. I didn’t tell his wife—he did. I was barely 8, I was timid, and I had no part in the story I was a part of.

He was a quiet man and a good man who helped his wife around the house. Every woman used him as an example, a comparison to their husbands who never lifted a finger. So, I don’t get the campaign against pedophiles.

Isn’t this campaign against pedophiles just an exaggeration? They live with us, they dine with us, they are with us, they insert their fingers and penises into unwilling vaginas and buttholes, but they are good people. I mean, they don’t get judged like we judge everyday people with opinions and perspectives different from ours. They don’t get the rebuke that exists in classist, tribal, and racist discourse. So, it must be okay. They are not criminals.

It has always been general knowledge, so what’s the call for help about? Humor me, “activists” and “Twitter feminists.”

You should really go get a job.

Aisha