Kathy Shaidle gets it about right:
Guys, seriously.
When you invite someone as gay as Milo to speak at CPAC or whatever, here’s the thing:
Gay people are not the angelic eunuchs of your Will and Grace straight fantasies.
As pretty much any of them will tell you — ask Tammy Bruce — a huge part of gay culture is the initiation of teen boys into the life by older men.
I’ve looked at the tapes and read MILO’s explanation and, frankly, the whole “advocating for paedophilia” thing is nothing more than a cheap hit job. Or it is if you know anything about gay culture.
At the moment I am reading Francis Spaulding’s wonderful biography of Duncan Grant. There is no doubt at all that Grant discovered a part of his sexuality because a nasty old man, likely all of twenty-five, touched him at a tender age. Not at seven or even twelve; rather in his mid-teens. Was that wrong? Yes. Does it happen? Yes again. MILO claims he was blowing a priest at fourteen which I find outrageous; but, like Kathy, I am unsurprised.
If you understand gay culture, if you have gay friends, you will know that the idea of men and boys together is part of that culture. Is the age of consent the issue? It might be, but while the vast majority of gay men stay on the legal side of the line, they certainly lust in their hearts for the “twinks”.
And if you understand straight male culture, if you chat with a bunch of guys, you will know that many men would just love to bang a seriously hot fifteen year old. They don’t actually do it any more than gay men do; but a pretty, nubile, underage girl does not go unnoticed. “Jail bait” is a thing and has been for centuries. (And the fashion mags are full of them.)
The nice people, the girls in the front of the class, don’t want to know the darkness in men’s hearts. MILO, to his great misfortune, did not maintain the official pretence with quite the vigor the great and the good require. For which he is punished with disinvitation to CPAC (a now, in the face of Trump, irrelevant organization) and a cancellation of his book deal (keep the money MILO) and, possibly, a parting of the ways with Breitbart.com.
The takeaway. Never tell the truth. Never, for a second, admit that you find a person less that a certain age, sexually attractive. Never allow that gay male sexuality may begin with a moment with an older man. The girls in the class room front row are quite sure that you have sinned even though you are sinned against. If you are straight, make sure you lust after only age appropriate women. Because, otherwise, whether you act on your impulses or not, you’re a perv. Even talking about the beauty of youth makes you a paedophile or worse.
What we are seeing here is a moral panic attached to a political agenda: the left have no counter to MILO, nor do the Rinos. Time to smear. And smear they have.
[And yes, I write that as the father of two “underage sons” who I will protect as well as I can from predatory men or women. But I am not enough of a hypocrite to pretend I have no idea what MILO is talking about. My fond wish is that my sons are as lucky as I was and able to avoid the paedophiles. But there are no guarantees. Other than keeping your boys in a cotton box, the reality is that there are lots of nasty people out there. And worse, some very nice ones. Innocence is more often lost to the nice than the nasty.)
Jay Currie 
I would expect no less from the man who declares Trump to be a “great President”. Jay, your contortions would put three troupes of Shanghai acrobats to shame.
Seriously, nice try. But it’s a little simpler that than. Milo’s brand is outrage, and his market is conservatives who like to feel edgy. Unfortunately for him, he never quite achieved Ann Coulter’s skill at bouncing effortlessly between smirking provocation and wide-eyed, aggrieved faux-martyrdom when the provocation worked, all just in time for The Book.
Actually, the more I read variants on this theme (which you, Shaidle, Gavin MGinnis and other pundits are now peddling), the funnier it becomes. The line seems to be something along the lines of: “You lefties, who up to now we’ve reviled as amoral, pro-LGBTTQ polymorphous hedonists, are actually sexual naifs who don’t really know goes in the gay community, unlike Shaidle, Currie and other worldly sophisticates, who, like, have actual gay friends and stuff.”
I think that probably most of the grownups among us have at least as clear an idea of gay culture, and of what lurks in the hearts of men, as, oh, let’s say a Shaidle. And I think to most of the adults on the left, Milo was as amusing as an embarrassment to the traditional right as he was an annoying, shrill self-promoter with no actual ideas or commitment to a bigger cause than the next OOH-outRAGEous stunt.
The “left” have no “counter” to Milo? What on earth was there to counter??
I agree with you Terry. So why the riots? Why the across the board effort at personal destruction?
Why the two comments saying the same thing?
The two comments weren’t saying the same thing, Derek. Briefly, the first one was saying that Milo misjudged his market. The second noting that gay-splaining from conservative pundits is funny.