Change over time

I think it is interesting how things change over time.  Not to date myself, but I took a computer class before there were windows, when dos commands were typed next to a > sign.  Technology has taken off and transitioned things that were once considered luxuries into common place must-have's.

Along with that we have seen changes in gay rights, the LBGTQ movement, as well as a number of other things.  In Halberstam's Gaga Feminism it states "We all know of the "protect the children" ruses that religious Americans have used to censor all kinds of materials that feature any kind of open discussion of sexuality" (xxi) that were evident in the 1970's.  I was raised within a religious family with all of the protection that my parents could infuse.  Over time we saw things change with the first occurrences of gays in television shows that were then viewed as bad.  But as things progress much like technology we find that things aren't as "non-normal" because over time they become normalized.  There are many programs that include gays and lesbians, instead of the few scant shows that were in the past.  Halberstam's article also notes that "this generation of kids - kids growing up in the age of divorce, queer parenting, and economic collapse - who will probably recognize, name, and embrace new modes of gender and sexuality within a social environment that has changed their meaning forever." (xxi)

I found it interesting in listening to a local radio show that the University of Toronto had a Key-Note speaker who was to speak on the sexuality of children.  The speaker is a professor at a California university.  He has written several books on children, sexuality, and pedophilia.  He has even claimed himself to be a "theoretical pedophile".  In listening to the show the host addressed the audience about this issue stating that we have seen the movement of gay rights and then posed the question, 'Do you think we may see the acceptance of pedophilia as an acceptable form of sexuality?  Email me your responses.'  So that makes me very concerned as a parent.  While I tend to be open minded, this, no matter how much the future may try to normalize this could never be right.  I just wonder how far will be too far before we realize that some thing like this cannot be normalized.  I am all for people having rights to be whoever or whatever they want.  That is their right.  We were all given free will.  I am also for the rights of the children.  I hope I never see the day come that pedophilia is normalized.  It may seem outlandish now, but we have seen things change over time as more things are introduced and lose their sense of "not normal".