On October 29th, actor Anthony Rapp came forward to Buzzfeed News with allegations that Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted him at the age of 14. The two were working together on Broadway; Spacey, who was 26 years old at the time, held a cast party which Rapp was invited to. At the end of the night, Spacey picked Rapp up, took him to his bed and climbed on top of him. Rapp pushed Spacey off of him and left spacey's apartment. Rapp has been quoted saying, "The older I get, and the more I know, I feel very fortunate that something worse didn't happen, and at the same time, the older I get, the more I can't believe it. I could never imagine [that] anyone else I know would do something like that to a 14-year-old boy.”
In response to the story, Kevin Spacey took to Twitter and apologized to Rapp, claiming that it was drunken behavior and that he does not remember the encounter. He then diverted focus from the subject by stating, "As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women,” he said. “I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose to live as a gay man.” Spacey has most recently stated that he will be seeking "evaluation and treatment".
As far back as social stigmas have existed, the LGBTQ community has been conflated with pedophilia. Examples of this can be seen in popular mainstream media such as "Family Guy", the downfall of Milo Yiannopolous, and punchlines regarding priests and altar boys.
Prior to the 1970s, gay Americans were seen as "sexual perverts" and treated as such. Openly homosexual individuals were often doxxed and unable to work jobs that involved children, such as teaching jobs and clergy positions. This stemmed from the belief that gay people were mentally unwell or morally flawed. Philosophies like these were spearheaded by people like Anita Bryant, who used her fame as a Christian singer in the 1970s to kick-start her campaign "Save Our Children". Coalitions like this worked to strip LGBTQ people of their civil rights based on the belief that gay people were sexual deviants out to endanger children. Sadly, this is a stigma that still exists today and has endangered the likelihoods of many LGBTQ people.
Often times, the way to "cure" gay people of this mental illness was through forms of invasive therapy, such as conversion therapy. Popularized in the 1950s and 60s, practices of conversion therapy included ice-pick lobotomies, chemical castration, and aversion techniques. All of these techniques as well as though enforcing a spiritual approach have been deemed as pseudo-scientific by the American Psychiatric Association; "based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that a patient should change his/her sexual homosexual orientation" and describes attempts to change sexual orientation by practitioners as unethical.
So, where does this leave us with Kevin Spacey? Spacey used the accusations against him as an opportunity to both distract with his coming out, as well as perpetuating the myth of the gay pedophile. His "seeking treatment" brings back into popularity the thought that sexuality is something to be "cured" and is inherently wrong. Rapp's position as a victim is being swept under the rug by Spacey's overshadowing coming out of the closet. It is important that we instead uphold the stories of survivors and hold accountable those perpetuating violence, and violent stigmas. Gay people are not pedophiles and they are not to be cured.
