This week Milo Yiannopolous, former senior editor of Breitbart, resigned. I first heard about him when he was debating against feminists about their views on body image and STEM careers. I’ll give him this; he is very good at riling people up. The women that debated against him often became frazzled by his arguments and did not recover for the remainder of the debate. Milo knows how to articulate his arguments in the most offensive way possible in order to shut down opposition and generate media press. That is the only thing he can do well. Every time I heard him espouse his views it was always about inferior women were and how all Muslims wanted him dead because of his sexuality.

In the midst of his sexist views, such as caps on the amount female students in STEM programs because women will cry and quit, Milo finally fell because of his views about consent. I guess Milo must have taken a few pages out of Vladmir Nabokov’s, Lolita because he attempted to justify pedophilia as a legitmate sexual preference. For those of you who have not heard of Lolita, it is a story about a much older man who falls in love with a 12 year old girl and then goes into graphic detail about his hypothetical sexual encounters with her. Milo believes that age is an ‘oppressive social construct,’ and that a child has the capacity to consent to sexual activities with an adult. He believes that this kind of relationship should be accepted and normalized.

Nonsense. A child has not had as many life experiences as an adult, and therefore, does not have the knowledge to realize that they are walking into a dangerous situation. A situation where the child has no power because the adult can prey on their innocence and manipulate them into activities that make them uncomfortable. The child in these relationships often cannot and will not speak out against their abuser because they either have a hard time articulating what has happened to them or their abuser has threatened them. Yiannopolous believes that the abuse children suffered at the hands of Catholic priests is not a serious issue. When a child is abused they feel ashamed about what has happened to them and will not tell a trustworhy adult. They bottle their feelings of shame inside and resort to destructive coping mechanisms such as drugs and sexual assault when they are older.

Milo’s views on age directly correspond with his views on consent. If age is an ‘oppressive social construct,’ then abusers are given room to justify their actions. Abusers can shrug off accusations with ‘age is just a number statements.’ Attempting to break down age categories means that children’s minds and bodies become objects for someone else. It means that children are forced into decisions they should not have to face. The child’s views are never taken into account because their age makes them incapable of consenting to sex with an adult.

Finally Milo falls, and it is a beautiful development. Views like his should never be normalized because it would mean that childhood is no longer sacred. It would become normal for children to be thrown into the adult world without the slightest clue how to navigate it. If age was a social construct, neither puberty nor cognitive development, would exist. This is the difference between an adult and a child.