For those who aren’t already aware, there was a video that was recently uploaded by the Youtuber “shoe0nhead”, a female youtuber with just shy of 1.6 million subscribers about the Prostasia Foundation.
Her video can be viewed here:
To put it bluntly, it’s just a reactionary puff piece she wrote up in response to the Berlatsky-Prostasia pedo panic that happened on Twitter a couple months ago.
A lot of the stuff she says in the video is just regurgitated swill she heard/read some other people on the Internet say without actually following up on it, but there are a few points I want to brush up on just so everyone who views her video and comes directly here can see a valid, well-thought-out rebuttal to some of her video’s most glaring flaws.
The flaws I’m going to bring up not only rebut the claims of her video, but also her schlock journalism and the way she takes certain things out of context or simply does not do enough proper research into the topics, these are issues that I can’t just silently allow to go unaddressed because they highlight the dishonest character of those who attack @prostasia and blatantly misrepresent its mission, its goals, etc.
I will be breaking down my critiques in segments, because that’s the easiest way to summarize things.
1.) She brings up the “FL Mom Fights Child Sex Doll With Daughter’s Likeness” as a talking point
In her video, at 6:00, she goes into detail about Prostasia’s stance on simulated/virtual child pornography and the use of child sex dolls, admittedly backing away from the topic of lolicon/shotacon and art, but taking the opportunity to mention the situation involving the FL mother and the CRC.
This particular issue rubs me the wrong way, because it was PROVEN that mother in question LIED about the doll ripping off her daughter’s likeness. When not only myself, but others who took an interest in the case noticed very real discrepancies between the mother’s claims that the doll (and the Amazon advert) were directly inspired by artistic photographs of her child, who has a modeling career, the NBC affiliate simply was not able to produce any facts that proved the case, and the CRC ignored my emails entirely asking for a timestamp of when the photograph was taken.
This was all documented and discussed in the thread here:
In this thread, myself and @JustLurking , as well as a few other forum members, did actual research into the matter while documenting our findings, as well as highlighted key facts about the sex doll in question, the industrial and manufacturing processes behind child sex dolls, and the artistic and commercial aspects about the way they’re designed or marketed.
It should also be noted that several other persons of interest within that thread have ties to the sex doll industry and they were on our side.
Moreover, the thread does more than enough to prove that the doll was NOT based off of someone’s actual, child daughter, and honestly the only thing keeping it from holding the fraudsters over at the CRC from being held accountable is the fact that we don’t have a time-stamp for when the photograph of “Kat” was taken to confirm my suspicions, my suspicions that the whole situation was fabricated deliberately to trigger socio-political unrest so that way those afraid of pedophilic impulses can see thoughts or ideas they find distasteful or offensive made criminal.
This topic in particular irks me because it highlights the reactionary nature of “shoe0nhead” and why her video can’t be taken in good faith, but also because she’s lending credence to what just about any unbiased viewer looking at the matter objectively could see was clearly a bad-faith attempt at manipulating the public into moral panic mode in a way that would have put innocent men and women in the crosshairs of zealots looking to make an example of their disgust, rather than do something that actually protects children.
In later parts of the video, she delves into the Prostasia Forum, and highlights a few posts by forum posters, including the likes of @anon49547193, @LoliShadow, and others.
Had June bothered to sift through the rest of the forum, rather than cherry-pick certain posts which could be read to suit her narrative out-of-context, she probably would have found my thread and if she had an ounce of integrity as a content creator, she likely wouldn’t have slipped that bit about the FL Mom CSD in her video to use as a talking point, even if it were a very minor one.
2.) She constantly conflates MAPs with Child Predator and Pro-Contact Individuals
At various points throughout the video, she constantly attacks and asserts that MAPs, minor-attraction, and pedophilia are not a type of sexuality, and draws upon gender-based classifications to further this.
She also furthers these points by attacking renowned clinical psychologist James Cantor, an empirical authority on the matter whose works are cited and respected by others who also study paraphilias and sexuality.
While many people (including some on this very forum) may not agree with everything Dr. Cantor may have to say on some issues, specifically some of his points on transgender individuals (I admit, I’m not all that aware of what he said, or why there’s disagreement, so forgive me if I sound insensitive) he is STILL a valid and respected individual whose opinions on the matter are worth more than anything someone like June would have to say on the matter.
The works of James Cantor and others who study the issue of pedophilia/minor-attraction and how they relate to sexual offending against children have been instrumental in helping develop meaningful risk assessment profiles and therapeutic strategies to help those who may fit these profiles to remain offense-free, in addition to identifying meaningful CSA prevention strategies and techniques.
At other points, she also invokes some “Amos Yee”, an apparent child predator who adopted pro-contact beliefs and was later arrested for sex crimes relating to the sexual abuse of children.
While she’s not wrong to insinuate that many child predators are also pedophilic, she’s wrong to imply that all of them present a real or present danger to children, in addition to misrepresenting MAPs as though they are all pro-contact or view actual, real children as sexual beings, or that they believe such acts are OK to be acted upon with children or minors.
This is a common rhetorical tactic I see among people on all sides of the political spectrum, and it does nothing to help bring about meaningful discourse or understanding, but rather seeks to paint certain groups as “the bad guys” and discredit them, and I would expect nothing less from someone that even the owner of the Kiwi Farms did a “Mad At the Internet” video on, a video that highlights her issues as an Internet personality, as a content creator, and as a person.
3.) Taking forum posts and conversations out of context
As I said earlier in this post, she takes quite a few posts on the forum out-of-context to try and fulfill the narrative that @prostasia is not truly committed to protecting the rights and safety of children, but rather the rights and civil liberties of adults.
This is an unfounded critique claim that I see regurgitated from prostasia.info, an inflammatory puff-page written by one Ayden Federline to try and ‘expose’ the organization. Federline’s page gets a LOT wrong about the organization, and even reaches pretty far to try and imply that the organization was illegally accepting donations, which was not true in the slightest.
Anyway.
What irks me about this section of her video is that she almost deliberately tries to take certain posts out-of-context, or tries to place them on a higher pedestal than they ought to be on.
Some of what she cites here are truly dreadful posts written by either pro-contact trolls or trolls trying to make the forum look bad, or simply nefarious actors, who were subsequently flagged and banned to which criticisms were levied against them by other forum users, including myself on several of these occasions.
At 18:59, she cites:
This one particularly irks me because it’s quite clear from EVERYONE in the thread that @anon49547193 is making a semantic argument about the terminology being used, and that he’s NOT arguing that pedophiles should be allowed to molest or even be allowed to touch children with or without their consent.
At 19:50, she cites:
https://forum.prostasia.org/t/making-it-illegal-to-look-at-children-in-public-for-sexual-arousal/1601?u=chie
What’s so interesting about this is that @voldima unironically tries to rally support for making the act of looking at something a crime, to which they are met with understanding, yet pushback from other forum users, including myself and @JustLurking , who critique the efficacy of making it a crime to view things that are already in public a certain way, as opposed to expression or speech.
While in a perfect world we wouldn’t want pro-contact pedophiles or child predators to be able to look at children in a way that sates their appetites (eg. hanging out in a public park) but voyeuristic activities are already criminal offenses in a variety of places across the country, as well as it being a crime to record children (or their identities) without their knowledge or the consent of their legal guardians.
Again, another example of her taking things out of context, even in a way that could be interpreted as ‘favorable’ to her directive of bashing @prostasia .
At 17:07, she cites:
A post by @LoliShadow , an…interesting character who is no longer active on the forum.
I think the post’s actual content speaks for itself with regards to distinguishing a child predator from a MAP. There are a few bits and pieces I don’t actually find agreeable with this post, but it only goes to show how far June went to take content out of context.
4.) Attacking Noah Berlatsky
I’m not all that familiar with Berlatsky or his points, ideas, etc. but from what I’ve seen (and judging from my interactions with him on Twitter) he seems like an alright dude, with a handful of his tweets being mischaracterized or taken deliberately out-of-context to make it seem like he’s a pedophile or that he disagrees with the status quo, or certain aspects of it, which are unquestionably effective at protecting children from abuse.
Maybe @terminus can chime in? Or perhaps Berlatsky himself? I just don’t know enough other than it’s more likely that she’s taking things out of context and regurgitating claims and accusations she read on Twitter, rather than making a proper criticism or argument.
5.) Guy Hamilton-Smith and Jeff White’s short-lived involvement with the Organization
I’ll admit, this is something I agree with a bit of people on, but in @prostasia 's defense, the organization has improved greatly since then, modifying/updating their staff/volunteer screening processes and goinf so far as to disavow Jeff White for not being transparent or upfront about his sex offense convictions.
My opinion on Hamilton-Smith is that, although arguments float around that he was “changed and reformed”, he shouldn’t have been picked for the job, both from a PR perspective as well as an HR one. I feel as though there were simply more qualified candidates for whatever involvement he had, and if there weren’t at the time he was brought on, then @prostasia should have waited for, or perhaps headhunted candidates who were.
PR for a CSA prevention charity can matter quite a bit.
6.) Attacking the Map Support Club
From what I gather, most of her critiques involve the fact that they allow pedophilic minors into the chat and the inherent risks involved.
Thankfully, we know that the administrators of the MSC work very closely with StopItNow! to staff qualified therapists to monitor and guide discourse during the chat’s active hours, and due diligence seems to be their motif, with limiting certain features minors have access to, as well as banning/disallowing minors who are not there for community support from accessing the chat.
I would find myself in agreement with June on this, had the MSC not been handled responsibly to ensure that qualified personnel are on-staff, as well as measures to ensure that minors who are pedophilic themselves were not adequately protected.
@TNF_13 has addressed most of these concerns.
7.) In closing…
A lot of what June says in her video is wrong. What stands to be certain, however, is that she employs bad-faith arguments and rhetorical tactics which go above and beyond to flat-out misrepresent contents that can easily be searched up by anonymous users who access the forum, as well as repeating the same bad-faith critiques against Prostasia, its staff, and its community.
As someone who used to be a fan of June’s content way back in the day, I can safety say that I’m extremely disappointed in this video.
It’s especially disappointing to know that she isn’t stupid. These are not at all good-faith arguments being made, but rather attempts at stoking a fire to have content to blog about. Because that’s primarily what her content is.
The fact that she knows the difference between a NOMAP (non-offending minor-attracted person) and a child predator, but barely ever makes this distinction clear, only furthers my disappointment with her.
