Pedophile is the New Motherfucker

Previously on Censor Shit…

We established that “motherfucker” is old-school profanity, known to all, acceptable in printed media as long as that deeply offensive “U” is replaced by a dash – implying that it’s no longer really offensive as a concept (i.e., a literal fucker of mothers), but simply as a lingering reminder that certain words are too naughty to be spoken or typeset. Because it’s only the letters you’re censoring – the actual meaning is right out in the open, no longer shocking, no longer provocative, no longer even all that interesting.

And that’s how it should be. After all, your dad was a motherfucker. As was Mahatma Gandhi’s. And Martin Luther King, Jr.’s. Even the forebearer of your humble scribe, Pinky Tourette. Same goes for every other human or mammal, living or dead. Okay, I see your hackles raising. You’re going to get all technical on me. And yeah, if you’re a firstborn child, then dad wasn’t necessarily a motherfucker since the fuckee wasn’t yet a mother at the time she let him dip his pickle in her barrel. You got me. On the other hand, if, while he was dating mom, your pop used to stumble over to the White Horse Bar on Friday nights to sneak out back behind the dumpster and do the bone dance with that hooker junkie Magdalena, with her whole litter of lazy-eyed runts back home eating American cheese sandwiches and Alpo, then a motherfucker he most certainly was.

Either way, we’re a nation of motherfuckers. Consequently the phrase has lost its mojo, and rightly so. But that raises a deep theosophical question: What now do you call someone to insult them in the most aggro way possible?

Well, that’s easy. Pedophile! He’s a pedophile! She’s a pedophile! They’re a gang of pedophiles! A clutch of pedophiles! A bevy of pedophiles! A tureen of pedophiles! And in a touching tribute to days gone by, back when people used to get all worked up and flushed in the face while accusingly spouting the word “motherfucker” without any care in the world about whether or not it was true, “pedophile” now applies to anybody you feel like applying it to.

That’s right, no proof is needed. Not even a suggestion of proof. In fact, proof takes all the fun out of it. Better to just go online, click on a picture of a well-known politician or celebrity, and type the word. Pedophile! There you go. Feels good, don’t it? Next thing you know, it’s a meme and the story is all over the news – or what passes for the news nowadays, meaning social media.

You’re on your way! That was fun. Too bad it just flared up and fizzled out. Okay, come a little closer now and I’ll give you a hint how to juice it up with some staying power, something you never had with Magdalena. Add the word “conspiracy.” Always works. Better yet, throw in words like “cannibal” or “satanic” or “pizza” and stir vigorously.

As a special bonus, you can also build on previous pedo files. Yep, it’s audience participation time! Find a thread with a juicy pedo tale and hop aboard. Make up something and add to the storyline. No idea is too outrageous, no plotline too extreme. Quite the opposite. The less likely it sounds, the more likely that people will pass it along as gospel.

Just to be clear, pedophilia is bad. I shouldn’t have to say that but, you know… social media. Jeffrey Epstein should suffer a Sisyphean existence of unendurable venereal agony, with festering scrotums (scrota?) sprouting painfully across his body, face, and limbs, exploding into showers of pus and acid that melt his flesh and boil his eyeballs, only to have it all start all over again and repeat endlessly for eternity.

The same for all the other Jeff Epsteins out there. True pedophiles absolutely deserve our condemnation and requisite punishment. However, trial by tweet is the domain of losers and fools. Just disliking someone doesn’t make them a pedophile. It simply makes them, in your opinion and within your sphere of influence, an asshole. Which used to be a swear word too. Ah, the good old days.