This is what Milo said:
“Yeah, I don’t mind saying, I don’t mind admitting that, and I think particularly in the gay world – and outside, the Catholic Church, if that’s where some of you want to go with this – I think in the gay world, some of the most important, enriching and incredibly, you know, life-affirming, important, shaping relationships very often between younger boys and older men, they can be hugely positive experiences for those young boys, they can even save those young boys from desolation, from suicide, from drug addiction, all those things, provided they’re consensual. Provided they’re consensual.”
He also said, without a hint of sarcasm:
“I am grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.”
And this:
“This arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent which totally destroys, you know, the understanding that many of us have of the complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex, and actually, in the homosexual world particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, those kind of coming-of-age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable — a sort of a rock for when they can’t talk to their parents.”
I like Milo. I think he’s done a lot of good. But by promoting man-boy sexual relationships (though he clarifies that the little boy needs to be post-pubescent and the relationship must be “consensual”), he has disqualified himself from speaking for conservatives like me.
“He also said, without a hint of sarcasm:
“I am grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.””
Unlike Americans, people from Britain don’t always signal in an obvious manner by their tone of voice or inflexions that they are using irony when they are saying something. It may have been a tasteless and crass thing to say, but you don’t understand the concept of dry British wit or edgy humour if you think this means that he is actually condoning what this priest did to him.