I suppose in an era where the world is exploring, creating manipulated advertisements about, giving talks about, writing about again and again and again and even posting bulletins like the one shown here seemingly trying to normalize pedophilia as a sexual orientation it makes sense that people might feel torn between two creepy presidential candidates. Please don’t take  this post as the normalization of pedophilia as a sexual orientation nor as support of creepy presidential candidates; rather that it certainly isn’t as surprising to me today as it would’ve been 30 years ago that we find ourselves in the situation we are in as citizens.

In the past few weeks both of these memes have come across my feed. In both cases, I’m not sure I see anything morally or legally wrong. Both images are with relatives; Biden with his granddaughter and Trump with his daughter. Both images could be perceived as loving. I see no sexual behavior demonstrated in either image and I see no violation of any persons in either.

A friend commented that it was wrong to kiss a family member on the lips as Biden is seen doing here. I found that to be interesting, mostly because of their strident stance in the matter. It may be unorthodox to peck a family member on the lips, but I’ve seen it more times than I can count in my 51 years on this planet. I was quite surprised the first time I saw it, but after seeing it in other situations, I ultimately realized that was because of my conditioning, not because of some absolutism around morality. When I asked what was wrong with it, I received no response other than a comment along the lines of, “it shouldn’t be difficult to understand it is wrong.” That seemed a lot like my parents when they said, “because I said so” but it was clear to me no headway would be made on the topic and I let it go.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot though and the implication of how acculturation impacts us and informs our judgments. Like breast feeding is for some people, a peck on the lips is for others, it seems after some analysis. Think about the similarity: Just as a breast is an organ for feeding a child, people sexualize it and therefore object to it’s exposure in the context of the natural act of a child nourishing itself with it’s mother’s breast milk. Similarly, just as lips are something for taking in food and nourishment, a kiss can be sexualized when it isn’t necessarily, particularly when it’s a quick closed mouth peck on the lips.

I therefore propose that people who look at these memes and presume they indicate creepiness on the part of either candidate are actually divulging more about their own moral stance than those whom they accuse. It shows either a judgment of the candidate, a judgment of the action, or some combination of both from my vantage point to assume creepiness here.

This made me wonder: for those seeing it as sexualized, is their prejudice having them view these images in the context of their own confirmation bias? I posit that is probably so for a number of people.

As mentioned earlier, there’s ample evidence from my perspective to assert that either candidate is creepy in some capacity or another. Assuming we all accept that as a starting point for this thought experiment and recognize that both of them have red marks against them in this domain, it might follow that next we compare the relative moral judgment of one set of bad marks versus another based on the context of each. Trump is known for the sexual assault and rape allegations whereas Biden is known for his creepy touching of children caught on film in copious manner as well as his lower count sexual assault allegations.

What a tough position for voters to be in: both candidates have allegations against them and we have actual evidence of Biden touching children in a manner many I’ve spoken with view as inappropriate on video. [Note: When I started this article, I had not seen this particular video of Biden. Before watching this video, I thought Biden was creepy. After watching it, I wondered if he was a pedophile based on the excellent manipulation of the voice overlaid on the video. I’m not certain one way or the other but I thought it was an outstanding manipulation and a thought provoking piece as a result.]

I’m left with several thoughts:

  • It seems to me if we condemn one image and one candidate because of it, to be consistent we would need to apply the same standard to the other.
  • How did we end up in a position where playing the game of whose morality is worse is actually a criteria by which we are choosing the commander-in-chief of our country?
  • How important are either of these issues truly in terms of the capacity of the leader?
  • What can we do to prevent our country from being in a position like this in 2024 and what actions do we the people need to take to make that happen?