Bill Maher on intergenerational relationships in interviewBill Mahr had several things to say about intergenerational relationships in an interview in the just-out issue of Playboy [March 2007]. He seems quite open to the concept of intergenerational play between the generations, beit on a same-sex level. Some quotes from the interviewMaher: Foley went after boys. Actually, I wasn't terribly taken aback by Foley. He was like a college professor, in a job where every year there's a new wave of fresh meat. He would look over the field and decide. He probably had pretty good radar to know which kids were amenable. From the evidence we have, he tried to do something only after they were out of the page program. If a 19-year-old gay kid wants to go out with an older guy, why not? The guys his own age are probably dumb doofuses. Playboy: But even after leaving their jobs as pages, they were far younger than Foley.Maher: Look, I'm a 51-year-old man, and I go out with girls in their early 20's. I'd be hypocritical if I said it's ridiculous for a gay man to so that. I'm very libertarian about love. I'm the only guy I've ever heard who defends Mary Kay Letourneau. Playboy: Are you saying teachers should be allowed to have sex with their 13-year-old students, as she did, and not go to jail?Maher: I think it's a little offbeat, but you know, I believe in the double standard. If a 28-year-old male teacher is screwing a 13-year-old girl, that'a a crime. But with Debra Lafave (another teacher who had sex with a student) screwing her 14-year-old boy student, the crime is that we didn't get it on videotape. Was he being taken advantage of? I wish I had been taken advantage of like that. What a memory she gave him! I would think he's a champion among his friends. Are you kidding? Even with Michael Jackson-- Playboy: Are you defending him [Michael Jackson], too?Maher: I'm not defending him, but I do believe his case has a nuance that makes it different from other child molestation cases -- not that I'm saying he necessarily did it, but come on. Jackson's worst accusers never said he did anthing brutal, like bend them over a table and ram them -- you know, like a priest. The worst they said he did was a little grabby-grabby under the covers. Don't get me wrong. It's a crime. You shouldn't be able to grab a kid that age, but when I heard about it, all I could think of was my being brutally beaten up on the playgound when I was 12 -- a kid punching me in the face while another held me down. If I could go bad and trade that experience for being gently masturbated by a pop star, I would do it in a New York second. Frankie Valli could jerk me off. Bobby Sherman could. Marvin Gaye could. Playboy: You're being remarkably open-minded.Maher: Woody Allen is the one we might have been wrong about.
I was pretty hard on him on my show, but how many years has his
relationship continued? |