On a related theme, I used to be part of an email 'group' with some guys I went to football with and they were forever making cracks about somebody, usually the same victim, being a paedophile because he expressed a liking for Natalie Portman, who was quite young at the time. Round about the same time, there was a news story about someone seen hanging around a playground and there was great anger amongst some of the worst bullies (because that's what I think they were), who said that if anyone went near their daughters, they would 'fucking kill him'.
I didn't really get this - how they could be making jokes and calling one of the group a 'pervert' and a 'kiddy fiddler', whilst expressing massive outrage at a real scenario. They didn't see a contradiction and I suppose this is a similar thing. It's not real until it happens to you.



