Townsend's 2002 essay on child abuse & net porn

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Re-posting this as new topic so it won't get buried in the "not a pedophile thread". Here's an excerpt from the essay he published January 2002:

"The pathway to free paedophilic imagery [on the internet] is - as it were - laid out like a free line of cocaine at a decadent cocktail party: only the strong willed or terminally uncurious can resist. Those vigilantes who research these pathways open themselves up to internet 'snoops.' Many are willing to take the risk. They believe the pathways themselves must be closed..."

What do y'all think? Here's the link: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/doc_o_day/petetownshend1.html

― Paula G., Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Congratulate yourself if you are "strong willed or terminally uncurious."

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I should say that I excerpted probably the most controversial sentence. The essay is a strongly worded anti-childporn piece of writing. Was he doing this a year ago just to cover his ass, is he the obvious victim of a witch hunt, a little of both?

― Paula G., Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:34 (twenty-three years ago)

There's that phrase ("as it were") again--what does it mean??

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Sounds kinda dodgy.

― , Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm neither strong willed nor terminally uncurious (and I'd probably take up an offer for a free line at a "decadent cocktail party"), but I've never even thought twice about looking at child porn.

― S>C>, Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:36 (twenty-three years ago)

TS: http://www.theonion.com/onion3829/yodas_penis.html VS. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/doc_o_day/petetownshend1.html

― James Blount, Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:36 (twenty-three years ago)

"as it were" means "if you encounter a metaphor somewhere else in this sentence, don't come whining to me about it — signed the author"

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:48 (twenty-three years ago)

From PhraseFinder:

"As it were" is short for "as if it were." The Oxford English Dictionary has the following definition for sense number 9 of "as":
Introducing a supposition, expressed by the subjunctive mood: As if, as though. (Archaic.)

And this is the OED's definition for sense 9c:
Esp. in "as it were": as if it were so, if one might so put it, in some sort: a parenthetic phrase used to indicate that a word or statement is perhaps not formally exact though practically right.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought the short form for "as if it were" was "as if" -or "as bloody if."

e.g. "Are you comfortable, as it were (I care?)"

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 20:05 (twenty-three years ago)

haha "archaic" in the sense of "omnipresent"

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 20:12 (twenty-three years ago)

So the function of this phrase in rhetoric is to suggest that the statement to follow should not be taken too literally.... A kind of qualifier, then? Makes sense.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 20:13 (twenty-three years ago)

I read "as it were" as kind of a tacked-on "indulge me for the thing I just said that I can't quite commit to." Not necessarily a fact that the writer/speaker can't back up, but an ironically used phrase that the w/s wants you to know he's distancing himself from.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 20:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Okay but does anyone who's read the essay think he's sincere with this "vigilante" stuff, or just fiddling about as it were?

― Paula G., Wednesday, 15 January 2003 15:41 (twenty-three years ago)

It still sounds to me like a post-facto rationalisation for being terminally curious and deeply regretting it afterwards.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 15:46 (twenty-three years ago)

In his book Ask, Paul Morley comments on interviewing Townshend, in particular the latter's habit of ending every sentence with the words "as it were." He says that it gets so bad you wonder whether you can trust him on anything ("it's just one of these expressions which means nothing!").

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 15 January 2003 15:49 (twenty-three years ago)

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