View source for Abomination Accusation Attack

{{trope}}
Accusing someone of being some kind of [[You Monster!|monstrous predator]] - sexual or otherwise - can be a really efficient weapon. It can make people hate the accusee, maybe even [[Internalized Categorism|get him to hate himself]]. Or, simply use it as a particularly nasty [[Chewbacca Defense]] to shut him up.

Don't bother to do a [[Frame-Up]]: False evidence can be disproved, false testimony can be questioned. Instead, just go for the lower instinct, make people so afraid that they dare not disregard the accusation. What if it's true; we can't really take that risk, can we? After all, there's no smoke without fire, so let's just bring out the [[Torches and Pitchforks]] and start the big [[Paedo Hunt]] or whatever. This can be done against individuals as well as groups. Supertrope of [[All Gays Are Pedophiles]]. When an AAA is honest, it's often caused by [[Aggressive Categorism]] or [[Black and White Insanity]]. Don't be surprised if these people resort to [[Activist Fundamentalist Antics]].

Please note that [[False Rape Accusation|false accusations of actual rape]] or child sexual abuse is [[Frame-Up]] rather than this trope. Same goes for non-sexual examples, such as accusing someone of ''eating'' children in a literal non-metaphorical way: It's this trope if the accusation is that he ''will'' eat your children, or has eaten children in general. If it's trying to pin the disappearance of the local missing kid on him, then it's [[Frame-Up]] instead. Of course, honest & sane accusations have nothing at all to do with this trope: Just like [[Frame-Up]], it's entirely about the malicious kind.

Compare [[Godwin's Law]] for similar accusations of being a [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazi]], and [[Hitler Ate Sugar]] for a method often used in both kinds of accusations. If used consistently, this trope becomes a form of [[Demonization]].

{{examples}}

== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In the first issue of ''[[Lucifer (comics)|Lucifer]]'', a young woman gets angry with the protagonist when he doesn't stop her from touching some wet paint, explaining only afterwards that it's actually blood. In retaliation, she threaten to call the cops and claim that he's a pedophile who has kidnapped her.

== [[Film]] ==
* In a Red Skelton movie he is fooled into thinking that carnival barker/huckster Walter Slezak is a psychiatrist. When he spots Slezak making his spiel he slowwwwwly begins to put it together. Before Skelton can say anything Slezak points at him and yells "Arrest that man. He insulted the American flag." Cops immediately grab Skelton and drag his off as he protests that he never did that.

== Newspapers ==
* One activist who got an essay published in a Swedish newspaper argued the point that all white men who are in relationships with Asian women are actually pedophiles. Because Asians are smaller then western women, or something like that. The author was, of course, a male Asian. And he later got arrested for stalking and arson against his (white) Swedish ex-girlfriend. Classy.

== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Exiern]]'', Tiffany despises Theresa, among other things because Theresa is happy with having been magically turned into a woman. In one very public argument, with the population of Theresa's home city as audience, Tiffany talks as if it was a fact and common knowledge that Theresa is a [[Pedophile Priest]] child-molester. Of course, this smear has no basis other than Tiffany's own malice - and she eventually [[Heel Realization|realizes what a bitch she has been]].
* ''Single Asian Female'' (written by a single Asian male) spreads the message that if a white man shows interest in an adult Asian woman, it means he's actually a pedophile.

== [[Web Original]] ==
* ''[[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]]'' has [http://notalwaysright.com/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-embarrassments/13072 one episode] with a woman going totally overboard with this trope as she visits the movies and decides that she owns the place and has the right to deny random strangers the seats they have bought, all in the name of [[Think of the Children]] - accusing two random young women of being potential child molesters and thus disqualified from being treated with basic human respect.
* At least one IRC chat channel, probably many, used to have as its policy to publish a little message to everyone in the channel every time a banned person tried to enter the channel and get auto-kicked: a message explaining that the user is a pedophile and that such people are not welcome here - and this procedure applied to everyone, no matter why they were banned. People could get banned for things such as being AFK when an admin wanted to chat, and would invariably be casually branded "pedophile" for it.
* ''[[Zinnia Jones]]'' used this trope for satire in the episode [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvcuRVbZMUU Conservative Christians Are Rapists And Pedophiles].
* This is the tactic routinely employed by the administration of [[The Other Tropes Wiki]] against anyone who disagreed with the censorship regime they imposed in middle-to-late 2012:  If you opposed their [[Think of the Advertisers!]]-based censorship regime, you were a pedophile and wanted to see "pedoshit" on the wiki.  There could be no other possible reason to object to their actions.

== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[Monkey Dust]]'', the Paedofinder General is universally feared for his ability to call anyone a paedophile (and then get the randomly accused person killed.) For example, he kills the fiddler in [[Fiddler on the Roof]] for fiddling on the roof, implying that it must be an euphemism for paedophilia.
* In ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'', Gaston doesn't believe that the Beast even exists. When Belle proves him wrong, he changes his position to accusing him of eating children - never mind that the beast has been around for a long time and the only person who had been missing was Belle herself! Or that the villagers believed Gaston over Belle despite that Gaston was proven wrong immediately beforehand.

== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[wikipedia:Blood libel|Blood libel]] is the term for the practice of accusing social, ethnic, or religious groups of ritualistic crimes such as cannibalism, human sacrifice, or well poisoning.
* One of the unquestioned axioms of the off-the-wall right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory is that Democrats are Satan-worshiping pedophiles.
* No doubt influenced by QAnon, pedophilia and/or support for pedophiles become a general go-to accusation for the Trump-worshipping wing of the American Republican party to sling at anyone they didn't like in the wake of Trump's 2020 defeat.  For example, Dennis Lennox, a Republican consultant in Michigan, had no qualms about describing the anti-Trump conservative organization [[The Lincoln Project]] as "pedophile-enabling" [https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/30/michigan-gop-trump-election-fraud-501701 on the record] in summer 2021.

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Sociology Tropes]]
[[Category:Insult Tropes]]
[[Category:Dirty Social Tricks]]
[[Category:Abomination Accusation Attack]]
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
[[Category:This Trope Is an Abomination]]