The beta of Apple OS-X Leopard provided to developers that attended WWDC has been leaked. Nicholas Deleon of CrunchGear posted about the upcoming operating system appearing on Oink, a private piracy site and, oh boy, are the darknet pirates angry. In their anger, they are throwing out every homophobic rant they can think of in their comments to Deleon’s post.

There remains implicit support in our society for intolerance, and teenagers and young adults have learned from their parents, peers, and politicians that it is okay to verbally abuse people they do not agree with by using language that is never appropriate. We have therefore found ourselves in a Web 2.0 world where the most common criticism in response to a post comes in the form of explicit homophobia. Combined with the fact that most comments are anonymous or made using silly usernames, this vitriol has gotten out of control.

What to do about people who hide behind their anonymity to continue pirating copyrighted content and perpetuate intolerance? We should start by removing anonymity on the Internet. To use the Internet, everyone should be required to provide their true name.

When gaming, usernames are appropriate. People purposely create a different identity for entertainment purposes. When people conduct business, join discussions, or other activities in cyberspace, then usernames and anonymity are not appropriate. Their use indicates the user does not take full ownership of their actions and any consequences. They are cowards who pretend to fear Big Brother and a loss of privacy, but who really just want to do whatever they want without being caught, including criminal activity aimed at harming others.

One of the reason why I now use Facebook is because this social network values real identities instead of usernames and anonymous activity. You can create fake names, but a majority of people appear to be using their true names and true identities, in the spirit of staying in touch with family and friends. Compare this to activity on MySpace, blogs, and sites like Digg, where few people take ownership of their identities and become intolerant jerks in their anonymous freedom.

If content is to be valued, then the creator must stand nakedly beside his or her content. This is cybernudism, the ability to expose your true name, your true identity while interacting on the net over great distances of space and even time. To conduct yourself otherwise is to become a closeted phantom, as ephemeral and unimportant as the ghosts from superstition and pseudoscience.

When I see a silly username or “Anonymous” respond to a post, I know the person is cowardly and I respect nothing they have to say, whether the response is positive or negative. I can no longer support content piracy when the pirates choose to complain with intolerance while hiding behind masks. May they continue to gravitate toward their Morlock existence in a lower darknet that stifles innovation in its religious pursuit of cowardice. Meanwhile, those of us in cyberspace who embrace our true names, take responsibility for our actions, and learn through the consequences, will welcome the revolutions yet to come.

People use their anonymity on the Internet to safely explore who they really are. This helped me to make my homosexuality something manageable to consider long before I had sex for the first time. I am comfortable enough now to no longer need anonymity. I take ownership of who I am, labeled with my name and image, whatever the consequences may be.

The Internet also allows pedophiles and fetishists to explore their sexualities anonymously. Attempts to nullify this effect have and will continue to fail because the information and access to it and each other cannot be contained. When driven, the anonymous will create deeper darknets.

There is clearly a line to be drawn in sexual activity, based on the rights of all parties involved. Many people find homosexuals equally as depraved as pedophiles. This is a conclusion reached not through logic and reason, but through personal issues and emotions. Consenting adults may do basically everything they want with each other, however disgusting, because we recognize their right to make their own decisions and act on them. Children, animals, and the mentally-challenged cannot consent based on their sexually immature modeling of reality. Adult sexual interactions with them can never be acceptable because they cannot appropriately consent.

We start to address this unacceptable activity by first acknowledging that victimizers are also victims. Despite their outward appearances, they are not sexually mature adults with healthy sexual histories. They require compassion and advocacy even as we place temporary walls between them and their goals.

We must take the time and money to better understand human sexuality and the biological, environmental, and other factors that affect it. Unfortunately, research into subjects that make people uncomfortable garner little public and financial support, and we remain dangerously biased toward male heterosexuality. We know surprisingly little about human sexuality despite the incredible technological tools available for our use.

Why do some so-called sexually mature adults develop particular sexualities and fetishes for those who are not sexually mature or able to consent? It seems more than mere coincidence that pedophiles tend to be victims of child abuse themselves. It has been suggested that many fetishes develop from abuse both sexual and nonsexual. Furthermore, while we continue to believe that such acts are strictly sexual expressions, to the victimizer they are generally something else entirely, such as expressions of control over a universe they perceive to be horrifyingly chaotic.

People shriek and demand witch hunts for pedophiles while remaining ignorant of the real issues at the core of this phenomena. Only logic and reason can prevail over the most depraved sexual predator, a human being created not by supernatural forces but by poorly understood mechanistic processes like disease and abuse. Until we begin to support research and technology that attacks the roots of problems like pedophilia instead of only their consequences, we will continue to watch the horrors of the world pick us off one by one.

It’s okay to send a teenager against his will to be cured of his homosexuality. It’s okay to process animals through “rendering plants” if they are “unfit for human consumption.” It’s okay to seize someone’s home against their will if it’s in the public good.

Yes, I use to wish that my homosexuality could be cured, sometimes I eat meat without thinking about how animals are processed, and I have stolen in the past.

And none of it is okay.

Who are you that you can tell me what to do? Who are you to tell me that I cannot pirate my digital content, take drugs, have sex with whomever I choose, dress how I want, color my hair how I want? Who are you to tell me that I cannot experiment with myself?

Who the hell are you?

I know who you are. You are the person that thinks my freedoms will give you more freedom than you want to handle. You are the person who thinks that careful regulation of every aspect of a person’s life will somehow protect you. You are self conscious. You think I am looking at you. You are that person who wants to hold on to their own power at the expense of others. You fear change. You are nosy. You have to be involved in other people’s lives. You cannot live on your own. You cannot imagine more. You fear yourself.

Who the hell are you to think you have any power over me? Why do you think I grant you any say over my life? I could care less about you and I care more for you than you will ever know. It is humanity that I love, and not you, and who do you think you are to expect my respect, my love?

I do not answer to you and I do not acknowledge your right to regulate my life. Take your laws of fear and stuff them. LEAVE ME ALONE!