Author Roxane Gay Nails What's So Twisted About Milo Yiannopoulos Losing His Book Deal

Milo Yiannopoulos, the infamous, now former senior editor at Breitbart, has finally crossed a line that even free-speech-defending conservatives can't seem to tolerate.

On Feb. 19, a video of Yiannopoulos seemingly defending pedophilia was released online, and the self-proclaimed "alt-right" poster boy's supporters began dropping like flies. The Conservative Political Action Conference, where Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak later in the month, canceled his appearance. Publishing house Simon & Schuster also announced it will no longer publish his contentious book, Dangerous, as planned.

While many agree Yiannopoulos losing a platform to disseminate his xenophobic, hateful ideology is a positive outcome, others point out that there were plenty of other reasons — besides his advocation of pedophilia — that should have generated these consequences much sooner. Author Roxane Gay, who pulled her book How to Be Heard from Simon & Schuster after the company announced it was publishing Yiannopoulos's book, captured this sentiment precisely in a Tumblr post over the weekend.

"When his comments about pedophilia/pederasty came to light, Simon & Schuster realized it would cost them more money to do business with Milo than he could earn for them," Gay wrote. She also referenced the long list of offensive comments and articles Yiannopoulos has already produced to explain why Simon & Schusters's decision to pull the book was so cynical.

"They were fine with his racist and xenophobic and sexist ideologies. They were fine with his transphobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia," Gay wrote. "They were fine with how he encourages his followers to harass women and people of color and transgender people online."

Yiannopoulos's defenders, whose numbers are dwindling, have often pointed to the protection of free speech when vindicating him. Yiannopoulos has long targeted immigrants and transgender people in particular, but his support of pedophilia is apparently just too far.

As Gay also noted, Yiannopoulos isn't being silenced; he's merely facing the ramifications of his beliefs. "This is yet another example of how we are afforded the freedom of speech but there is no freedom from the consequences of what we say," Gay proclaims. The Bad Feminist author's sentiment was shared across social media.