I haven't looked into his case. What was his method - what did he do, so that the girls couldn't call for help?

I think classically they are made to be illegal (no passport, have perhaps committed crime of prostitution, so they think they can not go to the police). Is that also what Epstein did?

> I haven't looked into his case

Why not? Your initial comment in this discussion was an hour and a half before this one, and was in response to somebody linking to an article containing many of the relevant details.

Because my comment was about the cited paragraph, not about Epstein. I had no reason to assume Epstein was already known as a sex trafficker when he visited MIT. It would be a very weird assumption - why would the head of MIT Media Lab meet with a convicted sex trafficker?

Indeed, why would he? It seems incredulous, and yet he did. That's why he's been forced out of his position.

I have no issues with him being forced out of his position. I have an issue, in this sub sub thread, with people mandating that I should have considered that head of Media Lab would openly meet a convicted sex trafficker.

Fair enough, I guess, and if you'd just said that you'd have been better off. What you said instead showed a complete lack of understanding for how sexual abuse is inflicted on people. By implication that anyone not held directly against their will couldn't be a victim. That power dynamics play a huge part, along with shame, guilt, and sometimes necessity.

"By implication that anyone not held directly against their will couldn't be a victim."

I never said any such thing. I said the opposite thing: that it is possible a young assistant to an old guy is not a victim. That's an important distinction.

I think establishing a rule in society that young women can't work for old men would be wrong.

You seem to think that if people aren't under lock and key, they aren't being coerced. Which rather misses the wider spectrum of coercion. It could, for example, simply be a guilt trip about how poor their family is, how the extra money he was giving them would help. They wouldn't want to make their family starve, would they? Or not. There's no end to the possibilities.

> guilt trip about how poor their family is

Coercion is the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.

"guilt trip about how poor their family is" does not qualify as "force or threats".

Watering down term "coercion" makes real coercion less noticeable.