I don't disagree with you, but I think a lot of commenters here are talking past each other. We all agree that having sex with a 17 year old girl who is being abused and manipulated by a billionaire pedophile is inexcusable. I personally don't like the use of the phrase "child rape" to describe it because it's the same phrase you would use to describe the violent rape of a toddler. If the terminology we use to debate this subject equates those two acts, how can we ever have a reasoned discussion? One of those things makes you a sleezeball, and certainly deserving of all the social and professional consequences of your actions. The other makes you a vile monster, and deserving of removal from the earth. Both are crimes that warrant prosection. Failing to acknowledge the difference between the two is a dangerous path to go down.

Fair enough. My comment above used obvious overstated sarcasm, but I agree that these things are different. Substitute "statutory rape of a minor" or something like that above. I don't think this means that we should judge RMS any differently.

> having sex with a 17 year old girl who is being abused and manipulated by a billionaire pedophile [...] makes you a sleezeball

Not the greatest way to put this, I think.

The "overstated sarcasm" and faked quotations is literally what pushed RMS out of his job. Congratulations.