It doesn't matter if it didn't happen, RMS was defending Minsky in the situation that it did by saying the girl who was less than a quarter of his age would have appeared willing.

Defending statutory rape, even hypothetically, will get you fired.

It's not a crucifixion.

> Defending statutory rape, even hypothetically, will get you fired.

IIRC Stallman did nothing of the sort. The only thing Stallman said was that the accusations correspond to statutory rape.

In fact how is Stallman supposed to have defended statutory rape if he was the one raising the accusation of statutory rape? Some random virtue signaler started making up accusations of sexual assault and Stallman chimed in stating that the description actually represented the crime of statutory rape. How is that passed off as a defense or apology?

After reading this whole thread I am now curious about sources. Where did this all happened?

Even if it did happen, it may not meet the bar for statutory rape because the girl was 17.

So now you've crucified an innocent man, for offering a defense of his friend, who may also be innocent of what he's accused of, when what he's accused of may not even be criminal.

Really saving the world there.

In France the age of consent is 15. Americans are such religious zealots.

The TV tropes article on value dissonance makes an interesting point on this:

"That the age of consent is 16 or less in most of Europe but 18 in some US states gives rise to some dissonance when discussions arise about the attractiveness and availability of 16- and 17-year-olds. 16 is actually common in the US (30 states out of 50), but not many seem to realize this- probably because it's 18 in California, where a lot of the US entertainment industry is based."

Tech industry is also based in California. This is a California morality issue not an American morality issue, there's no US wide agreement on what is an acceptable age of consent.

Note that while the age of consent for consensual sexual varies by state, if money or trafficking is involved (prostitution), it jumps to 18 by federal law.

Thanks for the clarifications. Prostitution isn't my cup of tea, so typically don't worry about the finer points of it. Not morally against it.

Hmm... if the Roy Moore controversy is anything to go by the US religious zealots are in tune with the French in this respect.

Maybe the other Americans are right on this one?

> In response to a student pointing out that Giuffre was 17 when she was forced to have sex with Minsky in the Virgin Islands, Stallman said “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”

Did she have sex with Minsky?

> by saying the girl who was less than a quarter of his age would have appeared willing.

This does not sound impossible to me. Is the idea that say a 19 year old prostitute having sex with an 80 year old man so foreign to you?

There is a bit of modern history about lonely philosophical guys spending their whole life disserting things in the Catholic Church actually.