It is extremely doubtful that a young woman would find herself in that situation in any other way than a long path of abuse and desperation.
Taking advantage of that young woman is immoral.
That isn't some puritanical, anti-sex philosophy that hates fun.
That is empathy to the all too common situation of young vulnerable women being used for pleasure.
In the end its weighing off protecting people from a presumed risk against infringing on their self determination. The question is clear cut when it comes to kids as we as a society accepted that their self determination isnt that great and infringing on it is fine most of the time. They have to brush their teeth, they dont get to drink alcohol and they cant work in a brothel.
The question here is does the same rule for a 8 year old apply for a 17 year old. Most European societies see a huge difference when it comes to age and that the ways in which the self determination of a 17 year old can be restricted are a lot more limited. In the end infringing on someones self determination is just too grave of a violation to do it unless its absolutely necessary.
What is instead illegal is not the action of the person presumed to be needing protection but make sure that exploiting that person is illegal. The Switzerland example still had it illegal to encourage or coerce girls to work in a brothel, which in practice means there was no one willing to risk running such a brothel.
And again, this discussion misses the point. Its not why did Eppstein run a brothel on an island but how come he was able to engage in sex trafficking, coercing of minors and all of that under the nose of quite a lot of politicians.
This idea is counter-intuitive to me. When I was 17 my religious convictions prevented me from having sex with anyone, but I imagine that without those beliefs I would have at least put _some_ dollar figure on the price for me having sex with a 74 year old woman, and I certainly didn't have any history of abuse or desperation.
Anyone who can read my comment above can see clearly that you are putting words in my mouth.
> The law, precedent, and public opinion all disagree with you.
Except for all the places where law, precedent, and public opinion agree with an age of consent of 17?
The whole point is that there is not one single hard and fast rule that defines the boundaries of ethics in prostitution. So many of the comments here (including yours) portray a complicated situation as clearly black and white. Of course it doesn't help that in this particular case many folks are talking past each other because we're all intermingling various interrelated topics:
* Stallman's remarks and forced resignation
* The age of consent
* The specific case of Epstein's island
* Prostitution
I suspect that if we were to explicitly comment specifically on one point or the other that we'd all find we agree much more that we appear to.
It's really fucking creepy.
children*
>sugar daddies
abusers
Definitely morally dubious, especially in his case. It's not clear if the girl did it for money, or was more or less nudged into this by her life circumstances.
I don't imagine there are any 17 year old girls having sex with 74 year old men who see a distinction between those two things.
How about, if the old person would be mick jagger? I could imagine, he still has his charms to some. Also I have seen young attractive women aproaching old yoga gurus for example ..
But yeah, the old guy wasn't mick jagger, nor a yoga master and at best he did assume the girl was a 18+ old prostitue doing it willingly for money and power.
It's so hard to imagine the origins of the Playboy-era now. But it was dominant among the educated classes through the 80s or 90s. The change is mostly for the better. I suppose the pendulum will swing again some day, but likely not in my lifetime.
The only issue here is the age of the girl involved.
In what insane hypothetical does a 17 year old girl have consensual sex with a 74 year old man on a billionaire's island? At best it's prostitution, c'mon.
I'm with you on prostitution in general, but Epstein was a sleazebag and we know exactly what sort of girls he was grooming. There is no moral avenue that leads to sex with a 17 year old prostitute.
I am also not talking about justifications for Epstein, i mentioned how unrelated Stallman is to the real problem here namely Epstein and his visitors.
I for myself think i will run less of a risk of being a staunch supporter of ethnic cleansings without knowing it if I instead stick to the rule that as long as you arent hurting anyone else, you are good to go. And no, hurt feelings from arguments dont count, or we rob our self of ever evolving our compass further. Without free speech and open discussions we are cementing the status quo. So if he wants, Stallman can be as socially incompetent and offensive as he wants. He has to live with being seen as a weirdo, but i dont think he has a problem with that.
But then again, I know that I dont know much on the topic.
This is highly contestable
There's something beyond slavery and prostitution, there's willing exploitation of the old guy for money, beyond the sexual service. If it was a young stud with an old lady, you'd think twice before saying the old lady is a dirty pervert, right :D
But that's never been the point: the point is you and me can debate to no end about bullshit like that with half information and no legal culture, but Stallman, as a member of faculty, has 0 legitimacy doing it on faculty mail.
Are you saying that this kind of legal and cultural discussion should not take place in academia?
More to the point of this thread: since I'm arguing that there's no effective difference between a 17yo and an 18yo prostitute (much like Stallman), should my professional life be ruined as well?
This was just the straw that broke the camel's back. RMS has done a lot of great things, but he's also done a lot of bone headed things and some of his colleagues understandably don't want to be associated with him anymore.
Still my argument is that he should not be excised from society from having what the hivemind decided was the wrong kind of opinion. It's ok to discuss things and I'd even argue that all discussions should be had.
I just don't want to live in a place where expressing my opinion on some controversial issue, entirely lawfully, might have me excluded from society.
I don't either, but that doesn't mean we need to have an absolutist position on speech. I don't view defending pedophilia or making apologies for the rape of a sex trafficking victim to be merely "controversial."
That said, I don't think it's reasonable to have this discussion about RMS in a bubble, pretending as if he's never done anything else to contribute to what happened.
Yes, it was rape and trafficking - that's terrible enough as it is, no need to make it look worse than it is. This is essentially diluting the most terrible crime of abusing young children.
A lot of the Epstein drama seems to be driven by two pieces, political connections to Trump and Clinton (so it touches "both" sides if you will) and the reaction of this changing definition of childhood to the exploitation of these teens at the hand of Epstein and the perspectives of people either older or from countries with different ideas of the propriety of the sexuality of teenagers. The changing range of who is a child is why what rms said so digusting, because it is considered in kind with say, rape of a toddler or a preteen in the popular mind as the social definitions are shifting.
The problem of course is this is very US centric, and there are of course people just living in different cultures and attitudes elsewhere. I have friends abroad were actually confused about the Epstein drama when they first read about it because to them, it was salacious but not as creepy as Americans think it is.
I assume that's the whole point of the law in many US states and countries - it recognizes the biological reality that teens will have sex.
I've also seen that some EU countries allow teens to sext with each-other (boyfriend/girlfriend exception) without having them fall afoul of the otherwise clear laws against child pornography. This is unlike the US and also seems sensible.
My point is that social mores in the US are moving faster than current laws. I'm also not really sure whether teenage sexuality is a hard biological reality as, well, social pressures have an ability to change minds. Years ago, 13 year olds were expected to take up work on the farm. Today, 13 year olds are children most definitely. Perhaps there are limits to how much social conditions can condition individuals but at the very least, the whole changing definitions of childhood (or what was called "adolescence" for teens being pushed into the early 20's) is happening and whether it's conditioning or not.
That's about 20 years out of date. Teen pregnancies are less common than 20 years ago, and age of first sexual activity has been going up.
That is: it's hard to have a meaningful discussion about whether or not someone is old enough to give informed consent if there's no actually consistent definition of what "old enough" actually means.
I personally consider 20 to be that age (with some lenience for situations where both parties were/are underage at the start of the intimate relationship), but that's based more on the typical "half plus 7" rule than anything particularly concrete.
You are free to disagree with the law as it’s written. You are even free to break the laws if you disagree strongly enough. But you should not expect to be free from the consequences.
No one does. its not about not prosecuting anyone for what happened on that Island. Its about Stallmans response to the allegations against someone else. Did you respond to the wrong comment by any chance?
I also dont see where you made the jump to the legal/illegal argument. Since we are talking about Stallmans speech, we are clearly not discussing illegal behavior but free speech. Or is what Stallman said illegal by now?
What is this trying to say?
OP mentioned after the part that I quoted that
>This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired. He deserved it.
I think you could make the argument that what he said wasnt that "inappropriate", but only in the frame of reference of a rather puritanical American society. Hence the reference to a more far out frame of reference in form of Saudi Arabia.
His original quote is
>The word ‘assaulting’ presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex. We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
That might not make him a great person, but you can make that argument. That the equivalence of assault and prostitution is a rather American one and not universally. And that the distinction in the form of the age of consent of a 17 year old isnt universally either.
Which until a few years ago was completely legal in for example Switzerland. As long of course as no one is coerced into anything. Playing the Advocatus Diaboli, why should i view this outcry as anything different then the Saudis stance on sex before marriage? Fundamentalist puritans being opposed to self determination shaming others into conformism? Its not like the US where you cant drink until you are 21, but get to join the army with 18, where sex ed is often reduced to abstinence only, where the government does its best to infringe into womens right to get abortions, where you can be prosecuted for sexting as a minor and lets not forgett where sex workers are almost across the country criminalized has any moral high ground on the topic what so ever.
But thats besides the point. First the MIT donation and now this stuff over 3 corners. How about we focus on what actually is the problem here? How many people from both parties had connections to not a brothel owner but someone involved in human trafficking and coercing minors into sexwork? How he got away with this this despite being brought infront of a judge for it? Or why they were on that island in the first place and why Eppstein apparently invited so many people. The word compromat comes to mind. But these politicians arent so easy targets, people like Stallman or the guy at MIT are. The mob wants blood and it doesnt seem to matter whos. I would recommend checking your moral compass if you are at threat of being sued for slander after the discussion here.