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This guy also has a whole post on Substack complaining that the left is too wary of age gaps in relationships and that this is an "attack on heterosexuality" or whatever. It's kind of funny how these "anti woke" types will decry that queer people are all groomers and yet proclaim that age gaps and adults dating teenagers is part of heterosexual culture under the same breath.
Because the only thing that's keeping them from the most depraved things humans can do is the laws. They grew up wrong. The rest of us are asking to live our authentic lives and they can't think of anything that would stop us, upon living our authentic lives, from committing depraved acts because that's what they would do if the laws allowed it. We ask to be allowed to have healthy relationships between consenting adults and they see a dangerous precedent that once we're allowed to do that, then what else are we allowed to do. Its from a basic difference in where they think ethics and morality come from. I think ethics and morality come from within ourselves and that laws should be written to establish communal protections that allow people to achieve true freedom from oppression. They believe ethics and morality exist separate from humanity and laws exist to ensure intrinsically bad people (everyone) remains moral. Within that group, the repressives we're talking about in this post are truly the most dangerous.
Look. All this is super complicated and I'm realizing I'm over simplifying entire systems of ethics it took me 35 pages single spaced to describe in college. Its valuable to have discussions about where ethics come from when discussing politics because ultimately that's what you actually vote on and about
Edit: replied to the wrong comment. I absolutely agree with you
There is a loooooooooooooong fucked up history of this being sanctioned by organized religions of all types. It stems from the patriarchal ideal woman being a baby factory and is absolutely a barbaric practice. The men in these religions are conditioned to be interested in young virginal girls that they call women but treat like property.
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-reveal-patterns-sexual-abuse-religious.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X20301421
https://www.gotquestions.org/child-marriage.html
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/child-marriage-and-religion-in-the-united-states
"Hey should the rich and wealthy be able to rape children as long as they pay them afterwards?"
What a weird fucking question to ask.
I think it must be fairly normal to wonder things like this. Once I saw a video of a man standing on a busy sidewalk offering passersby the opportunity to shoot a staple gun into his bare chest for a dollar or so. It was immediately fascinating. The proposition was so direct: pay money to inflict pain. And people were taking him up on it!
Interesting, sort of in the same way that this Twitter guy's question is interesting. The same way other moral thought experiments like "the trolley problem" are interesting.
No. What? "Is it moral if I rape a girl for money" is not peak philosophy. It's not even a new idea. Holy fuck. You give philosophy a bad name.
'Should enormously overpriced child sex trafficking be allowed?'
For fucks sake
Fucking greedflation affecting the child sex trafficking industry too now
This is just prostitution with extra steps.
No, he's just paying for the 14 year old's time, anything that happens after is between ~~two adults~~ an a adult and a child, who ~~consent~~, ~~share a racecar bed~~, are abusing extreme power dynamics!
with extra steps
Thought experiment for anyone who thinks $10 million would make this acceptable. Which I hope is no one here in this thread, but bear with me while I argue with no one.
What if we asked this question again for $5 million? $1 million? $100,000? $10,000? $100? $1?
How would you ever begin to draw a line? Should the law say that there is a particular price tag at which this suddenly becomes legal?
Also, suppose, not so hypothetically, that we live in a world where poverty is itself a coercive factor. If the girl and her parents can't afford to say no, is this really consent?
I’m not touching the original question with a 10ft pole but…
“Where’s the Line?” Counterpoint: you’re parachuting out of the sky onto an island. There’s a sandy beach on your left and an ocean with 20 ft waves pounding on your right. The exact line between the ocean and the sand is undefinable. I can still easily choose the sandy side, because drowning sucks.
“Get banged by creepy old dude for $1” is definitely the water, “get banged by creepy old dude for $10million+” is definitely the beach.
“Not getting propositioned by creepy old guy” is “not riding in homemade airplanes” maybe? 🤷♂️
How this post really reads:
Let's say I want to have sex with a 14 year-old girl, and pay her parents $10K. Blah blah blah the girl is not victimized blah blah she really benfits from this too blah blah really, I swear blah blah. The girl agrees, as do both of her parents. Should I do it? And does your opinion matter to me or are you female?
The guy who asked this is basically asking if it's okay for parents to prostitute out their child.
And sadly that is quite common
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course…
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
Well, first of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner, the first question. You don’t even say, ‘Hello. How are you?
Meanwhile, I’ll have sex with about anyone for $10m. I’m above the age of consent. Let’s go.
Fucking weirdos wanting child brides while criticizing Muslims and LGBTQ+ people. That video of the young girls getting attacked in Iran for how they dress is exactly what christofascists wish they could do here.
No because 14 is not old enough to make an informed decision about that and involving the parents will increase the likelihood that they will pressure their kid into doing it for the money.
The thing that gets me is even when you up the age to 16, a common age of consent, you still have consent issues. 10 million dollars creates a consent issue for any poor person of any age. Are they truly making a choice? And I get that this is what sex workers already face.
But for fuck's sake our society seems far more willing to entertain this than just having a society where nobody needs sex work to not starve.
The female ratio between yes and no is concerning
Looks like a twitter poll. I wouldn't be super surprised if some of those 'yes' answers are from an "as a totally real fe-male person" folks.
Those could also be 14 year olds that think "I want that money" and have no clue about what to expect. I've seen some with an "I don't really care what's happening to me" attitude. Maybe they flock to guys like him on twitter?
Or the other commenters are right and those are males. Depending on the numbers that might be more likely.
Ah yes, cause the thing that makes pedophilia bad is the immediate payment, if you defer that until the victim is off age it's all good.
Hey there's a word for that! It's called "Child prostitution"!
Doesn't sound quite as reasonable, does it? Not that it ever did.
why are people obsessed with coming up with scenarios in which it could be okay to have sex with children
I stopped asking "let's say" and "hypotheticaly" questions. I'm so fucking done with that bullshit.
I only ask them in regards to fiction. Like, "what if wolverine had his bones covered in pudding instead of adamantium?"
The gap between yes/no men and yes/no women is kinda crazy. Also, probably has a lot to do with the audience this post reached.
I'm pretty sure it's from a bunch of conservative dudes answering that they're women to try to make conservative beliefs look popular with women. Like an "as a black man..." moment, except it's "as a woman..."
I see republicans are speeding up on the weird lane. No matter how you dress this question there is still the fact that a 65+ man paying millions to have sex with a 14 year old kid. Kinda gives you a peek into what kind of people are the richest and most politically influential.
I love this meme format
But what if he gets her killed at age 20? Massive savings.
Would your answer change if she was actually 18? It still seems crazy manipulative. In some countries, the age of consent is 16. Would this be okay if she's 16 in one of those countries? (Let's ignore countries below that age)
I struggle between two ideas: One, where I believe that at the age of majority, a person should get full rights (voting, emancipation, legal, consent, medical, etc.) and it seems wrong to let people vote but not make choices about their body (like drinking alcohol). And two, protecting the young from themselves, like by restricting labor, or setting smoking and drinking ages higher than a majority age,, because those damage still-developing brains way more.
We can fight about what the age of majority should be (16, 17, 18, 21?). I would definitely be okay if this tweet was about a 30-year-old, but I'm not okay with it being a 10-year-old. But whether it's 16 or 18 or 22 where it crosses the line is tough for me.
I think these types of moral questions aren't actually that useful, because the actual problem at the heart of it (and at most things) is the difference in power.
Instead of asking "what age should temporary prostitution be legal," maybe we should ask "why have we concentrated so much excess power in the hands of this one guy who can drop a life changing payment for a one time service and still have plenty left over? Does it really make sense to try to come up with an arbitrary age that we've decided you're immune to coersion?
This entire moral quandary doesn't really exist in the (admittedly idealistic) world where power isn't so unequally distributed.
That blue checkmark carries more information then any single word ever could.
Sadly, this is so common around the world, I would say that if this poll was done for every person in the world we would have maybe even a tie.
I'm talking about child marriages (which are legal and common in some US states) they are basically this, except there is less money, some of it goes to the parents, some to the child (because shared assets)
Richard forgot to include nonbinary and intersex options in his poll. What a blunder! Egg on his face, he sure looks incompetent
The man behind the original tweet has also made a post effectively implying that a school affirming a child's wish to socially transition before telling their parents was the direct cause of them getting raped.
He puts the blame for this kid being raped on the kid, not on the people doing the sexual assault. While also repeatedly misgendering the kid in question.
But sure, child prostitution? Totally fine. No issues there! Makes total sense. /s
Wait, doesn’t this just mean the sample size of men was more than 3/4 of the entire survey population?
If you are trying to run a binary-gender survey, wouldn’t it make more sense to have 1:1 representation?
95.7% ~~of men who responded said no~~ of those responding as men said no
60.9% ~~of women who responded said no~~ of those responding as women said no
Eta: fixed phrasing to show that reported gender/sex may not be accurate
That is assuming of course that all the women who said yes are in fact people being truthful and not creeps 'as-a-black-man'ing.