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Comment on The news is sugarcoating how revolting the Epstein files are

I’m willing to give the news some benefit of the doubt here because there actually are rational and non-evil reasons to do this.

Socially, we have at least two related, but distinct forms of sexual atrocity.

One is sex with children. There’s extensive evidence that sex before puberty leads to all kinds of long term negative effects for the victim.

The other is non-consent. No matter what the age of the people involved, non-consent has serious negative consequences for the victim.

The Epstein victims all seem to be extremely young post-adolescents. We generally wouldn’t care at all if they were getting it on with their high-school sweethearts.

The problem with the Epstein victims was primarily one of consent. There was a vast human trafficking network and many of our leaders were active participants. The whole thing was so horrible that normal people are sickened by it happening to anyone, not just children.

The reason we may want to be sticklers on this point is that this form of abuse is extremely common and really needs a spotlight on it. We don’t want people to come out the other end of this thing and think, “Sure pedophilia is bad but this guy is just pressuring his 18 year old secretary into sex and then making money passing her around to his buddies.”

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TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

I’m willing to give the news some benefit of the doubt here because there actually are rational and non-evil reasons to do this.

I’m not. They’ve been bending the narrative with this wishy washy rhetoric so much recently that they need the backlash. Even if incompetence, it’s been an persistent pattern on their part. Trump is a fascist dictator, nothing he does is legally justified or anything near our old standard of “normal”, and yet they have been pretending that we still live in a stable world because they don’t want their interests threatened.

Also, this whole “they were post-adolescent” distinction is a waste of time. This shit is evil and anyone litigating nuance isn’t worth serious debate. It’s all delay tactics. Words are only tools to them.

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xtr0n@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’ve seen some mention of prepubescent kids in the file dump. IDK if any of it has been substantiated but people willing to abduct 13 year olds are probably OK with abducting 10 year olds if that’s what they or their friends are into.

Of course, minors can’t consent but there are a lot of accusations of brutal violence, coercion and murder, in addition to the sexual assault. There is a lot of truly repulsive and vile shit in the files and we ought to have a justice system that brings it all to light and punishes anyone who committed crimes. In light of all of that, handwringing over whether it’s misleading to call a 13 year old rape victim a child is some weak sauce. Try hitting on a 13 year old in front of their parents and see how the “if there’s grass on the field” defense plays out.

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