| Let’s look at Stallman’s actual words. Stallman said the most plausible explanation is that the child who Minsky abused was ‘entirely willing’. Or, there is this quote: “All I know she said about Minsky is that Epstein directed her to have sex with Minsky. That does not say whether Minsky knew that she was being coerced. it does not report what each said and did during their sexual encounter. We can imagine various scenarios.” Or this one: “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” With all due respect to your argument, this is not a case of a 20 year old and a 17 year old. This is a case of a 73 year old esteemed researcher at an institution with undergraduate students having sex with a 17 year old in a country that defines such an age difference as statutory rape. Stallman’s idea about how it’s absurd to define rape according to age or country is offensive in every way imaginable. Sovereign nations are allowed to set and enforce their own laws. Other sovereign nations are allowed to choose whether to extradite their citizens back to those nations to face their justice system. But the act of entering a country is an agreement that you will respect its sovereignty and its laws. If you argue against that, you’re effectively arguing against the entire basis of international law and international relations. That would be an interesting argument, but let’s talk about mineral rights instead of child sexual abuse. As for age, countries around the world recognize that children cannot be expected to provide informed consent to engage in sexual activity. They argue that by statute, some children are not capable of consenting to sexual activity. These countries have tried to come up with policy to deal with how absolute differences in age don’t necessarily account for differences in maturity. Some countries will not enforce statutory rape laws if the age difference is slight. Other countries enforce their own laws differently to account for different situations. This is a case of a 56 year age difference involving a pedophile, an eminent researcher and a victim of child trafficking. All of that aside, the fact is that a victim chose to come forward and make herself available to be deposed. During this deposition, the victim said that she was coerced into having sex with Minsky. Minsky is dead. Why not believe the victim? What do we gain from pedantic arguments about the nature of international law and sexual abuse? * Edited because my first version was poorly written and almost incomprehensible. |