Plenty of criminals take objection to their crimes being described as crimes, but “men should be allowed to have sex with underaged girls” is a particularly self-serving and gross position for a man in a position of power over young women to take.
That "and" is pretty disingenuous here, turning the sentence from accurate to grossly misleading. RMS took objection to the act being characterized as assault. Not as crime. And the truth is, it does matter what crime was committed, not only that a crime was (allegedly, as it turns out). It would matter to you if your deceased friend was accused posthumously that their record is at least kept accurate, if it isn't straight.
He can hold an opinion about the moral definition of rape, sure, but why express it so widely in a corporate environment, it blows my mind.
It’s not the same as a rapist saying “it wasn’t rape, she didn’t say no” especially since he wasn’t the implicated party.
In fact I don’t see him not stating it’s not a crime or not morally bankrupt by itself either.
Assaulted does carry a particular connotation does it not? Assaulted meaning, in the biblical sense: attacked.
Thank you for reminding us of this. The man was a noted stickler for language. In fact many ppl only know him via the GNU/Linux interject meme.
Some(?) European countries do legally differentiate between children and teens and that seems reasonable bases on what we know about biological and developmental differences.
I also regrettably used "child sex abuse" inaccurately before when referring to Epstein. This reflects the legal status in the US I believe, but paints the wrong picture of actual children instead of teens being harmed. It pays to be accurate, because discussions around this topic are completely hysterical as it is.
Not defending it, but characterizing his words correctly in context.
There is no age of consent in France. (However there are aggravating thresholds if there was a crime: under 18 if committed by someone with authority over the victim, under 15 for other cases.)
