I still do not see how it can be taken as blaming the victim. Here's the exact quote from my inbox:

> 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.

It's pretty clear to me that he acknowledges the victim to be a victim, who has to deal with threats and coercion __in addition to__ sexual assault. He just argued that Minsky might not have known what was going on, which has nothing to do with what the victim actually felt.

The only people who interpreted this as victim-blaming are the media outlets who straight up lie in their headlines. Here's Vice:

> Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing'

Stallman does have a responsibility to ensure he cannot be reasonably misinterpreted, but this headline is a blatant lie.

We cannot allow the norm of "people are responsible for all possible interpretations of what they said". This is completely untenable. The misquotes in Vice etc amount to extracting a single adjective phrase "entirely willing" and adding non-existing context around it. There is no protection against that kind of malicious misquoting.

In a world where wilful misinterpretation was not somehow weaponised I would agree with you, but that is not this world. This norm would leave every PR person completely at the mercy of any enemies they are unlucky enough to make.