Having sex with your peers is are appropriate teenage behavior. Being preyed upon by pedophiles isn't. Being taught about selling your body also isn't. I'm not sure where you're having problems "being fair" here.
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
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.
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.
"How we discovered science" this is such a stupid statement. Nonsensical.
It was a woman. Who figured out we could drink other animal milks first, by watching a calf drink it. She probably needed it for a human baby. A lot of stuff that doesn't make sense to men makes sense to women.
And it is a weird and boring question in the OP. He wants to rape a girl for money. Gee, that's never been asked before. What a deep philospher.
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!
Taking away consent. I don't care what the parents say, she isn't mentally developed enough to make an informed decision, nor understand the psychological impacts.
Edit: so prostitution, adding in rape. Any parent who agreed to this should not be responsible for a child
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? 🤷♂️
I once came around the hypothetical of like, for how much would you sell your foot. People talked about millions. I modified the question to selling a toe because I couldn't find anyone willing to even name a price for their foot. My friends were still like 5 mil, 10 mil, 100 mil when it was about a middle toe. Except my coworker, not having heard anyone answer the question, he was like "oof, hard question, I guess 50€".
People always say stuff like "I would not sell my toe for 5 million usd"
And then you rephrase the question into something like
"Would you sell your toe if you never had to work again, could pursue any hobby you wanted within reasonable limits, and could own a reasonable home for the rest of your life?"
And suddenly it seems infinitely more appealing
To me that someone wouldn't cut off their toe (assuming anesthesia and all that) for something like 1 million usd is ridiculous. We already sell so much of ourselves and our time for work and the pursuit of money for survival.
I don't know exactly what my limit would be, but for a toe it might have been closer to somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars range.
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?
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.
And does your opinion matter to me or are you female?
this is weird considering females are a considerably less respondent subsection, as well as tend to agree substantially more than males, which is certainly an odd statistical anomaly. You would think it would only be no in response, but this is also twitter, so maybe people were just shitposting?
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.
Once one is of a consenting age, sex work is just work
The better question to ask is if it's morally acceptable to force someone to work to not starve? And then there's the whole exploitation of the global south thing.
And at least personally, I'd much rather do sex work than be a coal miner
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.
The way I read this, the guy has vanishingly few women who bother to follow and respond to him. I'm willing to bet at least half of the people who selected "Female, Yes/No" were dudes.
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..."
No... Women can be pedophiles too and you are operating on a biased belief system hoping that the data is incorrect cause you want it to be.
We don't have that, we have the results of the poll and people are fucked up in the head even when you want them not to be.
Edit: being down voted cause I'm not participating in the conversation or just because it doesn't match the set beliefs of the people who want it to be true?
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.
Does he still have bones? His claws were bones at one point in the movies, if they were covered they'd be round/thick. So hypothetically what if wolverines bones were pudding. Would he be ditto or a bucket of water
Hypothetically, if a runaway tram were bearing down on five people tied to the tracks, but you could pull a lever and switch the tram to a track with only one person, would you pull the lever?
Just to point out, having a paraphilic disorder for pubescent teenagers is not pedophilia but hebephilia (i.e. having sexual interest in pubescent teenagers of either sex between 11 and 16)
as a graphic designer, i try to remind fellow graphic designers that apart from circumstances and conversations specifically related to your craft, colloquial use is totally acceptable and that you shouldn't be insisting on pointing out the difference between a font and a typeface, because no one cares and it's annoying as fuck.
not to mention everyone knows what people mean when they say "font" so there's no point in pedantic "ackshually"s. they just make you sound like a dick.
now that's what i think about designers being pedantic about designer terms.
I know that there's a difference between a pedophile and a hebephile. I know that the differences is that pedos are attracted to prepubescent kids and hebes are attracted to pubescent kids. There is a difference between the two.
That being said, there's no way to say this online without sounding like someone who is attracted to kids.
Just to point out, colloquially you are wrong, and there is a colloquial use of the term pedophile. We are not discussing this in an academic setting and it also doesn't change the content of this discussion to redefine terms to academic ones, so no need to change it. Everyone understands what's being referenced here because it was specified as being a 14 year old in the OP.
What exactly is your purpose in making this distinction between these terms?
Can't even discuss serious mental disorders anymore without being dogpiled smh
People who are afflicted with these need help but people would rather just talk about how they deserve to be killed instead for something they never chose to have
I know I'm running full on into the blades of pedophilic panic here and I'm going to be accused of being a pedophile, but being attracted to pubescent teens is not a paraphilic disorder at all and perfectly normal.
I am all for protecting minors and 100% support laws that criminalizes adults having sexual contact with them, but I think we do a disservice to people's mental health to paint normal, healthy physical attractions as being deviant, and I don't think it does anything to protect minors.
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.
If you want to get a better sense of what is reasonable, listen to high school kids talk to each other at the coffee shop, or whatever, and ask yourself if they can reasonably and reliably make informed decisions with long term consequences like this issue would require. (Prediction: It is highly unlikely you will feel that they can.)
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)
In the States where child marriage is not legalized, it's treated as an informally arranged marriage. Basically, one guy promises his daughter to another guy in exchange for something and they wait until the girl is 18 or in some cases 17 or 16 before getting anything on paper.
if this poll was done for every person in the world we would have maybe even a tie.
"Hello person in desperate poverty, I am your landlord and I am here to offer you a discount on the exorbitant rents I charge you for existing. All you need to do is this single morally abhorrent thing. After that, you're on easy street for the rest of your life."
I suspect the number of people who would take this deal is well over 50%, if for no other reason than being press ganged into doing morally repugnant things by an exploitative economic system is the norm and the enormous payout is the exception.
A better way to spin this is to rephrase the question: "Blah blah 14 year old blah blah everyone consents, in exchange for $120 half of which goes to your pimp." Then you get to the more grisly truth of what's being asked, and the popularity falls significantly.
Where I live, it's called arranged marriage, a form of forced marriage where parents choose who their child should live with. It's more common than many people would imagine, especially among women, girls and other non-male genders, and 93% of married Indians had an arranged marriage (data from a 2018 survey, source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59530706)
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
Also keep in mind that the normative number of people voting as women is drastically lower thereby significantly manipulating the actual ratio. This is, even when everyone would actually answer truthfully, by no means a factual representation
Given the nature of the post and that its in Twitter, I would expect the number of people voting as a gender/sex they do not identify with to be higher then if it were conducted elsewhere
In poor third world countries you find old men paying the father to let them rape his virgin underage girl or force marry her. His justification is that they are poor and that man paid them "a lot". Only the lowest scummiest cunts of people would allow this upon their daughter and set her for life-long trauma of all types.