Thanks for mentioning that. Statutory rape is where an adult has sexual relations with someone younger then the age of consent. Not knowing the younger person’s age is not an excuse. That is considered a form of sexual assault, as the younger person is not considered mature enough to give consent.
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Because everybody always instantly recognizes all initials we might feel like dropping into a sentence…
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I did, Erhythrocyte Sedimentation Rate…
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Cause she’s a woman…?
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The peril of random TLA’s.
Another entry in the list of shitty people who had a good idea once.
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If I was unclear, even if the younger person is the one initiating sex, seeming of his or her own accord, it is considered both statutory rape, and sexual assault on the part of the older party. I’m aware this may vary in different cultures.
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Maybe go edit and make your comment more clear, then?
It is well-established at this point the she was indeed forced into the situation. His (doubtful, but possible) ignorance on that is no excuse. At all.
[ETA] Sexual assault has a very wide definition, and yes that includes coercion, and people below the age of consent with much older adult, especially when it’s a case of a girl or woman who has no power dealing with very powerful individuals. This was sexual assault. If he was ignorant of her age is immaterial. Period. Full stop.
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That one post was a little confusing, but you have made your position more clear now. My position is this: I believe the victim’s testimony of the incident is enough to accuse Minsky of assault, regardless of what Minsky thought he was doing.
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Ok, thanks, I understand this now. If Minsky had sex with a 17 years old, he sexually assaulted her. There is no denial.
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Thank you. Why was that so hard.
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In his defense, if I was talking in my second language, I could easily have said stuff far more offensive. I once asked after a patient’s “man” (hombre), instead of his shoulder (hombro) as I intended.
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If he’s going to post in an english language forum on a highly charged issue, maybe spend a bit more time crafting a reply than normal? Or at least be somewhat familiar with the legal system before throwing out random comments about sexual assault? Or ask, instead of asserting?
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How cynical are you about human morals?
In retrospect this is pretty creepy and interesting:
…a man who called himself the last true hacker sat in a room on the ninth floor of Tech Square… His name was Richard Stallman, and he spoke in a tense, high-pitched voice that did not attempt to veil the emotion with which he described, in his words, “the rape of the artificial intelligence lab.”
…
RMS would tell strangers his wife had died, and it would not be until later in the conversation that the stranger would realize that this thin, plaintive youngster was talking about an institution rather than a tragically lost bride.– Steven Levy, Hackers, 1984
Willing enough to use “rape” to describe institutional reorganization back then. And today resorting to very narrow definitions of similar words and concepts to shield other(?) men from accusations of actual rape and assault, where actual human beings are actually hurt.
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I think you are making an important point here. What you’ve said above brings Dan Harmon to mind. He went pretty far down the path you’ve described, was called out on it, and then actually went on to give a sincere apology and mea culpa; which, moreover turned out to be accepted by the person he was apologising to. To me that seems worth more than a heap of resignations, but it takes an ability to grow. In Harmon’s case, his professional philosophy is centred on growth and transformation, so it makes some sense that he’d at least give it a try. But it’s a shame that he was also steeped in the mentality you’ve rightly skewered.
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Whether or not it’s explicitly against the law, if somebody takes you to his private island and offers you the sexual services of a woman you’ve never met before, especially someone you suspect might not be sexually available to you if you met her on the streets of your hometown, doesn’t that situation smell a bit rotten to you?
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As I said above, that’s no excuse for his consistently and notoriously crappy behaviour over at least the past 25 years (i.e. ever since the diagnosis became official).
Temple Grandin has spoken at great length about why Aspergers doesn’t have to equal “rude” and “abusive” and “unbathed”. She describes how no “allowances” were made for her, and how there shouldn’t have been. She’s a woman, of course, so the expectations that she should learn social interaction with neurotypical people were greater than that for a white male tech bro.
If Stallman suspected he was on the spectrum and saw it as a problem there were avenues for making himself less of a dickhead. Instead, it looks like if he knew (and someone at MIT at that time would have to have been aware), he was exploiting the situation to get away with a lot of nasty and selfish behaviour.
You could swap out “aspie behaviour signifiers” for any other excuse and that sentence could be applied to any number of “missing stairs” in a multitude of settings.
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