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
Edit: replied to the wrong comment. I absolutely agree with you
Very well put, thank you
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.
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-reveal-patterns-sexual-abuse-religious.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X20301421
https://www.gotquestions.org/child-marriage.html
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/child-marriage-and-religion-in-the-united-states
That was some wild and deranged shit holy fuck. And the comments too.
“Hey should the rich and wealthy be able to rape children as long as they pay them afterwards?”
What a weird fucking question to ask.
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.
No. What? “Is it moral if I rape a girl for money” is not peak philosophy. It’s not even a new idea. Holy fuck. You give philosophy a bad name.
What do you think about the parallel I was trying to draw between the video I mentioned and this guy’s question about paying for rape? I thought the reason that someone’s interest could be caught by the video is similar in nature to the reasons someone might wonder “is it okay to pay to hurt someone”? And that train of thought leads naturally enough to “Well how much harm is permissible for what amount of money?” which leads naturally enough to imagining specific circumstances.
And those trains of thought are similar to the thought behind people’s ancient musings about other tricky question of morality like the trolley problem. It’s not peak philosophy it’s just ordinary human thought. You shouldn’t be so afraid or repulsed by it or whatever.
The question reads like a sexual fantasy, to be clear. It doesn’t read like a normal innocent question. It reads like he thinks a LOT about how he can rape kids and get away with it socially, hence the poll. It does not read innocently. It is entirely too specific.
You’re probably right about this specific dude’s motivations for posing the question, but I think I am right that this type of thought is entirely normal and even common to have. You are right about the dismissiveness too, sorry.
Just chiming in to say I think you’re right in that these types of thought experiments pop into people’s heads pretty regularly, albeit with way less “trying to justify a creepy sex fantasy” intent like the public poll post seems to have.
Though I have to question why it was public in the first place. I don’t know who the poster is or if it’s their real name, but what if it’s less “projection” and more “morbid curiosity” in seeing just how many people would answer yes to this heinous question? There is some merit in gauging reactions to this from a social psychology point of view (even if this is an non-scientific example).
Follow-up thought. Without morbid thought experiments, how do people create horror stories and gritty crime dramas like L&O:SVU when a story has no particular real life basis? I’m not sure it’s wholly possible in a fictional novel or show. There’s a reason people eat crime dramas up; it’s fascinating and horrifying to see how far a real and fictionalized human will go in various circumstances.
In a way, it’s a manifestation of the “call of the void” situation, where an intrusive thought (what if I jump off this bridge right now? what happens if I yank the steering wheel driving 50mph? spook a herd of grazing horses? slap grandpa upside the head? while out hunting??) so I think its purpose is more to keep you aware of harzards in whatever the situation may be. Avoidance through sudden acknowledgement of the risk.
Again, I don’t recognize this person or know any background, but maybe they posed the question as a wacky means of self-preservation on a broader level? As if the poller thought, “How many of my viewers would prostitute out their child if given the most forgiving, financially advantageous, and seemingly consensual circumstances?” to figure out how worried they should be about a certain percentage of their friends, neighbors, and/or followers. Avoidance through asking weird questions publicly.
Edit: Holy ship I managed to write a whole novel on my thought experiment about thought experiments ahhahh.
The train of thought that youtube story leads me to is not ‘how much harm is permissible’ but ‘why are humans such vile creatures?’. Does everbody just love the thought of hurting others? Is this normal? Why the fuck would anyone want to staple some guys chest?
Lol no. If this was something I thought was said in “good faith,” then it would be fine to discuss. However, I don’t think it was said in good faith and I think the person was being intentionally disgusting. It’s not ordinary human thought. But thanks for being so dismissive.
But thanks for being so dismissive.
Like you weren’t?
Where? Disagreement isn’t dismissiveness.
i think there is something to be said about the value of money, there is ALWAYS an amount of money people are willing to be paid to do something.
What a weird fucking question to ask.
wait until you figured out how we discovered science
or better yet, if you’re more of a normie, who figured out you can drink cow milk first.
“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.
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.
that seems plausible. I would imagine this happened on pretty early in human history, but it would have to be late enough that we had somewhat domesticated animals.
And it is a weird and boring question in the OP. He wants to rape a girl for money.
it’s certainly weird, but so are a lot of questions, and it’s boring, but then again, when are questions ever exciting lol.
As for philosophy, the single most intriguing question that has ever been asked is quite literally “what is the meaning of life”
You got way too hung on their example. The point was science is tinkering and following weird curiosities but with extra steps. Virtually every major innovation in the last century (for most of civilisation I would argue) has been a result of indirect tinkering, or benefitted from a completely unrelated field.
You were in such a rush to defend their point, you missed mine. Which is that pseudoscience and pseudointellectualism look exactly like this - made up bullshit based in nothing. I’m not “too hung up” on their examples - that’s exactly how I’m showing their nonsense. Get some intellectual hygiene. Question things. Demand proof and exactitudes. THAT is the basis of real critical thought and scientific reasoning.
Sure, curiosity can lead to scientific advancements. Or it can lead to conspiracies. It depends on what it’s being based on.
Advancements are made in the cognitive mortar between the bricks of knowledge we have. If those bricks aren’t made of anything substantial, the mortar won’t save it either. Gotta have a basis in something solid. That’s why we take measurements and data.
Haha Lemmy hates to hear this, good luck.
yeah, i do a bit of lolcowing on lemmy from time to time, same as i did on reddit.
It’s fun. Would recommend people stop caring about the shit they read/write on the internet, its mostly bullshit anyway.
I don’t look to create unnecessary consternation but for an outcast community this place sure can be super hostile to ‘against the grain’ opinions. I don’t want adulation but an explanation to go with the downvote parade would be nice sometimes.
Not even talking about political or ethical subjects, take OP above you as an example.
it’s typical for online communities such as this, it’s worse in some places, better in others, depends on the community and the instance. And how much of a pain in the ass you are.
‘Should enormously overpriced child sex trafficking be allowed?’
For fucks sake
Fucking greedflation affecting the child sex trafficking industry too now
This is just prostitution with extra steps.
No, he’s just paying for the 14 year old’s time, anything that happens after is between
two adultsan a adult and a child, whoconsent,share a racecar bed, are abusing extreme power dynamics!with extra steps
Money is irrelevant. Its child sexual abuse by a pedophile and idealised by other pedophiles.
What extra steps ?
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€”.
You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don’t wanna know about it, believe me.
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.
How this post really reads:
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?
The guy who asked this is basically asking if it’s okay for parents to prostitute out their child.
And sadly that is quite common
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.deleted by creator
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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?
Try reading “Delusions of Gender” by Cordelia Fine.
yeah, that’s why i’m saying that it’s weird that they’re different response groups. I can see why more men responded, but unless trolling it doesn’t really explain the variations all that much, but then again it could just be bad sample sizing, stats data collection is hard.
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
Dude I’m poor and I’ll appreciate that $10M choice any day.
With $10M on the table, my poverty is now a choice.
Sure, just like a promotion becomes a choice for a woman under a misogynist boss when he propositions her. Consent cannot exist in such a power imbalance. And it’s not your fault or her fault. It’s us, it’s the system making that shitty situation real. We can and should change the system so that nobody faces such a choice.
It can’t exist? As an exaggeration, is there no way for a woman to meaningfully consent to an offer from her male boss to swap packed lunches? After all, he might take offense and pass her over for the promotion if she declines.
And if consent is possible in that scenario, what makes it immediately impossible in the scenario where sex or romance is involved?
It seems obvious that consent has to exist on some kind of spectrum like almost everything else. But it’s spoken about and thought about in a very binary way. That seems problematic given how big a topic consent is lately.
Funny you should bring up food. In the military leaders are trained to eat after their troops, to never gamble with them, and in general never ask anything from them that isn’t related to doing the job.
Because consent cannot exist in a power imbalance. So yes the lunch swap has the exact same problem. Just with less trauma counseling.
Don’t you think taking that hard-line stance kind of corners you into taking some nonsensical positions?
For example a physical power imbalance will always exist between two men of different sizes. Because the imbalance is there, you have to answer with a hard no when someone asks: “is it possible for two men of different sizes to consent to sex with one another?” But if someone asks “is it okay for two guys of different sizes to have sex?” you would presumably say yes.
Now you have been forced to say it is okay for sex to happen despite the impossibility of any consent having being given.
Obviously the line gets drawn somewhere yes. Why 18 and not 19? Etc… I just had a good laugh because you stepped right in one.
You’re essentially saying that I’m incapable of economic consent, and I disagree because that dehumanizes me.
I’d say the system already did that.
The female ratio between yes and no is concerning
Looks like a twitter poll. I wouldn’t be super surprised if some of those ‘yes’ answers are from an “as a totally real fe-male person” folks.
don’t forget pick-mes. it’s twitter; the pick-me ratio is probably 12x as high as it is outside.
Don’t be so willing to assume men didn’t click “yes, woman”.
Don’t be so willing to assume there were no women that clicked that too.
There’s one born every minute as they say. Still, good faith polling on Twitter? No bet.
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 wondering how many of those responders might be teenage women thinking about the lure of having ten million dollars with an older hottie.
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I wouldn’t have. And if you look at child stars like Amamda Bynes, who essentially made that deal, it’s not worth it. They are severely fucked up for life. What a weird, cavalier approach to the effects of sexual assault on children.
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What was the age of the person you had sex with at 14?
Do you not understand the concept of trauma and how it relates to sexual assault? Ever read The Body Keeps the Score? Maybe you didn’t make it unscathed. Maybe wanting to rape your 14 year old self for $10mil shows it did fuck you up.
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I’d really recommend reading about PTSD and The Body Keeps the Score.
Sometimes you need someone to say, “hey, that’s fucked up,” to give yourself permission to say it too. Sometimes we need people in our lives to say that. Especially about an adult having sex with a 14 year old.
I get that’s what you’d choose. I still think that’s fucked up and you are ignorant to those effects, which are cognitively the same as torture. I don’t think YOU are fucked up though, just that thought is fucked up. I’m sorry I said it like that.
Look at Amanda Bynes now. She doesn’t have money anymore - she’s going to school to be a nail salon lady. Do you genuinely think she’s better off now than you are now? I think she’s under conservatorship and forced to take psychiatric meds. I wouldn’t trade lives with her.
Ah yes, cause the thing that makes pedophilia bad is the immediate payment, if you defer that until the victim is off age it’s all good.
It’s hebephilia not pedophilia, though the immorality doesn’t change
Hey there’s a word for that! It’s called “Child prostitution”!
Doesn’t sound quite as reasonable, does it? Not that it ever did.why are people obsessed with coming up with scenarios in which it could be okay to have sex with children
Be… because they want to have sex with children?
The gap between yes/no men and yes/no women is kinda crazy. Also, probably has a lot to do with the audience this post reached.
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?
You are being downvoted because you think your interpretation is more likely than the other person’s. The point is that anonymous polling data isn’t reliable because people lie or even totally doctor the data. So we need to use common sense and look at other, actually reliable, data to get a better sense of what is true.
You don’t want to do that. So your analysis doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny. That’s all.
It’s an anonymous social media platform with a user base that’s over 1/3rd women more than even the percentage combined up there.
If you think no women at all participated in that poll then you are picking a side that for some reason excuses an entire gender for what can only be considered bias reasons.
Yes I understand it’s untrustworthy but we aren’t saying this is some numbers in a spreadsheet poll, it was a poll on a site that even though we may disagree with it is swarming with a huge amount of real people sitting on their phone users.
So, the only way you could assume that literally no women voted in that poll because “theirs no way they would vote that way” is a cognitive bias from wanting that to be a truth when the more likely answer and the one that is shown to be reality in a world where people (men and women included) prostitute their children for a lot less than the hypothetical.
You are using an absence of a perfect source be excuse to throw away all of the results because you want to. That’s on you, not me.
Considering that 95% of adults who marry children are men (according to the UN)… yeah nah man. Guys pretend to be women on the internet all the time. And conservatives on Twitter pretend to be groups which they aren’t all the time. There is absolutely 0 chance a higher portion of women answered “yes” to this than men considering the facts of child marriage. It’s not just about “pedophilia” but of patriarchal societies where women are treated more or less as sex objects, things which exist for men and who’s sole purpose is to have babies.
In a matriarchal society, you would perhaps see more amount of women doing this. These trends aren’t an inherent thing to being a man or a woman. But, due to thousands of years of patriarchal culture, girls are the primary victim of getting married off to adults, it’s just simply far more common.
And the fact that historically marriage is initiated by men in basically all countries is unimportant now cause…? And the 5% in your own statistics just… Doesn’t exist?
You want there to be zero chance and refuse to accept any other reality. And yet women do enter into sex work willingly across the world. Women do plenty of things to set their life up like marrying men they don’t love all the time. Your need for a better world than we live in is irrelevant.
Man what are you even talking about right now…? What exactly are you arguing against here? I don’t think we’re on the same page.
I’m saying that women would absolutely take that offer. More than you think. And that you are making up a falsehood in your own head that it must be men to make you feel better about the world even though you have no basis for it other than conspiracy and hopeful wishful thinking.
The best science we have on the matter suggests that a larger portion of men are pedophiles (expressing interest in sexual relations with children), and statistically most offending pedophiles are men. This random poll on Twitter, a site infested with pedophiles and men with disgusting views on women and women’s rights, where any random account can participate, is completely contradictory to the science on the matter. In my opinion, that’s a pretty reasonable indication of the results being skewed by bad actors. There is no actual way to ensure the integrity of the results, as literally anyone can vote and anyone can make a new account to vote (and there are a lot of Twitter bots).
Now, I could see the argument that “women on Twitter are significantly less representative of women than men on Twitter are representative of men”, but it’s hard to see that effect causing this stark of a difference.
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.
