quiet_NaN
15hr ago
I would argue that Epstein and his guests are different from random truckers in that they purposefully selected for underage. If Epstein had hired 18yo's from escort websites only, this thing would be an absolute non-story, and nobody except a few prudes and feminists would get upset.
Being a sex worker at a truck stop is very likely not a great job. I would expect that the pay is lousy (because your clients do not have a lot of disposable income), it is rather dangerous (because "trucker", unlike "bank executive" does not filter for "intelligent person with an appropriate discounting function who will avoid any homicides they will not get away with") and that the clients are not particularly hot or skilled at sex. If you can make ends meet using OnlyFans or doing escort work, that seems much preferable. So I can totally see that this job selects for 16yo runaways who need to pay for their next meal or their next dose, and have neither the wardrobe nor the age to make it in the more respectable branches of sex work (where underage is likely a hard no, because it attracts the eye of Sauron like little else except murder).
Unlike the US, I have no problem with prostitution per se. I certainly do not think minors should be prostitutes, but also admit that I have no good way to align the incentives of a 16yo drug addict to that end. Still, I think informed consent is as important for sex work as for any sex act.
Some time ago, there was a scandal where some porn company would hire women for what they claimed to be modelling (or something similarly tame), then get into a plane to some other city, and suddenly be confronted with the fact that they would be shooting hardcore porn instead. This put the women in a position where they could either walk out, and find themselves in a city which they knew nothing about without a return ticket home, or they could conform with the expressed opinion of the set crew that shooting porn was not a big deal and believe their lies that their video would only be sold to foreign collectors and not be put on the internet. Eventually, the company got sued and is out of business now, and good riddance. By contrast, no hooker who climbs into a truck is under any illusion that the truck driver is going to do a photo shoot to kick off her modelling career. She might still get raped when the trucker violates the agreed boundaries, but that would then at least be a criminal matter (not that this would buy her anything, realistically).
Now, in theory, it could be that Epstein recruited his victims by driving to local truck stops and telling the sex workers: "I am currently recruiting underage prostitutes for a sex party. Here is a brief detailing transportation, accommodations, sex acts, payment, and safe words. Please read it, think about it for a week and then mail me what sex acts you feel comfortable with and I will get back to you."
However, in my world model, this is exceedingly unlikely. It is seems far more likely that the girls travelling on the Lolita express had at best a vague idea what would be required of them, and then were coerced in pretty much the same way as the victims of that unethical porn company were, except worse, because they were underage and actually trapped on an island.
I base this on my general impression of Epstein's MO wrt consent and also one major thing which I think is appealing in men about young partners, which is sexual inexperience. If you want an eager escort who has a great technique in oral sex, your ideal woman is likely a 25-30yo who has given head a few thousand times in her life and perfected her game, not a 16yo hooker. On priors, I don't think that Epstein specifically recruited virgins for his guests, because most of his guests would not appreciate a woman who curls down on the floor and starts crying when she is told what is expected of her, but I think that the whole setup was pretty much build around maximizing the power difference, his guests were probably into making their victims submit to sex acts which were way out of their comfort zone.
Then people are wrong. I discussed this before.
Let me put it more plainly and provocatively. The problem with calling a 50yo who fucks a 16yo teen in a clearly coercive setting "pedophile" is that you are equating something which is deeply morally objectionable with something which is fine.
In case there is any doubt about which is which, yes, I am claiming that there is nothing morally wrong with being a pedophile, in the technically sense of the word.
Now obviously, it is a sexual orientation which sucks greatly for anyone with a remotely working moral compass (and will lead to behavior which is very wrong for those without one), and I thank my maker that I am into women with tits instead so I have access to ethically produced porn and ethical opportunities to have sex (even if being bi would be strictly preferable in that regard).
Sure, there is a large overlap between child-fuckers and pedophiles, but my problem is with child-fuckers as child-fuckers. If some asshole decides to sexually abuse a kid, I don't give a rats ass if they were into kids or watching MILF porn at the same time to keep aroused, they should go to prison either way.
Using pedos as a synonym for child abusers is bad. Expanding it to include creepy sex pest-ry targeting underage victims is even worse. I also do not think that the general vibe of "your sexual orientation makes you the likeliest group to be deported to death camps without anyone else saying a word in your defense" is actually very effective at keeping ethical pedos (who are not complicit in sexual abuse) ethical, probably a society which was meh about ethical pedos but very much against child abusers (which mostly describes western legal systems) would offer a better gradient.
I am not much of a linguistic prescriptionist, normally. I use to beg the question correctly, but it is not a hill I am willing to die on. Still, words matter, and I think that on this forum we should strive to use accurate terminology even if 85% of the general population is using it in a more diffuse manner, especially if it involves emotionally charged words which are intentionally repurposed for clear political goals.
As another example (without a strict 1:1 correspondence), consider a (perhaps hypothetical) attempt to redefine "rape" as "any sex act perpetrated by a man which involved a woman who either did not consent or regretted consenting subsequently". (It is not entirely divorced from common usage, people have sex under the influence of voluntarily consumed drugs which would inhibit their legal ability to consent all the time, and end up in situations where they can decide on the next day that they were raped (and then decide to report it or not) or retroactively grant consent. (Perhaps not legally, but practically. Legally, "last night when I was dead drunk, I urged my hot husband to fuck my brains out and he did" might still be rape, but unless she bring that up in divorce proceedings eventually, nobody cares.)) Still, I would definitely argue against anyone here who would try to push such a new definition, because it hopelessly muddies the water by using the same term for different things which are not remotely morally equivalent.
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