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Notes -
So, the Guardian has decided to be offended by a volleyball player, gleefully (and from what I can see, technically correctly (the best kind of correct!)) calling him a child rapist in the headlines.
Apparently he had sex with a twelve-year-old when he was 19 (with no additional elements of coercion) and served a year for it in 2016.
That is one icky age difference, and I think that the prison sentence he served might be an appropriate general deterrent. (Personally, I would prefer having (legally void) consensual sex with an adult (to whom I am attracted, see consent) at age 12 to spending a year in the prison at 19, but ymmv.)
However, I also believe in rehabilitation. I see no reason to report on this any more than if he had served a year for insurance fraud in 2016.
Both of the Guardian articles feel less of a hit piece than some other stuff I have read in the past, apart from the headline. (I wish we had some better phrase to refer to the offense than 'child rape', which includes this but also abducting and violently raping kindergardeners.) Of course, that the elected to report on it at all is the most problematic part of it apart from the headlines -- it was eight years ago, which is longer than most doping bans last, and he did a substantial amount of time for it.
Isn't the distinction already made in rape vs aggravated rape? We can be certain that a 12 year is a child and that the crime committed was rape, I see no issue with the term 'child rape'.
Except he didn't rape her, in the commonly understood way of forcing her against her will. The law decides she was too young to consent (and I'm fine with that line existing) but the only reason we're using the word rape is because the law calls it 'statutory rape', not because it corresponds particularly to a violent sexual attack.
In some states, Pennsylvania included, if the victim is younger than 13 the offense is Rape of a Child and it doesn't matter whether it was coerced or not.
And in some countries this incident wouldn't be an offense at all, since the age of consent there is less than or equal to twelve. Now I think such a low AoC is wrong, but it is just applicable to the incident under discussion as the laws of PA, USA; not at all.
There are then two ways to determine if it is appropriate to call the volleyball player guy a "rapist": we can either look up the exact offense for which he was convicted or each of us can try to use our own idiosyncratic defintion of a "rapist" and attempt to judge if the Dutch person's behaviour fits.
How they do things in Philly doesn't factor in.
There’s a joke in here about the Pennsylvania Dutch …
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