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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24304 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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There is no steelman for sex with pre-pubescent children, but the current public understanding of "paedophilia" includes sex with physiologically mature teenagers who are below the local age of consent, and in some cases with teenagers who are above the age of consent but where the age gap is large enough to give curtain-twitchers the ick. The steelman for this expanded definition of "paedophilia" is that it is just normal human sexuality.

the current public understanding of "paedophilia" includes sex with physiologically mature teenagers who are below above the local age of consent

Say you’d want to get it on with a cute 17 yo when you’re in your 30s and you will be accused of being a pedophile even though the age of consent is 16. It really is just a way to moral police something that gives the accusers the ick.

That falls into my second category of "teenagers who are above the age of consent but where the age gap is large enough to give curtain-twitchers the ick" - I agree with you that a lot of scolds will at least hint at it, and some will actually call you a "paedophile" straight up. But the British tabloids are careful not to throw around the "paedophile" word when the girl was 17 because it would be legally defamatory. If the girl was 15 essentially everyone would be calling you a paedophile, and would be happy to defend the allegation as straightforwardly true in front of a judge.

That's true, but the point I was trying to make in my comment was that while "racism" and "sexism" might erode completely, the central examples of "pedophilia" are abhorrent enough that the accusation will never fully lose its power and be met only with eyerolls as OP suggested.

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