You just knew that Jeffrey Epstein had to have had this conversation over and over again.
“He hates every story starting with ‘billionaire pervert,’” Mr. Hay said. “Jeffrey had long stories about the difference between pedophilia with very young children and tweens and teens a little older.” He added, “It was his way of trying to talk his way around it.”
“Long stories”? Oh, do tell. Let’s hear them. Was Lawrence Krauss a receptive audience for these stories?
On second thought, no. I don’t have a puke bucket on hand. These may come out in the trial, though, so I think I’m going to have to avoid reading the transcripts.
Here’s something else to avoid reading: the official charges against Epstein. Not safe for work if you move your lips while reading.
I’d read the transcripts if they mentioned a certain Grump-y person was involved in some way.
isn’t the slam-dunk argument these creeps seem to think it is.
Tabby Lavalamp — Not sure of your reference, but “ephebophilia” apparently refers to adolescent boys. When I looked up that word, I happened to be wondering how the case of this creep would be different if he was recruiting boys instead of girls all these years.
And with immense political aplomb, Accosta proposes slashing funds for sex trafficking victims. Geez.
Finally, I thought Jill Filipovic hit the right tone about the powerful people on all sides caught up in Epstein’s mess: they should all be shamed out of public life.
Docket of USA v Epstein, with pertinent documents (including the original of the indictment linked in the OP).
robro: Weird point to get pedantic on considering my point was about pedantry. Also, it looks like you’re using second definitions and the origins of the word instead of the regular meaning of the word today.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ephebophilia
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/ephebophilia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia
Tabby Lavalamp — My apologies, I didn’t mean to be pedantic, just looked up the word in my dictionary app and that’s what it showed. I just happened to be thinking, at the moment, of the difference in the case if it involved boys instead girls. I certainly don’t think there should be a difference, but our society can draw some weird distinctions around that.
well it is a pity he does not like all the stories that start with billionaire pervert he has 3 choices if he wants it to be different. he can admit it and have himself hospitalized, he can give all his money away to all his victims or he can do both. He can not plead innocent however nor protect all of the others who were involved directly or indirectly.
uncle frogy
robro: All’s good. :)
Technically he’s right. Raping an 8 year old versus 14 versus 24 are all different. One is not better than the others, though. How does the distinction help him?
Accosta’s claim boils down to this: in 2008, he “stepped in”…Epstein was facing Federal charges…to assure a guilty verdict and make sure Epstein went to jail. So, he got the venue shifted to Florida, Epstein pleaded quilty, and “went to jail” for 13 months. By jail we mean he spent the night at the county jail but checked out everyday to go to his office. The only real consequence for Epstein is that he had to register as a sex offender, which is about as punishing as his time in jail.
I wonder who asked Acosta to broker that deal. I doubt he had the idea on his own.
@13 robro — the Vatican made that distinction for years, honoring the principle of ephebophilia publicly: “these weren’t young boys, we’re not pedophiles! These were 13-year-olds, on the cusp of adolescence, and becoming interested in sex.” Well alrighty then, sign my kid up as an altar boy in 4th grade, it sounds as though he won’t get raped until 7th grade. And we wonder why ex-Catholic is the third biggest religion in America.
Rebecca knocks the ball into the car park.
Epstein: “I only rape 13 year olds, not 7 year olds.” What a defence.
Yeah, I only got 4 pages into the charges before I didn’t want to read any more. One other thing struck me as bizarre — Epstein would pay the girls “hundreds of dollars.” It makes the whole thing even weirder. A billionaire paying minors a relative pittance to indulge his fetish for statutory rape?
chrislawson, @ #15: You don’t get to be rich by paying people more money than you have to.
The reason to distinguish between ephebophilia, Hebephilia, pedophilia, whether it is homosexual vs heterosexual, etc is because unless you understand the pathology how are you going to get 1. The treatment correct, 2. The judicial aspects correct, 3. How to support the victims correctly, and perhaps most importantly, 4. Learn how to identify and prevent future cases.
So no, I don’t think it’s pedantic in a bad way. My issue is that if we keep hiding from ‘taboo’ subjects then how are we to deal with them?
Remember how fast gay marriage attitudes switched? How ‘out of the blue’ Iowa legalized gay marriage so early? Why? Well, when you have so many people coming out, when you’ve been dealing with HIV for thirty years, when you HUMANIZE the issue you end up progressing. How else would Dick Cheney of all people had his influence in the issue if his beloved daughter didn’t come out as gay?
That’s whats ‘funny’ about the transgender movement. At first you hear people saying that we didn’t have these transgenders when I was young but now with the liberals look what’s happening! But you don’t so much hear that. What you hear mostly are arguments about what it means to be male and female, you here arguments about binary vs non-binary, you hear discussions about what is gender. Sure the religious are trying to argue biology but that’s better than them just using the Bible.
So that’s why destigmatizing things helps. What is the effect of marijuana? What if we legalized it? Etc, etc.
I heard a horrifying story on NPR several years ago. It was a story about an adolescent boy who realized that he was gay and that he was sexually aroused for male prepubescents only. In other words, he knew he was a true homosexual pedophile. He had never acted on anything. He was terrified. And the reason he was terrified? WHO DOES HE TALK TO? What if he gets somehow labeled a sex offender having committed no crime? WHO DOES HE TRUST? And as you realized deeper and deeper the pit this kid was in you realized…he’s probably going to kill himself.
That’s why defining is needed. Bc then you can make claims/hypotheses so that then you can obtain evidence and fund grants etc. If we did this better I doubt Acosta would gave been able to do what he did in 2005 with his plea deal to Epstein. Certainly, fewer lives would have been traumatized.
Oh, and before I forget, in my Apple RSS I consistently get stories from people magazine. And sweet jeebus, it seems like every week they have a story where a very attractive female teacher of usually late middle school or HS age boys establishes a texting relationship that leads to her sending nudes that leads to sex usually in classroom, car, home and/or hotel. Invariably it is ether a parent who sees the texts or a friend of the boy tells an adult. These women often gave children and I think everyone of them I’ve seen are married.
It is such a pattern that it’s gotta be a ‘thing’ from a psychiatric standpoint. Again, something that needs destigmatized and studied so we can know what to do. Just like with any other mental illness.
twarren1111:
And the reason that distinction is usually brought up is to somehow mitigate the severity of the case (“at least it wasn’t the littlest kiddies!”). Pretty fucking transparent.
Um.
twarren1111, #17
Your examples are very much not analogous to the issue of adults wanting to rape children.
You should be able to marry someone of whatever sex and gender. Transgender people should be treated just like anyone else. That’s why it is important those things shouldn’t have stigma around them.