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Comment by stickfigure | Hacker News Reader

AFAIK, Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of hiring a 16-year-old prostitute.

This may be a controversial opinion, but... in the great list of mortal sins, I don't find it ranks particularly high. Sure it's not a great look. But I think prostitution should be a woman's choice, and 16 is the age of sexual consent in 32 out of 50 US states. It's hard for me to get too worked up about something that would have had far less legal consequences one state over in Alabama.

So while it's a red flag, I'm not sure the conviction alone would stop me from accepting grant money. You might feel differently, that's fine. To me, money is pretty amoral.

These other things that have come out since - rapes, fourteen-year-olds - if true, are much more disturbing. But that wasn't part of the dialogue in 2013.

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>This may be a controversial opinion, but... in the great list of mortal sins, I don't find it ranks particularly high.

Welcome to HN, where a 55 year old man having sex with a 16 year old girl is "not a great look".

Throw in the power and money imbalance, and still "not a great look".

Throw in that the child was having sex for money, at a time when she should've been concerned with getting good grades in high school, but it really should be a choice for high schoolers to engage in dangerous and - as it is - damaging acts like prostitution, so yup, "not a great look". A "red flag" perhaps.

We don't let 16 year olds drive cars (without restriction), buy cigarettes and alcohol, skip school (in some jurisdictions), or, hell, work full time or at hazardous occupations (in CA at least) for good reasons, but it somehow should be a choice to engage in prostitution, because the letter of the law in Alabama permits 16 year olds to have sex.

No, I don't think it's fine to feel that way, and I don't think the parent's opinion is "controversial". A rich 55-year-old paying for sex with an 11th graderis very much un-controversially a bad thing no matter how you wrap it, and no matter what the laws are in Alabama, medieval Europe, or Mars.

Please don't be an apologist for child abuse. It's not a great look.

8 years ago, in a thread about YC partnering with Yuri Milner: [1]

> there are people in the Valley who are willing to overlook ethics if you have enough money.

Seems very little has changed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143897

> AFAIK, Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of hiring a 16-year-old prostitute.

While that's true of the substance of his sweetheart plea deal, there was a lot more involved than that, which was also widely reported on.

A 16 year old can't be a prostitute (they can't consent to have sex with an adult). It's called child rape, and yes most people consider that to rank particularly high on the moral failings list.

> A 16 year old can't be a prostitute (they can't consent to have sex with an adult).

Legally, they can in much of the United States.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_Unite...

Nitpick all you want, a 16 year old cannot legally consent to prostitution.

And if they could, the laws would need to be rewritten, because that would make child rape legal.

Repeat after me: a 16 year old having sex with a 55 year old for money is child abuse.

> Nitpick all you want, a 16 year old cannot legally consent to prostitution

No one can legally consent to prostitution, except where prostitution is legal.

A 16-year-old can legally consent to sex in much of the USA, which makes the act prostitution, not “child rape”.

> Repeat after me: a 16 year old having sex with a 55 year old for money is child abuse.

Whether that's legally true depends on the state. Whether it's morally true depends on the 16-year-old (the reason for variation in age of consent laws is that there isn't a simple, clear, consistent chronological point where a bit flips from a person being incapable of mature consent to sex to capable of it), and a lot of other factors (including, potentially, the state: legality alone does not control morality but it's not completely irrelevant, either.)

OK, I rest my case here.

I'll just note that on HN, a 16 year old girl having sex with a rich 55 year old man for money is a morally ambiguous situation, whose morality depends on "a lot of other factors" (presumably, ones not including age, wealth, and power of the 55 year old in question).

Perhaps that's because most of HN is young enough to remember what it's like to be 16, and can empathize with being in that role more than you.

When I was 16, I was having sex with a woman who was - let's just say old enough to be prosecuted in California. It was great. If the right 55 year old came around, why the hell not?

I guess you'll claim that I'm an abused child. That's bollocks.

Or maybe you think that only girls need to be protected/infantilized?

Nobody is arguing for a world where teenagers turn tricks for a living. And sure this situation brings up all sorts of questions, and isn't "fine". But 16-18 is definitely in the grey zone of adulthood, and the majority of US states grant them a lot of sexual agency already. There's a big gap between "just fine" and "hang 'em!"

My moral judgement basically comes down to: How did the 16yo feel about it? It's really their interest we're advocating for, right?

>My moral judgement basically comes down to: How did the 16yo feel about it?

It keeps getting better!

I'll just note that on HN people think there's a question about how a 16 year old girl feels about having sex for money with a 55 year old known child abuser (old enough to be her grandfather).

Do I need to underline every word of the above sentence for people here to stop pretending this situation is something else?

This forum is full of programmers. Here, let me try logic:

    IF ((girl.age == 16)
        AND (girl.had_sex == TRUE)
        AND (partner.age == 55)
        AND (partner.is_rich_and_powerful == TRUE)  
        AND (girl.is_rich) == FALSE
        AND (partner.paid_for_sex == TRUE)
      ) 
    THEN
      girl.has_been_abused = TRUE

If you insist on "grey areas", replace the last line with

     girl.has_not_been_abused.probability = MACHINE_EPSILON

But sure, go ahead and paint me a world where the above doesn't hold, and Jeffrey Epstein just happened to be the right 55 year old for the 16 year old girl(s) he paid to have sex with.

You're howling at the wind. People on this forum, and in much of the rest of the world, have zero ability to empathize with someone that basically isn't their carbon copy. So you will never convince the person that you're responding to that being a middle class 16 year old girl and being paid for sex by a 55 year old billionaire, is not the most fun thing in the world, because that person is not (and probably never has been) a middle class 16 year old girl.

>You're howling at the wind.

Perhaps, but then there's all there more reason to do so. And thanks for lending your voice! Perhaps someone reading this will feel a bit better.

> 16 is the age of sexual consent in 32 out of 50 US states

I think you may have glossed over this part of the comment you're responding to

The first victim that started the case in Florida was 14 - are you going to try and justify that by saying it's legal in Pakistan?

He ran an interstate recruitment ring of underage girls not just for himself but for other men. There's no justifying anything with this man.

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