I'll go ahead and say the quiet part loud. There is a changing definition of what is a child in the US. People generally under 24 are considered children, and I can recount a few people facing critique over dating people in their early twenties (<25) from dating men (mostly men) who are older. I've read an article that questions whether 16 year olds can be sexually active at all, that is, with teens their own age (other 16 yr olds), not with older people so nothing like pedophilia or an age difference at all. Another example is a thread I read on reddit questioning whether it was okay for a 17 year old musician making music with sexually explicit lyrics, presumably concerning sexual relations with others their own age.

A lot of the Epstein drama seems to be driven by two pieces, political connections to Trump and Clinton (so it touches "both" sides if you will) and the reaction of this changing definition of childhood to the exploitation of these teens at the hand of Epstein and the perspectives of people either older or from countries with different ideas of the propriety of the sexuality of teenagers. The changing range of who is a child is why what rms said so digusting, because it is considered in kind with say, rape of a toddler or a preteen in the popular mind as the social definitions are shifting.

The problem of course is this is very US centric, and there are of course people just living in different cultures and attitudes elsewhere. I have friends abroad were actually confused about the Epstein drama when they first read about it because to them, it was salacious but not as creepy as Americans think it is.