"barely legal" is a key word phrase from the porn industry used to describe 18 year olds.
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@futurebird the concept of age-of-consent definitely needs to be supplemented with some kind of age-gap-upper-limit-for-consent.
maybe not exactly like this xkcd comic (and maybe not a linear function like in the comic), but this could be a starting point to figure out a better formula (in consultation with psychologists, etc):
https://xkcd.com/314/@futurebird but on second thought, if it only considers age, then it can't solve problems brought on by other factors (like indications that the older person likely doesn't care about consent in general)
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Sometimes I've had the thought "Maybe there is just something deeply wrong with some men and this will always be with us. They have this perverse need to exploit and dominate and nothing can be done."
Then? I reject it. It's a choice to treat people in this way. It's a choice to glamorize it as some pinnacle of masculinity.
Amazing to see that men with all of that money and power still found themselves falling short. This taught them nothing.
@futurebird there’s a YouTube video that shows the house of one of these guys in Japan. It is located in a very expensive neighborhood and looks like a medium size museum.
Imagine what did that guy do to get that an his other houses. What he does to people on a day to day basis.
Now imagine that he wants to have some fun, no holds barred, and there’s this guy that it’s offering it. His choice was to use people, it’s the other guys problem how he hires them.
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@futurebird there’s a YouTube video that shows the house of one of these guys in Japan. It is located in a very expensive neighborhood and looks like a medium size museum.
Imagine what did that guy do to get that an his other houses. What he does to people on a day to day basis.
Now imagine that he wants to have some fun, no holds barred, and there’s this guy that it’s offering it. His choice was to use people, it’s the other guys problem how he hires them.
@futurebird he lives in this world of plausible deniability that is so convenient to all of them.
When you are that rich, no one tells you “no”.
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@futurebird A while back, I taught at a college where affairs between faculty and students were tolerated, and it was awful, seeing young people call themselves "jailbait" and prance around in front of professors who claimed they had no other choice. (None of the students were underage, but they clearly IDed some profs as pedophiles.) One student in sociology even wrote a thesis about how exploiting oneself is a map to power. But whose? The men got tenured and promoted. They lost.
I keep thinking about how lonely it must be to know that people only want to be around you because of your money or your power.
Or because of your looks or your age.
It's degrading to everyone, and so often when there is a community where this is going on there are a few guys at the center of it all. "come on honey you know that's how it works" type guys. Because they can't hack it any other way and make it a problem for everyone.
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I keep thinking about how lonely it must be to know that people only want to be around you because of your money or your power.
Or because of your looks or your age.
It's degrading to everyone, and so often when there is a community where this is going on there are a few guys at the center of it all. "come on honey you know that's how it works" type guys. Because they can't hack it any other way and make it a problem for everyone.
@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
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There will always be something deeply wrong with some people and nothing can be done about them specifically. I do believe that, some people aren't willing to put the work into changing and the work has to come from within.
But as a society we can avoid putting them in positions of power over others.
Edit: changed men to people. This behavior and exploitative attitude exists among women and other non-men too, they just don't end up in positions of power as often
@futurebird @gbargoud > Edit: changed men to people.
I think framing it as a problem only among men can be harmful. Women like Ghislaine Maxwell are every bit as dangerous as any man, and talking about exploitation as something men do to women makes it easier for them to go unnoticed.
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Sometimes I've had the thought "Maybe there is just something deeply wrong with some men and this will always be with us. They have this perverse need to exploit and dominate and nothing can be done."
Then? I reject it. It's a choice to treat people in this way. It's a choice to glamorize it as some pinnacle of masculinity.
Amazing to see that men with all of that money and power still found themselves falling short. This taught them nothing.
@futurebird
Also, what kind of self image is that? What does it say about you if you require your (sexual) partners to be at your mercy? These people are just so fucking broken. And we should as a society do a much better job at protecting people from them and expect them to deal with their
like any other person. If you feel the need to harm people, get some help. -
@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
@carrideen @futurebird
There is not a world in which this is ethical behavior. Unethical at minimum, and dismissible IMO.
The inherent power differential between facility and student places a pressure to comply on the student. Consent within power differentials hard to navigate. That’s why most places have rules against bosses dating subordinates. Too much potential for abuse, or favoritism.
Add in the relative immaturity of 18-22-year-olds and that power gap grows. Our brains are not done developing until middle-late twenty’s. Presumably, a prof has hit that point and has more life experience, where the student has not. Another way the student is disadvantaged in these interactions.
Any institution that does not explicitly denounce this behavior, and set up safeguards for students is also inherently an unethical and immoral institution. There should be no tolerance for abuse in higher education. We should be preparing the next generation to take over and run this world into a better future, not compound trauma many already have experienced. -
@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
It's really interesting when you start doing that how some people will shrug, others will agree, others will push back a little "is it such a big deal?"
But then there are the ones who get *angry* and they are often the "source" of the whole shift in social norms. You are threatening their fun and they really can't imagine living without treating people like this.
People who shrug, and say "it's not a big deal" protect them.
And no, this isn't "just how things are"
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@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
@carrideen @futurebird those old powerful men ruin so many careers, yet when one of these victims (usually women) dare to speak up, everyone else thinks the old man career could be ruined and *that* shouldn't happen because he's "so brillant"
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I keep thinking about how lonely it must be to know that people only want to be around you because of your money or your power.
Or because of your looks or your age.
It's degrading to everyone, and so often when there is a community where this is going on there are a few guys at the center of it all. "come on honey you know that's how it works" type guys. Because they can't hack it any other way and make it a problem for everyone.
@futurebird @carrideen
I get that in _theory_ being surrounded by people who are only interested in your wealth or your power could be lonely, but that would require a degree of introspection which the wealthy and powerful don't seem to have a lot of spare time for, between the red carpets and the yachts and so forth. Instead, they seem quite happy to surround themselves with people who help them normalize whatever craziness they're prone to.
I keep remembering that, in the thousands of emails that got dumped into the public domain when Musk was prosecuted for the Twitter acquisition, there wasn't a single one pointing out that it was a stupid idea. They were all like, "genius, man!" And he clearly believed them. -
@carrideen @futurebird
There is not a world in which this is ethical behavior. Unethical at minimum, and dismissible IMO.
The inherent power differential between facility and student places a pressure to comply on the student. Consent within power differentials hard to navigate. That’s why most places have rules against bosses dating subordinates. Too much potential for abuse, or favoritism.
Add in the relative immaturity of 18-22-year-olds and that power gap grows. Our brains are not done developing until middle-late twenty’s. Presumably, a prof has hit that point and has more life experience, where the student has not. Another way the student is disadvantaged in these interactions.
Any institution that does not explicitly denounce this behavior, and set up safeguards for students is also inherently an unethical and immoral institution. There should be no tolerance for abuse in higher education. We should be preparing the next generation to take over and run this world into a better future, not compound trauma many already have experienced.@carrideen @futurebird
I was speaking to the educational comments here.
The rest of the thread is great discussion.
The normalization of exploitation is disgusting. The patriarchy is still alive and well, and under the current US regime in charge, will only get worse here in the US. The entirety of project 2025, which is the playbook being run, includes a plan to disempower women and keep them subservient to men and power. It’s gross. -
@futurebird The weirdest wrinkle of this to me is that the adults who get off on exploiting young people also want to tell themselves that on some level, the child is aware and happily exploiting themselves. It's Nabokov's greatest insight in Lolita about pedophiles, that unfortunately pedophile readers thought he was celebrating. For young people, it makes it impossible to get predators to believe when you say no, not me, not anyone my age.
@carrideen @futurebird I read Lolita when I was about 15 because of The Police song "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and that was exactly what I got out of it -- to watch for people who make those kinds of excuses and run like hell. I owe Nabokov and Sting a debt of gratitude for the warning at a really serendipitous point in my life!
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I keep thinking about how lonely it must be to know that people only want to be around you because of your money or your power.
Or because of your looks or your age.
It's degrading to everyone, and so often when there is a community where this is going on there are a few guys at the center of it all. "come on honey you know that's how it works" type guys. Because they can't hack it any other way and make it a problem for everyone.
@futurebird @carrideen Seems some people are never mature enough to realize that.
I have a vice — I read self-published stories on sites like royalroad. And feeling like descriptions of women—and consequently men—must’ve been degrading to write is often why I drop popular stories.
I.e. a male character would casually say something about women making me question whether belonging to the same gender as the author who wrote it is a good idea…
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@futurebird @gbargoud > Edit: changed men to people.
I think framing it as a problem only among men can be harmful. Women like Ghislaine Maxwell are every bit as dangerous as any man, and talking about exploitation as something men do to women makes it easier for them to go unnoticed.
Agreed but exploitation needs power and we have a system that elevates men to power a lot more than women so it makes sense that most of the conversation is around men.
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@carrideen @futurebird
There is not a world in which this is ethical behavior. Unethical at minimum, and dismissible IMO.
The inherent power differential between facility and student places a pressure to comply on the student. Consent within power differentials hard to navigate. That’s why most places have rules against bosses dating subordinates. Too much potential for abuse, or favoritism.
Add in the relative immaturity of 18-22-year-olds and that power gap grows. Our brains are not done developing until middle-late twenty’s. Presumably, a prof has hit that point and has more life experience, where the student has not. Another way the student is disadvantaged in these interactions.
Any institution that does not explicitly denounce this behavior, and set up safeguards for students is also inherently an unethical and immoral institution. There should be no tolerance for abuse in higher education. We should be preparing the next generation to take over and run this world into a better future, not compound trauma many already have experienced.@carrideen @futurebird @jeffcodes
Tangential, but "brains are done developing around 25" isn't really true. It's a "media seizes upon a nuanced finding and makes up a vastly over-simplified story" type myth. We oldies still make new neurons and have "synaptic plasticity". Not meaning this as an excuse for molesting or exploiting young people of course!
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@futurebird The weirdest wrinkle of this to me is that the adults who get off on exploiting young people also want to tell themselves that on some level, the child is aware and happily exploiting themselves. It's Nabokov's greatest insight in Lolita about pedophiles, that unfortunately pedophile readers thought he was celebrating. For young people, it makes it impossible to get predators to believe when you say no, not me, not anyone my age.
@carrideen @futurebird online porn sites literally advertised 18 year old girls as "lolitas", in the same context they now use "teens" instead. Not obscure dark web shit either, that was just the normal parlance for many mainstream sites until the early-mid 2000s.
Just one of many ways we let the obsession with power and "making" (mostly) women do things bleed into modern sexual culture for 2 decades rather than examine our relationships, sexuality, parenting, etc, etc
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@carrideen @futurebird @jeffcodes
Tangential, but "brains are done developing around 25" isn't really true. It's a "media seizes upon a nuanced finding and makes up a vastly over-simplified story" type myth. We oldies still make new neurons and have "synaptic plasticity". Not meaning this as an excuse for molesting or exploiting young people of course!
@unchartedworlds @carrideen @futurebird
Don’t want to take away from this overall thread so I’ll say this and be done on this topic. Yes, the brain is inherently plastic, and can adapt over trime.
There is a process called mylination and a process called pruning that are both playing a role in the educational (academic and life/world learning) than are quite active in this period of life. Both processes are important and have implications around this topic.
And yes, mylination continues well into adulthood and throughout the lifespan. -
@futurebird but on second thought, if it only considers age, then it can't solve problems brought on by other factors (like indications that the older person likely doesn't care about consent in general)
* The professors date their students
* He's in charge of casting so it wouldn't hurt to be nice to him, Honey.
* It's an easy job, you just give massages to these old guys and it can get a little gross but you can make money after school.
* The boss is having an affair with the new secretary
* If you are a star they let you do it
* That modeling agency expects the girls to "do" partiesAll these ways social roles, shame, naivete of often younger people are exploited.
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* The professors date their students
* He's in charge of casting so it wouldn't hurt to be nice to him, Honey.
* It's an easy job, you just give massages to these old guys and it can get a little gross but you can make money after school.
* The boss is having an affair with the new secretary
* If you are a star they let you do it
* That modeling agency expects the girls to "do" partiesAll these ways social roles, shame, naivete of often younger people are exploited.
No wonder the same people hate the idea of legal, regulated out in the open prostitution as a real ordinary job (with sick days and HR) so much. This destroys all of the purity and shame games they find so useful. And it's not about sex in the end anyway. It's about power.
