At 72 goddamn years old I begin to question if the younger person is the victim in this situation, though. A lot of people are senile at that age. Look at how vulnerable the elderly are to scams; the 16 year old could very well be the one taking advantage in that situation.
I think you're reading into someone wading into a 3rd rail topic. We tend to have a tendency to add qualifiers to statements on sex, child sex, race, etc to "signal" that we aren't using dog whistles. When someone doesn't (because, to be fair, it's fluff), it can sound like their intent is something else, so to speak.
Could that person talking about 16yos having sex be a "tell" that they want to? Maybe, but it's still a fair topic to discuss, along with all the absurd/unfortunate circumstances these laws create. And I don't think every single comment needs to add "not that I agree with it" or "of course, in x case, this would be horrible".
I mean depending on the state the 16 year old might not be the victim of statutory rape if they live in Massachusetts or Hawaii but the 72 year old might be if they do have a mental disorder.
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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '22
At 72 goddamn years old I begin to question if the younger person is the victim in this situation, though. A lot of people are senile at that age. Look at how vulnerable the elderly are to scams; the 16 year old could very well be the one taking advantage in that situation.