this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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Today I Learned

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh that's still a phenomenon today. There's a great Boondocks episode about it - s1e2 "The Trial of R. Kelly". A famous musician (R. Kelly) gets charged for peeing on a 14-year old girl (in a kind of sexual way, i'd say). During court, a lot of arguments are made:

  • (prosecutor) A crime is a crime no matter who commits it
  • (prosecutor) She was clearly underage, there's unambiguous video footage of the incident
  • (prosecutor) Where would we be if we allowed lawlessness to rule?
  • (defendant) R. Kelly is black and therefore racially persecuted
  • (defendant) Even the greeks did sexual acts with underage people, and didn't they lay the foundation for our glorious nation?
  • (defendant) His music is cool and the people like him, so who cares

In the end, people start playing music in the courtroom, people start dancing and R. Kelly is set free. It's such a comically brilliant way to display the absurdity of life. It's available for free here btw. Watch it, it's worth it.

During the whole trial, nobody thought of asking the victim whether she feels she was abused. At some point, she casually mentions she didn't mind it and would voluntarily do it again. Her word wasn't even considered during the whole trial.

[–] MolochAlter@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Her word wasn't even considered during the whole trial.

Nor should it have been.

There's a reason some crimes are statutory, this is not at all even comparable to asking the child regarding factual information of the case.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There have been multiple instances this week where I have seen someone on Lemmy dismissing statutory rape because “the victims didn’t even feel victimized.” Honestly, I’m starting to wonder how much of it was because of the Fox News anchor’s “uhm ackshually Trump can’t be a pedophile because the girls were pubescent. At worst, he would be an ehebephile” rant.

Has the Overton window really shifted so far that we’re forced into having the “is statutory rape sometimes okay” conversation, like it’s some sort of rational political discourse?