Post B373UnT91FEXY2WpKy by wtrmt@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by wtrmt@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B36zRkw1aKst0FKbtA by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T12:46:04Z
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"barely legal" is a key word phrase from the porn industry used to describe 18 year olds. It's also tied to "virgin" porn. To some it is 'soft' immorality. "Boys will be boys." (Why are the boys all wealthy men over 50?)The attraction of these products is in part about a naive inexperienced person (a virgin) being taken advantage of. But also how whatever is "off limits" becomes more attractive and mysterious. But can we please stop and recognize how gross it all is? 1/
(DIR) Post #B36zd3ZEeOB1yZ3oBs by RogerBW@discordian.social
2026-02-08T12:48:02Z
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@futurebird I also see a certain amount of legalistic nose-thumbing: "Your laws against sex with children don't apply any more, har har."(Of course this goes back at least to Victorian England, when having sex with a virgin was considered a cure for venereal disease. I'm sure you can work out how well that went.)
(DIR) Post #B3709Zx1mf53g9hHAO by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T12:53:59Z
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If you listen to people who have been exploited in this way the stories are horrific. That "this person knows nothing and we can trick them" is part of the "fun" in so much of this kind of content and fantasy is very disturbing. But the whole thing is so normalized. And it's conflated with nostalgia fantasies, turned into a joke... There isn't anything cute about someone who is 15 or 20 being coerced, trapped, humiliated, stripped of agency.I can't believe it's an excuse. 2/2
(DIR) Post #B370v1WV5ZwinpudGq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T13:02:33Z
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How do the wealthy and powerful women navigate all of this? Some have experienced this exploitation themselves and they seem to learn to blame themselves for letting it happen.But what about when it happens to your daughter? Oh? She's not that kind of girl? The disposable kind?This is the impression I get from these emails and documents. People so accustomed to using people they struggle to shift their perspective to understand what they are even doing that is wrong.
(DIR) Post #B371NV7OeHBwhNkWK8 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T13:07:40Z
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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.
(DIR) Post #B371b2Wvjf8S5X9G6a by epicdemiologist@wandering.shop
2026-02-08T13:10:07Z
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@futurebird I think wondering whether such behavior is innate is a red herring. The important questions are, how do we limit the power to abuse others, and how do we respond appropriately to stop it?
(DIR) Post #B371j7QBQyQLZgqRe4 by gbargoud@masto.nyc
2026-02-08T13:11:34Z
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@futurebird There will always be something deeply wrong with some men 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.
(DIR) Post #B3726jLAcMITq5l75M by rayhindle@mastodon.social
2026-02-08T13:15:51Z
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@futurebird Try Good Ol' Boys (ie Rednecks) rather than boys
(DIR) Post #B372SpHJDpEqcqUNGq by carrideen@c18.masto.host
2026-02-08T13:19:49Z
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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.
(DIR) Post #B372ZVg6Ud3zrdH1Oa by JamesWidman@mastodon.social
2026-02-08T13:21:02Z
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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/
(DIR) Post #B3730sOk82VK9DCcRE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T13:26:01Z
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@JamesWidman I think it's very simple.It's the exploitation of it all. It's the "what are you going to do to me about it?" of it all. And the way some men spend all their time trying to get as close to the line as possible should be recognized as a much bigger red flag and by more people.
(DIR) Post #B373UnT91FEXY2WpKy by wtrmt@mastodon.social
2026-02-08T13:31:21Z
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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.
(DIR) Post #B374Ao1DMljnPmUny4 by carrideen@c18.masto.host
2026-02-08T13:25:16Z
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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.
(DIR) Post #B374Nt0Y7y5UeZQE1g by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T13:41:23Z
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@carrideen 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.
(DIR) Post #B374sKilefgFI9cgQi by carrideen@c18.masto.host
2026-02-08T13:46:52Z
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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.
(DIR) Post #B375dR2DzwG0U5BS9g by rlcw@ecoevo.social
2026-02-08T13:55:21Z
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@futurebirdAlso, 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.
(DIR) Post #B37625D2HYoe25zf96 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T13:59:51Z
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@carrideen 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"
(DIR) Post #B37709diwGtp9H7YlU by slotos@toot.community
2026-02-08T14:10:41Z
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@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…
(DIR) Post #B37AKOy3xVyqLFyrFQ by JamesWidman@mastodon.social
2026-02-08T13:26:03Z
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@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)
(DIR) Post #B37AKQElEuvoHKnhui by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T14:47:59Z
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@JamesWidman * 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 secretory* That modeling agency expects the girls to "do" partiesAll these ways social roles, shame, naivete of often younger people are exploited.
(DIR) Post #B37APqYYoQPlM2eGQK by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T14:48:58Z
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@JamesWidman 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.
(DIR) Post #B37CR2dvYmkh2Qr9QO by eco_amandine@mastodon.cr
2026-02-08T14:00:52Z
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@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" 😑
(DIR) Post #B37CR4Bznbb7qNnsAK by carrideen@c18.masto.host
2026-02-08T15:08:33Z
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@eco_amandine @futurebird At our little college, all the men who slept with students got tenured and promoted, and eventually into administration so they couldn't abuse more students--and then took on roles in oversight of Title IX, etc. And anyone who questioned it was told that half the faculty spouses in town were former students, so clearly those relationships were "successful." Marriage is not a pedagogical goal of mine! None of those spouses pursued their own careers.
(DIR) Post #B37CR58UI8NylnAaKu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-08T15:11:27Z
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@carrideen @eco_amandine My great grand mother was married at 15 to some guy in his 40s so her land couldn't be taken. It was "sucessful."But it was also terrible.
(DIR) Post #B37CSX5lpvgllQagb2 by carrideen@c18.masto.host
2026-02-08T15:11:50Z
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@futurebird @eco_amandine Another thing that Lolita gets right is how the pedophile comforts himself by thinking his victim is "fine" if she goes on to a hetero marriage with children. (I'm not claiming that these profs are pedos, but in the "barely legal" sense that what they are attracted to is this pretense of self-exploitation and alibi culture that is next door to the Epstein dynamic. Lots of academics in those emails.)
(DIR) Post #B37TMLBIuEaSJ4oPU8 by Torstein@mastodon.social
2026-02-08T18:21:10Z
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@futurebird I got a similar problem with so called "step"-porn.It is a fact that if you put two horny teens into the same household, there is a real possibility for sexual attraction between them, if there is no Westermarck effect.And it is a fantasy for many teenagers "what if a hot boy/girl moved into my house?".But, and this is without any numbers to back me up, but I'm pretty sure this is the case - "step"-porn is not catering to teens.
(DIR) Post #B37TNBHpBEhTuMGLrs by P__X@mastodon.social
2026-02-08T18:21:22Z
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@futurebird the whole "teen genre" needs to go away.
(DIR) Post #B386qSdjdV8EL4Sp3w by RachelThornSub@famichiki.jp
2026-02-09T01:43:37Z
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@futurebirdI see someone has shown up with their outlier case (30-year-old student, 35-year-old prof) and as someone who married their 38-year-old prof when I was 22, I'm here to say fuck off with your supposed outlier. Yes, I pursued my prof, for stupid and immature reasons, but as the adult, she should have said, "No, that's not going to happen, and here's why." The power dynamic never changed in that relationship. It took me 20 years to work up the courage to leave.
(DIR) Post #B38tAt5Xo3PfxWHFrM by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-09T10:45:12Z
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@RachelThornSub I want to say something for anyone who might know someone, or be someone who is in one of these kinds of relationships that "turned out OK" (or not) you can still live your life with the adaptations you have needed to make and recognize that we shouldn't put young people through the same thing. My great grandmother was married at 15 to some guy in his 40s. She made it work. I don't honor her by letting that happen again.
(DIR) Post #B38tWktMxdNyuR0g8u by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-09T10:49:09Z
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@RachelThornSub Less dramatically than my great grandmother I have a HS friend who married a teacher who started dating her when she was in HS. They fired him over it. They moved. They are a nice family. The way he "courted" her was still predatory. And it didn't just impact her. Even she recognizes it was good that he was fired. This was a case of a very young teacher (he was 25 I think?) so, even in our fancy suburb many people equivocated. Don't date your students. Just do not.
(DIR) Post #B38tsO2cbGaMPSeVF2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-09T10:53:04Z
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@RachelThornSub So do I think the guy is a monster? I don't know. I haven't seen him for years. I do think my friend was shortchanged. She missed out on fully finding out who she wanted to be before settling down. He took advantage of the power imbalance between teacher and student to get what he wanted. At least the school reacted ... if too slowly. There are billions of people in the world don't date your students.
(DIR) Post #B38uPk7PXRBaRAnWoi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-02-09T10:59:06Z
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@RachelThornSub There are many people who'd like the social norms to shift so that exploiting those kinds of power imbalances for "romance" is more accepted. The story of my friend is less upsetting than some of the things that would come through *that* floodgate if fully opened.People who would manipulate kids and treat them like they were disposable. People who'd seek out jobs that let them do this.