Appendix: Stallman’s defense of sexual misconduct
This is the complete list of sources collected for this report in which Richard Stallman has expressed a defense of individuals accused of or convicted of sexual harassment, sexual assault, or rape (statutory or otherwise). Quotes presented here only include occasions when Stallman defends or downplays the alleged act, and omits occasions where Stallman emphasizes the presumption of innocence in legal proceedings.
This list of sources is limited only to cases where Stallman defends an individual accused of sexual misconduct or misrepresents the testimony of a victim of sexual misconduct. Stallman’s broader political campaign of misrepresenting sexual harassment and sexual assault are catalogued in separate appendicies, which overlap with the quotes presented here:
This report identifies at least 567 separate victims of sexual misconduct whose experience was downplayed or dismissed by Stallman.
I warned that the stretchable term “sexual assault”, which extends from grave crimes such as rape through significant crimes such as groping and down to no clear lower bound, could be stretched to criminalize minor things, perhaps even stealing a kiss. Now this has happened.
What next? Will a pat on the arm or a hug be criminalized? There is no clear limit to how far this can go, when a group builds up enough outrage to push it.
– stallman.org, 15 October 2023 “Sexual assault for stealing a kiss”
“Sexual assault” is so vague that it makes no sense as a charge. Because of that term, we can’t whether these journalists were accused of a grave crime or a minor one. However, the charge of espionage shows this is political persecution.
– stallman.org, 21 July 2021 “Imprisonment of journalists”
AOC referred to a past experience by saying that she was a “survivor of sexual assault.”
AOC would not exaggerate. The attack that she refers to must have been a grave and traumatizing one, one that justifies the term “survivor.”
I suggest therefore that “sexual assault” is not a good term to describe it, because that term covers a spectrum of actions that stretch from the most grave, such as rape, to minor things like a stolen kiss on the forehead, along with all the territory in between. Between the ends of that spectrum there is a great gulf: it would be ridiculous to call someone a “survivor of a stolen kiss.” We should not equate a kisser to a rapist.
Therefore, when we talk about grave and traumatizing attacks, let’s use a term which is limited to grave and traumatizing attacks.
– stallman.org, 3 February 2021 “Fleeing for her life”
The New Yorker’s unpublished note to staff was vague about its grounds for firing Toobin. Indeed, it did not even acknowledge that he had been fired. This is unfair, like convicting someone on unstated charges. Something didn’t meet its “standards of conduct”, but it won’t tell us what — we can only guess. What are the possibilities? Intentionally engaging in video-call sex as a side activity during a work meeting? If he had not made a mistake in keeping that out of view of the coworkers, why would it make a difference what the side activity was?
– stallman.org, November 2020, “On the Firing of Jeffrey Toobin”
The injustice [done to Minsky] is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.
We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
– Email to MIT CSAIL mailing list, September 20191
In “me-too” frenzy, crossed signals about sex can easily be inflated into “rape”. If people rush to judgment, in an informal way, that can destroy a man’s career without any trial in which to clear his name.
– stallman.org, 27 August 2019 “Me-too frenzy”
Jeffrey Epstein appears to have committed suicide in his cell. Or perhaps he was murdered — it is not unusual for prisoners to murder prisoners accused of sexual crimes.
Epstein was accused of trafficking: bringing people long distances on false pretenses and then pressured them into sex or prostitution. He also reportedly raped some of those people. I believe those accusations, and I think he deserved to be imprisoned.
Some of his victims were legally adult. Some were teenage minors. I don’t think that makes any moral difference. I don’t think rape is less wrong if the victim is over 16.
– stallman.org, 11 August 2019 “Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide”
The first (main) article does not state clearly whether Franken touched Tweeden in the process of making the photo, but it seems he did not. If that is correct, it was not a sexual act at all. It was self-mocking humor. The photograph depicted a fictional sexual act without her fictional consent, but making the photo wasn’t a sexual act.
If it is true that he persistently pressured her to kiss him, on stage and off, if he stuck his tongue into her mouth despite her objections, that could well be sexual harassment. He should have accepted no for an answer the first time she said it. However, calling a kiss “sexual assault” is an exaggeration, an attempt to equate it to much graver acts, that are crimes.
The term “sexual assault” encourages that injustice, and I believe it has been popularized specifically with that intention. That is why I reject that term.
Meanwhile, Franken says he did not do those things, and the other actors he previously did the same USO skit with said it was not harassment, just acting. Tweeden’s store is clearly false in many details.
Should we assume Tweeden was honest? With so many demonstrated falsehoods in her accusations, and given that she planned them with other right-wing activists, and that all of them follow a leader who lies as a tactic every day, I have to suspect that she decided to falsify accusations through exaggeration so as to kick a strong Democrat out of the Senate.
I have no proof of that suspicion. It is possible that she made the accusations honestly. Also, in a hypothetical world, someone might really have done them. Supposing for the moment that those accusations were true, should Franken have resigned over them?
I don’t think so. They are misjudgments, not crimes. Franken deserved the chance to learn from the criticism that surprised him. Zero tolerance is a very bad way to judge people.
– stallman.org, 30 July 2019 “Al Franken”
Assange has done some great things, some exceedingly foolish things, and perhaps also some nasty things that no one should do. (The sexual acts alleged in Sweden would not count as rape in the US, but would be wrong anywhere in the world.)
Based on this, what should be our judgment of Assange?
The great things, from publishing Collateral Murder to exposing the bias of the Democratic National Committee against Sanders, were of tremendous benefit to the world. The effects of the others things were local and small by comparison. Despite some possible actions that deserve rebuke, Assange still qualifies as a hero.
– stallman.org, 22 June 2019 “Indictment of Assange”
Should we accept stretching the terms “sexual abuse” and “molestation” to include looking without touching?
I do not accept it.
– stallman.org, 11 June 2019 “Stretching meaning of terms”
This quote is partially covered by Stallman's 2019 retraction. Click to show.
A woman in Kosovo went to the thugs to report that her teacher had raped her, and the investigating thug handled the case by raping her again, and again.
To crown it all, the Kosovan state is prosecuting the people who tried to help her with an abortion. Kosovo must legalize abortion, for everyone, as well as punish the rapists.
I speculate that the thug chose her to rape partly because of the patriarchal idea that an unmarried woman who is not a virgin has become worthless. Changing ways of looking at the world is not easy, but that is the long-term change that is needed.
One detail that is morally irrelevant is the age of the woman. In fact, she was 16, but if she had been 6, 26, or 60, it would have made no difference. Rape, forcing or compelling someone to have sex, is wrong no matter who it is done to.
– stallman.org, 9 March 2019 “Rape victim in Kosovo”
Editor’s note: Stallman’s 2019 retraction would reject the premise that an adult raping a 6 year-old victim is not meaningfully different from an adult raping an older person. However, his retraction would not cover the case of a 16 year-old victim.
Cody Wilson has been charged with “sexual assault” on a “child” after a session with a sex worker of age 16.
I have never been the customer of a sex worker, because I would not want sex with a woman who did not feel desire and affection for me. However, I have been friends with people that sometimes did sex work by choice.
There are other prostitutes that have been enslaved and forced into sex work. It is possible that the prostitute Wilson did business with was enslaved. We don’t know, and Wilson probably didn’t know. (…)
The article refers to the sex worker as a “child”, but that is not so. Elsewhere it has been published that she is 16 years old. That is late adolescence, not childhood.
Calling teenagers “children” encourages treating teenagers as children, a harmful practice which retards their development into capable adults.
In this case, the effect of that mislabeling is to smear Wilson. It is rare, and considered perverse, for adults to be physically attracted to children. However, it is normal for adults to be physically attracted to adolescents. Since the claim sbout[sic] Wilson is the latter, it is wrong to present it as the former.
The term “sexual assault” is stretchable but usually means forcing something sexual on someone. It is not impossible that he did such a thing, but a priori it is unlikely. In general a customer does not force a prostitute into sex, but rather pays the agreed-on price. To associate this with the word “assault” is another smear. Whatever our views about what Wilson (or anyone) actually did, we should not smear people.
– stallman.org, 23 September 2018 “Cody Wilson”
It sounds horrible: “UN peacekeepers accused of child rape in South Sudan.” But the article makes it pretty clear that the “children” involved were not children. They were teenagers.
What about “rape”? Was this really rape? Or did they have sex willingly, and prudes want to call it “rape” to make it sound like an injustice? We can’t tell from the article which one it is.
Rape means coercing someone to have sex. Precisely because that is a grave and clear wrong, using the same name for something much less grave is a distortion.
– stallman.org, 30 April 2018 “UN peacekeepers in South Sudan”
Mormon feminists are challenging sexual abuse in the Mormon church, which combines with scorn for women that aren’t “chaste” to cause great suffering.
There are fathers that rape their daughters — and there are also “recovered memory therapists” that implant false memories of childhood sexual abuse that didn’t happen. A priori, either one could have happened here. The fact that Carol did not remember the abuse until she worked with a therapist makes me suspect the latter. It seems that Carol’s sister also need “help” to remember.
I hope there is a way to determine which one really occurred.
– stallman.org, 1 December 2017 “Mormon sexual abuse”
An actress is suing Harvey Weinstein, alleging events which would amount to rape. Strangely, the article describes this as “sex trafficking”.
That’s nonsense — she was not trafficked. Rape should be called “rape”, and trafficking “trafficking”, because they are very different issues.
– stallman.org, 30 November 2017 “Weinstein ’trafficking’”
Senate candidate Roy Moore tried to start dating/sexual relationships with teenagers some decades ago.
He tried to lead Ms Corfman2 step by step into sex, but he always respected “no” from her and his other dates. Thus, Moore does not deserve the exaggerated condemnation that he is receiving for this. As an example of exaggeration: one mailing referred to these teenagers as “children”, even the one that was 18 years old. Many teenagers are minors, but none of them are children.
The condemnation is surely sparked by the political motive of wanting to defeat Moore in the coming election, but it draws fuel from ageism and the fashion for overprotectiveness of “children”.
– stallman.org, 27 November 2017 (Roy Moore’s relationships)
One UK MP has accused another of “inappropriate behavior”, and the article gives us enough detail to see exactly what “inappropriate” means.
It means sending her a letter, once in a while, asking to go out with her. There was no pressure in them, as I see it. On the other hand, some might say that the high frequency of his letters — five in a mere 20 years — constituted pressure.
The vague word “inappropriate” makes it easy to put people in the wrong for asking for a date. We must reject vague accusations like that.
Aside from being a direct injustice to specific men, and sowing fear among many more, this distortion also wrongs the many women who have experienced rape, groping, or threats and pressure for sex. Surely most of those complaints are valid. Exaggerations like this one will undermine the response to those valid complaints.
By contrast, what he is accused of doing to another woman, rubbing his crotch against her, went too far. You mustn’t do that to people who have not given a direct invitation.
– stallman.org, 13 November 2017 “‘Inappropriate behavior’”
This quote is partially covered by Stallman's 2019 retraction. Click to show.
Jelani Maraj (who I had never heard of) could be imprisoned for a long time for “sexual assault”. What does that concretely mean?
Due to the vagueness of the term “sexual assault” together with the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as “rape” even if they are willing, we cannot tell from this article what sort of acts Maraj was found to have committed. So we can’t begin to judge whether those acts were wrong.
I see at least three possibilities. Perhaps those acts really constituted rape — it is a possibility. Or perhaps the two had sex willingly, but her parents freaked out and demanded prosecution. Or, intermediate between those two, perhaps he pressured her into having sex, or got her drunk.
– stallman.org, 13 November 2017 “Jelani Maraj”
Editor’s note: This quote is partially covered by Stallman’s 2019 retraction on sexual relations between adults and children under the age of 12-13. However, the retraction does not cover his statements about sexual assault, nor does it address his remarks about pressuring someone into sex, or getting a victim drunk for the purpose of sexual assault.
People in Oakland demand that some Oakland thugs be prosecuted for two phony “crimes” after they had sex with a teenage prostitute.
I am against giving thugs any special privileges, but I oppose prosecuting them (or anyone) based on lies.
It used to be that one dishonest law defined sex with someone under a certain (varying) age as “rape”, which it clearly isn’t. It is now joined by another dishonest law that defines sex with a prostitute under that age as “human trafficking”, which it clearly isn’t. These laws establish a state policy of proclaiming a falsehood as truth, and punishing people based on the falsehood. The lie is essential for misleading the public into supporting these punishments.
– stallman.org, 12 September 2016 “Prosecutions based on lies”
Gayle Newland has been convicted of “sexual assault” because the woman who willingly had sex with her had been led to think Newland was male.
Is using a dildo instead of a real penis “assault”??? How absurd.
– stallman.org, 6 July 2017 “Convicted of ‘sexual assault’”
This quote is partially covered by Stallman's 2019 retraction. Click to show.
A British woman is on trial for going to a park and inviting teenage boys to have sex with her there. Her husband acted as a lookout in case someone else passed by. One teenager allegedly visited her at her house repeatedly to have sex with her.
None of these acts would be wrong in any sense, provided they took precautions against spreading infections. The idea that adolescents (of whatever sex) need to be “protected” from sexual experience they wish to have is prudish ignorantism, and making that experience a crime is perverse.
– stallman.org, 26 May 2017 “Prudish ignorantism”
Editor’s note: In the cited incident, two adults engaged in public sex and invited seven minors to participate, as well as repeatedly engaging in sexual acts with minors in their home. The article indicates that one of the minors was 11 and another was 14; the other ages are not specified. This quote may be partially addressed by by Stallman’s 2019 retraction, which only covers minors up to the age of 12 or 13.
Oakland Loses Third Police Chief in a Week Amid Scandals.
The thug department has a “toxic, macho culture” which includes racism. This most likely leads to serious wrongs against non-thugs.
However, having sex with a 17-year-old prostitute is not one of them. The article says that thugs “took advantage” of her. Perhaps that was the case, if they pressured her. But if she did this by choice, perhaps wanting extra money, it is wrong to blame her customers.
It is possible that she was raped; it is possible she was trafficked. But when the law claims that being her customer constitutes “rape” or “human trafficking”, it lies. We must not let these lies pass as truth.
– stallman.org, 20 June 2016 “Third Police Chief quits in a week”
A woman in the UK has been convicted of sexual assault because she had told her lover she was male.
Whatever we think of this pretense, it clearly was not “assault”. If they want to make gaining sexual consent via misrepresentation a crime, they should pass another law and call it something else.
But what kinds of misrepresentation should be criminalized? Claiming to be over 16? Claiming to be under 30? Claiming to be a virgin? Claiming lots of experience? Claiming to be unmarried? Claiming not to have other lovers? Claiming to have been at work the previous Tuesday night? Claiming a high income? Spending like a person with a high income? Claiming to have read a certain book? Pretending to have read it but without an explicit claim? Wearing a padded bra or platform shoes? Wearing a wig? Dyeing hair? Cosmetics?
If a prostitute lies about what is on offer, that is false advertising, but not assault.
– stallman.org, 17 September 2015 “UK sexual ‘assault’ conviction”
Seduction is labeled as “rape” to ruin someone’s life.
Teenage boys may know they’d like to have sex, but that doesn’t mean they can stand up to social and family pressure to claim it was a horrible damaging experience.
– stallman.org, 23 August 2015 “Seduction labeled as ‘rape’”
A US court is getting the blowback from the law’s absurdity.
Todd Easter says he wasn’t raped, because in the usual meaning of the word, he wasn’t. The court, however, insists on pretending that he was. Sorry, judge, calling sex “rape” does not make it rape.
Calling willing sex “rape” is a lie. In this case, the lie leads to a retrial. In other cases, it ruins lives.
Easter’s lover did do something that was wrong, when he threatened Easter with violence after Easter broke off the relationship. But that’s a different issue.
– stallman.org, 27 June 2015 (Law’s absurdity)
A UK man was convicted of forcing a woman to marry him. He filmed her showering (after raping her) and blackmailed her by threatening to publish the video.
Although the perpetrator bears full responsibility for raping and threatening her, what made her vulnerable to this blackmail was the twisted idea that it is shameful to be seen nude. It is not surprising to me that the victim was a Muslim, because that religion teaches women particularly intense shame about their bodies.
To propagate this shame is to aid future blackmailers.
– stallman.org, 14 June 2015 “Rape, blackmail and forced marraige”
The law is an ass again: a woman who invited a teenage boy to have sex (and he did, 4 times) has been sentenced to years in prison for “sexual abuse”.
He did not live in her household. Evidently he repeatedly made arrangements to suffer this “abuse”. The code word “grooming” probably means, in this case, what we normally call “asking for a date”. While I can only guess the specifics, I speculate that he never complained about this “abuse”, and the relationship was discovered in some other way.
I wish an attractive woman had “abused” me that way when I was 14. I would have learned many important things and had a much happier life.
The one truly bad accusation against her is that she tried to protect herself by claiming he had raped her. Nothing can excuse that betrayal; but if the law were not an ass about the other things, she would not have faced the temptation to do that.
– stallman.org, 5 June 2015 “Law being an ass”
This quote is covered by Stallman's 2019 retraction. Click to show.
There is a dispute about whether the 11-year-old Chilean pregnant girl was raped. Her mother said the sexual relations were voluntary. The girl said the man hurt her, which might mean she does consider it rape, or might mean something else.
She also says she wants to have the baby, and was praised by plutocrat president Piñera.
Piñera calls her position “maturity”; I call it childish folly. I won’t rebuke her for having sex with anyone she chooses to have it with, as long as they take precautions so it goes no further than that. But I doubt that she is ready to have children, either medically or psychologically, and it seems that she is putting her health at risk if she does not get an abortion (though it is not stated why). In other words, Piñera is urging her to risk grave harm.
– stallman.org, 12 July 2013 “11-year-old Chilean pregnant girl”
If Assange had sex with a sleeping woman, the morning after they had sex and then slept together, was that rape? MP George Galloway says no.
Waking up your lover with sex is a tradition that has given pleasure to many, and prohibiting it by designating it as rape is absurd. If that’s what the law says in some country, that law is absurd.
On the other hand, waking up someone with sex who is not your lover (or has recently been disinclined to have sex with you) is properly considered rape. Thus, the conclusion depends on circumstances.
The circumstances described for Assange are borderline, but the couple were lovers at the time. Their last interaction, a few hours before, was to have sex. Based on the circumstances described in the article, I agree with George Galloway’s conclusion. I don’t know whether that description fits what happened, of course.
– stallman.org, 21 August 2012 “Assange”
UK prudes are looking to persecute 1960s pop stars for having sex with possibly underage groupies.
The idea that stars generally “manipulated” their groupies into having sex is ridiculous. Groupies crossed hurdles to get sex with stars.
Mr Roffey gives no reason for prosecuting these stars except the existence of a prohibition, which begs the question of whether the prohibition is justified. His idea of “child protection”, which he applies to teenagers who were hardly children, is as hypocritical as “protective custody”.
– stallman.org, 29 October 2012 “UK prudes looking to prosecute 1960s pop stars”
Clothing designer Zahia Dahar was a prostitute for a while, and one of her customers when she was 17 faces prosecution.
The term “child prostitution” calls to mind the troubled girls and boys, in their early teens or even younger, who are lured and pushed into prostitution. Treating them that way deserves prosecution.
However, there is no reason to prosecute the customers of people like Ms Dahar, who chose their path and are not under anyone’s thumb.
– stallman.org, 17 August 2012 “Prostitution”
Personal attacks against Julian Assange are used to distract attention from the heroic achievements of Wikileaks.
Ironically, this article itself exaggerates criticism of Assange by stating that the allegations against him consist of “rape” — they do not.
– stallman.org, 2 July 2012 “Attacks”
Assange is wanted in Sweden for questioning, although there are no criminal charges against him as of now. Yet, when he offered to be questioned in the UK by Swedish officials, they did not take him up on it. UK judges twisted and stretched the law to permit extradition even without an order from a Swedish judge.
The crime that they want to question him about is not rape. According to published explanations, his alleged actions would not be a crime in any other country. It is not nice conduct, to be sure, but that is not the same as rape.
– stallman.org, 20 June 2012 “Assange asks for political asylum”
Details of the Swedish accusations against Assange have been obtained.
If the women’s stories prove true, Assange behaved very badly. Whether such actions should be a crime, I am not sure, so I won’t take a stand about that.
However, it would be a gross injustice to allow him to be extradited to the US on account of this.
– stallman.org, 20 December 2010 “Further details of Assange rape allegation”
Julian Assange faces arrest for questioning, although he is not actually charged with a crime, and Sweden seems to be in no hurry to send anyone to question him.
The crime he’s not actually accused of is often reported as “rape”, but it isn’t defined as rape in most places, and isn’t illegal in most places.
– stallman.org, 6 December 2010 “Sweden still after Assange”
Obaidullah Rahimi faces deportation to Afghanistan although he does not even speak the language.
It is absurd to punish anyone for having sex with someone of age 15 — it is normal for Americans of age 15 to have sex. But even if he had committed a real crime, such as robbery, for which punishment is appropriate, deporting someone who arrived in the US so young is absurd.
– stallman.org, 13 August 2008 “Obaidullah Rahimi”
Many Americans would see a scandal in the DHS spokesman who has been arrested for proposing sex to a 14-year-old girl through the Internet.
I too see a scandal, but not the same one. I think the scandal is that this man is going to face a prison sentence when he has not done wrong to anyone.
Sometimes adults are in a position of power over teenagers (or even children) and use that power to pressure them into sex. That is wrong because it is coercion. Sometimes they manipulate or trick inexperienced people into sex they didn’t want. That’s not right because it is not honest.
But this man seems to have done none of those things. He was chatting with a stranger, clearly not dependent on him in any way. The report gives no reason to think he was pressuring or tricking her. For all we can tell, he was making an honest request. Supposing his interlocutor had been a real girl, if she had not wanted to have sex with him, she would have had no trouble saying “no thanks”. And supposing she had voluntarily had sex with him, presuming that they used a condom and suitable contraception, it would have done no harm to either of them.