Appendix: Stallman on sexual relations between adults and minors

This is the complete list of published opinions Richard Stallman has expressed on the subject of adults having sexual relations with minors that were collected for this report.

In 2019, Stallman narrowed his position on adults having sex with minors. In a separate appendix,¹ we provide supporting evidence to justify that Stallman’s retraction only applies to children younger than 12 or 13 years old.

As such, quotes listed on this page which clearly refer to children below the age of 12 or 13 have been indicated and hidden by default on the presumption that Stallman’s retraction applies and he no longer supports the views expressed therein.

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.

I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.

– Email to MIT CSAIL mailing list, September 2019²

The four victims might have been people who were enslaved and forced into sex work. If so, bravo to the agents for freeing them. But we can’t be sure what happened, or who did what to whom, because laws redefine voluntary sex work by a minor as “trafficking” and pretend that their customers have “trafficked” them.

So were the 33 arrested people brutal enslavers, or customers? Were the four sex workers enslaved, or only minors? From this article, we have no idea.

When the state tries to distort language, to decide which distinctions we can make and which we are not supposed to know, it stops people from thinking about what is right or wrong, and what justice means.

– stallman.org, 17 March 2019 “DHS Questions”

Cody Wilson has been charged with “sexual assault” on a “child” after a session with a sex worker of age 16. (…)

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”

Research found that men generally find females of age 18 the most attractive.

This accords with the view that Stendhal reported in France in the 1800s, that a woman’s most beautiful years were from 16 to 20.

Although this attitude on men’s part is normal, the author still wants to present it as wrong or perverted, and implicitly demands men somehow control their attraction to direct it elsewhere. Which is as absurd, and as potentially oppressive, as claiming that homosexuals should control their attraction and direct it towards to the other sex. Will men be pressured to undergo “age conversion therapy” intended to brainwash them to feel attracted mainly to women of their own age?

– stallman.org, 21 August 2018 “Age and attraction”

Teenager Who Killed Husband after He Raped Her Is Sentenced to Death in Sudan. She had been coerced into marrying him.

There are women in the US who have been sentenced to life in prison for similar acts.

I expect that Sudanese law defines “rape” to exclude rape by the husband. That’s comparable to US laws that define “rape” to include voluntary sex with under N years of age (where N varies). Both laws falsify the meaning of “rape”.

– stallman.org, 14 May 2018 “Death sentence in Sudan”

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”

Senate candidate Roy Moore tried to start dating/sexual relationships with teenagers some decades ago.

He tried to lead Ms Corfman 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”

The boundaries of “child sexual abuse images” are subject to a lot of stretching, and I don’t know what those men had in mind when they answered, or whether they were shown a specific definition. We must not label everyone under 18 as “children”, nor assume that sex for someone under 16 or 18 (take your pick) is invariably “abuse”, nor treat images of fictitious children as real “abuse”. But real children are sexually abused for real, and I support laws against that. Efforts against the business of making and distributing images of that are justified — but these must not be done by dangerous methods.

– stallman.org, 9 November 2016 “Child sexual abuse images”

Several executives of Backpage face unconstitutional prosecution in California because some of the adult ads that company publishes are, unknown to the company, for teenage prostitutes.

This case, if not dismissed, threatens our rights because it could force many platforms into intrusive censorship.

It also shows the danger of legal assumptions that twist the truth, such as “sex with someone under 18 is rape”, “sex with a prostitute under 18 is enslavement”, and “making a nude photo of someone under 18 is a sexual assault.” In some cases, it is — but not always.

– stallman.org, 23 October 2016 “Threat of censorship in California”

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”

A Pennsylvania man has been imprisoned for receiving nude photos from his 16-year-old girlfriend, and will have to register as a sex offender, but “only” for 15 years.

The willfully blind law pretends there is no difference between a teenager and a child.

– stallman.org, 30 August 2016 “Man imprisoned for receiving nude photos”

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”

The way to protect children from being forced into prostitution is to legalize prostitution by licensed prostitutes. Customers could be required to check the prostitute’s license. If the customer fails to check, that concrete omission would be legitimate grounds for punishment.

Minors should not be denied prostitution licenses in a blanket way, but the state should ask them why they want one and probe their situation, then offer help so they can avoid prostitution.

– stallman.org, 27 April 2015 “Human Trafficking Act”

They are not talking finding and imprisoning men that have sex with children. They are talking about finding and imprisoning men who have or redistribute copies of images that depict sex with children, or perhaps with adolescents labeled as children; they want to imprison them because there is some chance they would have sex with children, or with adolescents. I don’t believe that should be done at all.

– stallman.org, 02 January 2015 “Watch all communications”

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”

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 radio show host was fired for mentioning that Mohammed had sex with his 9-year-old wife (Aisha), which by today’s usual standards would be called pedophilia.

As far as I know, 9-year-olds don’t generally want sex with anyone. Mohammed’s marriage to a child reflected the general practice of treating girls and women as property. Western countries have mostly rejected this, but many parts of the world still practice it.

By today’s prudish standards, having sex with a 17-year-old would be called pedophilia too. These standards go too far in the other direction.

– stallman.org, 30 June 2014 “Fired for mentioning Mohammed had sex with his 9-year-old wife”

Girls in England who were being repeatedly raped and treated as sex slaves asked for help, but thugs and other officials blamed the victims.

Teenagers’ sex is often dishonestly called “rape”, but the two are totally different. This case is about real rape, not voluntary sex mislabeled as “rape”. We should resist the efforts of governments to conflate the two.

– stallman.org, 09 March 2015 “Thugs blame victims of sexual abuse”

There are laws that dishonestly claim that every time someone under 16 or 18 (depending on where) has sex, it is “rape”. Calling willing sex “rape” does not make it rape, and calling a 17-year-old who wants to have sex a “child” does not make that teenager a child.

– stallman.org, 11 September 2014 “Rapists protected by UK thugs”

A performer on trial for alleged sexual assault years ago apologizes for an affair with someone younger than him.

I don’t know whether his statement is true. What I can say is that if it is true, there is nothing wrong in it. Criticism of the relationship described here is evidently based on ageism and various sorts of possessiveness. That would be equally true if the girl had been 17 years old instead of 18 at the time.

– stallman.org, 29 May 2014 “Rolf Harris admits affair”

A British man is being prosecuted for having sex with a teenager who said she was having voluntary sex with him and asked please don’t prosecute him.

His defense, as reported here, would be vile if anyone were likely to believe it. Since no one could take it seriously, I can’t condemn him for saying it, but I don’t see what the point is.

Overall, this is another example of “protecting” “children” in a way that does nothing but harm to everyone involved. They will probably say that he “raped” her.

– stallman.org, 11 December 2013 “British man being prosecuted for sex with teenager”

The witch hunt against pedophiles led a mob to kill a man.

This is an unusual extreme, but the same spirit that whipped up this mob can be found in other measures taken against adults that have sex (or even head in the direction of sex) with teenagers.

Another accused man was found dead at home when he was supposed to go to court.

Either anxiety killed him, or he committed suicide, or this was an unlikely coincidence.

In all such cases, the official accusations carefully suppress the distinction between rape and willing sex, even love. First they define willing sex as “rape”, and then they try to bury all knowledge of whether it was willing sex or not. We’re invited to judge all these men as rapists, which some of them are and some are not.

– stallman.org, 31 October 2013 “Mob kills man in witch hunt against pedophiles”

The ACLU is raising an issue that can be raised in court, but ethically speaking this issue is secondary. This case reveals how the sex offender registry is a motor for irrational injustice. As usual with these laws, new restrictions are imposed on all the “offenders” because they seem necessary for some. Some sex offenders are a threat to children, but most are not. Having sex with a 17-year-old does not make a person a threat to anyone at all. In fact, it shouldn’t be a crime in the first place.

– stallman.org, 02 March 2013 “ACLU sues to overturn restriction placed on sex offenders”

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”

Sharing nude photos of themselves has become standard practice for US teenagers, and cruel prosecutors try to imprison them for years for this.

This demonstrates the basic absurdity and injustice of laws against “child” pornography.

If there is any truth to the idea that older men can “prey on” teenagers, it is only because the teenagers are inexperienced. The cure for that is not imprisonment. The cure is to help teenagers to be more sexual empowered, to understand sooner what they do and do not want in sex.

– stallman.org, 17 January 2009 “Laws against “child” pornography”

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”

Republican voters think torture is ok but inviting someone to have sex is horrible. And yet sex is one of the Bush regime’s approved tortures: used in Abu Ghraib, and now legalized by Congress. If torture is sex, does that make it wrong?

It is normal for humans of age 16 to have sex, and normal for other sexually mature humans to find them attractive. There’s nothing wrong with Foley for that. What Foley did may have been wrong for a different reason–if the pages felt they didn’t dare say no to him because of his position. (You may know whether this was the case; I don’t, because I mostly ignore sex scandals.)

– stallman.org, 08 October 2006 “Torture is ok but sex is horrible”

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.

– stallman.org, 06 April 2006 “DHS spokesman sex scandal?”