meh he had consensual relationships with women and the women-involved's parents didn't object.

I think we vastly do a disservice to women everywhere when we pretend teenage girls can't willingly engage in sexual relationships before the age of 17, or 18, or 21, or 16. We further do a disservice to the victims of rape and other abusive sexual acts when we try to loop situations like this in with them.

I'm not denying that there was some power differential here between the rich artist and the trailer park teenager who viewed him as an idol, but I don't think we should loop this in with the weinstein fiasco nearly as much

Counterpoint: he was getting phone sex from someone whose brain was still developing when he was in his second decade in the work force.

I mean god, at least Weinstein went after adults, and that guy is practically the worlds biggest asshole.

"I think we vastly do a disservice to women everywhere when we pretend teenage girls can't willingly engage in sexual relationships before the age of 17, or 18, or 21, or 16."

"They say they were preyed upon by the creator of the show"

I don't think there is any disservice done by having laws to protect teenagers from these kinds of relationships.

Yeah, the power disparity alone is disturbing. Its predatory from the word go. Of the women he can choose to have a relationship with, its the ones he can groom that he gravitates to.

I am not a huge fan of the power disparity dialogue in most cases. It makes sense in the teacher/student; military officer/trainee environment but not in all cases. Although people are shitty being better off financially and older doesn't rise to the level of power that coerces someone into sex.

The entire idea of the power disparity in relation to sexual assault/ harassment is that it becomes a coercive factor that the victim cannot avoid. Here women sought him out and admired him and dated him. They didn't randomly start working for him and then get stuck in the either you blow me or I fire you situation. And, even if they did get stuck in that situation it's not rape, the victim has the choice to say fire me then and make it public what he is doing.

I am not saying that this isn't shit behavior or that he's not a creep. I am simply stating that I don't believe we should loop all creepy behavior together with rape.

There is some personal responsibility here that should not be ignored and I just disagree with the movement to try to view everything as non-consensual.

to quote the boondocks "I see piss coming I move out of the way, she just stood there"

If you want to go after the kids for endangering a minor, themselves, go right ahead. Doesn't absolve someone of committing statutory rape. I'm fairly confident you do believe in the existence of statutory rape. We might quibble over what the cut off date is, and whether a parents permission slip can be used as a ticket to ride. Im confident though we agree giving 5 year olds candy for blowies is a crime. Even if the kids are keen on it. The disagreement would be on things like the exact age between 14-17 and allowances for small relative age differences. I think its shit that by virtue of a birthday you can one day be in a sweet loving relationship, then one candle bedecked cake later you're committing felonies. Some states have cutouts for that because they recognize that jailing an 18 year old for screweing a 17 year old is not justice. There are also states though passing laws that set hard limits regardless of parental approval.

You're right its unfair to paint all people with such a broad brush, because there are people who at 16 who can make choices for themselves. Shit there are adults who are declared incompetent and are given a legal guardian. Age is just a number, but we use it because we can't personally tailor age of consent to each individual citizen. Being young though is a temporary condition. If you're intentionally going after kids though, well....

Dazed & Confused - High school Girls



I don't think being creepy should be a felony. But this guy is more than just creepy. I'm not asking for him to be taken out by the woodshed, but I think applicable laws should apply, and perhaps an inquiry. Because of all the people he could pursue, he chooses the ones that he would have an easier time to manipulate.

It sounds like he devolved into full on creepy asshole mode later in life, with the rape "jokes" and alleged child porn collection, but in the early days he just sounded like a big dumb kid, too naive to understand that the girl he had a crush on was even more naive than him. I mean, just looking at the thumb you can see that this guy has no real concept of himself as an adult.

I don't know about that. It doesn't sound like there's much of a gap between the "early excusable years" and his creepy asshole mode. And it sounds like he was being a creepy asshole to other women during those early years.

You might be right, the article kind of jumps around and I had a hard time piecing together a cohesive timeline from it, especially while trying to read it in short chunks between minor work emergencies. Either way, I think everyone involved needed a responsible adult in their lives.

In regards to the article itself, I found this little blurb:

"the morning after the story was published, Kricfalusi’s portrait was removed from the studio."

...to be a little self serving. The author's preening took a bit away from their intended message and makes me think they just went outrage hunting to get clicks in the current milieu.

In fairness to the author, it does say at the end that the article was updated to indicate that the portait has been removed, so it might have been an editor's preening instead.

you assume that the parents were aware of more than just the "internship" occurring, that may not be true. also, just because the parents don't object, doesn't make it any less statutory rape. So no, i think we might agree that any kind of relationship between consenting adults is OK, but any sexual relationship between an adult and a minor is not OK. i'm sure there is some wiggle room in people's minds when they are within a few years of each other, like a seventeen year old dating a nineteen year old, but a fifteen year old with a twenty year old is (IMO at least) sufficient grounds to throw the adult in jail. any sort of age disparity more than five years, when the younger is still a minor, is absolutely predatory, no matter the intentions, for the simple fact that the minor cannot be trusted to understand the consequences of their actions, while the adult should be able to (for the average case of brain development in both).

To pretend the parents weren't aware of the very real concerns this entire outrage is about is naive at best.

That aside, as a prosecutor who has dealt with very real sexual assault as well as having worked as a defense attorney who defended and advocated for sexual assault victims, I am opposed to statutory rape laws. I am opposed because I believe they remove the role of the jury as the arbiter of facts and don't even address consent--these laws are legal laziness and moral/religious judgment motivated. I don't believe it's society's job to get involved in consensual sex acts at least not to the point where we view it as rape--this is just another example of laws that result in over incarceration.

Although there really are some creepy people who go out and try to manipulate younguns into sex, the majority of the time a statutory rape law would apply its just an actual relationship between two sexually mature people who are consenting with full awareness of what they are doing

I don't like statutory rape laws because I dislike any of the specialized laws that just add layers to existing laws (hate crime laws are another example--no need since the acts involved usually already against the law and the hate crime aspect of it is just a factor that could be considered in the sentencing phase of the crime). An act is either consensual or it is not. An arbitrary age cut off that varies wildly by state to state may make prosecutor's jobs easier, but actually litigating consent if it's in question is what should be done.

And, there's so much outrage just simply because of age differentials. People still view a 40 year-old with a 25 year-old as creepy often, but it doesn't mean that both aren't consenting. It is true that there is a point where a child really is a child and it's not a hard fast line when they become adult-minded. I'm sure many of you were adolescents once and many were having consensual sexual relationships at that time.

If you are honest with yourselves do you really feel like you were incapable of consenting to sex with someone 5 years older than you. I don't speak for each of you but at 15 if I had fucked a 40 year old it would not be non-consensual just because I was younger than 17 (or 16 or 15 varying by state) I was fully aware of my actions by that point and very much in control of my own destiny. I am also aware that not all teenagers are that mature, but I don't like legal laziness--if consent isn't there litigate it.

"between two sexually mature people who are consenting with full awareness of what they are doing" - they may understand their actions, but not the consequences, because their brains are less mature. Lots of girls in my high-school (fourteen through seventeen) that got knocked up because they were engaging in sexual activity with there peers or with older guys (still in same school, or recent grads).

"at 15 if I had fucked a 40 year old it would not be non-consensual just because I was younger than 17 (or 16 or 15 varying by state) I was fully aware of my actions by that point and very much in control of my own destiny" - society does not consider you competent enough to be in charge of your own destiny until eighteen. Given modern revelations about brain development i'd argue that age should be moved to closer to 25, but c'est la vie. At fourteen, individuals don't actually know fuck all, but they believe they have all the answers they need to drive their own life forward. This is why people hate teenagers so much, because by and large they are physically mature enough to be able to perform actions (reproduction just one of them) while mentally and emotionally they are still developing and will do so for at least a decade.

15 is just three years away from 18, and only 1 away from 16. I know, it sounds silly but when you look at it in societal context, it highlights all kinds of contradictions. You can join the military and kill people at 18. You can drive a car at 16. You can buy a rifle at 18.

But you can't drink. But you can smoke.

If you aren't mature enough to handle sex and it's consequences at 18 (as opposed to 16), how could you be mentally prepared to kill other humans?

Legitimate answer to legitimate question: The age based rules you list were established without the insight of modern medicine and brain development. They are arbitrary (heavily influenced by special interests, like farmers and tobacco lobbyists), inconsistent as you highlight, and in need of refinement. This coming from a lucky Canadian who could drink by 19 or 18 depending on which province I was in. And before i could drink legally, i had fake ID, and before that you could always get weed or shrooms, so that made high school passable.

Human evolution allows for these actions-before-consequences because it encourages population growth. the military wants to get grunts at eighteen because they make for better jarheads, and if they survive long enough to mature then they can get officer training and learn to use their brain again. but if you could only recruit 25yr olds, and non-psychopaths at that, then you might see recruitment numbers drop. :(

and please, let's not pretend that the repercussions for killing another human are anywhere near the realm of raising a child. this is the basis for keeping abortion legal, that "necessary murder" can be rationalized quite easily when viewed in the context of life-long commitments for nurturing your offspring. if you've been conditioned to think of other humans as "your enemy" and they are going to murder you if you don't get them first, then rationalizing this is also easier done. people get PTSD more often because of the deaths of their brothers in arms than because of the number of ECs removed from the field. just my observations.

I got out of law school about 20 years ago and have never done criminal work. We were taught that the main reason for statutory rape laws was not really to criminalize consensual activities but to make it easy to prosecute "real" rape against children by removing consent as an essential element and to give parents a tool to get rid of an undesirable suitor. In your experience, was this ever the case ( or only in the mind of my perv criminal law professor) and if so, how has it changed. Most prosecutions you hear about in the media in this regard are still those related to abuse of position rather than simple age disparity.

Am I just being oversensitive to what I thought was the real WTF moment in the article?

"Rice said, she found child porn on his computer. Rice said she found images of girls she didn’t recognize, naked; she remembered one photo in particular, with a naked girl who appeared to be around 10 years old, lying on her back with her legs spread and an expression on her face that Rice described as fearful. An ex-girlfriend of Kricfalusi’s, who asked not to be named in this story, said she, too, saw naked images of prepubescent girls who appeared to be between 12 and 14 on his personal computer around 2007."

Game over right?

To me that implies the only reason he SETTLED on a 16 year old girlfriend is because that's what he could get away with visually in society (and just barely at that).