• jballs@sh.itjust.works
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    24 hours ago

    In November 2024, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his name from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general, as federal investigators said they discovered payments he made to a number of women in exchange for sex.

    “Women”? Is there something preventing journalists from calling 17 year olds children, like they are?

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      They’re just so used to it, statistically just about all the prostitution in the US is minors who are being abused, and sex trafficed. Most come out of the foster system, most children don’t have to worry about aging out of family care, and the gov has a lot of really shitty little loopholes to cut foster kids out of any benifits as quick as they turn 18 if they still qualify for anything. This is a passive system that everyone in power is not willing to discuss or deal with it, police have been fighting legislation that says they can’t just have sex with minors who are being sex trafficed to arrest them for prostitution. And they even fight against legislation that says they can’t have ‘‘consensual’’ sex with people they arrest or are to guard. The news also wields power and they also don’t want to talk about it, or report on it.

      • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        As a school transportation worker, I find your opinion nauseating. 17 year olds are NOT adults. They are minors, and if you feel comfortable treating them as an adult there something very wrong with you. For the good of the species, do better, we should love our children enough to keep them safe.

      • RandomVideos
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        15 hours ago

        I would describe someone who is 17 a child

        You are still required by the gouvernment(at least in Romania) to go to school when you are 17

        • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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          10 hours ago

          Personally I would probably describe them as a teenager to be honest, but yeah they’re definitely a minor nonetheless

        • Ostrakon@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          I would generally describe a 17 year old as a young adult. Not defending Gaetz, who is a colossal turd, but I think it’s disingenuous to call a 17 year old a “child”.

          Edit for posterity: Yeah, Gaetz sucks, no I am not trying to say it’s okay for a grown man to have any kind of sexual relationship with a 17 year old. I’m just saying that using the same term to describe a 5 year old as someone literally months away from being able to vote is just… I dunno. Imprecise. For a community called “Fediverse vs. Disinformation” calling Gaetz a pedo for having sex with a 17 year old doesn’t feel correct to me.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            It’s a trip because physically they’re pretty close to adulthood, although they still have some more maturing to do. Mentally and emotionally they’re close to adulthood in some regards, and still very much children in others. Their brains literally haven’t developed certain processing areas yet, so they’re not as capable as actual adults at processing things like long-term consequences. Lastly, to anyone who is an actual full-blown adult, 17 year olds are full-on kids. The only people who don’t think they are, are other kids around their age, and apparently dudes like Gaetz.

          • atlas@sh.itjust.works
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            15 hours ago

            it’s not though? if we’re talking about their emotional or even academic performance, sure I’d say it might be a bit of a stretch as your brain continues development well into your mid-late 20s but yeah why not, it’s pretty innocuous.

            but when the topic is getting paid for sex…you still wanna call them young adults? why not 16 y/o as well? 15 is only two years away, that’s a young adult too, no?

            fuck outta here with that shit. she’s under 18, she’s legally a child. there is nothing disingenuous about that, it’s literally the law.