oldncreaky wrote:dhsilv2 wrote:infinite11285 wrote:
There's a significant difference between an adult being romantically involved with a 19-year-old (legal adult) and a prepubescent 12-year-old.
Agree, but this was NOT a prepubescent 12 year old which we know as she had a kid!
The point I'm getting at is this is the very reason why the NBA doesn't want to touch this stuff. We don't agree as a society on what is or isn't wrong. We do have a term, pedophile, which is distinctly for people attractive prepubescent children. When we use it to describe anything we PERSONALLY feel is wrong, it's a problem. We can't even agree on what the age of consent is. It's still legal in some states to marry a 14 year old. Meanwhile two 17 years olds having sex in a state can BOTH be sexual assaulting each other. And yes, we have people calling Leo a pedophile for dating a woman who's 19 despite it clearly being legal everywhere in the country.
Words have mean and this topic is incredibly complicated. I'd hope everyone agrees what Malone did was wrong. But I'm also pretty sure the NBA doesn't want to try and set some rules or qualifications around because it's just too complicated for an entertainment company to step into.
I agree that Malone's actions aren't admirable either then or now, and that it's problematic for the NBA to recognise him so publicly given their other social stances. But I have a lot more concern for the child abandonment (not supporting the child) than for the sex crimes labels thrown about, and you're absolutely right that the legal issue is murky and throwing around "pedophile" doesn't clarify a complicated issue.
Every state is free to set its own laws about age of the age of consent and marriage, and I'm not aware of any jurisdiction that recognises "statutory rape" within a marriage, and their are literally thousands of minors seduced/coerced/forced into marriage with an adult every year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States
In 8 states, there is no minimum age for marriage i.e. technically a newborn can be married off with parental consent.
"Between 2000 and 2018, nearly 232,474 minors were legally married in the United States.[13] The vast majority of child marriages (reliable sources vary between 78% and 95%) were between a minor girl and an adult man.[13][14][15] In many cases, minors in the U.S. may be married when they are under the age of sexual consent, which varies from 16 to 18 depending on the state.[16] In some states, minors cannot legally divorce or leave their spouse, and domestic violence shelters typically do not accept minors."
If we're going to get outraged about adult men with underage girls, the thousands of instances occurring right now are probably a better target than one instance from 40 years ago.
And this is ultimately where getting exacting on what we're discussing becomes so important!
