Here's (http://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_20...) him in 2013:
> There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
and 2006 (https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...):
> I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children.
Defending someone like Epstein is hardly off-brand here.
11 August 2019: (https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#11_August_20...)
Jeffrey Epstein ... He also reportedly raped some of those people. I believe those accusations, and I think he deserved to be imprisoned.
14 September 2019: (https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...)
I want to respond to the misleading media coverage of messages I posted about Marvin Minsky's association with Jeffrey Epstein. The coverage totally mischaracterised my statements.
Headlines say that I defended Epstein. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've called him a "serial rapist", and said he deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him — and other inaccurate claims — and feel a real hurt because of what they believe I said.
Apparently, neither happened.
The material provided in the Daily Beast article is obviously a defense of Minsky, not Epstein. The article was journalistic incompetence. You can criticize what RMS said, judge him harshly for it, but it was not a defense of Epstein.
Still it shows, at best, questionable judgement to have said those things in the first place.
https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
> Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.
> Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.
That's a bit like saying that since we proved the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, that we can now throw away all proofs of it and simply assert it.
If it took civilization a long time to figure out that slavery is wrong, or that children can't consent to sex, then it's an error that people will continually fall into; every new person that is born needs to be taught not only that those things are true, but why those things are true.
"Settled" should not mean that there is a clear, concise description of exactly why something is wrong to point somebody to and / or repeat every time someone asks. It should not mean, "We shout down and ostracize anyone who asks, 'OK, but why?'"
This doesn't mean, to me, that we should condemn those who have historically stated things that are not aligned to those morals. I'm unequivocally not arguing in support of pedophilia I'm arguing against shutting down free discussion and open transference of ideas.
In fact, we should celebrate that rms has/had actually been open with these statements. Speech should not be restricted, in my (admittedly very liberal) viewpoint.