Yah-- Epstein did something nice for Hawking -- unknown if before or after the conviction-- therefore one can reasonably expect that Hawking knew Epstein was raping underage girls on his island and that Hawking participated. /s
So the question is, was he more or less restrained in broadcasting his proclivities in the early 2000s before his first conviction? And, was he more or less restrained on his private island which was essentially constructed for the purpose of facilitating his abuse?
The evidence is there though for those that care to look. As you say, Epstein couldn't not talk about sex and young women, they were around constantly, everyone knew it was weird or they enjoyed the prospect of it.
Wow, let's not go overboard with the guilt-by-association here!
You can see Hawking surrounded by women on the island here:
https://cloverchronicle.com/2019/07/24/stephen-hawking-pictu...
I assumed from the description this was going to look like Stephen Hawking at the Playboy Mansion, but instead it's him at a bbq with two middle aged men and two middle aged women, and him in a submarine with a woman whose back is to the camera so you can't tell her age apart from not being gray-haired.
That could well be her "I'm a theoretical physicist presenting at an important conference, and the only reason that news photographer is including me in the photo is because I'm sitting at the same table as Stephen Hawking" look.
It's unprofessional at best but as we know know, many of these girls were sex trafficking victims and underage.
It's also known that Epstein's island residence was decorated with pictures of underage nude girls and a giant nude painting of Ghlisaine Maxwell. So yeah, I'd say there are quite a few red flags there.
As far as nude pictures and paintings, were they clearly underage and non artistic? There's a lot of post hoc reasoning by those who want to spread blame around that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.