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American culture, including Puritanism, being exported worldwide since the 1980s, first through Hollywood and then through tech.

You will not find a less Puritanical view of the matter on a forum composed of mostly people from the US or deeply embedded within its culture, like many software engineers are.

For US and tech, sex talk and sexual freedom is a concept best avoided. You'll find more people arguing against gun control than arguing in favour of sex work or that age of consent is an arbitrary, cultural limit, not a hard one.

EPFL being an scientific organisation with international reach is influenced by this US cultural effect, and in general Switzerland is culturally more prude than its neighbours.

EPFL PhD student here. Please note that the linked website is not EPFL's. The lecture was organised and then canceled by a student association called CLIC

Rayiner is from Bangladesh originally, not the USA. You may be surprised to learn that the USA is by no means the culture with the strictest rules about sex and prostitution.

Bangladesh and West Bengal are hardly prudish about prostitution.

Americans are sexual deviants by the standards of Asia (where I’m from), the Middle East, and Africa.

Keep telling yourself that.

> women find powerful men attractive

You're conflating "is powerful" with "has power over me." The latter can be used for coercion, and it's not always sexy for someone to threaten you.

I love how you make up this fake scenario in your head where the guy is threatening the woman with his power. Yes, the scenario where a powerful guy is threatening the little girl is unsexy. Good thing the only brain conflating the article and discussion thread with this little world you've created in your head, is the person who created this little world in your head.

The guy was on an island with a horny 17yo who was all over him. He wasn't threatening anyone. Now maybe the owner of the island was - and that guy went to jail and died.

Now the real question is, why would you run over a puppy with your car? You see, if running the puppy over with your car is wrong, then I'm right.

This is so true. The "morality" when it comes to sex, is thinly disguised religious dogma, that has been passed down the generations unquestioned. A 17 year old is absolutely capable of consent. However I feel if she has been manipulated in any way then it should be illegal.

Illegal regardless of age.

It's quite the opposite. Religious dogma is quite comfortable with young women marrying old men and sleeping with them.

It is modern morality with out better understanding of psychology and brain development that lead many people to believe that sex in extreme age differences and extreme power imbalances is fraught. And in many cases, immoral. Regardless of whether the young person is a day under or a day over the "age of consent".

I would posit that cases where a 17 year old is sleeping with a 55 year old and it is NOT due to some form of coercion, are extremely rare.

> I would posit that cases where a 17 year old is sleeping with a 55 year old and it is NOT due to some form of coercion, are extremely rare.

Only if you assume that for some reason minors are pure and always operate rationally and "morally", thus it is just impossible that a 17 year old has decided that, yes, they want to have sex with a much older person. And somehow when they turn 18 their brain completely reconfigures.

Because I've been 17, I've had friends that age that wanted to do just that by their own accord, and some that have gone through that fantasy, without being coerced whatsoever. It's a bit weird, not really my cup of tea, but I know what being a horny teenager feels like.

While I am strongly in favour of 18 being the arbitrary threshold of consent, we as society need to remember that teenagers become sexual beings much earlier than 18 years old. It's simple biology, and I wonder if many of these "prudes" have lived a weirdly sheltered childhood and have not experienced normal sexual development.

Then you need to leave Alabama, where the 17yo marries the 55yo first, and go to a nightclub in half the European and most of the Asian countries, pick up a 17yo, and do her in the bathroom. You won't succeed the first night. If you're overweight you won't succeed at all. But if you're a decently aged 55yo who looks good but old, and takes care of his appearance and is a fun person to hang with, you will succeed the second night.

So "posit" what you like, the rest of us live in the real world where 17yo girls at a nightclub are crazy, rebellious, and very horny.

You do need to be able to dance well, you need to pay the bill for the whole table, and you need to be fun. That's what going out is for, that's why people are there.

Me, I'm old and married now but not a karaoke trip to Cyprus goes without some 17yo trying and repeatedly failing to go back to my hotel despite the ring. That's because this old dude can sing sensitive french ballads, rap-up some jay-z, or dance well while singing k-pop reading native hangul. If that doesn't work, I'll do a russian song w/o an accent, and we all know those girls are easy. I'm fun, I'm not fat, and that's all it takes.

That 17yo btw. That's probably your daughter, and the more you lock her in to a repressed life, the more she'll shack up with guys like me. Choo-choo!

"You did nothing wrong, neither did the hooker, nor is sex work "immoral." "

This is one opinion, not held by the majority globally.

In most of the world prostitution is either legal or tolerated and not really looked down upon. You might be right that it is an opinion, but you're wrong that it is not held by the majority globally. Most people throughout the world would agree with the person you're responding to.

Prostitution is illegal throughout Asia, which has a plurality of the world’s population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Asia. Even in places where it is legal or semi-legal, it is an unspeakably grave moral offense. For example it’s legal in Bangladesh, where I’m from. But that’s because it’s viewed as a last resort for desperate women who have no families in a country that has no social safety net. Prostitutes are outcasts from the rest of society.

That they are outcasts is just surface level societal judgment and not at all addressing what actually occurs in the society nor how perverted people actually are in it, despite you insisting otherwise up and down this thread

> The fact that you bring up morals here is very telling.

Do you not have them?

> Sex is not some magical scary thing

Clearly that’s not true—virtually every society treats sexual assault as a far worse crime than the equivalent physical assault. In the “Me Too!” era, words about sex can get you fired and blacklisted in ways similarly offensive words about other subjects won’t. And that makes sense as a matter of science. Sex is how humans procreate. Women’s power over mate selection plays a critical role in ensuring fitness of the species. It’s totally unsurprising, therefore, that we have developed myriad social mechanisms to reinforce women’s power over mate selection.

Ah yes white washing sex work.

Woman find powerful man attractive? Srsly?

All woman I know don't give a f about 'powerful men'.

And while I think sex work should be allowed and legal, there needs to be a mechanism which makes it much much harder to coheres someone into doing sex work who actually doesn't want to do it but has no better option.

You know the people who do sex work because there is no other option. The kids! Who do this because of there parents .

People who do this due to pressure. People don't even go to the police if they are aware that a priest was molesting a child! People were not telling CK of who was mastorbating in the office!

And don't think most girls in Thailand like their jobs. They got used to.

What any documentation about prostitutes. They accept what they do. Seldom have I seen anyone saying 'oh I love my job's the opposite is true.

We take dreams from people because we can.

Even normal woman have so much pressure alone going out of the house without makeup.

Or having to have sex.

Most people are not as oversexed as you. Stop projecting.