this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2025
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15 is the legal limit in Sweden. Seems to be the median around the world, too (14–16 or so).
Lost my virginity at 16 with a 15 year old. It felt right, it felt beautiful, and it was consensual.
Edit: please note that I wrote this comment not realizing what this picture is referencing. Sorry to anyone offended! I will leave it as-is to make everything below make sense.
Again, apologies.
Ok so that's nice for you. What happened to these girls is nothing like that.
I've understood the context since posting the comment, and I apologize to anyone offended. I wasn't really aware of what was referenced here. Sorry about that.
Also lost my virginity at 15, TO ANOTHER 15 YEAR OLD.
It's a whole different story when it's 50 year old fucks that rape a 15 year old.
Rape is horrible regardless of age. But a 15 year old having sexual intercourse with a 50-year old doesn't have to be rape, though it's highly suspicious.
In the United States, the country relevant to this topic and the aggressors and victims involved, this is called Statutory Rape. It is a crime.
I'm aware, I was talking about Sweden.
so you're saying all the sex trafficking and stuff doesn't mean it wasn't consensual? I think by definition, sex trafficking means it's not consensual.
I didn't realize at first that the post was discussing Epstein and such, but yeah of course trafficking should be nonconsensual by definition, absolutely. No question about it. 👍
This post is about teenage girls (at the oldest) being raped by adult men and a vile woman spouting propaganda to protect them, and you're in here talking about age of consent and sleeping with someone in your age range.
If I had to guess you aren't actually defending pedophilia, you just might need to take a massive step back and realize what you posted was weird as shit in context. The difference between your situation and that of the epstein victims was violence, exploitation and sexual abuse. Though even lacking that, I don't believe teenagers can truly consent to sex with adults regardless of what the law says. There are power dynamics in play that are unhealthy no matter how its spun.
I'm saying this as someone just scrolling through with no stake in your argument with others in this thread, just thought you should probably get some perspective.
Id love if the criticism would focus on the rape, forced actions and the heinous power situation of being a child or young teen stuck on an island rather than focusing on calling it "pedophiles" since that both draws focus away from justice for victims toward the perpetrators as well as putting focus on a "title" rather than an act.
Raping people are bad. Being a pedophile/hebephile is a horrible mental issue that needs to be handled before any act can happen, and so we should remove the stigma so the sufferers that hasnt commited acts can get help. These two things are not the same.
I''m not sure why exactly you chose me to direct this to, but it seems dangerously close to you being upset and defensive that I used the term pedophile negatively.
If something I said offended you, seek help immediately before you harm someone.
I was agreeing with you and your use of the word rape resonated with an irritation I have of people discussing pedophilia (a potentially dangerous paraphilia which isnt illegal by itself) rather than the sexual crimes the victims where put through by the rapists or that the perpetrators are rapists
English is not my first language so might express myself with clumsy wordings
Edit: I believe a person can be a pedophile and a victim due to it, because the persons brain wiring is fucked up. That person deserves compassion, dignity, help and treatment, just as we help other people suffering. The moment a person hurts another sexually, especially a child, (with or without intent) that changes everything, and should be forcefully treated as an immediate and urgent threat to society and the persons around the individual.
My advice would be to stop trying to talk your way around pedophilia being problematic, because it is and it does cause harm regardless of your personal feelings on it. Or continue and get your account nuked. That honestly would be best for everyone.
Again, if you need help, seek it out before there are more victims.
Edit: Posting a screenshot of their original comment in case they try to edit what they said and make me look like the one with a problem here
collapsed inline media
Of course pedophilia is problematic and dangerous
Something like 1 in 6 people are attracted to children but don't act on it
It just "irritates" you when people talk about it because it's "not illegal"
Fuck. Off.
It irritates me when people keep calling a rapist a pedophile, since one tells you that the person did a crime and the other did not. I refuse to call a murderer "person with violent tendencies" since its the murder thats the issue, not why the person commited it
If someone rapes a child they are a fucking pedophile, and if someone fantasizes about sex with children they are fantasizing about fucking rape.
These semantic games you want to keep playing make it abundantly clear to me that you have a serious problem and are desperately trying to justify to yourself that you don't. Nothing you can say to me will change that.
You need to go get professional treatment before your thoughts turn into actions, because you are sick.
Lots of people have non-con fetishes. Doesn't make them rapists. Hell, who hasn't thought about murdering someone, or robbing a bank?
Good fucking thing we don't punish thought crimes.
Pedophelia is a paraphelia that requires treatment to manage/mitigate/overcome. Many people with pedophelia were young rape victims, themselves.
If we can all agree:
People don't choose to have pedophelia, and,
We would like to have less people with pedophelia,
Then we can also agree there should be easy to access treatments for pedophelia.
People trying to destigmatize the paraphelia and promote access to treatment are doing a lot more to make the world better than the ones calling every pedophile a rapist, even if they never act on it.
I never claimed all people with mental illness are criminals or rapists and you know I did not.
I never claimed that pedophilia isn't a legimate mental illness.
I never disagreed that it requires professional treatment and monitoring, and in fact advocated for that treatment multiple times as that user continued to double down on pedophilia being fine as long as its not acted on.
Pedophilia is not a fetish, nor is it in any way similar to a fetish, and you are well aware of that. Trying to relate it to one is concerning and you might want to reconsider using that as a debate point
Clearly you believe I have wrongthink and don't understand SA. I guess I just didn't internalize my own experienced abuse correctly enough for you. I'll make sure I more carefully consider the position of abusers and their advocates in the future before I call them out so I don't upset them, it really is inappropriate of me to be disgusted by sexual abuse and the normalization of it, you're right.
2-3. See point 1.
What's concerning is calling everything you don't like or don't understand concerning, and hinting that people arguing with you are pedophiles.
Again, you argued with someone who tried to point out pedophelia doesn't make someone a rapist. You brought up the nature of a fantasy as a point of argument, which I responded to.
Your entire last paragraph is ridiculous.
Thank you for telling me my lived experience of sexual abuse is ridiculous and again reiterating that you think I don't understand SA, which means my viewpoint is wrong. Very appreciative of that. You should definitely take pride that you "won" an argument on the internet in that way.
Uh huh. Have a good night.
Im not sick, I have a neuropsychiatric issue that puts me on the autism spectrum and I am already in treatment for that. I understand that my autism can make me a bit rigid when it comes to classification and use of psychiatric terms but I am a bit confused why that would harm if its put into action. I am putting my thoughts into action right now typing this response.
I am not trying to play semantic games, words have meaning and weights, so calling a duck a duck, ie a rapist a rapist is important to me rather than minimizing that persons crimes by using a psychiatric term that can explain the impulse but not reasoning behind acting the crime. It confuses me that I agreed with you from the beginning and then I started reading more and more hostility the more you responded nd I tried to expand and explain my reasoning. Even calling to nuking my account because I believe the act of raping children is worse than ideation of raping children doesnt make sense to me.
Of course I have to keep explaining since you refer to my condition as an illness, which is also not at all how the words illness is supposed to be used.
Im heading to bed, this conversation doesnt work out and I dont know if its because I cant explain to you that action comes after thought, if we are talking about different things, if its my english as second language blocks mutual understanding or whatever.
I believe they were accusing you of having pedophelia, not referring to your neurodivergence.
Oh, thats a heavy accusation. Makes the responses and tone in the text more coherent! If Id understood that I wouldnt have kept responding.
Thank you
No worries. Didn't want you to accidentally imply anything you didn't mean to.
I didn't finish all of your comment because it was very hostile (understandably so), so I just want to tell you that I was not familiar with the context, so I apologize for that. I see how my comment was inappropriate.
It was not hostile, you just don't want to read it because you know you're rightfully being called out for saying some fucked up shit.
As a victim of SA myself, my advice would be to just fucking stop trying to normalize it and move on, go get your head back on straight.
You're misunderstanding. I didn't read all of it because I realized what you were getting at, is all. I'm rightfully called out, and everyone calling me out is doing good work, so thank you.
I'm sorry you were subjected to sexual assault. But I'm not trying to normalize it. I just wasn't aware of the context of the post. So again, apologies for that. My head is on straight regarding sex trafficking, believe me.
Would you find it okay if a 15 year old had sex with a 25 year old?
That relative age gap is a bit concerning. I have a colleague who met her husband when she was 17 and he was 38, and they are a great couple now. She's in her mid thirties now. It's all situational, and parents need to be involved and society also needs to give the youth a sound understanding of what's acceptable and how not to be placed in a position of dependence within a sexual relationship with an older partner.
It's not a black and white topic for me, as you might have gathered. Not many things are, in life.
Many countries have some sort of Romeo & Juliet-laws where teenagers of a certain age are allowed to have sex with each other/in their age brackets but adults are not allowed to have sex with minors.
Is that the case, or is 40+ and 15 good and legal?
When I was 16 I had a relationship with a 42 year old, it lasted a few months. People where expressing concern due to the age difference but not much more.
Also in Sweden
In Sweden, there have been a few cases where there's some kind of Romeo and Juliet judgement call when the two parties have been very close in age and it was deemed consensual etc, e.g. one case where one party was 17 and the younger was 14.
But otherwise, 15 is the legal limit for sexual relations of any kind, except in some cases where the age limit is 18, e.g. if you want to get with an aunt or a step dad or something, I think.
Sex with your own child or adoptive child is illegal regardless of the child's age.
Sex between two parties both younger than 15 is not punishable because they would both be below the legal age of sentencing. If that's how you say that. You get it.
Other than that? 40+ and 15, perfectly legal. But yeah, frowned upon, surely.
I am a man and the other party is a woman. We lasted 5 months. 😆 But there was a lot of sex. Also but: that's all there was. 😐
What's your fucking deal, bro? You just out here to pick fights? Go back to Reddit. We try to be nice to each other here, this is not welcome behavior. And you're being bigoted and homophobic, in case you aren't aware.
I'm a reddit refugee because they kicked me off for correcting some conservative subreddit, and those mods got mad. But I'll just say, Lemmy/fediverse/whatever it's called, has more crazy people like this than reddit does as a percentage of the total.