Most posters whether amateur or journaliistic are following a narrative of 'revulsion and disgust' at what 'happened' (or didn't) and also following the idea that 'power and wealth and privilege' enabled this idea of 'kidnap; subdue by force and abuse' for money.
And it may well be true.
...and yet who of these 'victims' reported their experience to law enforcement... AT THE TIME. If they DID and the alleged numbers of victims making themselves known today might illustrate it, that's a major failure in 'protect and serve' isn't it ?
Is this a result of poverty versus power ? Or maybe the idea that any one could have been selected as a potential victim, and anyone with wealth or privilege might still be out there doing the same today POST Epstein.
Lot more questions around Epstein today than at the time of his death. I mean this video stuff....recording for 'fun' ? Or for potential extortion of abusers later ?
No. I don't think that "grandstanding" is what's going on with the investigation, or the reaction to the harm done by Epstein and his associates.
But I wonder what you're really asking in this post, and why ?
No one who's been closely following developments in this case, or who understands what's involved, thinks it's about women of legal age who were involved in consenting relationships for financial reward.
The public outrage has come with evidence showing that hundreds of minor girls were groomed and manipulated into abusive sexual relationships, to entertain wealthy and powerful adults who used their influence to deliberately hide their actions and avoid legal consequences.
If you honestly aren't sure about that, spend 20 minutes online doing your own research and answer your own question.
If you've got a reliable source that shows parents were knowing accomplices in every aspect of Epstein's traffiking, please share it.
What findings from investigators who talked to actual victims and gathered direct evidence shows is something else. From the beginning, they were struck by how methodical Epstein was in choosing and manipulating the girls he wanted, and how skilled he was in isolating his victims from their families :
It’s understandable to question performative outrage but reducing this to a “symbiotic relationship” misses the power imbalance at the heart of exploitation I'd think.
Even when someone is legally an adult, coercion, manipulation, money, desperation, trauma, and unequal power can strip real choice away. When one person controls access to wealth, safety, opportunity, and escape, consent becomes deeply compromised.
Feeling conflicted, ambivalent, or even temporarily benefiting doesn’t transform exploitation into fairness....it just shows how survival can masquerade as consent.
The real sickness isn’t moral outrage.
It’s how easily power convinces people they chose what they were cornered into.
Im sure anyone who went into it willingly thought it would be an opportunity for a better life. Thats why predators prey on the young and naive. I haven't any stories about anyone like that. Though I haven't dug into the details of all of this and didn't intend to.
Coercion is a very real thing. From what I heard that some of the girls - and also boys, don't forget - were inflicted with...from rich people abusing their so-call god-given power and influence...
It makes me sick.
Sicker still are the people, like yourself, that are pedalling the narrative that "Well, it's alright..."
My question to you is: how will this all help you in romance then? Are you really into a fantasy world à la Pretty Woman perhaps? You're mentioning a man who was going to shop around for what he wants. The perfect amoral user and abuser of anything that you know about. If he had a means for example to fund a way to enjoy the rush and satisfaction of drinking a cola without experiencing the associated health harms himself, he'd find others to pay. Think of this for a moment. In the end he did it all for the money. If he could have he'd even have tried to make something work so that he'd experiencing the rush of drinking cola by someone else. That last person being yet again poor, vulnerable and expendable. He would not care to even think of nor pay for the cost to that person afterwards
The girls who went there "willingly" went under false pretenses. They were told they would be a massage therapist. Once they got there, however, it was a whole different story. At that point, Maxwell and Epstein groomed them for sex.
From everything I have read and heard from the victims, long before these files were ever released, was that no. It was not a good deal. They were conned into being sex slaves. They didn't go willingly.
Sheesh. Read some of the actual victim's statements and testimony. And your opinion is gross.
If there were some like you describe then they weren't the ones filing claims and reports against them. And how the ones who wanted the deal don't mean they override the ones who'd been kidnapped and all that.
@froggtongue Monica Lewinsky and Anita Hill. American people aren't ready to talk about the inequality and the abuses of it! It keeps coming up - Chappaquiddick... Dartmouth College. . and it just goes away!
The adult girls knew what they were getting into, if they did not go to the police then I don't want to hear about it, find a way to get over it. As to the ones under 18 they probably knew too what they were getting into but that does not matter, keep your hands off they are too young.
WOW, OKAY! I didn't expect see anybody on SW justifying the systematic and repeated seхual and physical abuse of children by billionaires and higher-ups in the government, but here we are!
And for you to put this in the Romance category? I'm pretty sure if you're not already on the registry, you belong there!
@guyroberts I freely admit I wasn't aware that there was anybody on that island over the age of 18 being exploited, so I'll grant you the benefit of the doubt there. With all the focus (rightly so) on the underage girls on the island, that detail escaped my notice.
@LordShadowfire so given that the FBI haven't found any evidence of any wrongdoing on behalf of anyone else other than Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it is likely that all the underage girls were recruited for Ghislaine Maxwell, and everyone else was just partying with the older girls.
So now the fact that Jeffrey Epstein is dead, Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison, they basically have thrown away the key. What's all the outrage about? Yes, people have affiliations with people who have done bad things, but just because someone has been convicted and they've been in jail and then they came out of jail, does that mean that we shouldn't have anything to do with them ever again? If we have a friend who was convicted of something, even if it was something bad, they made a big mistake and now they're out of jail. Should we not have anything to do with them again? If we do, should we lose our jobs? I mean, I'm just calling bullshit on all this outrage.
so given that the FBI haven't found any evidence of any wrongdoing on behalf of anyone else other than Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it is likely that all the underage girls were recruited for Ghislaine Maxwell, and everyone else was just partying with the older girls.
Bold of you to assume Mr. "Anything For The" Kash Patel is conducting an honest investigation...
@CGS1984 not defending those people at all. I just find all this outrage to be... when there's public outrage against people in this kind of over-the-top way, I always feel there's more to it than just righteousness and purity.
@guyroberts It isn’t over the top. It’s entirely acceptable that people have discovered a group of super rich and entitled perverts and they deserve what’s coming to them for thinking they were above law and common decency.
