Edit- look, we’re missing each other because I am arguing a larger cultural issue, you are arguing specific laws

That was the only thing I was actually asking about. I especially agree with your points about our government/politicians. It appears that the main disagreement we might have is if rape culture is the normalization/glorification of sexual assault specifically or a wider classification of power dynamics in any form.

I think anyone who commits the crime of rape is a rapist and rightly so, but am just leery about watering down the definition of rape.

I do not care how legal this might have been

I want to be clear that it wasn’t legal. Gaetz 100% committed statutory rape under current criminal law. It’s a strict accountability law, you don’t have to knowingly do it to commit the crime.

The only reason I posted at all was that after reading the article I didn’t think the persons comment you replied to was necessarily a great example of rape culture.

My point was that at one time separate but equal was considered enlightened by a majority of the population. I agree that short societal memory is a curse we have to work around.

The Constitution is not permanent and unchangeable, it is a living document that can and has been amended to suit new or changing needs. That’s why they are called Amendments in the first place. It is by design a lot more difficult to change than other laws, and this is a good thing, but the Founders knew they couldn’t get everything right for all time.

The 40 year old ID-ing the women he has sex with at a party is icky for sleeping with someone half his age (double so if he is specifically looking for 18 year olds), but that is not illegal. Should that be lumped under rape culture though? Should sex work in general be lumped under rape culture?

If she was not 18, regardless of if she had a fake ID, it is still statutory. There is no mens rea required for statutory. It is however harder in such a case to secure prosecution and conviction.

He may very well have known his friend brought an underage girl to sleep with him, or asked him to find probable underage girls advertising as 18 for plausible deniability. He also may have paid his friend to pay for prostitutes for the party. I won’t give Gaetz the benefit of the doubt on anything, but the article doesn’t indicate any of those things happened.

At least we got a conviction for the person with the least plausible deniability, because we rarely get that unfortunately.

While it doesn’t make Gaetz not a shitbag, unless the article is wrong he wasn’t the person who solicited her, set it up, or paid her. It’s also still statutory even if she lied about her age and had a false ID (and we don’t know if Gaetz was actually lied to and checked her ID), but I am not sure if this is a good example of rape culture.

100% unequal power dynamics being a rich politician sleeping with an 18 year old escort at a party, but in the case all parties are 18 or older is it sex work or rape?

Joel Greenberg, the one who actually met her and did the soliciting and paid her, was charged and convicted for child sex trafficking and ID fraud/identity theft for this. I am pleasantly surprised he was both charged and convicted given track records on both of those things. If 11 years is a sufficient sentence is another story.

The problem with being unable to change or supercede laws is the hubris to assume the laws passed are perfect for all time. We have all of human history to prove we are not the peak of civilization.

Getting bribery out of politics by removing lobbying and campaign finance is probably the best thing we can do. Having every politician run with the same amount of money and banning retired politicians from working as lobbiests or board members after office would do the most for eliminating corruption.

Even if you make laws unrepealable or changable, if the government won’t enforce it then it solves nothing. We have no higher entity to complain to and get enforcement or satisfaction. And if there is some higher entity empowered and capable, we then put all trust that whatever is enforcing law can never be corrupted or coerced or have its own adjenda.