The excuses made by ephebophiles and pedophiles often match those made by adult rapists, too— focusing on the sexuality of the victim, claiming they wanted it. That’s one of the reasons that age of consent laws exist, so that we don’t have to put children through the torture of asking if they consented or not.

All of the focus on the victim, rather than the perpetrator, is part of the overall problem that Allegro and Sarah are talking about. The sexuality and behavior of the victim is immaterial to the crime, as long as none of it is real consent.

The biggest problem that we have with rape is people being ashamed of it or thinking they won’t be believed, or that it won’t be worth going through the prosecution. And, unfortunately, it often isn’t worth prosecuting. Often there is no physical evidence, it is he-said-she-said, and there really is reasonable doubt. I think it’s a terrible thing to have to say, but to anyone who gets raped they should immediately go to the police or the hospital so that evidence can be collected.

But obviously, some people aren’t going to be capable of doing that, they’re going to need comfort first. It’s one of the twisted parts of rape— it’s a traumatizing and horrid version of a normal human interaction.