The conversation that triggered Stallman's fall started when someone—names other than Stallman's are redacted in the leaked emails—posted about a planned protest at MIT. The email stated that famed MIT computer scientist Marvin Minsky "is accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims."
Stallman objected, saying that the blurb "does an injustice" to Minsky because even if it's true that the then-17-year-old had sex with Minsky, "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing." Someone pointed out that the age of consent in the US Virgin Islands, where the incident allegedly occurred, is 18. But Stallman wasn't persuaded.
In the last week, after his comments received widespread attention, Stallman said he was rethinking some of these views. "Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it," he wrote on Saturday. "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm her psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that."
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