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>Alan Turing wasn't a national security risk because he was gay //
I always though he was bi, explaining the near marriage - supposedly it wasn't until late on in their courtship that he informed his fiancée that he had a predilection for men and she was supposedly shocked.
That aside I'd imagine anyone in their 40s privy to Top Secret info who picked up unknown teenagers for short-term sexual encounters would be a national security risk. Want access to his papers and pillow-talk - send in strapping teen to chat him up? [this is basically what happened (apparently barring the national security elements, but I always wondered) when he was robbed that led to reports of this particular homosexual tryst to the police].
>Anybody who could break rotor ciphers circa WW2 was very valuable indeed.
> That aside I'd imagine anyone in their 40s privy to Top Secret info who picked up women in bars for short-term sexual encounters would be a national security risk. Want access to his papers and pillow-talk - send in an attractive lady to chat him up?
Is that different? Or do you think that straight men are somehow immune?
It's different in the eyes of the security services because of the potential for blackmail. A single guy picking up girls is not particularly blackmail-able. A gay man in a society that imprisons and chemically castrates gay people? That is someone who is trivially subject to blackmail.
Even to this day, I believe the security services will ask if you are homosexual and still in the closet, as you are keeping a secret from friends and family that could be used as leverage.
I think the _apparent_ ephebophilia¹ makes a difference. Other than that, no; ergo I said "anyone" and didn't mention the sex of the person privy to national secrets nor of the person they picked up for casual sex.
Certainly a honey-trap isn't unheard of. I do however have a feeling that at the time a considerably younger male would be a more effective lure based on the societal mores as the subject is far more likely to let them get away than to raise an alarm. If² this were what happened with Turing it would be a demonstration of quite notable devotion to his country to have handed himself in in order to report the incident.
We've seen recently in the news reports of the UK's Prince Andrew at 42 having allegedly had sex with a 17yo (that's above the age of consent in UK). It's a massive scandal apparently. But Turing was 39 and he had sex with a 19yo. Despite prima facie Andrew's tryst being legal - there is a question of consent - it's clear that it's seen as something that could have leverage over him and there is inference that Epstein might have used knowledge of the encounter to apply duress. This for an apparently legal heterosexual encounter in 2015 - how much more scandal for an illegal homosexual encounter in 1952?
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¹ I'd theorise it wasn't ephebophilia per se but a longing for his boyhood friend who died. My theory.
² There is no substantiation of the idea that there was a security breach.
> We've seen recently in the news reports of the UK's Prince Andrew at 42 having allegedly had sex with a 17yo (that's above the age of consent in UK). It's a massive scandal apparently.
Its a massive scandal not just because of her age but because of the allegations that the 17yo was a victim of human trafficking and that this was known to the Prince (and because it is on top of the Prince's other connections to the alleged trafficker, which were already a scandal before the specific allegation), and at least one of the encounters is alleged to have taken place in a jurisdiction (the US Virgin Islands) where the age of consent is 18.
Ah, I was not aware of all the details - all I'd seen was mention of Epstein being a "convicted paedophile" [solicitation of a 15yo IIRC] and then the details on the news of the age of the young lady connected to Prince Andrew and the picture of the two of them + the suggestion that she may not have been there entirely consensually.
Thanks for the added info - my example was clearly poor, but I think the concept still stands: that a dim view is generally taken of people in the public eye who have short-term sex-based trysts with those much younger than themselves (particularly with teenagers)?
Ephebophilia isn't used to describe the presence of sexual attraction to people ~15 years old, it is used to describe primary or exclusive sexual interest in people ~15 years old. Pretty much everyone has some level of sexual attraction to people ~15 years old (the 'term' for that would be 'average').
Paedophilia is also often misused as a term, because it means attraction to pre-pubescent people, generally younger than 11, but sometimes as old as 13. Not 17, not 15, not even 14.
The laws we've universally passed to for pornography (actors must be 18 or older) to protect vulnerable <18 people from exploitation have bled into the public having an opinion that having sexual attraction for people less than 18 is equivalent to paedophilia, which is pretty strange (I know that I would personally view someone who is attracted to a 15 year old differently than someone who is attracted to a 5 year old). Laws of consent obviously differ a lot per country, but are for the most part 16-18, sometimes as low as 14.
There's even more to it, because our laws regarding age of consent do not exist exclusively to protect against paedophiles: they are in place to protect young people from exploitation. Public opinion is sort of confused about this, again.
If a media outlet says 'Person X accused of sexual relations with a minor', they have not in any way said that person was a paedophile, just that person A had sexual relations with someone considered a minor (as old as 17 in some places). The public often takes this as 'Person X accused of paedophilia', which is incorrect.
There's also the issue of viewing all pornography of people <18 as 'child pornography'. This is basically a legal grey zone, which is silly, because a person who forces a 5 year old to take sexual pictures is pretty different than someone who asks a horny 15 year old for pictures (in my opinion, again).
To go back on topic, Prince Andrew being accused of having sex with a 17 year old has nothing to do with paedophilia (at least not with the legal or psychological definition of paedophilia), it has to do with exploitation of a minor.
>To go back on topic, Prince Andrew being accused of having sex with a 17 year old has nothing to do with paedophilia //
I'm not sure what point you're making. I never claimed this was paedophilia, she's clearly not pre-pubescent and was above the UK age of consent.
I also spoke about Turing's tryst being "apparently" ephebophilia (definition: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/epheboph...) and was quite within normal usage. Yes, Turing may not have exclusively engaged in ephebophilic sexual relationships I don't know.
You'll note in a sibling comment I mentioned Epstein being a "convicted paedophilia" and noted in parentheses the actual crime. The term is in quotes as this is how media referred to him. There are accusations of [non-exclusive] paedophilic activities against him but AFAIK no such conviction. Mass media tends, as you intimate, to refer to all those convicted of sexual activity with minors to be "paedophiles" but I felt I'd gone to reasonable pains to avoid wrongly doing the same.
> There's also the issue of viewing all pornography of people <18 as 'child pornography'. This is basically a legal grey zone
Let's be quite clear: it is not a legal grey zone. At all. It is illegal.
While I agree that the two examples you gave are different, they both involve adults in a position of power/authority taking advantage of impressionable children that do not yet know any better.
Your version inexplicably discards the age difference the parent post included. Straight men who picked up _underaged_ girls would indeed be vulnerable to compromise (legally or by blackmail etc.), and I think the parent poster would agree.
The blackmail argument was always depressingly circular anyway. "We have to fire you if you're gay, because somebody could blackmail you by threatening to get you fired for being gay."
The blackmail argument was always depressingly circular anyway. "We have to fire you if you're gay, because somebody could blackmail you by threatening to get you fired for being gay."
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