this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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God forbid we actually use words correctly instead of watering down their meanings.
Congratulations on learning that words have no intrinsic meaning, and the dictionary is constantly changing. Prescriptive linguistics is a hopeless battle.
Found the descriptive linguist
You gotta drop this one, friend. There are better hills to die on. Hills that don't get you labeled a pedophile.
I think in this case the meaning is already effectively watered down. At this point it'd probably be easier to just give up and make a new term for pedophilia that is just for pre adolescents, and let pedophilia be the term for all "under age of consent" stuff (as is the current modern usage).
Then come the Germans and say that 14 is legal in their country.
Age of consent doesn't matter in this context, it's the difference in age that does. An 18 years old having sex with a 17 years old isn't a pedophile. In Canada the age of consent is 16, if you're 40 and having sex with a consenting 16 years old you're still trialled as a pedo if the person changes their mind and press charges.
Luckily, I'm American so I can pretend Germany doesn't exist, like I do the rest of the world 😘
God forbid we actually use words of correct colloquial meaning instead of watering down the subject of molesting teens.