MULTIPLE PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD ARE TALKING ABOUT REPORTING THEMSELVES TO AUTHORITIES OVER THESE POSTS?!

get a fucking grip please!!

All I have to add to this is that while my gut instinct is also to feel sympathy in situations like this, I have a very hard time feeling sympathy for a 30+ year old who thought they were "only" banging an 18 year old. I spent some time hanging out with an 18 year old stranger not long ago and I had fun but they definitely hit my "child" radar and I'm only 24. Would never have considered climbing into bed with them. If a friend around my age told me they recently had sex with an 18 year old my first response would be along the lines of, "yikes, are you sure about that?" If I were ever considering banging someone who could plausibly be a teenager, even if they said they were 20+, I'd be very cautious about it. Like, legitimately no joke show me your fuckin ID sort of territory.

I can't see anybody's comments on the thread, as they aren't loading, but I'll say this. No one should be banned simply for sympathizing with op. That is a very confusing post about a very bizarre and fucked up situation, and I can't blame people for not immediately having the one correct take or whatever. Furthermore, I would even more strongly urge you not to report yourself to any authorities except in certain very extreme and particular circumstances. I don't know what country you live in, but legal authorities are not trustworthy nor on the right side. If you give police information, in a best case scenario they will ignore and equally likely they will use it against you or people around you.

I know that this is very serious, but in the interest of brevity (since you all know what I mean) this situation is an opportunity to appreciate the :volcel-police: culture on the site.

I'm incredibly thankful that this isn't something that transpired between two people on this site, cause it could easily happen in a lot of online spaces and really fuck shit up. II think it's a bit harder of an environment here for that sort of thing to pop up, and I think we should keep it that way.

It's also worth reflecting upon in offline interactions. Let's do good things for people in our community and not get distracted by all kinds of "fucking" drama. Easy for me to say, but sure, I have my own issues that hold me back (we can get into drug and alcohol use etc... as well). Just saying the post has me reflecting and writing some neo-Maoist comradely wisdom into my "Little Red Book 2nd Edition". Maybe it's trash anyway.

There's nothing wrong with empathizing with someone in a crisis, but the posts which supported OP by deflecting responsibility onto the child involved left a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm glad this is getting looked at and is recognized as an issue. Also absolving someone of all responsibility for actions which, even unintentionally, caused significant harm can send a dangerous message, both to the person and, in a public forum, to others as well, that the behaviour is condoned.

Just a chapo mod, not sitewide.

The original post is up, but none of the replies are loading for me. I don't really have any clue what happened in the thread but to me, its apparent that the OP should have at the very least definitely been asking more questions than they were.

I'm not currently in contact with any admins, and I will leave any sort of continuing plan of action to them. That said, I will definitely state that rape apologia here won't stand, not anywhere on this site. The user ghostofwhoiwas was wrong, and any sort of "just asking questions" about the culpability of people who fuck teens will result in a ban from here on out. Previous posts have been removed without bans.

a minor 15 years his junior.

So OP basically r-word someone young enough to be their nephew.

Im never using active sort again I would have missed this if I stuck to new

me, who had no idea about any of this until 5 minutes ago

yeah that was a super dicey situation

I was there, my only contribution was as neutral as I could make it, but I'm truly not sure that was the right way to engage. The main issue in my mind is as follows: it's clearly a morally wrong act that OP committed, but it's also morally wrong (and not constructive) to dogpile a person expressing suicidal ideation and also having recently attempted suicide, for something they knew was wrong and did through poor choices/ignorance and not malice (not an excuse, but background that should inform the response).

Separate from the response to this incident, I think we might need to examine the rules of /c/mentalhealth and maybe the site as a whole in regards to talking about questionably illegal or fully illegal activities. While it's nice to have a space where people can talk about their deeply troubling personal issues with a sympathetically leftist cohort, that post and the engagement it got was really a lot for the community to deal with, and might even attract undue law enforcement/fed eyes on hexbear in the near future. That post was also potentially in violation of comm rule 1, "We are not a crisis service."

Yeah I definitely think that my gut reaction was also wrong. I like not being banned so I would say I personally don't want to be banned but if the mods ban me I won't die since hey it's just a website.

i touched grass yesterday and i'm worse off for having read the referenced post