"Adults abusing kids is profoundly different from kids abusing kids." - I get where you come from as it has much to do with accumulated life experience and "knowing better" but many people online I suspect won't see it that way because "the pain and trauma inflicted on the victim is the same" and thus, in their minds, it has to be judged the same way.
When you adopt a good-vs-evil, black-and-white, one-strike-and-you’re-out mentality, you miss out on the very complexities that make us human. You erase that which makes us flawed and imperfect but still remarkably, inescapably beautiful, and you demean us into base caricatures. We are more than one thing. We are, all of us, capable of both great good and terrible evil, all on the same day. We can all of us be both victim and abuser. The more we recognize that, the more we grow into our wisdom. The more we ignore that, the more we cater to our own ignorance.
Adults are responsible for themselves in ways that children and teenagers cannot be. Adults have the opportunity to look at the world in a broader, more open-minded sense, as they are no longer encased in the actions and beliefs of those who raised them. They are freer to find their own paths. And once you have the opportunity to choose that path, the responsibility of which you choose, and what you choose to do while on it, falls directly upon you.
That’s what I mean when I say adults abusing kids is profoundly different from kids abusing kids. And whether the online community chooses to recognize this or not does not make the statement false. I honestly hope the online community grows into its wisdom quickly, before it bullies more people in the name of 'safe spaces.’ If those who do not fit in will be attacked for their unpopular opinions or preferences en masse, then it is not a safe space - not for anyone except the bullies these people proclaim to hate.
