I don't agree with everything these guys believe in.

They hacked so much time off his sentence, it's been practically decapitated.

You call it victim-blaming, I call it assigning a degree of culpability in the things that happen to us. If a person taking a selfie on the slippery ledge of a cliff falls into the ocean, I'm not going to lament how cruelly they have been victimized by gravity. People make choices, and those choices have…

This is all very disgusting. R. Kelly is very disgusting. But what this doesn't really do is detail his grooming habits. It establishes that he would hang around at schools and pick up teenage girls; it doesn't cover when he makes the magical transition to the Pied Piper of mouth-peeing. There are undoubtedly…

"I mean, I can't tell you how what you're doing is harmful without resorting to slippery slope fallacies or straw man nonsense, but this is how I feel, and my feelings trump any and all dispassionate discussion, so… there."

Agreed all-in on your last point. Fuck R. Kelly sideways will a tire iron. If I had the opportunity to speak to one of these women living in his home, I would talk myself hoarse trying to convince them to get the fuck out. But in the service of messaging, I think reflexively jumping to terminology like "against…

I believe there's a line between summoning the will to break from a situation that is ultimately unhealthy and destructive, and not having any will at all. My point has never been that this sounds like a great arrangement, just that it's possible that a person can make the (regrettable) choice to continue to be a…

As yes, the old poisonous code phrase gambit. Just as fun and timeless as the 'I can't hang so I'll act like I just can't even anymore, put him down, and jet' move.

Maybe that's the sort of thing you might look into for 5 seconds or ask one other person on the planet before you commit to living under their roof?

I know some things about it. I know some things about R. Kelly. The same things that pretty much anybody does, and certain any motivated person could, know about R. Kelly. And again, I'm not the one insisting I know what's going on. Quite the opposite. I'm the one asking questions about what's going on.

But I'm not talking about you, because

Yes, because I keep saying over and over again what a great guy R. Kelly is.

Why isn't it?

And for the love of God, please understand that I'm talking about this
specific instance within this very specific, unique context. This take
is not meant to apply to other, marginally similar circumstances.

ie. these arguments are over my head and I can no longer engage, so I'm just going to make a smug, baseless disparagement and hightail it outta here.

If you contend one is a victim of grooming and abuse to the degree they no longer have freewill, then by definition you have removed their autonomy. They no longer make choices; their controller does.

Okay, so their parents are idiots. Lots of people have idiot parents; they are not however currently living with R. Kelly.

The contention here is these women are being held against their will. I merely pose the question, "If they willingly went there and claim to be willingly staying there, at what point do we remove autonomy from a person just because the decisions they are making seem inexplicable to us?" And in this case, it doesn't…

Well, maybe I'm not missing a point as much as making as opposing one that says we're allowing our cultural sensitivities to overwhelm any appreciation of context. Yes, I get "coercion, abuse, and grooming" but I also get that this is R. Kelly. We all know about R. Kelly. None of these women were going in blind. …

Okay, but they still have freewill, right? Would you go live with R. Kelly in the first place? If the agent of coercion is "I have money and power and charisma, and if you want the benefits of being close to that you have to submit fully to my whims and dictates," is that not ultimately fair, if not exceedingly…