Cody Wilson, of 3D-printed gun fame, has been targeted by the State for "sexual assault on a child". This is a lie.
If it's consensual, it isn't "assault". If it's a business deal-- a trade-- it is mutually consensual. He is said to have paid her for sex; that makes it a trade.
But then we get to the part that trips up even supposed liberty-lovers: that she is claimed to be a child.
The girl in question is said to be 16 years old. Very few 16 year-olds are still a child. I doubt very strongly this girl is one of those rare exceptions.
Biologically, childhood ends at puberty; very few people are still biological children at 16 years of age. Mentally it ends somewhat later-- some people never mature-- but it would be a rare person who is still a mental child at 16.
That doesn't mean the person who is no longer a child is an adult.
To pretend a person is either a child or an adult is dishonest. No, adolescents are not adults, but neither are they children. They shouldn't be treated as children, nor considered children.
Biologically, adulthood is reached at about 25 years of age, when the wisdom teeth mature and the prefrontal cortex of the brain finishes developing. The brain development also indicates mental adulthood, and (hopefully) emotional and psychological adulthood. Thank goodness the puritans of the State haven't (generally) insisted on biological adulthood before considering a person to be an adult.
So, maybe the 16 year-old in question wasn't an adult, but she almost certainly wasn't a child, either.
It is said she was a prostitute, and like it or not, that's going to be the end of mental and emotional childhood no matter the biological reality. This is one reason child prostitution (and child sexual abuse of other kinds) is so horrific-- it forces the end of emotional childhood much too early.
I know people want a clear line in the sand, and this causes them to buy into the State's convenient lie that under 18 equals "child". That's no excuse; it is intellectual and ethical laziness.
If Cody Wilson did what he is accused of, it wasn't smart. But neither was it "assault" or "sex with a child", and it shouldn't be a crime.
This is purely a politically motivated charge, and was most likely a set-up from the beginning. Stop supporting Wilson if you feel you must, but don't turn on him like the true perverts of the State want you to.