So, Der Postillon is a German parody site similar to our onion, and they had a parody article acting like rammstein fans are totally okay with Till Lindemann having sex with their 15 year old daughters. It actually got a bit of attention when the Rammstein drummer Christoph Schnieder "liked" it on social media.
Im not sure where Schneider stands on this whole mess. He seems to kinda be all over the place. It's possible he was laughing at it because he knew the allegations were BS, or maybe the dude just didn't like how much people were bending over backwards to defend till. Anyway, as a "till defender", I wanted to give my clarifying opinion on this matter.
I'm not a fan of the idea of Till banging 15 year olds, to be blunt. Being an american, and having american ethics, the idea does rub me the wrong way. And if he did that over here, it would be illegal, and he would be going to jail.
HOWEVER, there are two things that I feel like warrant discussion here. First of all, I'm not sure if this actually happened. The fact is, the media has been irresponsibly reporting a lot of stuff over in germany and seems intent on portraying the band members in the worst possible light in order to boost the controversy for clicks. Clicks mean ad revenue, so it's very profitable for the media to irresponsibly report on this matter, despite stricter requirements for reporting than in the US. And Rammstein's law firm has been winning injunction after injunction against these media outlets. A lot of stuff I figured out a month or two ago about the sketchy reporting is now being seen by the german courts as a "duh", and they're literally getting articles taken down for false reporting and the like. In an environment like this, it's no surprise that many people just shut down, continue as if the allegations were false, and say "innocent until proven guilty."
So, we don't really BELIEVE this stuff is necessarily true for one.
And for two, and this is the big elephant in the room, but this behavior is apparently NOT ILLEGAL IN GERMANY. The concept of age of consent is a form of subjective or cultural morality. It has not existed for most of human history and is a rather modern invention. This is not to say that it's bad, but we love to act like it's this black and white thing where at 18+ it's fine but if it's 17 and 364 days, you're a pedophile. Laws are laws, and have to make a cutoff somewhere, but let's be honest, the age of consent as many people know it and practice it seems to be a very american invention. And other countries have designed their laws to be different. Some put the age lower, and we've had some interesting discussions in the rammstein community about this. There are different cultural ideas of maturity and responsibility in these cultures, and over there, people are given more responsibility and choice in some matters that we americans think is insane.
I don't necessarily approve of these differences, and I'm going to very firmly point this out because people act like anyone who questions the age of consent at all is obviously a pedo or pedo apologist, no, I'm not. I support the age of consent at 18 in my own country. I would maybe make mild changes to make it where people who are like 18-20 shouldn't have to worry about jail time for doing fairly normal things with people in their general age range and stuff like that, but yes, I support the age of consent at 18 and generally speaking am not interested in any appeal to lower it.
HOWEVER, recognizing that this is a form of subjective, cultural morality, and that other countries and cultures might treat the issue a little differently, it is not my place to judge Till for doing something that is perfectly legal within his country of residence. If anything, it seems stupid and arrogant to judge him for this based on my own country's standards. He has this song, Amerika, about how Americans love to just shove their culture down everyone's throats, and he's right on that. And I know several members of Rammstein communities have accused Americans of being cultural supremacists and trying to force their ways of thinking on everyone.
Honestly, this is why, going back to my original conclusion, I will say that anyone who actually has an issue with this behavior focus on getting the law changed. Seriously, wtf germany, why is this legal? I will criticize another country for having laws I find personally distasteful. And this is one of them. But I won't criticize citizens for doing lawful things in their own country, even if I find the practice distasteful. Imagine if some other country set the age at 21 and was like EW YOUR AGE OF CONSENT IS AT 18? PEDOPHILE. Yeah, that's what you sound like. And of course, that's what the radfems seem to be doing. Shelby Lynn called Till a pedo for being interested in her (allegedly) at the age of 24. And that sounds fricking stupid, no matter what country you're from. So imagine how we look criticizing europeans for having legal, consensual sex in their home countries that would otherwise be illegal here in the US. It looks very much the same.
Again, if you have an issue with the practice, change the laws, don't shame the people. And for the record, if i hypothetically had a 15 year old daughter, no, I would not want till to date her, that would be ridiculous. But then again, I'm also an american who has a significant cultural distaste for such things. And while I try to be as libertarian as possible in my own sexual ethics (in terms of the law and legality and what others can do), that is a bit too much even for me.
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