Sex With A Child, 'Not Obvious It's Wrong' Says SUNY Professor

A video is circulating online of a SUNY Fredonia professor talking about an adult male having sex with a 12-year-old girl, saying "it's not obvious to him that it's wrong." The 30-second video surfaced on Twitter. In the clip below, professor Stephen Kershnar says,

"Imagine that an adult male wants to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. Imagine that she's a willing participant. A very standard, a very widely held view that there's something deeply wrong about this. And it's wrong independent of it being criminalized. It's not obvious to me that it's in fact wrong. I think this is a mistake and I think that it's more of a 'why' it's a mistake will tell us not only things about adult-child sex and statutory rape, but also about fundamental principals of morality."

SUNY Fredonia's President, Stephen Kolison, called the video 'reprehensible' in a statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday, February 1, 2022. The statement says,

SUNY Fredonia is aware of a video posted online involving one of its professors. The views expressed by the professor are reprehensible and do not represent the values of SUNY Fredonia in any way, shape or form. They are solely the professor's views. The matter is being reviewed.

Professor Kershnar has written books about adult-child sex, along with other controversial topics like abortion and pornography, according to his bio on SUNY Fredonia's website,

Stephen Kershnar is a distinguished teaching professor in the philosophy department at the State University of New York at Fredonia and an attorney. He focuses on applied ethics and political philosophy. Kershnar has written one hundred articles and book chapters on such diverse topics as abortion, adult-child sex, hell, most valuable player, pornography, punishment, sexual fantasies, slavery, and torture.

Honestly, I am surprised the University is surprised. It says in his official bio that pedophelia (or as they put it adult-child sex) is a subject that he has written about. This bio is on his official SUNY Fredonia page.