Consent, Abuse and Trafficking: Megyn, You Put US in Danger Girl

Eighteen! In the United States, 18 is the age of adulthood; 18 to join the military, 18 to vote, 18 to kick foster kids out of the system. We need to talk about Megyn Kelly who famously said this week, Jeffrey Epstein was ‘not a pedophile because he liked 15-year-old girls. I realize this is disgusting.’ The video from the Megyn Kelly show gives the full context.

I’m was literally at a loss for words. I’d just had a conversation with a a college student who worked to reunite trafficked children with their parents. The worst part, there were times when parents admitted they sold their children. “…and I do’t mean a few, I mean more than 50 times I was not he phone with parents who said they sold their children.” The I hear this? Jeffrey Epstein was charged with abuse, exploitation and sex trafficking of minors. That would be prostitution and child abuse. 

It was after the infamous OJ Simpson trial for the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, that congress finally approved the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994. This was the first legislation to acknowledge domestic violence as a federal crime. Until then it was not a crime to abuse your spouse. Marital rape did not become a crime in all 50 states until 1993.

Have the laws in the US always been slow to grant equity to women? Women did not get the vote until 1920, that’s 144 years after the founding of the country. Credit cards were introduced in 1950; women could not get credit cards int heir own names nationwide until 1974, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) was passed. Right now, In 2025,  sixteen states have banned marriage for anyone under the age of 18. The other 34 allow individuals below age 18¹ to marry. It seems logic defying that 34 states have no age restrictions for marriage, yet all states have laws criminalizing sex with a minor.

The latest available data, updated in reports through late 2025, indicates that over 314,000 children were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2021. These figures show that child marriage remains a persistent issue in the U.S. due to legal loopholes in 34 states,

1. Total Number: Approximately 315,000 minors were married during this period.
2. Gender Disparity: The vast majority of those married were girls (around 86%), and most were wed to adult men, often significantly older.
3. Ages Involved: Most minors were aged 16 or 17, but some children were as young as 10 years old on their wedding day.
4. Covering Up Crimes: At least 20% of these marriages occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that would otherwise be considered a sex crime (statutory rape), as marriage licenses often serve as a “get out of jail free” card for the perpetrator under state law.

Predators “groom” their victims. As a country, does our legislative history constitute part of our ‘grooming?” If she is married, it’s ok for a 13 year old to have sex with her 40 year old husband? Which takes us back to Ms. Kelly who expressed she considered Epstein disgusting because of sex with 15 year olds, but that doesn’t make him a pedophile and no one under 12 has come forward? What? These are trafficked children who were raped, who have trauma.

Trauma! You know Megyn Kelly like the lasting trauma² you said you experienced after being sexually harassed by Roger Ailes. The fear you had that kept you from reporting anything. Is this a moment of disassociation or complicity?

Thank you Meghn Kelley for igniting the conversation. It’s chilling when you hear the survivors speak and how they highlight that Ghislaine Maxwell seemed like someone you could trust, yet she was worse than Epstein. But, since the “adults’ in the room won’t speak up; the girls are. Hosts of teen girls are posting on social media showing their innocence and explaining consent to Ms Kelly.

If you look at the laws, we have a system built by predators to protect predators and that is changing. We need more people like the two Swedish grad students who saw Brock Turner raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and intervened. They stopped and detained Brock Turner until the police arrived. We need fewer judges like the one who said, well, he’s a good kid and doesn’t have a record, I don’t want to ruin his life, so Brock served only three months in jail. We need more people like the graduate assistant who witnessed Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a child and reported it and less like school president Graham Spanier, vice president Gary Schultz, and athletic director Tim Curley who did nothing. Because yes, child abuse and sex trafficking involve boys also. Insert here all the stories of the abuse of boys and nuns by priest and the system that moved the abusers from parish to parish.

Sex trafficking includes both boys and girls. These predators are skilled at making themselves look like victims. They claim, their name and reputation is being damaged. They did nothing wrong, this is just a play for money, they went along for the fame, the opportunity, they knew what they were doing. It’s a playbook. Real life doesn’t mark the clues or have a sound track for danger. Normalizing bad behavior, locker room talk, boys will be boys, 5 if different than 15 is part go grooming. Meghyn, you are putting the US in danger girl.³

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¹The national age of consent ranging from 16 to 18, depending on the state and many states have specific “close-in-age” exemptions, particularly for teenagers close in age to one another.

²Key statements and feelings she has expressed include:

• Feeling demeaning and powerless: She described the internal conflict of being an accomplished lawyer, only to be asked to do a demeaning “spin” in his office, which made her feel powerless at the moment.
• Regret and wishing she had done more: Kelly has tearfully reflected that, in retrospect, she wishes she had acted differently. She expressed, “Even though I was powerless, even though it would have been a suicidal move for me career-wise… What if I had thrown myself in the fire back then? Maybe that wouldn’t have happened to you” to other victims.
• Fear of career suicide: She noted that speaking up at the time would have been a “major risk” and potentially career-ending, a fear that was shared by many women in the organization.
• Psychological impact: She described the “cat-and-mouse game” Ailes played, veering between professional advice and sexually charged comments, making it difficult to define the harassment clearly at first. The moment he physically “crossed a new line” by trying to grab and kiss her in a locked office was a defining moment where she could no longer pretend it wasn’t happening.
• Urging other women to report: As a result of her experience, she has urged women to “find a way” to report sexual misconduct, believing the culture is changing and encouraging courage in others.
• Impact on other women: The movie Bombshell, which depicted the scandal, included a scene where a fictional character (representing other victims) blamed Kelly for not coming forward sooner. While Kelly stated that scene was “written by a man” and not accurate to the support system among victims, she did acknowledge looking back with regret that her silence might have allowed the behavior to continue for others. 

³The original quote, “Molly, you in danger girl,” was said by Whoopi Goldberg to Demi Moore in the movie Ghosts.