>All those references from stallman.org seems like perfectly reasonable opinions to hold and express though. Seems like you'd have to be fairly deep into radical leftism to read it as anything that "speaks for itself" that the author is due for an extra large helping of sexual taboo condemnations and being ousted from his job.

Alright, I guess we're gonna have to unpack this.

In the item "prudish ignorantism" [0,1] Stallman suggests that a British woman having sex with adolescents is not an issue as long as they used protection, and that adolescents don't need to be "protected" from sex. The adolescents involved were reportedly as young as eleven. It is not perfectly reasonable to consider sex between a sixty year old woman, her seventy year old husband and children as young as eleven to be appropriate.

[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.o...

[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/https://www.thegu...

In the item "pestering women" [2,3] Stallman dismisses the behavior of a man who constantly pesters women for sex as not being an issue because he didn't force them to have sex, or punish them for refusal. While it is true that both of those would be worse than the behavior described, the behavior described is nevertheless a form of sexual harassment and it is not perfectly reasonable to consider such behavior harmless.

[2]https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman....

[3]https://web.archive.org/web/20180124091250/https://www.thegu...

In the item "age and attraction" [4,5], Stallman is upset that men should ever be expected to find a woman over the age of eighteen to be attractive, and likens the societal norm that considers relationships between older men and younger women to be akin to an attempt at conversion therapy for gays.

[4]https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stall...

[5]https://web.archive.org/web/20180911103348/https://www.thegu...

In the item "sex according to porn" [6,7] Stallman believes adolescents should be allowed to pursue sexual relationships and are harmed by the unrealistic image presented to them in pornography.

While I do actually agree, in theory, that pornography creates unrealistic sexual expectations, especially for men (but I would have to bring up certain trigger words that HN doesn't like to read to have that conversation) most reasonable people would consider the "cure" of having adolescents pursue sexual relationships with adults for the sake of sexual education far worse than the problem of adolescents being exposed to, and misinformed about sex from, porn to begin with.

[6]https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stall...

[7]https://web.archive.org/web/20181113190231/https://www.thegu...

In "Respecting people's right to say no" [8, 9] Stallman expresses outrage that anyone would condemn someone claiming he cannot be attracted to a woman over 50. In a vacuum, this probably wouldn't be an issue - he's right, there's no accounting for tastes. But given Stallman's prior views on the sort of relationships that most would consider pedophilic at worst, or maybe (because some people like to be pedantic on this point) ephebophilic, it implies that he is once again defending what many would consider inappropriate relationships, not simply someone liking women a few years younger.

[8]https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman....
[9]https://web.archive.org/web/20190321061957/https://www.thegu...

In "stretching meaning of terms" Stallman does not accept that a doctor who reportedly secretly spied on young male athletes at Ohio State, was engaged in sexual abuse of any sort, because he wasn't actually touching them while doing so. In other words, he wouldn't consider spying on women without their consent to be harmful either, so long as physical contact wasn't involved.

I'm not going to continue because I shouldn't need to, but the point I'm trying to belabor is that all of these examples, anecdotal evidence [10] provided by others regarding their interactions with Stallman, the emails which led to the viral outrage[12] leading to his resignation [11] and his infamous (and now redacted) belief that pedophilia is not harmful [13], all point to views on his part which would not require one to be "fairly deep into radical leftism" to object to, and would not be considered perfectly reasonable by most people.

One can object to such views leading to his dismissal, but it is simply not the case that RMS's views and behavior are harmless idiosyncrasies blown out of proportion by radical feminists, leftists, a secret cabal of corporate agitators looking to undermine Free Software, or whatever bogeyman the community chooses to latch on to. The fact is, the culture around tech and RMS in general simply does not consider his "sexual taboos" or objections to his behavior to be relevant in the light of his status in the community of Free Software.

[10]https://mobile.twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/11736371384133...

[11]https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/091320191...

[12]https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec2...

[13]https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...