Indeed, it’s something I think about quite a bit. The conclusion I’ve come to involves consent: If all people involved in something fully understand and consent to what is happening, then they should not be “judged” for it.
And yes, I know there are holes and loopholes in that conclusion, but I think it’s nearly impossible to have a logically sound and consistent moral framework.
Academia Is Not Law, especially when it comes to subjective things involving marginalised groups. There can be and are massive systematic and institutional failures that mean many papers are misleading.
Most people broadly agree that the treatment of people with mental conditions, black people, lgbt people, etc was shocking and unacceptable even 50 years ago… And yet some people assume we’ve “fixed” that nowadays and everything is above board and perfectly fair and ethical.