 Warren was an outspoken critic of accusations that the island 's girls had been sexually abused when young , and the prosecution of a selected number of Pitcairn 's male residents . She claimed that young girls on Pitcairn <unk> became sexually active after age 12 , a practice of <unk> sex that had been accepted as a Polynesian tradition since the settlement of the island in 1790 . One resident , Olive Christian , said of her girlhood , " We all thought sex was like food on the table . " 
