I tend to be attracted to people around my own age, so I suppose I don’t have a horse in this race, but can we please stop shaming grown-ass adults for having relationships with age gaps
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I tend to be attracted to people around my own age, so I suppose I don’t have a horse in this race, but can we please stop shaming grown-ass adults for having relationships with age gaps?
As long as the people involved are all grown adults (which for most happens around 20-25), an age difference is not *inherently* exploitative or problematic. Individual relationships can be, but this is true regardless of the ages of the participants.
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Can a younger adult lack experience? Sure. Can an older adult exploit that? Definitely. And when that is actually happening, we should take issue with it. And with any other exploitative relationship! Young people can exploit older people, even, and that’s still wrong.
But a 35-year-old woman who connects with and eventually enters a relationship with a 26-year-old guy, for example, is not automatically exploiting the dude just because they’re 9 years apart in age. Don’t shame them.
A big part of this is that when you do that, you’re essentially infantilizing whoever the younger partner is based solely on their age. “Oh, this person is only 26, they’re CLEARLY not making smart decisions” is patriarchal bullshit.
Yes, we’re all a little dumb at 26. But it’s controlling and deeply inappropriate to take an “I know your life and your mind and your needs better than you”. Ask anyone with a narcissistic parent how useful that is.
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I tend to be attracted to people around my own age, so I suppose I don’t have a horse in this race, but can we please stop shaming grown-ass adults for having relationships with age gaps?
As long as the people involved are all grown adults (which for most happens around 20-25), an age difference is not *inherently* exploitative or problematic. Individual relationships can be, but this is true regardless of the ages of the participants.
Can a younger adult lack experience? Sure. Can an older adult exploit that? Definitely. And when that is actually happening, we should take issue with it. And with any other exploitative relationship! Young people can exploit older people, even, and that’s still wrong.
But a 35-year-old woman who connects with and eventually enters a relationship with a 26-year-old guy, for example, is not automatically exploiting the dude just because they’re 9 years apart in age. Don’t shame them.
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A big part of this is that when you do that, you’re essentially infantilizing whoever the younger partner is based solely on their age. “Oh, this person is only 26, they’re CLEARLY not making smart decisions” is patriarchal bullshit.
Yes, we’re all a little dumb at 26. But it’s controlling and deeply inappropriate to take an “I know your life and your mind and your needs better than you”. Ask anyone with a narcissistic parent how useful that is.
The way to put it most simply is this:
If the age gap is an obstacle/something yall have to overcome in the relationship, its probably fine
But if the age gap is a selling point, someone is getting exploited
Edit to add: its never ok to say "theyre young/old for their age" no, theyre not. Theyre either under- or over-developed for their age, or else use non-age-related words to explain the vibe bc its not actually age-related (eg. are they "old fashioned" or regressive?)
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@irenetherogue yes and also age is a poor proxy for almost everything that matters in determining if a relationship is exploitative. Those calls should be based on individual relationship factors, as long as the participants are adults.
@irenetherogue There IS a genuine concern about very young people not possibly having the maturity to make some kinds of decisions about things like sex and romance. It’s why we have things like an age of consent in the first place, and it’s fair to treat it as a flag when one party is just barely over that bar.
But a whole lot of people seem to want to control younger people’s sexual and romantic lives, and that’s an actual problem.
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The way to put it most simply is this:
If the age gap is an obstacle/something yall have to overcome in the relationship, its probably fine
But if the age gap is a selling point, someone is getting exploited
Edit to add: its never ok to say "theyre young/old for their age" no, theyre not. Theyre either under- or over-developed for their age, or else use non-age-related words to explain the vibe bc its not actually age-related (eg. are they "old fashioned" or regressive?)
@irenetherogue yes and also age is a poor proxy for almost everything that matters in determining if a relationship is exploitative. Those calls should be based on individual relationship factors, as long as the participants are adults.
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@irenetherogue yes and also age is a poor proxy for almost everything that matters in determining if a relationship is exploitative. Those calls should be based on individual relationship factors, as long as the participants are adults.
Its not a proxy for things but the importance of the age difference is a highly significant & reliable indicator of where the power in the relationship resides, and how much danger the person with less power is in. Also people in safe situations dont need to do anything to prove how safe they are beyond to just exist safely. People with concerns about whether a powerless person is being exploited are not a danger to safe relationships or their dynamics, but they do expose exploitation
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@irenetherogue there are two assertions there I don’t think are true.
First, that in a relationship between two adults, that an age gap is either highly significant or reliable as an indicator of whether there is a power imbalance and if so who has more power.
Second, that people openly shaming safe relationships doesn’t cause harm.
Both those assertions fly directly in the face of my lived experience, and don’t seem well supported by empirical evidence.
@irenetherogue for the first, I have seen far more relationships where exploitation is rooted in taking advantage of the target’s emotional state than any other factor. And age has little bearing on this: I’ve seen plenty of older people who have just experienced significant loss being exploited by younger people, not just the reverse.
People with power can exploit others. Power does not automatically come with age, despite some very powerful people being older men (thanks, patriarchy)
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Its not a proxy for things but the importance of the age difference is a highly significant & reliable indicator of where the power in the relationship resides, and how much danger the person with less power is in. Also people in safe situations dont need to do anything to prove how safe they are beyond to just exist safely. People with concerns about whether a powerless person is being exploited are not a danger to safe relationships or their dynamics, but they do expose exploitation
@irenetherogue there are two assertions there I don’t think are true.
First, that in a relationship between two adults, that an age gap is either highly significant or reliable as an indicator of whether there is a power imbalance and if so who has more power.
Second, that people openly shaming safe relationships doesn’t cause harm.
Both those assertions fly directly in the face of my lived experience, and don’t seem well supported by empirical evidence.
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