chat

I agree with your premise and wouldn't personally do it. However, I don't think these situations are quite as taboo or quasi-pedophlic as you categorize them to be. It is acceptable depending on the context of that relationship, or as you place it: power dynamics.

Power dynamics is dependent on: If they are both two consenting adults who are financially and emotionally independent & stable of each other. If those conditions check out, then there really isn't much of a problem, and it doesn't qualify as quasi-pedophlic sexual predatory as you seem to be painting these relationships or sexual encounters to be.

I mean, I've met couples - with children - who are 19/28 & 23/31 and started out which way. These relationships do happen.

I concede it is weird, at first glance, or when it's like a 30+ year old who exclusively dates teenagers/undergraduates. Yet people involved in those age ranges are still adults with their full agency behind their actions when they consent to sexual intercourse or romantic engagements; if both partners are financially, socially, and emotionally stable and independent of one another, then categorizing this as creepy, weird, or quasi-pedophilic , feels dehumanizing and infantilizing to reduce teenaged adults into helpless victims of those elder partners.

My roommates met at around those ages (apparently they met in college and didn't realize the age gap until it was too late) and honestly I thought it was messed up for awhile but now they're 23 and 30, making a life for themselves, supporting the other at their lowest and loving each other

I'd still agree with you generally, I have no plans to recreate their relationship, but it is possible for it to work out

:shrug-outta-hecks:

I could believe a lot of such relationships aren't for the best, but I was dating 17 years my senior @ 18 and 31 years my senior @ 28. With that background, I'm fine with it personally.

HOLY FUCK

350 COMMENTS?!

SOIFNEIOSNFDN

if you would consider someone that age a child that means you should not be dating in that age group

26 and 19 seems fine, once you become an adult it's more about being in the same phase of life. 30+ year olds dating legal age teenagers is where it starts to get creepy though.

Half your age plus seven, a nineteen year old is an adult and they can make their own decisions. As long as the 26 year old isn't their boss or some other category with power over the 19 year old it's fine.

As a person just a bit older than the higher age mentioned here, I have to say I don't have anything in common with teenagers and frankly, outside of my own family members I don't even hang out with people in their early 20s. We just have had totally different life experiences: kids, a decade or more being ground into the dirt by wage labor, having lived without parental supervision for a large percentage of my life, having dealt with bureaucracy outside of a school environment, having had to cook for myself for more than a year, the feeling of drifting apart from old friends, etc etc means that we couldn't easily relate to one another. They just haven't personally experienced shit that the majority of people have by their late 20s/30s.

I wouldn't have felt this way when I was 19, I'd have found it condescending, and I absolutely think anyone my age pursuing a teen romantically is preying on that naivety.

Eh, I've been in a relationship with a wide age gap. The older person was a lot older, the younger person had more relationship/sexual experience, earned more money at a more stable job, had their own place, was in several other fairly stable intimate relationships, had a car etc. and in cases like that I don't see any harm being done because of age difference. Age is just an indicator of independence and social power, but it's pretty bad one.

As a former 19 y/o who was having sex with people that age and older- it entirely depends, but if you've done kink and consent education you probably have better boundary skills than most adult USians, and more experienced people showing you the ropes is nice.

But this is coming from a lesbian perspective and 19 y/o shouldn't be dating 26 y/o.

Yet, it's totally fine for 25-year-olds to date 20-year-olds.

Uhh in your title you’re talking about fucking but in the comments everyone is talking about dating.

There are issues with age gaps in dating/long term relationships. But if it’s just sex then it’s just sex. A 19 year old can consent to sex, and it doesn’t really matter if your partner is older because you’re not gonna have a long term relationship with them and you’re only gonna interact with them for one day.