<p>All I’ll say is you better have thick skin because people will give you no shortage of **** for dating someone twice your age.</p>
<p>Hell, my dad and stepmom find it a little odd that I’m 18 dating a 16 year old. Who’s only a sophomore in high school (I should be a senior; I was ahead a grade though). We know we love each other though, and the age difference really isn’t that big a deal (she’s very mature). And finally, my dad shouldn’t be one to talk considering he married at the getting-there age of 30 and ended up divorced. Oopsy-****in-daisy.</p>
Sorry, maybe you’re just blinded by your own arrogance. I definitely didn’t catch whatever you found funny…</p>
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Really? Maybe in your sadistic relationships that’s a true fact. Care to justify your hasty generalization? Without doing that, your entire argument is discredited.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I’ve managed plenty of honest relationships (platonic) with people of generations both older and younger than mine, of vastly different maturity levels. I’ve also met a fair share of manipulative peers of my own maturity level. I really don’t think manipulation correlates with age or maturity difference, sorry. I think it’s a function of the type of personality that you assume is the only type to involve themselves in an inter-generational relationship, which you have also yet to prove.</p>
<p>I would advise you to broaden your definition of manipulation, then. Why is it that no one under a certain age can consent to sex, no matter how innocuous the situation? Why is it, indeed, that the word “consent” loses its meaning when applied to someone under a certain age? A minor simply cannot give consent no matter how loudly he or she says, “Yes!”. Why? Because no matter how innocent a relationship between an adult and a minor may seem, the relationship is always manipulative due to unequal maturity levels. So yes, your elders had a manipulative relationship with you in this sense of the word. But no, it was not a problem because your relationships did not escalate to the level of intimacy as that of a romantic relationship. Just for the record, if a 40 year old man’s best friends were all 20 year olds, I would find that creepy as well, though not as creepy as if he were dating 20 year olds.</p>
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<p>What a shame, I thought the mixture of moral indignation and Pokemon was quite amusing. Maybe you’ll grow to appreciate it if you got off your high horse once in a while. But for now, I still think it’s worth repeating:</p>
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<p>OHHHH, YEAH… young, fresh little bulbasaur… married to a grizzled, middle-aged blastoise… picture it.</p>
<p>creepy creepy creepy!!!
I think the guy is either a huge loser and can’t get a girl a bit older than the girl or he is a really creepy weirdo.
I think the girl is weird for going out with him or ugly… (and also ***, what 20 yr old goes out with a 40 yr old??)</p>
<p>Well you wanted an HONEST opinion!! what does my stupid opinion matter to u anyway??</p>
<p>Guys - the older genetleman is not going over some 18 or 20 year old girl because he “can’t get other girls.”</p>
<p>If anything, girls beyond 28 (who are single) are probably extraordinarily desperate.</p>
<p>Let’s just face facts.</p>
<p>There are only TWO reasons a 40 year old man will date some 20 year old girl.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Physical appearance, physical appearance, physical appearance. They have a young hot non-sagging non-chubby body. College girls look much better than 30 somethings, physically, on average, to any age group of men.</p></li>
<li><p>In the relationship the 40 year old may take the roll of father figure, or authority roll, mentor, etc. ----- BOTTOM LINE, the girl will be very obedient, constantly defer to his authority, won’t b!tch at him at all or tell him to clean things, no nagging — will be very compliant to his demands. For a guy this is a very good thing.</p></li>
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<p>So - that might be why people think the relationship is creepy ---- or, maybe, some people find nothing wrong with those two reasons at all. I feel uneasy because I think there is manipulation involved but then again, if the 20 year old is enjoying the ride then who cares.</p>
<p>I’m 18 and felt uncomfortable going on a date with a 22-year-old. I think that’s too extreme of ME though lol. definitely</p>
<p>but ummm, like someone else said, you’re either at different points in your lives now…or you will soon be. if you guys do stay together and decide to have kids, your current bf would be old enough to be the grandfather…weird thought, for me. and what of the mid-life crisis era? idk I feel like you guys should suffer through the good and bad together, on the same wavelength, same phase, same time, but I’m super weird with relationships and I don’t even know what I want anymore so there!</p>
Just because there is potential for manipulation doesn’t mean it necessarily will happen. You can’t assume manipulation is involved.</p>
<p>Children can’t consent to sex as a protective measure. The justifications most people come up with for the law are kind of ridiculous and very unscientific, IMO. Personally, I disagree with how sexual consent is handled legally, but it’s irrelevant to this.</p>
<p>By your reasoning, children should be able to consent with each other and inter-generational consent should be illegal for all ages (slavery isn’t only illegal for minors).</p>
<p>Honestly, I think you are the one who needs to narrow your definition of manipulation. Just because someone is being used doesn’t mean they’re being manipulated. Manipulation (in this context) implies dishonesty/deception or abuse of power/knowledge.</p>
<p>I don’t think I can stress enough that you can’t assume manipulation will occur just because there is potential for it. People have opportunities to be manipulative all the time, with any generation, in any type of relationship, yet they manage to abstain.</p>
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Lol… Pokemon Profile Pic December just ended on Facebook. I completely didn’t even think about his name ;).</p>
<p>There are so many social, emotional, instinctive and pragmatic reasons why it’s senseless and there’s only possible counterargument: you love him. Love is intangible, an irrational emotion, and the only ones who can make any sense of it, with respect to your relationship, is you and (hopefully) him. People will subconsciously judge you because all they see are the million reasons why not and are inherently unable to gauge your love. Only after a lot of convincing will anyone take you two seriously. </p>
<p>A word from the wise, you can always find someone else you can fall in love with that will make you feel just as happy or happier and also fall within your social group. It might be cliche advice, but there are millions of other people that could be “right” for you.</p>
<p>Woah… Nothing is held together by logical necessity, not even science. In our reactions to a forum post made by a mr. bulbasaur, I think a few generalizations are in order.</p>
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<p>See, I disagree here, and I think this statement highlights our differences. </p>
<p>The age of consent does not work as a protective measure. It most emphatically is not imposed because sex between a minor and an adult is most likely manipulative. It’s imposed because sex between a minor and an adult is inherently manipulative. Again, there is no circumstance in which the law, or society, would deem such a relationship acceptable–even if the minor asked for it; even if there are no lies or deceptions involved. Your definition of manipulation, then, is too narrow to account for the spirit of this law. And, I’m saying, it’s too narrow to account for our feelings towards the OP’s situation.</p>
How could that possibly highlight our differences? The OP is not a minor. Anyway, you are contradicting yourself. Your first argument was:
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<p>You are cracking me up, man. The general belief is that the law is imposed because adult-child sex is inherently harmful, not manipulative. I’ve actually seen a peer-reviewed meta-analysis that disproved that (inherent harmfulness), but again, it’s completely irrelevant.</p>
<p>You aren’t keeping a straight argument and are continuing to misuse an important term. This is going nowhere.</p>
<p>I think some people are missing the point that a few of us have made. I know the person asked what other CCers opinions on it and that opinion has been given. But what a few of us are saying is that legally speaking if both parties are over the age of 18 they can date. There is no law that says a 18 year old male/female cannot date a 40 year old male/female. Therefore there is no legal ground on which this is wrong and in my opinion no moral ground as well. I don’t care if someone is 18 and wants to date a 90 year old, as long as both parties want the relationship and like the dynamics of that relationship, go for it.</p>
<p>I know that by large and far many people have a distaste for such a relationship, but lets remember that no so far in the past this was normal.</p>
<p>BTW, the fact that this is a male/male relationship is irrelevant to anything that is being discussed.</p>
<p>I agree with most of what SimpleLife said in post #30. </p>
<p>Even so, the older you are, the less disturbing any age difference becomes. For example, if you were 50, no-one would care that your boyfriend is 69. That’s because your experiences tend to be less life-changing as you get older – in other words, things even out, and the development and the maturity of the younger person are no longer an issue.</p>
<p>In my opinion, once both of you are over 25, the age difference won’t be such a big deal.</p>
<p>Manipulative may not have been the best word. It was the first one that came to mind in my initial post, so I stuck with it. Harmful may be broad enough to handle the general scenario of a relationship with a maturity gap. Sure, lets call it harmful then.</p>
<p>Substitute harmful for manipulative, and my argument still stands. There was no contradiction. Relationships between the mature and the immature are inherently harmful–so says the law because those deemed immature can never consent, as it’s a crime even when it’s proven that no lies or deception or force was involved. But the law uses age as an imperfect proxy for maturity. Eighteen is no magic number because one cannot reasonably assume that there is a maturity gap between a seventeen and a twenty year old. But in the case of the OP, one can clearly assume a maturity gap between a twenty and a forty year old.</p>
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<p>And so if the law uses the concept of inherent harm, I think we are justified in using it too. Therefore, there is no need to investigate the presence of lies, cheating, deception. We know that the two parties are of vastly different levels of maturity, and that is enough to invoke negative feelings.</p>
<p>As you said, whether the concept of inherent harm is even valid is beside the point.</p>