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this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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chapotraphouse
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I’m gen Z and my partner is a millennial guy #AgeGap #PowerDynamics
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(we were born in ‘98 and ‘95, respectively)
stuff like this really illustrates how fake generations are. you're in a "different generation" with someone 3 years older, but in the "same generation" as someone 15 years younger, while your partner is in the "same generation" as someone 15 years older
it's very interesting how the "power gap" arguers never use the same argument for other axes of power
like supposedly it's a huge power gap if a 30 year old dates a 23 year old
but it's not a power gap if a white guy dates a black girl
makes no sense whatsoever, literally nobody in the history of the world has been shot for being 23 years old
It comes up a lot in disability dating discourse. Like, who can someone who is developmentally delayed meaningfully date etc
Not that I necessarily agree with the age gap discourse (never participated), but isn't it a different thing with age since it's about maturation?
Also, I've definitely seen people at least talk about the power dynamics between rich americans dating people in lower income countries. That shit can go sideways fast especially if one individual had the power to decide the other's visa status.
Okay but how is maturity is a source of power? (assuming you can even tell someone's maturity level from age, which is itself a stereotype/very imperfect proxy)
for the record I think that men who exclusively look at young women are creepy but the discourse around it is the same quality as lib discourse on communism
yea but at like 1% the rate of the age gap stuff
Like all discourse there's yappers who are sometimes a little too extra, but obviously in the case of a teenager (who just graduated highschool) and someone who is in their late twenties (brain fully developed for years now) there is a major gap in terms of maturity and understanding.
Now obviously things are malleable and I'm not saying get the pitchforks out for a gap of 22 and 26 necessarily, but it's fairly well established that brains aren't fully developed until about the mid 20s, so I think we should consider that carefully when discussing.
And if you are dating around the legal age (18, 19, 20) and you aren't also like college age at most, imo that always screams "I would go lower but the law won't let me".
Once someone is in their mid to late 20s, there's definitely still the possibility of power dynamics at play with someone significantly older for money, connections, or experience reasons, but I think at that point you are basically universally considered a fully matured adult and probably have the wits to go around and do whatever you like.
I said it above with the brain development but, but I think that's crazy to just leave that out there with no conditionals. Like it's universally accepted that a 5 y/o is less mature and less equipped to understand shit than a 10 y/o and so on and so forth. Like again obviously it's a spectrum a bit, but peoples brains are literally not finished developed until they are years into adult hood and they (mostly young women) regularly get taken advantage of by older people who know how to take advantage of younger people.
There's like a million cases of 18 - early twenties women who spend years with an older partner building a life and then grow into realizing that they were taken advantage of and manipulated.
I mean, I ain't gonna go too deep into it because I'm not a fan of age gap discourse myself. But I think a sufficiently large maturation could certainly a large power dynamic (ex - adult and child) because I guess maturation allows one to set boundaries more clearly, recognise when they are crossed and enforce them.