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this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Subtext. This meme isn't about the image, it's about the culture upon which it is commenting. And a large reaction to that culture is beyond discouraging of age-gap relationships, it's prohibitive of them. This reaction wants to redefine adulthood as post 25, label anyone above 25 who shows interest in those under as automatically and inherently predatory (as opposed to potentially predatory), and in doing so severely infantilizes anyone under 25 as "incomplete" adults, as if adulthood is some kind of clear journey with a specific and obvious destination, who they deem incapable of evaluating risks and circumstances and making autonomous choices.
It's even more than that, it wants to make adulthood some kind of sliding window where the age of the older partner defines how "adult" and "capable of making decisions" we see the younger partner, and the older a person gets the more people at the lower end of the age range get excluded for them from this fictional adulthood. For example: 60 and 30 would also be seen as inappropriate.
Now it's perfectly normal for younger people not to find much older people attractive or suitable to have a relationship with and vice versa, and they may even find the idea repulsive, but this is still a personal preference. It's probably even the preference of the majority of people, but that does not mean we should take away the agency of adults to choose their partners when they have a different, non-conforming preference. At that point it has nothing to do anymore with protecting vulnerable people from predators, but about imposing your own preferences and dating standards on other people, and you're quite right in calling it out for the neo-puritanical and conservative thinking that it is.
Well-stated ๐
dis guy arguments.
It's interesting, I agree with what you say here and this is what I thought you were saying... But when I read it the first time without additional context it kind of sounded like the argument was that we are infantilizing the older individuals. It appeared that the argument could have been: we make the "rules" and apply them to the older half because they are the ones who are incapable of dealing with their emotions, needs and desires.
You are right that it is in the subtext. This is the same poor argument that men are unable to control their desires if a woman wears revealing clothing... Just restructured around women being "taken advantage of" by a "smarter more mature male".
It might also have been why the other commenter thought you were defending the conservative position. There are two steps here that you made when the intermediate step could also apply and would be an honestly revolting position to defend. I couldn't quite figure out if it was a reasonable position or a very well hidden dog whistle.
I guess all I can say to that is that while I try best to communicate my meaning clearly, I am a fallible human who will sometimes fall short of perfect wording. Thank you for reading my words with an open mind and inquiring for more information where necessary rather than jumping to conclusions, I guess.
Honestly I'm okay with making the age of legal adulthood 25 years, and I'm part of one of the last generations that could buy cigarettes in the US at 18. A long time ago, people didn't live as long as they do now, so it was just kinda mutually agreed upon that an 18 year old kid was smart enough to read and enter into a contract. Military enlistment? Contract. Marriage? Contract. Home loan? Contract. Can you honestly say that at 18 you knew what you were signing up for with every contract and agreement you were signing?
All of the 18-year olds will disagree. It would be quite cruel to take away their deserved freedoms of adulthood.
Sure if you're older than 25 or 30 you know that you're not fully mature at 18, but freedom is more important than being protected from all bad decisions.
I agree WRT things like voting. I believe if you're old enough to be drafted or to voluntarily enlist you're old enough to have a voice in government. But perhaps the draft age should be raised, if not outright abolished. The age to enlist should definitely be raised, as I feel exposing a kid, even one on the cusp of adulthood, to the horrors of war is abhorrent, doubly so if they are being conscripted.
Can you honestly say that at 25? At 35?
Why do you believe the period of intellectual growth should exist only throughout "childhood" and not beyond?
This isn't so much about intellectual growth, as it is is about contract law. How many kids ended up over $100k in debt before 25 because they didn't fully read and understand the pieces of paper they were told to sign to go to college? The biggest lie on the Internet is, "I have read, understood, and agree to the Terms of Service." I think, for some kids, it's too much to ask that they learn how to read a contract, unless you want to make it a graduation requirement, but that's a whole other conversation.
It sounds to me like that's an issue of predatory lending and business practices; why don't we attempt addressing those issues rather than arbitrarily deeming people too underdeveloped to understand such things for literally a third of their estimated life-span
I think education is part of the problem. The legal age of adulthood is 18 in the US, but we don't teach kids to be adults before then. We teach them how to pass standardized testing so the schools can say they're not failing and continue to receive the most state and federal funding they can. Public schools in the US got really bad a teaching actual life skills along the way, mostly because we had a bunch of conservatives saying it's the parent's job to do that. I haven't kept up with education for a while, so I don't even know if kids are learning how to balance a checkbook.
I fully agree, and would argue that this is all part of the infantilization efforts I'm describing.
Our priorities are ass backwards when it comes to education. "Bean counters see a school whose students aren't passing the standardized testing? Slash their funding, that'll make them work harder!"
How did you go from dating to contract law lmao
I got there from a point of, "at what point do we consider ourselves adults?" It's kinda fucked that we say, "Yes, a kid fresh out of high school with hardly any actual life skills is perfectly competent to sign contracts, to understand the law and be held liable when they break it, date and possibly get married, enlist in military service, sign for loans, register to vote, and all this other good shit, but they're not old enough to drink alcohol or smoke tobacco." I mean, it's settled science that at 18 years the brain is still developing, and doesn't really stop developing until around 25. So, obviously I feel like that should be where we say adulthood should start.
I mean, if we're not going to change it, then obviously we need to refocus public education in the US. Stop teaching kids to pass the standardized testing that state and federal government use to assign schools funding and focus more on teaching kids how to actually adult. How to make budgets, how to file taxes, how to read and comprehend contracts, etc.
Well there is scientific reasons to set the age at 25 because apparently that's when our brains are actually fully grown. It's much more arbitrary to put it at a random number like 18 or 21 which has no basis in science or rationality whatsoever, it was just picked randomly.