“a 24 year old shouldn’t fuck a 17 year old, regardless of whether it’s technically legal or not” should not be a controversial statement
Hey I wonder if OP is American? 🤔
It’s not about American standards, it’s about the simple fact that it idealizes blatant power differentials.
Also, 17 is not biologically an adult.
All the people in the notes for these posts always arguing the semantics of pedophilia vs. ephebophilia, or age of consent laws etc… it’s really truly worrying to me that any of you think a grown 24 year old could have anything but ill or malicious intentions for any 17 year old with whom they choose to enter into a sexual relationship. GROWN PEOPLE HAVE NO BUSINESS SEEKING OR ACCEPTING SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH TEENAGERS, THIS IS NOT A HARD CONCEPT TO GRASP.
When I was 25, I went on exactly 2 dates with a 19 year old (universally considered “adult”). He sought me out, pursued me for several weeks, and made it very clear he was eager to have a sexual relationship with me – the ENTIRE time I felt that *I* was being gross. I !FELT! the weirdness of dating someone so much younger than me, the difference in our life experience levels/maturity levels – I SAW HIM AS A CHILD AND COULDNT BRING MYSELF TO SEE HIM AS AN EQUAL OR POTENTIAL SEXUAL PARTNER AND ENDED IT. Any time that I’ve had an 18/19yo hit on me, I’ve felt immediately the wrongness of letting myself see any of them as sexual prospects. The fact that so many of you cannot see the problem with a person in their 20s allowing themselves to sexualize someone who is so many VAST levels of development behind them (physiologically, socially, emotionally, experientially) is troubling and you all REALLY need to ask yourselves why youre fighting SO damn hard to defend such disgustingly damaging relationship dynamics and predatory tactics
No, the point of differentiating between Pedophilia and Ephebophilia etc, is that PEDOPHILIA IS MUCH MUCH WORSE.
Look. 17 year olds can be sexy. I had a friend at 17 who went out and pulled – well, everyone he could. He had fun. He was sexually active by his own choice. I completely agree that if he’d got into an actual relationship with a 24 year old it’d be bad, the power imbalance is damaging, the life experience difference, it wouldn’t be a healthy relationship. That 24 year old should go “Ohh hot! Wait how old is he?” But the fact that 24 year olds looked at him and thought “ohh hot!” is not unnatural.
HOWEVER PEDOPHILES LOOK AT 7 YEAR OLDS LIKE THAT. THAT IS SICK. And when popular opinion lumps someone attracted to a 17 year old in the same category as someone attracted to a 7 year old, it’s very easy to argue false equivalence, to dismiss the argument entirely. It’s VITAL to make the difference clear between attraction to someone who is borderline age of consent (bit creepy) and attraction to pre-pubescent children (no.)
It’s a complicated issue, because there’s two forms of “Wrong” here, and if you only see black and white, right and wrong, you can’t process that one wrong is worse than another. But it is. Underage/barely legal/teens dating older people is wrong, damaging, and predatory, but it’s nowhere near as awful as actual pedophilia. Pedophiles can rationalise what they do as controversial but not actually wrong when what they’re doing is in the same category as noticing a sexually active 17 year old is hot.
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