this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Why are we infantilizing adults? Interpersonal relationships are complex and nuanced; we can acknowledge and even warn against the potential dangers of severe age-gap relationships without insulting the autonomy and choices of those involved. These neo-puritanical bullshit tendencies creeping in on the left needs to stop; it's a trojan horse for the next generation of conservatives. Reject non-nuanced conservative-bate thinking.
Serious question, who do you think is being infantilized here?
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.
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?
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?
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.