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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.
Because while it may result in a stable, positive, loving relationship (or just mutually great, harmless sex that's what they're after), it's a strong predictor when people are actively seeking a relationship with that kind of gap. Think about the likely reasons someone would seek that kind of thing, and the likely outcomes. I think it's reasonable to look at this sort of thing with suspicion, but not to immediately dust off the pitchforks and light the torches.
Not all middle-aged single men distributing candy from the back of their windows van are paedophiles, but it's both reasonable and responsible to look at what they're doing with suspicion.
It's interesting you'd bring politics into this when conservatives seem so wrapped up in protecting child brides, child beauty pageants, fetishise youth, and appear to be massively over-represented represented in paedophilia stats.
If you thought I was defending conservatives, you're wrong. There's nuance to this; the topic is sexual dynamics but the purpose is dominance. This is a conservative kind of principle because it's about limiting autonomy of consenting adults, enforcing social morals, and boogyman logic. We should be embracing and striving for a better, freer, more autonomous world, where everyone, women included, are empowered rather than limited, not just settling for a slightly preferable version of the patriarchy.
Which means embracing a nuanced world. Which is why I said acknowledge and even warn against the potential dangers of severe age-gap relationships; we don't have to be blind to real world dangers, but that we shouldn't let fear of those dangers drive us into blind ignorance again or else we're just repeating the same cycle. Hence the trojan horse. We get better when we accept difficult concepts rather than accept simplified extractions for the masses.
edit: just in case my position is somehow still unclear, yes I'm using conservative as effectively synonymous with "bad" here. I'll consider caring when they consider better conduct and positions.
I dunno. Speaking as a male, the reason I see older men seeking far younger women is that it's easy to seem like the smartest guy in the room when you're also the oldest guy in the room. You can project an air of worldliness that makes you seem smarter and wiser than you really are. You can get younger women, legal women, fawning over you because they're young and haven't really experienced enough of life and people to be wise to the bullshit. They avoid women around their own age because they've been around, they know all the tricks.
Yeah, which falls under the risks I mentioned not to be ignorant to.
But also, sometimes you're a 23 year old who gets put on assignment at work with a 31 year old coworker and are surprised how well you hit it off.
My point wasn't "yay age gap relationships!," it was to evaluate the world around you with the necessary nuanced rather than reductively.
I don't understand what you are arguing about it than. The post doesn't say we should vote for age gaps in relationships to be banned. Supposedly you think it's good to talk about the downsides of these relationships, but here you are, calling it a "conservative Trojan horse". It seems like you actually do not want people to criticise it.