Gen Z Is Particularly Weird About Relationship Age Gaps. Here's Why

[Jim Burton]

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 8f8487a746

Is a five-year age gap in a relationship a little untoward? What about a three-year gap?

On social media, Gen Zers ― at least those who are chronically online ― are constantly debating the ethics of age gaps. Even if some relationships are perfectly legal, that doesn’t necessarily make them ethical, many say.

It’s little wonder then that age-disparate relationships are cause for so much conversation: Having grown up alongside the #MeToo movement, Generation Z is well versed in unbalanced power dynamics and the language of consent. And lately, there’s been plenty of celebrity pairings to interrogate.

[Fragment]

Gen Z are weird.

[PorcelainLark]

It's definitely people who don't date that are having these debates. I've dated a Gen Z girl who had a nearly 10 year age gap with me, and before me she dated people older than me without her friends making any comment about it.
Dating is hard enough as it is without having these arbitrary rules about age gaps. If you don't date, I don't think your opinion on this should have as much weight as people who do date.

[Red Rodent]

Gen Z are weird.

I think they're just responding perfectly reasonably to the crazy world that we Millennials and those before us have created for them.

[ZeroXJoker]

People make way bigger deals of age gaps relationships than is probably healthy. My dad's adoptive parents were 10 years apart in age and were married right up until my grandfather died. My mom's parents were 11 years apart in age and while they ended up getting divorced because he was abusive (they got along better after they divorced).

My one aunt was in a LTR with a man much older than she was for years and even got married then eventually divorced. My sister and her husband about 6 years apart in age and all my nephews are Gen Z but I haven''t asked them their opinions on it.

I have a thing for a AGR myself and I'm on some subreddits about AGR and older men and there are several Gen Z women on there who are attracted to much older men (often men old enough to be their fathers in some cases) so its not all of them are bothered by it. I try to post my opinions on some subreddits about it but I get shit on for it. On a previous account I was straight up called an incel because I mentioned in other places that I had a thing for age gaps.

[Bookshelf]

Likely wishful thinking, but I do wonder if this will have a long-term impact and help swing things the other way. As these opinions become more mainstream, and more and more people are swept under the rug of 'predatory' despite having what today is considered a legal relationship, 'sex fascists' will begin to make enemies out of too many people; opening up avenues of criticism, that might swing in our favor. Hopefully people would question the rule of these unnecessary and arguably paranoid restrictions, so much so that they see sense towards AMSC. As a 30 year old man is slammed as a predator because his girlfriend is 22, in some way he might understand that's what's been happening to us as well.

But as I said, that might just be wishful thinking.

[Justincredible]

I totally see this online as well.. so many young people calling age gaps weird and inappropriate. Even when one party is of legal age. Crazy how our society is sooo tolerant to trans, gays etc.. but an 18 yr old and a 40 yr old is a sick grooming situation??

Gender affirming care for 8 yr olds! But don't you dare try to date an older guy! smh

[aeterna91]

My theory: Sadly, a lot of people need sexual taboos. Sex is a very intimate, very primal thing, so controlling who someone else has sex with is a way of having power over them. Just when sex outside of marriage or homosexuality starts to become socially acceptable, the taboo on age differences starts to be much stronger than it ever was before... I don't think it's a coincidence. Although I'm sure that many times it's not conscious and people really mean well and think they're fighting evil behavior, I think that's the main reason. I think a lot of people feel more comfortable if they can prohibit other people from having consensual relationships, because it means that they have power over them.

Likely wishful thinking, but I do wonder if this will have a long-term impact and help swing things the other way. As these opinions become more mainstream, and more and more people are swept under the rug of 'predatory' despite having what today is considered a legal relationship, 'sex fascists' will begin to make enemies out of too many people; opening up avenues of criticism, that might swing in our favor. Hopefully people would question the rule of these unnecessary and arguably paranoid restrictions, so much so that they see sense towards AMSC. As a 30 year old man is slammed as a predator because his girlfriend is 22, in some way he might understand that's what's been happening to us as well.

But as I said, that might just be wishful thinking.

Well, I assure you that, to a certain extent, this can happen. I'm an example. As I said when I introduced myself... what you describe is almost exactly the same thing that happened to me (although, in my case, I prefer them a few years younger than 22 )

I am not a pedophile. I am mainly atractted to teenagers.

I became interested in these issues as a result of the prevailing discourse today, that any relationship between teenagers and adults is an abuse with terrible psychological consequences. I know of relationships between teenagers and adults that have been completely normal and have not caused any harm to the teenager. So where do these ideas come from that every relationship between an adult and a teenager is harmful and should be forbidden and punished?

Trying to understand more about this led me to read Rind, Sandfort, Malón, Foucault, Oudekerk... led me to Newgon, Tom O'Carroll's blog and this forum. The funny thing is that, with these readings, I not only confirmed what I thought, but I realized that things went further. Just a little over a year ago I didn't believe it was possible for a person who had not already been through puberty for a few years to enjoy any sexual activity with someone a few years older, and now I know of multiple evidence that it is possible.

Furthermore, everything seems to indicate that, although there are real cases of abuse that must be fought (and this is very important), a significant part of the damage that is attributed to this type of relationships is actually damage caused by current social perception, by current laws and by intervention of authorities; by a whole series of mechanisms (self-fulfilling prophecies, iatrogenic damage, nocebo effect...) that generate suffering where there should be none, both in adults and in the minors they are supposedly protecting.

I think it's ironic and many of you will find it funny: If I had lived in a country where the age of consent was set at 13 and relationships between teenagers over 13 and adults were socially acceptable, I would probably have spent my whole life thinking that a person under 13 could never enjoy an encounter with an adult and that any adult who wanted to get involved in something like that was a monster who should be punished. So it has been precisely the tendency to demonize all relationships between adults and minors, or even between older and younger adult people, which has led me to defend more radical positions that I would never have defended otherwise.