Emphasizing involuntary exclusivity (attraction to certain age groups)
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2026 8:42 pm
This is a pointless thread. I considered it a few days ago when I was in the mood to start a thread but couldn't really think of anything I found interesting, my point doesn't really add much to the conversation and it only works if you're presenting it to people who care about the happiness of minor-attracted adults in which case it only shows why anti-minor attraction rhetoric (minor attraction when felt by adults, and this applies to the attraction older adults feel toward significantly younger adults) is especially harmful when it comes to people who are exclusive true pedophiles, or exclusive hebephiles (I have a hard time believing that exclusive hebephiles exist but I'll ignore that for the sake of my point) or people who are exclusively attracted to relatively young adults. It shouldn't make a difference (it says nothing about whether or not AMSC is harmful to minors or young adults or the morality around it if someone isn't already on the same page with me that all people deserve sexual happiness or pleasurable emotional intimacy, i.e. 'love,' if those things specifically couldn't be a source of happiness for someone because they're asexual or 'aromantic' then this is still implied by a broader 'everyone deserves happiness' sentiment, the MAP issue doesn't exist in an ethical vacuum for me) but maybe it would sensitize people emotionally to the harm that this rhetoric and stigma can cause.
Do you think that it would be helpful to emphasize exclusivity (i.e. pedophiles being people who aren't attracted to adults, not necessarily in that we define 'pedophilia' in a way that implies exclusivity or strong preference but simply highlighting that many 'pedophiles' aren't attracted to adults as opposed to just focusing on the fact that they are attracted to prepubescent children)?
I think it would be deeply immoral and damaging to critique bi-sexual people for their same-sex attraction or harmless same-sex intimacy, and it might be unromantic to harp on this because if someone is infatuated ('in love') with one person the fact that they're allowed to be with other people; even people they might find as or more physically attractive, would be of little comfort, but strictly gay people will obviously suffer more than bi-sexual people from homophobia (all other factors being perfectly equal) because bi-sexual people have alternative romantic/sexual options. I'm sure this is part of why the LGBT movement has always emphasized attraction not being a choice (when it's convenient for their movement, liberals never seem to take a principled approach to issues that a value applies across the board beyond just advocating for specific favored groups, so it's 'love is love' when it comes to gay people because they've become a 'romanticized' underdog group that is somewhat 'fashionable' to support, but many of these same pro-gay liberals don't care about defending incestuous couples, they might critique compassionate women for being attracted to male serial killers even when it's despite their violence or anti-sociality, they demonize male sexuality in general, I don't need to mention how they approach significant age gap relationships even between legal adults, I'm sure I had some better examples in mind when I first considered the thread. Almost no one takes 'love is love' seriously when it comes to anything other than gay relationships or interracial unions or anything outside of the accepted norm, attraction to at least some people is generally considered wrong or inappropriate under some circumstances or at least that's the impression I have. It's possible that my position is nowhere near as unusual as I'm making it out to be but I doubt that liberals as liberals are any less likely to criticize people for their attractions circumstantially, and not even fetishes or kinks; just who one is sexually attracted to or romantically interested in).
Part of why the anti-age gap relationship stigma might not be as viscerally harsh to the people who support it as it is to me is because the narrative or pretense is that all older people who prefer younger partners can be seriously or as attracted to the men or women in their own age group as they are to younger people, or they can choose to be with some effort and mental work. Middle-aged men are generally presumed to like or prefer teens or women in their twenties or women in their early adulthood in general as a result of misogynistic beliefs or patriarchal values (wanting to 'dominate' a more naive, inexperienced or docile partner) as opposed to having a primal, instinctive, animalistic attraction to girls and women who look as though they are relatively fertile (although the same can be presumed of true pedophiles, that it's not just hardwiring or raw physical attraction but the result of morally inappropriate attitudes that revolve around 'the idea' of children). It's funny, if I were a radical feminist I would concede that average men are biologically wired to feel attracted to girls and women who look as though they are fertile and capable of ovulation because that's what's in-line with the actual biological function of maleness and I would use that as proof that men are inherently exploitative, morally deranged and evil as opposed to having simply 'learned' patriarchy that can be undone through social engineering, but I might assume that most radical feminists seem to think that men will naturally prefer women in their own age group throughout their lives in the absence of learned patriarchal values. Now I'm really going off and I don't want to be mean about this either but I remember an episode of the Purge (which was heavy with liberal propaganda) where all the one-dimensionally misogynist men who were cartoon villains through and through had women locked up in cages, strangely clothed for some reason (I found it strange because they could do whatever they wanted without legal consequence and the women were locked up against their will so obviously these men have no moral compass, why wouldn't they have them semi-naked, if not completely naked because that might not be acceptable for television?) and from memory most of the women weren't really that conventionally attractive but they were who the liberal writers want everyone to believe average men prefer. So on one hand men are the scum of the Earth (with exceptions who have basically overcome their male nature because they chose to 'do the work' or whatever), misogynistic, prone to sexually objectifying women which is wrong, etc. but on the other hand, it matters to some of the more relatively radical feminist women (even if the writers were male, I might assume that they were presenting women who might not be the conventional ideal up as average men's preference for the benefit of women) who men are attracted to. The male gaze is bad but unrealistic male standards of beauty are also a problem, shouldn't conventionally unattractive feminist women be grateful that they're not men's type, as long as they're not being insulted or critiqued for what they look like?
Sorry for the long side note, my point is that if someone (man or woman) in their 50s can't choose to be attracted or strongly attracted to people over the age of 50 or 40 or whenever (or maybe they have some exceptions but are rarely, if ever, attracted to people who don't look as though they are younger) and you're condemning significant age-gap relationships between them and people from their primary age range of attraction then you're effectively condemning their sexuality itself, you are trying to take away any hope they could have for fulfilling relationships since they cannot help but to prefer people in their 20s or whenever, never mind simply being strongly attracted to them. It is immoral to devalue happiness by viewing something that could be a source of happiness for some people in some possible scenario as inherently bad but in terms of what causes actual real-world harm or minimizes happiness that people really could otherwise feel, the anti-age gap stigma wouldn't be as bad if people could choose what age group they preferred. One of the hardest things about being 40/aging for me is that I will never not prefer girls and women in their teens, twenties and thirties, maybe (in a unrealistic hypothetical scenario where I was going to have a 'relationship' of any kind to begin with) I could get away with being with a 30-something-year old but that would still be a huge chunk of the population of women I'm naturally attracted to whom I would be expected to constantly suppress my attraction to (because people will get angry even when someone mentions an attraction to off-limits people. I can think of a few shows where one character would scold another just for saying that a 15-year-old girl was attractive, no real-world plans to date or sleep with them, no cat calling them, no coming on to them, no staring at their body with lust, just admitting that they actually find them attractive and maybe sharing a harmless fantasy with another adult and not the girl herself. I'll never forget that reddit post where the 40-something-year old man actually claimed with a straight face that he was "disgusted" by the idea of sex with women in their 20s and that any man his age who wasn't was "sick." I can't remember his exact words but it's so unbelievable to me that some people think this way).
I don't think anyone should be ashamed of who they are attracted to (serial killers, parents, children, grandchildren; anyone. I think that the fetishization of dead bodies as dead bodies is immoral because it necessarily implies devaluing happiness, if you want all people to experience happiness then you would necessarily prefer that they exist in ideal enough circumstances, but I would never fault someone for just an automatic sexual response to a corpse. The obsession with gays is so shallow to me, when I say that attraction is never wrong, I mean NEVER. A man could kill me and I wouldn't fault my hypothetical daughter, or partner, for being madly in love with or attracted to him) but I think that an age preference is like a 'handicap' or an inconvenient restriction. I think it would be stupid to prefer younger partners if you really could choose to be attracted to older people or people your own age (if you're not already young), it would benefit you to have more options and other people as well because it would be giving them another option too. An age preference in either direction is not ideal.
Do you think that it would be helpful to emphasize exclusivity (i.e. pedophiles being people who aren't attracted to adults, not necessarily in that we define 'pedophilia' in a way that implies exclusivity or strong preference but simply highlighting that many 'pedophiles' aren't attracted to adults as opposed to just focusing on the fact that they are attracted to prepubescent children)?
I think it would be deeply immoral and damaging to critique bi-sexual people for their same-sex attraction or harmless same-sex intimacy, and it might be unromantic to harp on this because if someone is infatuated ('in love') with one person the fact that they're allowed to be with other people; even people they might find as or more physically attractive, would be of little comfort, but strictly gay people will obviously suffer more than bi-sexual people from homophobia (all other factors being perfectly equal) because bi-sexual people have alternative romantic/sexual options. I'm sure this is part of why the LGBT movement has always emphasized attraction not being a choice (when it's convenient for their movement, liberals never seem to take a principled approach to issues that a value applies across the board beyond just advocating for specific favored groups, so it's 'love is love' when it comes to gay people because they've become a 'romanticized' underdog group that is somewhat 'fashionable' to support, but many of these same pro-gay liberals don't care about defending incestuous couples, they might critique compassionate women for being attracted to male serial killers even when it's despite their violence or anti-sociality, they demonize male sexuality in general, I don't need to mention how they approach significant age gap relationships even between legal adults, I'm sure I had some better examples in mind when I first considered the thread. Almost no one takes 'love is love' seriously when it comes to anything other than gay relationships or interracial unions or anything outside of the accepted norm, attraction to at least some people is generally considered wrong or inappropriate under some circumstances or at least that's the impression I have. It's possible that my position is nowhere near as unusual as I'm making it out to be but I doubt that liberals as liberals are any less likely to criticize people for their attractions circumstantially, and not even fetishes or kinks; just who one is sexually attracted to or romantically interested in).
Part of why the anti-age gap relationship stigma might not be as viscerally harsh to the people who support it as it is to me is because the narrative or pretense is that all older people who prefer younger partners can be seriously or as attracted to the men or women in their own age group as they are to younger people, or they can choose to be with some effort and mental work. Middle-aged men are generally presumed to like or prefer teens or women in their twenties or women in their early adulthood in general as a result of misogynistic beliefs or patriarchal values (wanting to 'dominate' a more naive, inexperienced or docile partner) as opposed to having a primal, instinctive, animalistic attraction to girls and women who look as though they are relatively fertile (although the same can be presumed of true pedophiles, that it's not just hardwiring or raw physical attraction but the result of morally inappropriate attitudes that revolve around 'the idea' of children). It's funny, if I were a radical feminist I would concede that average men are biologically wired to feel attracted to girls and women who look as though they are fertile and capable of ovulation because that's what's in-line with the actual biological function of maleness and I would use that as proof that men are inherently exploitative, morally deranged and evil as opposed to having simply 'learned' patriarchy that can be undone through social engineering, but I might assume that most radical feminists seem to think that men will naturally prefer women in their own age group throughout their lives in the absence of learned patriarchal values. Now I'm really going off and I don't want to be mean about this either but I remember an episode of the Purge (which was heavy with liberal propaganda) where all the one-dimensionally misogynist men who were cartoon villains through and through had women locked up in cages, strangely clothed for some reason (I found it strange because they could do whatever they wanted without legal consequence and the women were locked up against their will so obviously these men have no moral compass, why wouldn't they have them semi-naked, if not completely naked because that might not be acceptable for television?) and from memory most of the women weren't really that conventionally attractive but they were who the liberal writers want everyone to believe average men prefer. So on one hand men are the scum of the Earth (with exceptions who have basically overcome their male nature because they chose to 'do the work' or whatever), misogynistic, prone to sexually objectifying women which is wrong, etc. but on the other hand, it matters to some of the more relatively radical feminist women (even if the writers were male, I might assume that they were presenting women who might not be the conventional ideal up as average men's preference for the benefit of women) who men are attracted to. The male gaze is bad but unrealistic male standards of beauty are also a problem, shouldn't conventionally unattractive feminist women be grateful that they're not men's type, as long as they're not being insulted or critiqued for what they look like?
Sorry for the long side note, my point is that if someone (man or woman) in their 50s can't choose to be attracted or strongly attracted to people over the age of 50 or 40 or whenever (or maybe they have some exceptions but are rarely, if ever, attracted to people who don't look as though they are younger) and you're condemning significant age-gap relationships between them and people from their primary age range of attraction then you're effectively condemning their sexuality itself, you are trying to take away any hope they could have for fulfilling relationships since they cannot help but to prefer people in their 20s or whenever, never mind simply being strongly attracted to them. It is immoral to devalue happiness by viewing something that could be a source of happiness for some people in some possible scenario as inherently bad but in terms of what causes actual real-world harm or minimizes happiness that people really could otherwise feel, the anti-age gap stigma wouldn't be as bad if people could choose what age group they preferred. One of the hardest things about being 40/aging for me is that I will never not prefer girls and women in their teens, twenties and thirties, maybe (in a unrealistic hypothetical scenario where I was going to have a 'relationship' of any kind to begin with) I could get away with being with a 30-something-year old but that would still be a huge chunk of the population of women I'm naturally attracted to whom I would be expected to constantly suppress my attraction to (because people will get angry even when someone mentions an attraction to off-limits people. I can think of a few shows where one character would scold another just for saying that a 15-year-old girl was attractive, no real-world plans to date or sleep with them, no cat calling them, no coming on to them, no staring at their body with lust, just admitting that they actually find them attractive and maybe sharing a harmless fantasy with another adult and not the girl herself. I'll never forget that reddit post where the 40-something-year old man actually claimed with a straight face that he was "disgusted" by the idea of sex with women in their 20s and that any man his age who wasn't was "sick." I can't remember his exact words but it's so unbelievable to me that some people think this way).
I don't think anyone should be ashamed of who they are attracted to (serial killers, parents, children, grandchildren; anyone. I think that the fetishization of dead bodies as dead bodies is immoral because it necessarily implies devaluing happiness, if you want all people to experience happiness then you would necessarily prefer that they exist in ideal enough circumstances, but I would never fault someone for just an automatic sexual response to a corpse. The obsession with gays is so shallow to me, when I say that attraction is never wrong, I mean NEVER. A man could kill me and I wouldn't fault my hypothetical daughter, or partner, for being madly in love with or attracted to him) but I think that an age preference is like a 'handicap' or an inconvenient restriction. I think it would be stupid to prefer younger partners if you really could choose to be attracted to older people or people your own age (if you're not already young), it would benefit you to have more options and other people as well because it would be giving them another option too. An age preference in either direction is not ideal.