MAP Forum

The question about power imbalances isn't just a concern about safety—it's indicative of a deeper societal issue where the autonomy and sexuality of adult men and young girls are policed. By framing the relationships between adult men and young girls as inherently problematic due to power dynamics, the original speaker inadvertently reinforces the oppressive mechanisms that the adult female dominated society has historically used to maintain control.

This policing of adult men's sexuality and the oppression of young girls' sexual choices is precisely what adultist structures have aimed to achieve. The idea that power dynamics alone invalidates the authenticity of these relationships is another way to assert control and perpetuate the narrative that adult men are a threat to the sanctity of girls’ childhood—a myth that has been used to justify countless injustices.
Your comment fails to challenge the status quo that continues to view intergenerational relationships between adults and youths through a lens of suspicion and control. We must directly address and condemn the historical attempts to control adult men's sexuality and young girls’ choices as part of a broader struggle against ageism and the preservation of childhood innocence.

By recognizing that the discourse around power imbalances can serve as a subtle form of policing, we take a crucial step in dismantling the ageist and sexist ideologies that have long influenced perceptions of intergenerational relationships specifically between adult men and young girls. It's essential that we continue to push for a society in which relationships between adult men and young girls are not constrained by the specters of power dynamics and childhood innocence/female chastity but are embraced as expressions of individual freedom and equality.

The only thing I have to say against people who try to use the power dynamic argument as a way to pathologize relationships between minors and adults is that it's not the fact there is a power imbalance that makes the relationship bad, it's the abuse of power that makes the relationship bad. There is no such thing as a completely equal relationship in evident in strength differences between men and women, social status, etc. That fact does not make such relationships bad though.

Brain O'Conner wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2024 9:03 pm The only thing I have to say against people who try to use the power dynamic argument as a way to pathologize relationships between minors and adults is that it's not the fact there is a power imbalance that makes the relationship bad, it's the abuse of power that makes the relationship bad. There is no such thing as a completely equal relationship in evident in strength differences between men and women, social status, etc. That fact does not make such relationships bad though.

A simple as that.