fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5812 ]

[ SECRET POST #5812 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5812 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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The problem is that there is a very real societal problem with older people (usually men) preying on much younger people on the cusp of adulthood (primarily women). And there's a difference between telling someone "it's ok in your case, because you kept your thoughts to yourself and didn't follow the actress home or make her uncomfortable in any way" and just making a generalized statement "it's ok to be attracted to people with a significant age gap from yourself!" and not follow it with any other comment, because your statement doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's going to be read by a dozen different people in dozen different circumstances, many of which will not be as innocent as that described by the OP, but they will all read your comment as applicable to themselves.

But it is OK to be attracted to people with a significant age gap from yourself. That statement doesn't need any qualifiers.

If someone reads that statement and takes it as an endorsement of a behavior that's problematic and bad in other ways, that's their own fault and their own problem.

Except for vast majority of people being told "it's ok to be attracted" is naturally followed up with a thought "therefore it's also ok to act on this attraction".

NAYRT

Is it really “naturally” followed up with the thought that it’s okay to act on that attraction? I don’t agree.

If you ask a man, who likes to creep on younger women, to justify his behavior, it's almost guaranteed that they will answer "because it's ok for me to be attracted to them". Would the world be a better place if people didn't think this way? For sure. But what is more reasonable: formulating our public statements in the way people are likely to interpret them, or the way that we wish people would interpret them?

But I feel like those men would creep on younger people regardless of whether it was see as acceptable or not. Some may use the cover of people saying their attraction is fine to try to justify their actions, but I feel like most of them aren’t waiting on the approval of anyone to be creeps. They’re just going to be creeps.

But they wouldn't feel as comfortable doing what they're doing so publicly if they weren't under the impression that other people approve of their philosophy. To give an example from the extreme end of the spectrum, I've read a few studies on the psychology of convicted sexual offenders, and many of them emphasized the fact that finding a community of like-minded people has led to the escalation of offending behavior. There's a reason why you will find more openly racist and misogynistic people in places known for having a conservative male majority, such as 4chan or reddit, than places known for leftist female majority, such as tumblr. The perception of public approval is a strong motivator.

I suppose I understand where you’re coming from.

DA

Ah, no ... I mean, I see where you're coming from, but I think you're making a jumble of cause and effect, here. "There are enough people who think pushing women around is okay for them to socialize with each other, and they tend to find each other," is true. "They would not harass women without the social validation" is not true - they like what they're doing even without people to brag to. It's an end in itself. And also "we can change their behavior by repeating how much we disapprove of it like a mantra, and side-eyeing everyone we meet" is very much not true. We are not monopolizing their opportunities for social validation no matter what we tell each other. And this has been glaringly obvious for a long time.

It's a well-documented fact that normalization of certain behaviors leads to more people exhibiting those behaviors. Public approval and disapproval is the very foundation of cultural norms and differences, and the push for changes always starts on a micro level, with small communities, before spreading to the macro level to the larger society.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2022-12-07 08:40 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2022-12-07 17:07 (UTC) - Expand

Even acting on it doesn't really cross a line. I've had older men tell me I'm beautiful and respectfully ask me if I would join them for coffee etc, then accepted my answer gracefully when I've politely said no thank you.

A whole world of difference between them and the creepy older guy who would wait for me after work and that my boss would walk me home to keep me safe from.

I'm glad that you had enough experience to tell them no. Far too many girls, who freshly turn 18, have various older men charm them into relationships filled with red flags they're too young to recognize. I've had so many of my friends cry on my shoulder over the fact that they let themselves be talked into starting a family at 20, and now they're regretting not having had any time to just enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of adulthood, without the massive responsibilities and restrictions that parenthood had put on them. The men who talked them into it, naturally, spent their own young adulthood having all the fun in the world, and once they had their fill they had no qualms about tricking young girls into giving up their own. I have no respect for such people.

If you're 18 you're not a child. 'Tricked' into a relationship as an adult. Honestly.

I interact with people that age. They're indistinguishable from children to me. They live with their parents and don't know what having a job and rent is like. When they go to a bank, or an office, or a doctor's appointment, or a meeting with a teacher, their mom does the talking, while they stand obediently in the corner waiting for things to be organized for them. Even those, who have university, pack up their laundry every week and bring it home so that mom can wash it for them. When mom is not around, they contact me panicked, needing me to hold their hand and walk them through every new minor adult experience they have, because things, which to me are just obvious and routine, to them seem like these mysterious and unimaginable feats of strength.

If you're over 30 and believe yourself to be on the same level with maturity and experience as high-schoolers, that doesn't really speak well of you.

Well you certainly like to babble don't you.

Firstly, where in my comment have I said anything equivalent to:
'If you're over 30 and believe yourself to be on the same level with maturity and experience as high-schoolers, that doesn't really speak well of you.'?

Secondly, it's not preying to simply ask somebody out regardless of age gap if you're both adults. There's a whole lot of predatory behaviours that some people might use in that situation, but it's not a given.

Thirdly, yes people are still young at 18 but they're still adults. Not children. And with that comes some responsibility for your own actions. 'Tricked' into a relationship is a ridiculous description.

Do list me all the ways that an 18 year old is different from a 17 year old in terms of brain chemistry and experience. If you believe that a 17 year old is too young to make mature decisions with regards to entering a committed romantic relationship with a much older person, what gives you the impression that on their 18th birthday the necessary knowledge and experience will magically materialize inside their brain?

I was a vastly different person at 18 than I am now. So are most people. Anyone who claims otherwise is either a liar, or suffers from some kind of brain damage, because brain goes through massive changes in your 20s, and typically so does your life.

DA

I interact with people that age, too, and I think you're grossly overgeneralizing here.

More to the point, I don't think you have any right to say "18 year old women are incompetent, they have no way of determining what's best for themselves."

I think i have every right to say "an 18 year old teenager has vastly less experience to be able to navigate a committed romantic relationship with an older adult equally as well as an adult the same age would".

DA

When they go to a bank, or an office, or a doctor's appointment, or a meeting with a teacher, their mom does the talking, while they stand obediently in the corner waiting for things to be organized for them. Even those, who have university, pack up their laundry every week and bring it home so that mom can wash it for them.

OK, but this is really pathetic though. You're dealing with a very sheltered, privileged, and helicopter-parented subset of people that age. Sure, bank stuff can be esoteric but this is the age when they need to be learning how to do it. And if someone can get as far as college without knowing how to do laundry, their parents have failed them. It certainly isn't the norm among college students I've known. Plenty of 18-year-olds have jobs, relationships, their own place (probably with roommates unless they're rich)

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2022-12-06 07:51 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2022-12-06 11:01 (UTC) - Expand

SA

Also, I want to thank you for proving my point. This is what I meant when I said that we always need to make sure our statements are not vague enough so that middle-aged adults will have the impression that preying on high-schoolers is an acceptable behavior.

You can be tricked into a relationship as an older person as well, you're not immune to manipulation just because you've hit some abritary number of years alive and 18 year olds do not nessecarily have the experience and knowledge to understand if someone older is trying to lure them into a relantionship that will hurt them.

Frankly I find it weird when adults over-emphasize that 18 year olds are 'adults' in this regard because it always feels like a way of eschewing responsibility from the older participant as if they don't know better and the 18 year old is fully responsible for some older creeps behaviour and actions.

There is, actually, a massive difference between an older guy asking you out on a casual date and being respectful when you say no...

...and being pressured into starting a family at 20? Like, with marriage and babies and shit? This sounds like you're coming from a patriarchal cult where girls are pressured to marry and have babies young.

Exactly. And on the flip side, I'm nearly 40. I've had a college-age male barista at Starbucks hit on me and I gently turned him down too. There's no harm in asking as long as you respect a "no" if that's what you get.

DA

No, I don't think so either or agree with this at all. Whether you have a right to start something with another person is a different question from whether you have a right to have feelings about them. There's no "natural" implication that if one is okay, they both are. Especially in fandom, where people have to come to terms with the fact that they love people and things that do not owe them more than what they already got all the time.

The individuals celebrities wind up getting restraining orders against are not acting like that on account of never having heard their attentions are unwanted (by the target) and widely abhorred (by everyone who wants to be able to interact pleasantly). They are ignoring what people are telling them on every side. In light of that, directing the message that you'd hope an insane fan will take to heart (that they won't) at everyone who tries to talk about having feelings is pointless. But even as it fails at having the desired effect, it still has an effect! How many people in our community get hurt, every day, because another fan is swinging a stick at the image of someone who deserves it? And once it becomes obvious that this doesn't affect - much less reform - the few people who actually are creepy and rapey, because they were not asking for anyone's blessing in the first place, what next? Why press on with a failed strategy?

I'm really tired of people talking to each other in fandom like everyone they meet needs to be reminded not to commit assault. This behavior is insulting, unpleasant, and completely superstitious.

I would have had a much easier time agreeing with your comment if it weren't for the fact that you posted it in a subthread, where at least two people are arguing that there is absolutely nothing questionable or inherently imbalanced in terms of experience about a middle aged adult trying to date a teenager. This mindset is normalized too much for me to agree that it's not what people's internal monologue naturally follows up any reassurances about how acceptable the attraction is.

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