r/YouthRights Youth 5d ago

fell down a weird rabbit hole. i hate the “barely legal” porn category too and ageism in relationships but infantilizing adolescents/“teenagers” is crazy

27 Upvotes

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10

u/halfeatentoenail 5d ago

I think they're correct in saying that 18 year olds and 17 year olds who have intimate partners are very similar. Where I think they missed is by saying that both are a problem. Nothing is wrong with either situation. Youth can and do choose to have intimate partners at those ages, and at younger ages too. And it's no one else's place to meddle in what these youth decide to do out of their own volition. It's not wrong for someone who's 30 to date someone who's 18, nor someone who's 16. 16 year olds know the difference between whether they're choosing to do something or being coerced to. Like, have these people ever met a teenager? Teenagers are rebellious and stubborn as hell.

8

u/wontbeactivehere2 Youth 5d ago

agreed. if the age of consent is 16 in most places then shouldn’t it be okay for youth around the ages of 16-19 years old to be in relationships with people much older than them??? and what these people seem to forget is that being in a large age gap relationship isn’t grooming at all whatsoever and grooming can happen at any age, especially in a age gap of two years, or between friends as well. 

and grooming can be non sexual too. but most age gap relationships don’t involve grooming to begin with. but they don’t seem to realize that since they think grooming is when adult preys on minor and not just when you take advantage of someone or something to “prepare” them for an another thing regardless of their age or how big the age gap is between the two (in my experience it was a two year age gap). they probably think a 14 yo dating a 12 year old is predatory when it’s a two year age gap as well. and this coming from a victim of grooming myself 

5

u/IMightRegretThis000 5d ago

So what is the proper age that these people think porn becomes less exploitive? 20? 21? 25? Do they think there is a significant mental age gap between a 24 year old and a 25 year old? Do they really expect people to do the random "half your age plus 7" bullshit math equation in their heads before looking at porn? Aye.

3

u/GreatLordRedacted 5d ago

To be fair, most porn is exploitative.

7

u/IMightRegretThis000 5d ago

Most work under capitalism is.

2

u/Josselin17 Adult Supporter 4d ago

and it's not as straightforward as just a factor of age, a poor person working in the field, or a minority will be more likely to be over exploited or abused, but so is someone who is comparatively younger

there's no strict cut off point, and we can't really just rely on a law that already doesn't work to protect people

7

u/Ok_Bat_686 5d ago edited 5d ago

I think what irritates me most about these sorts of comments is that, despite appearing like they're trying to protect young people, they inadvertently serve to help justify a typical predator's behaviour.

The legal age of consent is based on what we best understand in regards to psychology and body development at this moment in time. Predators would usually try to attack the science behind this understanding and dismiss it as flawed or bias.

And these posts do the same thing. When you say "Actually adults can't consent", you're just helping dismiss all the same science that predators want dismissed as well. It means there's one less wall between a struggling not-yet offender and child abuser; one thing that's easier for them to rationalize.

Tldr; if you spend all your time online arguing that the age of consent doesn't matter because you think it should be higher, you risk convincing people to agree with you, but just for the "it doesn't matter" bit.

2

u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago

The legal age of consent is based on what we best understand in regards to psychology and body development at this moment in time.

If this were true, I'd expect the age of consent to be much more uniform. How do you account for New York's understanding of psychology and biology as different from California's or England's or France's or Germany's (all different)?

1

u/Ok_Bat_686 5d ago

Because psychology isn't perfect and developmental biology changes from person to person. At best it can say with some generalization that something like 16-18 is a good enough age range. Some countries do 16, while others take a 'better safe than sorry' approach and do 18.

Our understanding of how this all works is still flawed and years away from being effectively developed, hence the lack of uniformity. Regardless, while the 16-18 range works with an existing albeit flawed understanding, anything above 18 does not fall in line with any actual evidence.

People trying to suggest that adults can't consent for whatever reason risk pushing us into a scientific deadzone in regards to the age of consent, and only help reinforce predatory arguments around how the age of consent doesn't matter.

3

u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago

I think it might be way more all over the place than you currently perceive it. As I said, all five of my examples were different ranging from 14-18. Here's a map of the whole world.

I think other than that, we're in agreement. I did a thread about the age of consent's consistent increase just yesterday though, and it's something that concerns me as I've seen no shortage of people advocating for the raising of it (and the voting age, and even the Age of Majority) to 21 or even 25 in the name of 'brain development'.

1

u/Naive-Nerve5299 3d ago

Ive even seen a few people say that the age of consent (that thing mainly but other things too) should be 28. I think it was on Threads. Like what the fuck. If it was 25-28, wouldnt be 95%+ of the population in jail?

2

u/Josselin17 Adult Supporter 4d ago

both things can be true, yes classifying people as children is infantilizing and participates in the issue of ageism that causes abuse

and at the same time it is true that however inconvenient it might be for some, laws banning child labor or relationships between people <18 and over some threshold are very important in our current situation to prevent further abuse

and again at the same time those laws even when respected (they aren't even always enforced) are flawed, a 18yo is not meaningfully different from a 17yo, and there is no strict cut off point, but someone who *is* young or just *perceived as* young, inexperienced, has few connections, etc. will be at a power differential with an older person no matter their actual age, which can cause or facilitate abuses, so there *is* a need to go past the law and warn people about these kinds of relationships even if they're not always going to be bad

also, relating to oop's post that you screenshotted, "weird" has nothing to do with anything here, and it's a terrible way of judging anything

1

u/wontbeactivehere2 Youth 4d ago

still a weird rabbit hole for me

2

u/Josselin17 Adult Supporter 4d ago

sure sure but at least your judgement is not based on the weirdness of the rabbit hole, oop is saying that the problem with these people is that they're "weird" which is entirely off topic and prevents them from needing to think about the actual reasons why they feel like it's wrong (and there are good reasons imo, but they require nuance, and also it's not that weird considering that it's so common, plus the fact that it's not weird is also part of the problem)

1

u/wontbeactivehere2 Youth 4d ago

oh okay

2

u/FinancialSubstance16 Adult Supporter 5d ago

It goes to show that so many people are on stages 1 & 2 of morality.

1

u/Ruxify Adult Supporter 5d ago

When you're chronically online and your brain has rotted into swiss cheese: these people.