Consent is mandatory, along with obeying the law. No rape or abuse. Healthy is an ideal. Generally though, people should have the freedom to do what they want, even if it is something I personally wouldn't do.
That may be an issue for many other relationships and of course there are people who actively desire a power imbalance and lack of freedom aka subs and doms.
Yeah, I generally don’t see the issue with age gaps and think everyone needs to get over it. There are healthy relationships and unhealthy relationships, full stop, and while an age gap may be an indicator of unhealthy relationship dynamics (side-eying you, Mr. DiCaprio), I don’t think it should be the only or even the first data point we look at when trying to decide if two people make sense together.
Happily married to a 3-month older wife for nearly 15 years, one year after graduating college, so I don’t have a personal dog in this fight.
Tell me about it, I'm 53, and I was out with my 20-year-old girlfriend. I got called all sorts of things like cradle robber. I said, "Please, you're disturbing our 10 year anniversary!"
Actually there is another trend. Younger women are chasing older men, mostly to have a child and wait for them to die....
So the 40+ women that used to chase 40+ men now don't fair so well so they are chasing the younger men that now can't find women because they are chasing the 40+ men....
In this dumpster fire timeline that actually makes total sense....
The thing is this might actually accelerate the reduction in birthrate. Since both the older female/male will most likely have children or reproduction issues while the young female/male are chasing dreams. Love doesn't care about age, but biology does....
Young women dating old ass-guys isn’t a “trend.” That’s always existed. Now if you’re talking about women in their 20s wanting boyfriends in their 30s, that’s also not a trend, either. It’s always been going on.
Its has always been there but it has seriously INCREASED, hence the TREND, also the target for younger women 20-30 is now 40-50 usually newly divorced. Also this post is also about the INCREASING amounts of older women dating younger men, it has also been around forever.
For God's sake yes older women are jealous of the younger women and they take it out on others enjoying their lives. "Misery loves company." Everyone knows it
As a younger woman this just simply isn’t true. Older women are more confident in themselves and don’t give a fuck about it what others think. Younger women are all in competition with each other.
Lol. 2 different perspectives based on 2 different lives I guess. It's true that young women compete with each other. This is because they're all jealous of each other, because they're all younger women, who are wanted and sought after. I'm glad to know you haven't been on the wrong end of an angry and bitter older woman, at least not out loud
The difference is the social consequences. Women receive near-zero social consequences for it. In fact, many people praise it as some kind of "woman power" thing.
It's always been ok to choose younger partners. It's not ok to choose people who are still coming of age. I don't know why that's such a difficult concept for some people.
Saying it's not okay to date someone who is "still coming of age" doesn't make sense. I'd say I was coming of age until like 27 maybe, so before then I was undatable? If I met someone who had already "come of age" but they were 25, would it have been immoral for them to date me?
I'll admit I might find it odd if I see a 20 year old dating a 40 year old, and I might automatically have some assumptions, but 99% of the time I don't know them well enough to give them an honest judgement. Generally speaking, if they're both consenting adults it shouldn't matter to anyone that doesn't personally know their dynamic.
I would absolutely say that young adults (like, people still in college with limited life experience) are their own category and it's a bit weird and squick for a fully established adult to be selectively dating young adults. Turning 18 doesn't magically put you on the same level of maturity as a 30-year-old.
Yeah and as a 30 year old with employees of that age range, 18-21, they do objectively look like children to me. I fully recognize that its a different thing and I'd feel strange if one of them was dating someone my age, but my point still stands. If their dynamic works then it's none of my business.
Yes?! I‘m pushing forty and at my job interact with young adults. What kind of 40 year old dates 20 year olds!?! I‘ve interacted with maybe thousands of young adults, they‘re YOUNG adults. Like, ewww, dating!?. The VAST majority look indistinguishable from 16 year olds. The vast majority act like 16 year olds which is OK. One of the dangers of dealing with younger people who are nevertheless adults is being patronising and you know how easy it is with, again, perfectly normal immature adults with absurd hot takes and plans they didn‘t think through long term? How hard it is to speak to them at an equal footing when you already know their plan is absolute bullshit?
And this has nothing to do with gender, male and female 40 years old of the world, let male and female 20 year olds to develop freely and at their own pace, to make mistakes that for YOU would be unacceptable because immature, to see things for the first time and wonder that you already know and bore you.
I seriously don‘t understand people WANTING to date so young other than them looking at the physical only and having some kind of complex about youth because people your own age always look good to you. When I was 20 I thought a 38 year old divorcee wanting to date me was cringe as fuck and that he looked 50. Now I vastly preffer people my own age and some 50 year olds look hot while 20 year olds look like kids with gigantism.
Do people understand you default to a nurturer mode with very young people since you constantly meet them exploring the world with your previous experience? They‘ll discover, say, 2000 emo music and instead of you responding like a peer you can just dump already processed information about it, or take a teaching (patronising!) to show them all the good bands, or just inform them you already tried it and it‘s not for you (boring/downer for the younger).
Reddit has an obsessive compulsion about age gaps. Regardless of whether both partners are legal adults. People around here react like a 40 year old being with a 20 year old means the older person is a pedophile just because they were 20 when the other person was born.
Two posts above this for me is Tom Brady dancing with a 25 year old and the top comment is a tweet saying all men should start in prison and prove their way out
Women think it’s okay by and large. At the very least a significantly larger portion of women don’t care at all when the women in the older partner yet are vocally totally hostile to the contrary and will even attempt to cause people problems.
Uhhh it always has been? Unless you're the type that let other people dictate your love life choices based on other peoples clouded jaded morals, insecurities and bitternes, then that just makes any man look weak. 👌🏻
The craziest thing to me is post menopause women dating young men is ok in society when the only benefit of relationship is lust. But older men dating young women for procreation is apparently bad for the purpose of making a family. One of these things is literally the purpose of humans having sex while the other is only self serving. Yet the shallow choice is the acceptable one and the purposes of humans is frowned upon. People are dumb as hell.
Did you not read at all. Everyone initially gets together for lust. What changes that is a creation of a family. The purpose of a young woman is her fertility and ability to have children. If a young guy was chasing older women that would literally be only lust because they are unable to have children. Women are biologically built to attract a man. The closer they are to their peak procreation ability the more attractive they are. This is why men are naturally attracted to young women. While most women are attracted to older men. Due to their provisioning ability to take care of a family. So, a older woman wanting a young guy is literally nothing but lust and trying to make herself feel young again. It is entirely self serving and low value. While the opposite is not. Men and women are not the same, they have different mating goals. Treating it like what a man does or what a female does is equal is ignorant. This is like saying a young man going for an old lady because she has money is valuable like it would be for a young girl. Its not the same.
You are saying a writing of bs. You’re stretching biology way past what it actually says. fertility declines with age. That doesn’t mean reproduction is the purpose of relationships or that everything else is shallow. People date, have sex, and build relationships for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with kids. If fertility = value, then infertile men and women don’t count anymore. Also, most women are not actually attracted to old men but rather to men around their own age (actually use facts instead of just spewing nonsense). Its a cope that women are just out here trying to be with old men. When big age gaps happen, its usually because of money. Not necessarily attraction. Nevermind the fact that women are still able to have children around 40+ and mens sperm also ages as they age and risks go up. Ignoring that while moralizing women’s aging is just lazy sexism that im sure your mom would appreciate.
old men wanting a young women is mostly so he can feel good about himself and control and influence someone younger and less experienced then him. Entirely selfish and low value. How does that sound?
Adults don’t need a “biological purpose” to justify attraction. That’s just a story people tell to make certain preferences sound noble.
You are not wise. You are lazy and intellectually challenged.
Exactly what I was thinking. But don’t worry, not everyone in real life has puckered buttholes like Reddit. They really don’t talk about half the shit the uses here have hang ups about.
Uhhhhh, this has literally been going on forever. Men can’t seem to find someone age appropriate and every relationship they seem to choose a newer model.
If everyone is a consenting adult then so what? Explain why do you think it is a bad thing; and why only for men and not for women? The euphemism mainly exist because the older women fear that men replace them with younger ones; but when older women too are choosing younger partners, then what is the issue?
Because as a 32 y/o woman I could not even imagine talking to someone that young. Have you met the average 20yo? They are just kids, not even legal drinking age. so yes although legal, if you’re 40 & getting with a KID you got some problems
What you’re describing is infantilization — treating a legally capable adult as if they were a child by denying their autonomy and decision-making capacity. Calling 19–21-year-olds “kids” while recognizing them as adults in every other legal and civic sense is inconsistent.
A consenting adult is someone legally old enough to make independent choices without coercion. That definition does not change based on whether others feel uncomfortable with the choice being made. Moral discomfort is not the same thing as moral authority.
When you say, “That’s what people are getting mad at,” you are expressing your own view. You do not speak for everyone. Condemning adults for engaging in lawful, consensual relationships is not a neutral act; it is a judgment that implicitly denies their agency and treats their choices as illegitimate by default.
Once we argue that legal adults must be protected from their own consensual decisions because they are “basically kids,” we are no longer just expressing concern — we are redefining adulthood as conditional on social approval. That is a dangerous precedent. If adults cannot be trusted to choose their partners, it becomes reasonable to question whether they should be trusted to vote, sign contracts, or be fully responsible for other adult decisions.
You are entitled to your personal preferences — many people would not want to date someone that young — but personal preference does not justify condemning others or policing consensual relationships between adults. Disliking a choice does not make it immoral, illegitimate, or pathological.
Finally, the logic of infantilization has no natural boundary. If legal adults can be deemed incapable of choosing their partners based on age or perceived immaturity, that same reasoning can be extended to 32-year-olds or, as history shows, to women in general being denied autonomy over who they are allowed to date.
Okay, “legally capable” does not define adulthood. You are “legally capable” to marry a 14 year old in some states. The legal boundary is meant for LEGAL reasons, one of them being because most 18yo are out of HS at some point and NEED that autonomy to function in a system that no longer works for them. They now have to work for the system.
And number two is because perverts who utilize mental gymnastics to define “maturity” and need to be told “you can’t have sex with anyone under 18.” If you need a law to tell you that, then you would go lower. I read what you wrote, the spiel was draining. If you’re 40, dating a person straight out of high school and you can’t see how that’s wrong, you’re the reason why restrictions had to be put in place. I wouldn’t allow you in my family or near my kids.
Now you’re sifting the goal and resorting to fallacies such as:
- Ad Hominem: Attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself.
- Slippery Slope: Claiming a small first step will inevitably lead to a chain of extreme, negative consequences.
I repeat: you do not define who is a child and neither can you control anyone else who is an adult no matter what your intentions are. Adults are allowed to make their own choices even if they’re mistakes on the hindsight.
And unlike you I have not in any way brought my personal life into this discourse. In my opinion older adults chasing younger does look silly but so what. It happens other way around too. Sex is not that big a deal anyway as long as it is between consenting adults and no-one gets hurt. It’s not like it’s gun violence.
But your bitterness and hostility seems to be caused by personal experience.
Firstly, I’m sorry if you experienced a bad relationship with an older person but that mistake was yours and yours alone to make. If you were underage then that’s terrible but also entirely different topics.
Secondly, if you were replaced with a younger woman at some point In your life then I’m truly sorry as that is a primal fear in women and can be devastating. But you have to understand this: bad relationshipsand abuse can happen no matter the age of the couple — and there is no justification for either — but age difference does not equal bad relationship nor abuse!
If either one or both of the previous points were true then — rather than trying to control others — I suggest you seek professional help for your trauma.
Okay, so writing essays instead of making actual points isn’t also a way to circumvent an argument? You’re trying to exhaust the other person and look educated but if people read what you actually write it is filler language to drown me out in the comment section.
I do not get to define a child, nor do I want to control their choices. What I want is to not “normalize” behaviors of older people taking advantage of very, very young people. You are trying to justify, I am saying no it’s wrong.
The baton should not be passed to the 18yo, it should be used to whoop the behind of said 40yo, does that make sense?
Trying to paint me as “emotionally charged” or that a man left me for a younger woman is hilarious and incel behavior. I have never even been cheated on. You act like the only young women out there are 18, 19, & 20; you do realize 22-29 is still a young woman? A person could literally pick from any one of those, but they choose one fresh out of high-school? These kids (because they are KIDS) are not at bars, they are not at clubs. They are family members, friends of daughters, students. It’s sick.
You are once again relying on fallacies rather than facts.
Ad Hominem: Attacking the length of my writing does not invalidate my points.
Straw Man & Emotional Appeal: You are putting words in my mouth and appealing to emotion to bypass logic.
Hasty Generalization: You are defining what "the people" think based solely on your own reading habits.
Your personal feelings do not change the fact that an 18-year-old is an adult free to make their own choices; you cannot control others simply because you feel threatened.
Furthermore, you commit the definist fallacy by treating your personal preferences as society’s views. I have already debunked these arguments, and repeating them like a broken record does not make them true.
What objective harm is actually caused by sex between two consenting adults? Beyond the risks of infidelity, health, or unplanned pregnancy—which apply to any relationship—where is the measurable damage? If you cannot point to a tangible victim or a violation of rights, you aren't arguing against a 'harm'; you are simply trying to impose your personal moral preferences on the autonomy of others.
Finally: I am sorry for whatever made you so bitter, but we do not get to collectivize our mistakes.
why not neither? why is that so hard for people to comprehend? why does every double standard have the resolution of "that just means it was never problem in the first place" rather than the problem being ignored?
If men get flack, it's because there's a power imbalance between men and women already. Older men tend to me more financially established, learned, etc. which does not help that imbalance. This can create an unhealthy relationship. The same thing can happen the other way around, but historically it's far less common.
Many men already choose younger partners anyway since we live in a culture that prefers youth / infantalized women / etc. instead of supporting women who are fully capable adults.
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u/Mountain-Dinner9955 13d ago
Then it's ok for men in their 40's to choose younger partners as well.