The only bullshit here the support of 22 year old adults fucking 16 year old kids. In normal society, it’s simply not appropriate.
Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!
As for sixteen being too young for twenty-two, it’s not so much the age difference as that a sixteen year old is at a completely different stage in life than a twenty-two year old, and unless one was very mature, or the other very immature, I can’t imagine they’d have much in common. I was almost a completely different person when I was 22 than when I was 16.
No. In your cracked head, it’s not appropriate.
In many normal societies, it is, has been, and always will be appropriate.
I’m sure you meant “…in my idea of a ‘normal society’…”. YOUR normal is obviously not other people’s normal.
I.E.- a chaste and oppressed society just begging for a kink revival and rebellion…
Sam
No, it’s not appropriate, but it’s not out-and-out-wrong, either (although talking about it in such a lewd way is icky in the extreme). Our society and our laws frown on it, as you noted, but we are at the mercy of our caveman instincts, which say “If there’s grass on the field, play ball!” It’s a perfectly natural instinct, but one that should be suppressed.
My head isn’t cracked. 16 is a kid. 22 is an adult. The cracked heads are those who are too fucking stupid to realize exploitation of children or those lecherous enough to actually do it or support it.
:rolleyes:
Well, I object the notion that having sex is a privilege that is reserved to adults. 16 year old teenagers are not treated as adults, that’s true. But where I live, they are not treated as children, either.
Oh for fuck’s sake…was it really necessary to make the comparison between a law that targets gay people and fucking a dog? Since gay people suffer that comparison every fucking day, do you think that maybe you could just every once in a while refrain from making it? Asshole.
How about a 23 year old dating a 17 year old?
How about a 24 year old dating an 18 year old?
How about a 25 year old dating a 19 year old?
How about a 26 year old dating a 20 year old?
How about an 80 year old dating a 74 year old? Or, for that matter, an 80 year ld dating a 25 year old?
Would you please indicate which of these relationships is appropriate in normal society, and provide the algorithim used to reach your conclusion? Finally, please provide the process by which you arrived at the algorithim.
Thanks.
- Rick
Which is what makes the phenomenon of Early-onset puberty so disturbing. Especially when observed in first-graders. As society changes, so does our biology. EOP is an example.
As for societal condemnation, I don’t think it’s so much the age difference as the power imbalance - this girl has no higher education and no means of supporting herself in a sustainable way. When financial reasons are a barrier to leaving abuse, we can’t ignore this factor. Not to mention the troubling pregnancy and STI statistics.
This girl does not have the real-world experience or the education that the man has. They are not equals. So the question becomes, can you trust this man not to take advantage of that? Obviously Kalimero and Bricker’s relatives deserved that trust. I have a feeling, though that he’s more like belladonna’s example.
I have always read that reaching menarche is NOT a sign of fertility, that it usually takes a couple of years for a girl to start ovulating after her first period. I had my first period at 10, by the way. I was not a physical adult, though I did look older than I actually was.
My parents met when she was 16 and he was 22. They dated and kept in touch for three years. My dad knew that my mother was the one he wanted to marry from the beginning, but he encouraged her to date other guys, so that SHE could be sure of him. They got married when she was almost 20, and he was almost 26. They’re still married, and still very much in love with each other, after 47 years.
However, in the case of the OP, I think that what we have here is simply a horndog. He’d probably make inappropriate remarks about any attractive female. And he needs to be stopped. He can think whatever he likes, but when he starts making other people uncomfortable with his remarks, then he’s crossed the line.
Oh I get it now.
22 is an adult. 16 is a kid. So if they had sex its just like a 40 year old having sex with a 9 year old. Thanks for making it so black and white for us.
10? Wow!
Clearly, I need to educate myself more on menarche and puberty in females.
My dad was 27 and my mom was 17, and they were very happy until he died.
Yeah, talking like that at work is just completely out of bounds. The 22-year-old neds to learn how to deport himself in a professional manner on the job.
Another DING DING DING! I gather that this girl has expressed no interest in this guy, and maybe doesn’t even know that he’s talking like such a pig about her. It’s inappropriate. If he were a mature person and wanted to ask her out, he would just ask her out and skip the lechery, regardless of whether she’s 16 or 26.
Mr S’s most serious relationship before me was when he was 23 and she was 16. He took her to her high school prom. Knowing him as I do, I can assure you that I believe him when he says that he was a perfect gentleman. (He would have been anyway, because that’s the kind of guy he is, but in this case even more so because she was a distant (nonblood) relative and the family was watching very closely.) And we’re even 12 years apart, although I was 21 when we started dating.
On the other hand, the other day Mr. S told me about a guy who works at an area high school; the guy’s daughter is a student there, and he’s dating her best friend. Eww. Can you imagine the conversations between those two girls? “Your dad is such a great kisser!” (or worse).
Sex between people of any age where there is a big gap in emotional maturity isn’t quite morally right. Note I focus on emotional maturity. I am also speaking of those peope who “prey” on others, finding someone who’s weakened by events in their life, and manipulating them during a “relationship”, otherwise called players/users.
There are laws made to protect those who are still “budding”, so that they can grow up without being harmed by a relationship like that. There are even laws made to protect those who aren’t able to consent to sex at all too, for whatever reason, whether it be severe retardation, coma, drunk etc.
In this society at least, there is a large differnce in emotional/life experience states between a 16 year old, and a 22 year old, because they are, as another has stated at different stages in their life. Even if the 16 year old IS emotionally mature enough to be an equal to the 22 year old, they still don’t have the “life experiences” that the 22 year old does yet. This can make an imbalance in the relationship, and could lead to problems. Not every relationship between an older person, and a younger person is problematic. Sometimes a person is physically young, but has enough life knowledge to be an equal to an older partner.
Note, I was courted by an 18 year old, (much to my astonishment, and alarm at first) who is an exception to this. I married him. There are over 10 years difference in our ages, however, I’m at a stage in my life, where I’m having to start all over again, and take time to let myself heal and grow. I’ve been scarred by a long, abusive relationship, I wasn’t allowed to really grow in some ways. He knows this, and gives me room to stretch when I need it, or a shoulder as the case may be. Because of things that happened to me, we are in a way, at the same stage in our lives. This is one reason why I feel the marriage is right.
It is wrong to break the law, and it’s also not right to continue to “joke” about something that could be potentially offensive in the workplace. This person needs to be told that their behaivior is disturbing people so they have a chance to correct it.
*On preview: I was 9 1/2 when I got my first period. They thought I had appendicitis, because my white blood cell count was through the roof. I wonder about that, because I had to have a hysterectomy. *
Um, which normal society are you referrring to? In a lot of societies, 16 is prime marrying age. Just for an example that a couple of minutes of Googling turned up here’s a cite that in Chinese society, women married very early, within a few years of puberty, while men waited longer, typically with the poorer males waiting longer, presumably until they could get to a point where they could support a wife. Other societies were, if not as supportive of early marriage, certainly allowed it. For example, * Sense and Sensibility *, Jane Austen describes the marriage of the 17 year old Marianne to the middle-aged Colonel Brandon and I don’t recall anyone’s head exploding with outrage.
I don’t particularly hold with 22 year olds fooling around with 16 year olds, just because in most cases, the maturity difference is pretty high, but I don’t find it enormously shocking. Still, the behavior of the guy mentioned in the OP is pretty tacky, and he merits a dope slap just to acquaint him with the finer points of etiquette.
You haven’t mentioned how the girl’s mother feels about this. Is she un-amused as well, or is she taking it all in jest? I’d imagine that has a lot to do with how the guy should act.
At least, I’d make decisions about how I talked about cow-orkers’ family members based more upon the cow-orker whose family member it was, than another random person there.
So are you saying you still haven’t read the many testimonies of perfectly healthy 16/22 relationships mentioned in the thread, or are you still trying to shoehorn your head out of your ass?
It looks like the zero-tolerance mindset is active again.
Do we really want to legislate this to the point where a young man is arrested on his 18th birthday for fooling around with his one month younger girlfriend? If we don’t, then any law passed will be selectively enforced, and where’s the fairness in that?
Siege, the guy is a jerk for going on like that with you around- and it’s possible he’s testing the waters with you. You see, if you act nice and encourage him, he’ll see that you think he’s OK, and he can go from there. Men have such convoluted ideas about what women think- at least that’s what I get from personal experience.
Tell him that it makes you uncomfortable, and ask him to stop. Approach your boss about the hostile workplace he’s creating if he doesn’t stop.
I wonder if there’s anything to the fact that these examples are always older male/younger female. I think this whole discussion isn’t really about age, it’s about men and women. Generally, with couples with big age differences, it’s an older man/younger women. Like my uncle who is 53 and married to a 33-year-old woman (and they started dating when she was in her early 20s, which I found kind of objectionable). But you don’t often see a 53-year-old woman and a man 20 years her junior getting together. Not that many older women wouldn’t like to, but in our society, it just doesn’t work that way (unfortunately).
Also, you would never see a 23-year-old woman making those types of lewd comments about a 16-year-old boy!!
This reminds me of them time when a cop caught me (16 at the time) and my boyfriend (18 at the time) fooling around in the back seat of my car, and threatening to arrest him. However at the time there was only like a year and a half difference between us, so I didn’t see what the big deal was!