Are older sisters of younger brothers as protective as older brothers would be of younger sisters when it comes to dating and sex?
I mean I have known a family of 4 kids. Four older brothers and the last one a sister. When she started dating the brothers when get pretty protective of their younger sister to the point they would call up the boys and basically threaten them if they “dared lay a hand” on their sister.
So lets reverse this. Lets say a 14 year old brother was going to go out with a 14 year old girl. Would say a 16 year old sister threaten to pound the girl if she tried to have sex with her brother? If a girl was dressing or acting in a provocative way towards their brother would they step in?
I mainly just beat my younger brother up til he got to age 14-15 and grew enough muscle to kick my ass. I then left him alone. He could handle himself.
Three little brothers. All jocks. I don’t think any of them were interested at fourteen. In later years I had to intervene when the middle one was 19 and chasing a 16-year-old, I was ready to kill him because he was completely missing why that was a big deal. Normally I minded my own business.
I also had two little sisters, the same went for them.
My sister’s cat did the same thing to her little brother. My sister would pretend to tell her that Chandler would grow up some day and might be bigger than Phoebe, and indeed, he grew up to be bigger and he is now the bully.
When my brother was 14 I was in college and only saw him on the weekends. I can’t imagine having threatened a sixteen year old interested in dating him, though.
When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend cheat on me. Her car got damaged late one night when parked at the other guy’s house.
My older sister eluded to having knowledge of the event but never came out and confessed to anything.
Behavior like you describe is pretty bizarre. Where do these people get off intimidating their siblings dating selections?
If someone were to behave in a predatory or inappropriate manner towards a juvenile sibling, I’d speak up … but my siblings get/got to choose for themselves who they want to date. If it were a heroin addict or some other really bad choice, I would certainly step in and say something, but I’m not the dating police or the sex police. The person I would speak to is my sibling.
My family: 4 girls and then the baby brother.
The three oldest girls (including me) were out of the house by the time baby brother was 14. He and 4th sister were very close, but I sincerely doubt there was an issue.
My best friend had an older brother and a younger brother. Younger brother dated a girl after older two had returned from college. Younger brother started acting “weird” and they wanted to see what cult this girl was from.
No cult. A church. Now all three are Christians, married with kids. The older brother is now pastor of that church.
The only woman he was dating that I talked to was his future wife. I mainly wanted to pop her balloon. She had big plans and high ideas. I knew he wasn’t up for those things. So I told her the unvarnished truth about how he was a dunderhead. Of course she argued the point and told him what I said. He didn’t get mad but he steered her away from me from then on. I got my druthers when they divorced and he told me he could never live up to her big plans. She went home to Momma and by all accounts is happy. So is my brother.
Hey Sis …oh, you’re somebody else!
Growing up, my sister was three years older (and bigger, and meaner)* than me. We used to regularly get into fights. She always started them and won, though she claims that I would get the first lick in when Mom and Dad were around but not looking (Nooo, I would never do that, of course…) I only went to the hospital once, and the x-rays didn’t show a break.
This tapered off when she entered high school. Finally, when I was a high school freshman and had been lifting weights for football, she and I were in the hallway of our house when she punched me. My fist was on the way out before I thought “Can’t hit a girl!” and pulled back. I locked myself in the bathroom and bawled my eyes out because now that I was big enough to not get beat up by my sister I was also old enough to know that I couldn’t hit back.
*[sub]Kidding, to state the obvious. We’ve both grow up. I love her terribly and think she’s wonderful, of course.[/sub]
TLDR: yes, although your ideas about protection seem to me to be in serious need of cold showers. In my country the behavior you describe is both illegal and likely to end up with the threatening person in the nearest body of water to cool off (this is considered a milder alternative to calling the cops). Mind you, both of my bros have been date-smart, so they haven’t needed much “protection” on that subject; the youngest one has occasionally asked for advice. The one sexual predator from which I did protect them to the best of my ability was our maternal grandfather.
Long version: I’m protective of my younger brothers anywhere. Or of my work juniors (ask my PhD advisor what happened to his career after I found out he was out to scam all of us - it’s a pity we didn’t catch that valkyrie dive on video, cos damn it was beautiful). Or of my students (who have been about 70% guys, and until I “folded 45” were more likely to be older than younger). In Spanish it’s called “older sibling syndrome” or “shepherd dog syndrome”: we grew up watching and protecting herds of kids who may or may not have been biologically related to us, so we’re like Wonder Woman with more cloth. Or if guys, Spiderman minus the webs.
When Middlebro tries to protect me* and I get really, really, really tired of it, I ask him “exfuckingcuse me, WHO is Eldest? By six years? You may be taller now but you’re still my little brother, mister! Now go protect your children and leave my protection to me!” Littlebro doesn’t do no protectin’, he happened to be one of the youngest kids in any herd he was a part of. It’s one of the things Littlebro’s wife likes about him: she’s a much-younger sister and was born sickly, so her childhood was spent wishing she wasn’t as carefully bubble-wrapped as she was. A husband who assists but does not try to protect suits her just fine.
Usually either him or his wife are missing important information or mistaking me for her little brother, whose financial status and decisions prior to meeting his wife weren’t even on the same planet as mine.
I remember being rude to a particularly nasty little miss that he was briefly involved with, but that was after she’d dumped him and broken his heart. I certainly never did the posturing “If you hurt my brother, you’ll answer to me” thing that he still, bless his socks, breaks out from time to time.
I’ll note here that several have hurt me and suffered no worse a fate than drunken middle of the night calls from my brother. Fisticuffs are not his style.
Warning off potential mates just b/c they exist is a toxic masculine habit, and in my 48 years I’ve rarely seen it expressed by a woman - certainly not to the same extent as men have and never toward me.
I thought for a minute you were my younger brother except that he didn’t pull the punch. He hit me. “For one glorious moment, I knew I could take you now and I was going to rule. Then Dad pulled me aside and said that he was too big to hit you anymore!” He’ll do a twenty minute routine on this which is pretty funny after forty years.
I have two younger brothers and a younger sister. One brother is barely younger than me; we were just barely not Irish twins. I wasn’t super protective of him when he was dating, since we were both still figuring out the whole dating thing at the same time.
My other brother was an uber geek and a virgin into his 20s. By then, I wasn’t going to run off any girl who would help my brother come out of his shell unless she was a total basket of crazy (one was). So yeah, I guess I was protective of my little brother. He couldn’t see that this girl that we worked with was a full on tornado of crazy; she talked about getting knocked up by some good, kind guy so he could raise the kid while she used the kid for making her family happy and getting government benefits, etc. But she was hot and my brother is a good, kind guy, so I had a “don’t stick your dick in the crazy” talk with him. And told her in no uncertain terms that my brother was indeed a good, kind guy looking for a good, kind woman… not one who was looking for a baby to use as a prop. She didn’t like me much after that. I didn’t care.
My sister came of age while living hours away from me. My parents moved while she was in high school and took her with. I was still going to college here, so I stayed. She ended up marrying her high school sweetheart, so it’s ok, I guess.
Are theoreticals allowed? My brother (1.5 years younger than me) never dated or had sex, but I was protective of him in terms of trying to stop other kids at school from messing with him. So I think that if he *had *dated, and one of the girls seemed like bad news, I’d have said something to him about it. I’m not the physical confrontation type, though, so I can’t imagine ever threatening anyone.
