@green mayo man🇺🇦 I dont know what it means when you go by the pronounce they/them and she her at the same time. When I dont know someones pronounce yet how can I call them?
As someone who was groomed by older men more than once as a teenager, I can confirm that they are NOT at a higher intellectual, emotional, or maturity level than a) men my age, and b) me, a teenager. They're pathetic and opportunistic manbabies. Run girl, run.
this is anecdotal and reddit may not be the most reliable due to how many people karma farm (which, why??) but i have seen a number of reddit stories with age gap relationships, mostly young woman dating a much older man, and somehow the man was the immature and childish one.
@@rishabhanand4973 Yeah technically its anecdotal, but in a sense its a fact as well, its the truth, because why the younger women always have to be the mature one but the men are immature and infantilzed in a way
We were supposed to think that Aria's parents were the baddies for... Not letting her date her teacher, who was a decade older than her, and even worse, knew that she was underage when he met her in the bar?!
Looking back, it's soooo fucked up. Her parents were right to react the way they did. If anything they didn't nearly go far enough. Ezra should have been arrested
Pretty Little Liars in general didn't sit right with me. It wasn't just Aria and Ezra, remember, it was also Spencer and her brother in law. Didn't he have an affair with her when she was 15 or some mess? And the way 14/15 year-old Alison was sexualised left a bad taste in my mouth. The whole thing was incredibly messed up.
I wanted to yell "yes!!" after every point you brought up, but especially "women artists don't have a responsibility to raise your children" and "women and girls aren't abused because of watching problematic media, they are abused because men are abusive". There is this expectation in society that girls and women have a responsibility to protect themselves from gendered violence - the same kind of expectation that pushes, for example, true crime creators to "explain" to women how to protect themselves from serial killers. Instead of targeting perpetrators, we teach women that it's their responsibility if they are abused.
OMG YEAH. I realized that my mom always told me to bulk up my mentality by going under martial arts training, i meant for sure i do have fun with it and it helps my confidence to be more independent. But, now i sort of understand how my trauma and fear of men came from and to the point i'm tricking myself into believing that every men i know and met or basically every men in general is about to hurt me lmao. I guess that's what you get from hearing stories from your own family and friends got abused by men, and consuming stories about being abused by men. The suffering is real. Edit: my english isn't good, so i hope i'm not sounding ridiculous here.
Sometimes I think John Berger's line of "Men look at women. Women watch themsleves being looked at" is the root of many heterosexual relationships and fantasies even for women. I used to be more attracted to the idea of a man finding me attractive than I was to the actual man, but it took me years to realise that.
I'm not too sure that this is a gendered thing, honestly. I know tons of women will go through this. But there are also so many scenarios of men falling for or even becoming unhealthily obsessed over any girl who so much as offers them a single compliment when they aren't used to it. Thinking about it, it may even be a little worse with dudes since some truly believe they can't be SA'd by a woman, and find the idea of a woman being unable to keep their hands off them to be no less than validating.
I've found in my experiences that older men who pursue younger women often have a deep insecurity about getting older, not being competent enough for women their age, and a desire for control over an aspect of their lives. Young women/girls seem "safe" because they often expect so little, are eager to please, and don't have the life experience to draw from to call men on their bullshit.
Everyone is more attractive when they're young. Young girls don't go for older guys because they're attractive, it's because the girls are damaged and the men have money.
Ding ding ding! They are simultaneously immature and unwilling to grow. I thought I should date someone older because I was always "so mature" for my age. But I've come to see how they date me because they want to stay young. My last boyfriend admitted that he sought me out because he wanted someone who was 7 years younger than him. Because, he didn't want the responsibility of someone his age. When he explained this... I realized I had to end the relationship and look at why I felt the need to go for someone that much older.
Just remember. Most Men even Successful ones prefer Younget Women. It would appear the only difference between them and creeps is that THEY attract the owner Women to them rather than seek them out themselves
@@silverhawkscape2677 Just remember that older, successful men can be creeps too. Generally, young women don't seek older men for their appearance or personality. It's the wealth that attracts-- financial security/benefits, gifts, and help with student loans are very appealing
This struck so many chords it was basically a symphony. At 15 I was dating a 21 year old guy then, after breaking up 3 and a bit years later, ended up with a guy in his 30s. I was largely uncomfortable in both relationships but stayed because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. It was pretty much the "dream" as depicted by a lot of the media I was consuming. By itself the media wouldn't have been an issue but the adults around me also seemed to see nothing wrong with these things. When I was 14 one of my mums friends who was 24 regularly flirted with me and everyone just thought it was amusing because they knew I had a crush on him. At the time I was just flattered but looking back I'm honestly horrified.
I'm so sorry that happened to you, no adults should let a grown-ass man who's flirting with their minor child continue to be around them! And it's really sad how few of us were taught that the younger person is being victimized in relationships like the ones you were in. And taught that in a way that makes sense and relates to our actual experiences, not just being warned against older men or whatever.
I am so sorry. People can call me what they want but if a 24 year old would flirt with my 14 year old daughter that lad will be castrated without anaethesia for god's sake ! What a loser btw.
Wow. When I was 13, a 21 year old guy approached me, he even invited me to have a dinner at a restaurant. How is this normalized in society??? Of course I rejected him, even though I was also brainwashed about liking older men.
What media are you consuming cause no matter where I go in society large age gap relationships are seen as absolute taboo, I’ve seen people lose their shit when a 16 dates a 14, it just always seemed like society was always against woman dating older men and the ONLY time when it is acceptable is when the man is younger than the woman, 30 yr old women can literally date 14 yr old boys and most men and women don’t seem to see that as problem enough for them to have a long relationship without anyone interrupting with little to no consequence towards the women
@@yamiletsoler3464 it's great to know you rejected him. So true, people should stop brainwashing young girls liking older men, sadly there are a lot of videos out there brainwashing girls to like older men, it's disturbing.
Bruh I had two professors who didn’t hide the fact that they were into me. It really was very uncomfortable as a young 20 year old woman that men who are twice my age and are supposed to be teaching me would look at me that way.
Yeah i had a former professor in his 50s who asked me out right after i graduated. another professor, c. ben mitchell (who testified in congress against reproductive rights) asked me for a life sized cast of my body to hang in his office WHILE I WAS STILL A STUDENT. another professor dated my roommate while she and i were still students, and one night i stumbled into my living room in my underwear to find my graphic design professor sitting on my couch. he was only like 26 when we were 21 so it wasn't AS creepy in that instance
My art instructor in college flirted w/me( he looked a bit like Ed Harris in "Pollack" so he wasn't bad-looking) However,he was in his 50's or early 60"s & I was in my 30's at the time & I'm rather shy. Anyway,while it was hardly Lolita-esque,it still made me feel a bit awkward..
I had an affair with an history teacher when I was 20 and it was actually a healthy connection beside that he told me, that he was divorced. He wasn't. I go to hell thanks to him.
I had a professor who was 56 with a 22 year old daughter, i really looked up to him, even though he was a bit sexist I thought I could talk to him and maybe change his mind. so i tried and he almost immediately brought up Olivia Dunne, a gymnast I didn't know, referring to her as a "young woman", and saying "well she's made so much money off of guys looking at her pictures, how does it hurt her if I look at her pictures? How does it hurt my wife and daughter?" completely unprompted. I didn't know how old Olivia Dunne was until I got home and looked her up. She's 20. I'm 21. It's so creepy to me that he is attracted to women younger than his daughter and even more disgusting, completely willing to share that fact with one of his young students. He sees Olivia as somehow manipulating men, holding power over them, just because she's found a way to monetize her objectification. A different time when I was 19, I was working at a restaurant run by a couple, husband and wife in their 40s, and their lovely kids would also hang out in the back of the restaurant. The husband would make disgusting comments about me in front of his WIFE AND CHILDREN. he once said i couldn't go to serve a customer in the front because "once he sees her, he won't be able to stand up because he'll get a boner". The wife would sometimes give me alcohol because she liked drinking and talking with me, and one night she was giving me white wine. The husband kept refilling my glass even when I said I was done and pressiring me to drink, and then got weirdly angry when I insisted on walking home instead of letting him drive me. It was so creepy
As someone *in* an age gap relationship, it's strange to me how age gaps (and even grooming) have been glamorized in media. I love my husband, and I'm glad we're together. For our entire relationship, I have been an adult free to do whatever I want, and capable of supporting myself. Age is *not* just a number, though, and it presents challenges. For us, there were worries about being able to grow together and make our lifestyles compatible. We've been able to manage that, but there's the concern of what I'm going to do later in life because he'll probably be gone before me. Another layer of difficulty is added because a lot of people make untrue assumptions based on the age gap alone. While I'm glad society is not accepting grooming and exploitation like it used to, I wish people would realize that an age gap isn't always unhealthy or abusive. Sometimes, an adult is compatible with an older partner, and that's the whole story. (When I *was* in abusive relationship, my partner and I were close in age and "looked great together." Looks can be deceiving.) I have always been disgusted by relationships that are power imbalanced. Age can be a big part of that, and grooming is never acceptable. But ultimately, we need to talk more about a healthy balance of power than about age gap vs not. Every adult should have autonomy over their body and their life, and children cannot consent. Period.
Of course, there is some disparity in what is or isn't considered to be "a child"-to some, any minor[ person below the age of legal majority] is a child; to others, it's not quite so simple.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 right. That's why the question should really be, "Is this power dynamic healthy?" If you need to split hairs about what constitutes a child, then something unhealthy is already going on. An older adult shouldn't even be interested in someone who still has a parentally-enforced curfew, for example. In that case, they should BACK OFF, get therapy, NOT engage in grooming, and YEARS LATER, if that child has grown up and become their own independent person, then maybe that relationship would be okay.
@@Aelffwynn I don't really disagree with you, for the most part-but it's just as often minors themselves who will split hairs about whether or not they are or aren't a child. (Plus, sometimes the adult and non-adult in question may actually be only a couple years apart, and that's why hairs are being split about whether or not a relationship between them would or wouldn't be acceptable.) And it is fair to note that people don't really just reach a magical specific age when they are now fully developed & matured psychologically-speaking, or have their independent life completely together, or such. (I mean the brain doesn't typically even physically finish developing completely until sometime after the legal age of majority sometime in a persons mid- to late- 20s, but the exact age may vary from one individual to another.) Even physically speaking, different people may develop at slower or faster rates. I don't think questioning what exactly is the line between child and adult always automatically means that anything inherently untoward is already going on. Especially not when it's being questioned as more of a general concept, not necessarily specifically because it's personally relevant to whether or not they themself can actually be in a relationship with a minor. But I definitely agree that the real question should be to ask if the relationship itself is healthy, and age or power dynamics may or may not factor into that quite a lot, all depending. I do have to ask what you mean by "an older adult" however-do you just mean any adult who is by default obviously older than any non-adult, or do you specifically mean adults who have been adults for a little while and are older even than a number of other[ younger] adults? And I don't know that having a parentally enforced curfew is necessarily a reliable indicator of anything though, because even a legal adult(who is actually a fully independent person) could still have a parentally enforced curfew if they haven't moved out of their parent's home yet(because the owner of the home does technically have the right to limit the hours when people are free to come or go from their house and an adult might find themselves in a similar situation sometimes even when not living at their parent's home if they rent a room or whatever in a building that doesn't belong exclusively to them), and some parents never enforce any curfew at all(whether they should or not); but, still, I do see your point just the same and I do agree that there are definitely many obvious circumstances in which an adult should absolutely not be looking at non-adults in anything remotely close to a non-platonic type of way. I also completely agree that whether or not the relationship has a healthy dynamic should take priority over whether or not there is a gap in ages, at least in a relationship between two adults. I didn't make my previous comment as a criticism or dispute of anything that you had said before-I only made that comment, really, just as an additional point to consider[ or to ponder further] in general along with all the other points which you had already made. Like... It's just a question, in general. (What exactly IS a child, or not?) Not a question to be asked specifically when asking yourself whether or not it is okay for 'you'[ an adult] to be in a not-platonic relationship with a non-adult. Making a blanket statement such as 'an adult should never be in a non-platonic relationship with any child' is all well and good... but it may become much less useful if not everyone all agrees on what exactly "a child"[ &/or 'an adult'] is or isn't, and some people consider all teenagers to still be children while other people do not considers teens to still be children at all despite also not quite being legal adults yet either. And it may occasionally be helpful to keep that in mind. ..Purely for discussion's sake. ((Especially since the legally recognized age of majority, itself, can sometimes differ drastically from State to State and/or between Countries.)) That's all I was saying. Do we err exclusively upon the local legalities of it(declaring that a child is any legal minor), which can vary a lot from one State/Country to another(?)-or is there some other determining factor specifically by which we should be governing this decision or judgment with[ regarding what exactly a child is or isn't]?
I will always be thankful when I was 10 and my mum's friend was shopping with us. She saw a g-string (thong) in the kids section and blew up. She went on a rant about how no girl wanted to wear one at my age, it was men who wanted girls to wear it to make us look 'more mature' and justify their predatory behaviour. She turned to me and told me to promise to not dress for men, but for me, and to please understand the comment of 'you're mature for your age' means shit. I was still 10, and dating anyone 3 years or more older than me was predatory. She told me that until I understand that, I shouldn't date anyone older than a 3 year gap. My mum tried to argue with her cause my mum's views are toxic, but I got what her friend was saying. Met my husband at 16 and his not even a full year older than me
what an adult, if only more people existed like her, less people would be preyed on or even feel self guilt about it, i'm glad the advice had a positive effect on you, goes to show what good parenting, even from a family friend can do
@@KawaiiStars she was also really comfortable with her body, dressed in semi-revealing clothing. I remember thinking 'she likes these types of clothing. If she's saying it, it must be very important'. She loved helping me dress more stylish, since my mum dressed me in age inappropriate clothing so I knew she wasn't just saying it cause she didn't want me wearing it.
@@o0BlackSand0o true, that's the most important part, trust, some adults don't get that and dump a message without consulting the child's psyche, i too have ignored advice both bad and good because i felt the advisor just didn't want me to have fun because they never let me do anything, like a strict nun might her maturity is a treasure
That's such a good thing to say! It: 1) Gives autonomy and agency to girls and women --- it reinforces that you are able to dress how you want 2) Points out that there is such a thing as age-appropriate clothing --- it shouldn't be controversial, but certain things aren't meant to be worn by kids. When you're five, you don't need a bra, etc 3) Points out the male gaze 10/10
Young girls want to and are pushed to grow up quicker. I know I did and dated an older guy at 16. I’m now 40 and wish I was a kid again. I want to relive my childhood and just enjoy being a kid with no responsibilities. Please girls don’t rush to grow up, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. That lady who recently got arrested for lying about her age so she could attend high school gives me the feels. I wish I was at school again, the things I’d do differently 😢
That's so weird ! Last night I dreamt I lied about MY age to attend a fancy HS. Then I admitted my age & looked up classes for adults ,none which I liked since they were only one day long. Btw,I hated HS so I don't understand why I have dreams like that in the first place. That aside, you're so right; enjoy your youth & don't try & grow up too fast. I was a late v bloomer myself but that's the other side of the coin!🙄
@@ROBYNMARKOW Oh wow that is a weird dream, it’s crazy what our unconscious mind can do. I’ve been having weird dreams as a side effect of medication, it’s like being in a weird abstract art film starring people I know every time I sleep. I wished I actually attended high school properly, I skipped too much to hang out with kids that thought were too smart and cool for school lol. That’s why I wished I’d spent more time in school being a silly kid having to only worry about homework and high school drama n gossip. Sending you all the best thoughts and vibes 👍🙏❤️
@@yelena86 Yeah,that is a coincidence. ! I wasn't a rebellious teen but I'd ditch classes ( especially math ) & just hide out in the library until the bell rang. I transferred from a small private school to one where the graduating class was 800 students ( myself included) so it was difficult for me though I liked the anonymity of being in a big school since the one I'd gone to previously was like a soap opera w/everyone knowing everyone's business. Anyway,u sound like a cool person so TC! 👍. Btw,do ever wonder if the people that u dk in your dreams are real ? ( No ,I didn't smoke any weed yesterday though it was 4/20😅)
I find that lady weird and other people who do that, I don't find the reasoning sweet. You're an adult pretending to be a child kwnowing you'll befriend kids and even date the kids at school.
@@lordtette Yes of course you’re right. It’s not something I’d ever do. Her story just gave me the feels and made me nostalgic for my younger days. I don’t for one second think what she did was okay. It just put me in the mood to mull over my school days as I didn’t live it to the fullest and wasted away my time. Being weird is also okay. Wish you safe and well 👍🙏
I am a lesbian, and even then I am still affected by this "third person perspective" that I view myself from. Even though I would never want to date a man or think about how they might want to sleep with me, I still feel this need to perform and look how they want me to. I find myself seeking out if men think I'm attractive despite how the idea that they would want to sleep with me repulses me. It is crazy how influenced we as girls are by the male gaze and how it is perceived as the "neutral" perspective, and it genuinely makes me sad that even I will continue to be affected by it as an adult and how young girls are just learning to see themselves through this perspective and will struggle with it for most likely the rest of their lives.
I only realised I was gay at 21 because of this. And it's tricky, because it's social capital to be attractive to men, because they are often the gatekeepers of job success, so even if you'd unlearn it and don't internalise it anymore, it will still influence the way you're moving through the world.
Me personally is bisexual. I would like to date a girl like me one day but it's really hard to imagine what the relationship between women is cause the most of lesbian media is made by men for men, with tons of male gaze and sexualization and it's really hard to find good media made by women for women. It's sad to see that gays and bisexual men receive much more than lesbians and bisexual women when both should be equal. And because I can't relate to such media, I can't think about relationship with the woman without some hypothetical straight man watching me behind my back.
@@allyas same here!!!! I have the worst internalized male gaze even though I'm a lesbian. This made it really confusing when I had relationships with men and hated it.
What really confuses me is that everyone has this obsession with the idea of young girls dating older men and having sex means "growing up". But at the same time it's an issue when society thinks by the time you hit older than 18 your undesirable. No wonder there were alot of young kids and older who think having sex, getting a boyfriend/girlfriend, doing drugs, wear revealing clothes will make you a lot more mature. It's very sad. :(
THIS RIGHT HERE!!! I’m only 20 and I swear my sex appeal is already so much lower then when I was underage which makes me feel so gross in so many ways
@@dove8263 no literally? same. I'm 24 and my sex drive makes me feel like I'm already in menopause versus when I was a teenager. it really is a struggle to not internalize these feelings on top of society implying that women 25+ are worn out and useless. its a lie but it's a hard one to disrupt
This!! I'm almost 18 and never been in a relationship (happy with that, I'm focusing on my friends and passions), and for some people I'm still too young while for others I'm running late, it's so gross and confusing
@MaeRose26as a 30 year old man I have seen women with gray hair that took care of their health and look better than many young girls. These woman simply exercised and stayed lean and they look great. Young girls these days have gone COMPLETELY insane, yet women blame men as usual. I don't even think young men like just how 304ish these young chicks are. At some point it just becomes nasty and pathetic. It's not men making women dress and act this way, something is insanely wrong with the female mind. The depravity, nastiness. Do you know how many women want to cheat with me?????? Do you know how weird it is to be a man and have these women come up with all these completely insane sexual fetishes???? I don't think men are nearly as depraved as women are. At some point you just start to see women as nasty. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Idk what in the world. These women will be completely insane, then find a way to blame men for their insanity. Like women are the ones writing the romance novels and movies not men..... These are your sexual fantasies, not mine. Like yes of course younger looking women are more attractive, but like you don't have to walk around in shorts that show off your whole ass cheek. Women who are simply healthy in body AND MIND will retain their youthfulness. I would rather be with a mentally stable older woman than some of these completely depraved young girls.
About the Edward and Bella not being moralized while Hades and Persephonie are i think its just about the actual portrayal of it. Hedes is Persephonies boss, they meet ay a party when she moved to a big city, he has a house and a car collection and a company. It's all the draws of a hypothetical relationship with an older person. While Edward and Bella date like... teenagers. They meet as school, they go on walks on the forest, he lives with his family and she has to meet them all! That may be a relationship with a slightly older guy but its lives from being like... financially depandant on him. You really can buy into the whole 'Hes just stuck as 17 because he does act like he's 20 max" But i truly did enjoy the video, you had some great points
I think in twilight universe it is that if you get turned to. a certain age your mentality as well as physically body gets frozen so i don't mind if Edward behaves like teenager and is never aged it's like as if edward was frozen in ice and defrosted and then met Bella while still having maturity of a teen Edward never behaved like adult i mean just look when bella got pregnant he did behaved like a teen and got mad at Bella but it took him moment to realise that he was wrong I don't think Edward was mature lol he was just an old school with old beliefs A mature 100 yr dude would never fall for a girl in fiction unless he's a psycho or a person with ugly face :"""""/
@@rosec_rose6661 yeah, that’s what I meant by “you really can by into the whole“he’s just stuck at 17”. But it’s not about how it’s explained away in-universe. If you believe all in-universe explanations than all those anime 1000 year old dragon girls that look like middleschoolers are ok to date, you know? It’s about what is actually shown, how the character is portrayed and yup, Edwards definitely 17 And… wdym a hundred yo would never fall for a young girl in fiction unless ugly or a psycho? The video has a whole segment on Hades and Persephone and there are other examples. It’s a trope for a reason
In Lore Olympus characters including Persephone bring up the age gap thing being an issue several times with concern for Persephone, while in Twilight, the age gap is brought up but Bella quickly brushes it off with the whole "I don't care/age is just a number" mentality. And in Lore Olympus, Hades is aware of the age gap being inappropriate. Does it excuse the relationship happening anyway? Nah, but it's not the same as Twilight. Stephenie Meyer was like "he's a way older man and it's AWESOME" 😂 No shame in that woman I swear
Also, not to defend Twilight here, but Bella is much less sexualized than Persephone. Yeah, she got the sparkling Dude and Wolfboy swooning over her, but there's (afair) no focus on her boobs or ass or whatever. She doesn't seem like a naive little girl that isn't aware of her body (she also isn't framed as a person with the mind of a 10 year old girl, unlike Persephone at times). The male gaze is much less apparent than in LO. And while the wariness of Demeter regarding Hades is played for laughs or to demonize her, you (and the characters!) Are meant to emphasize with Charlie. Twilight has its own set of problems (especially the whole thing with Jacob and the baby), but the age gap really does seem like a much smaller problem than in LO due to several things.
@@Eagle_Owl2 that’s a great observation actually, I totally agree. Bella is a great essentially self-insert character. Just enough to be able to see yourself in her but still having a personality, a past and future, etc.
I'm so glad someone talked about this. Seeing this shit in the media and in real life DEFINTELY messed up my perception of love with who I liked and who I wanted to like me. Not only that, but seeing my female peers in high school talk about how they exclusively wanted to date older people and when we became the "older" I was so confused and torn up inside. I used to (still do) feel shame about how messed up I was about this, and it's unfortunate many people are still negatively affected by this
Agreed, for me it was also constantly knowing that despite my age, the fact that my chest was very “developed” meant that ppl would see me in a sexual way, and it was constantly reinforced when I was told that I couldn’t come out of my room unless I had a bra on, and learning that the only thing that kept my stepdad from saying certain female celebrities were hot was their age 🤢
Yo, I recall being a freshman in highschool and this one chick who might have been 18 or lower (all I really know is that, it was an elective journalism class, and she might have been a senior) was talking about how she wanted to date this 40 year old man with a beard. Like that shouldn't be normal. Just as much as its not normal for adult men to be like "I wanna date 18-20 year olds" when they are in their 40s. One is societal conditioning. The other is a predator that promotes said conditioning.
17:11 Id argue though, those creators are not targeting kids with their music. lore olympus on the other hand does arguably target teenagers, it fills a webtoons demographic I call “horny but for teenagers” and frankly it’s public knowledge that LO is read by mostly underaged readers as Clementine’s now archived on the web archive video on the subject revealed. Edit: also the very weird Patreon images that goes way hard on the age gap including school uniform outfits.
True female rappers often say publicly that their music is not appropriate for children and is explicit while Webtoon has very little separation of demographics or content warning/ratings for their comics last time I checked. So I def be thinking about this when considering how younger audiences aren’t really able to properly consume this media yet. It’s wild how before 18+ comics with sex scenes were on the app until around 2018. So crazy 😅
@@hhh1234h Thank you, so many female rappers make it CLEAR AF. Nicki, Cardi, etc yet people ant them to take care of their kids. I also it has to do with misogynoir. People ant Black women to be their mammys.
So true, this is an important distinction to make! I also feel like comics/books have a bigger impact than songs because with the comics/books there are actual characters and a storyline and it's more immersive and whatnot and not just like 3 minutes and you're done thinking about it.
Was about to say this. Female rappers have their music rated as explicit, advertise almost exclusively to an older audience - meanwhile, LO is definitely marketed like a teen romance novel
I've never been one for significant age gaps, even as a teenager. It was always strange to me to see older men looking at my peers that way and even some of my peers being into that. I even remember this one time at 19, I was at a college party and a much older man (I want to say 30) was very aggressively hitting on me. I vented about it in an online space (yeah yeah should have seen it coming) and some guy who was also around the age of creepy guy told me I had no right to be offended by it and that I was "expected" to be fine with it, even reciprocate, since I was of legal age. My discomfort didn't matter, according to him, it was on me to remove myself from that situation, not the adult man for causing discomfort. I'll admit that at the time I questioned myself but looking back that guy was absolutely another creep, refusing to take responsibility for their own actions. I feel like it's something that's being pushed back on more and more, just this idea that "age is just a number" but we've still got a long ways to go.
Sounds like the same dudes backing creeps like DiCaprio. Weirdos that say Shit like “they’re both legal adults” and “she should’ve been more responsible” and “the only women who have a problem with this are ugly old hags”. I’m so sorry you went through that, hun. Creepy losers will do anything to validate their disgusting and objectifying ideas on women. It’s gross and pathetic, these closet pedophiles
@@saladcaesar7716 Also apparently, adult maturity of the brain doesn't start to happen till at least 24. The brain is still forming until that age. It's actual science supported by many studies and the only reason the age of consent is eighteen in most countries. Is the government realized if they were sending 18-year-old boys off to die. They should give them more rights. Instead of you know waiting til they were fully men to expect them to die.
@@charminglove8594 he’s def a freak, that’s what happens when ur so horrible u need to manipulate young women who are inexperienced. Older women know better.
my mother was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, and made me aware of some (too many) grown men’s dark intentions with young girls. it made me wary of men and i never was able to trust any of them. i remember being 8 years old and a sub sketched a portrait of me (mostly because i sat directly in front of the teacher’s desk). i said thank you and showed it to my parents but i always had a terrible feeling about it. this feeling continues to exist despite the fact i’m in my 20s now. when an older man smiles at me or looks at me. none of it has ever felt innocent. i think my parent’s experiences with abuse allowed them to be aware of the dangers children can face, and i am sad their trauma has served to protect me from a similar situation.
i remember when i was a freshman in high school, my dad told me that senior boys would probably take an interest in me (they didn't--im too ugly), but it didn't sound like he was saying it to warn me. rather than feeling creeped out by the idea, i found it exciting. i thought that if that happened, it would mean that i'm desirable. i was so insecure at the time that i can only imagine how dangerous that would have been for me!
You are not "too ugly". It sounds like you still are internalizing the fact that they did not prey on you, don't. You are so lucky you avoided that and it does not make you ugly.
In highschool I dated a17 yr as a 14 yr back then and it was the worst that ever happened to me, he usted to hold himself in higher regard since "he knew more and better" invalidating my opinions, and choices, being jelous and separating me from my friends by manipulation and I remember (not knowing at the time the meaning) that he called me "his loli" to his friends, so freaking gross 🤢🤮 ...he abus3d me too and it's being almost 10 years for healing myself. That scumbag was the worst example, I'm not saying that all men are like that, but he really broke me and my youth... and beings pretty or ugly are social constructs that change from country to decade, don't compare yourself to the others and find the style that makes you feel pretty and confortable !
They didn't but not because you're ugly but because even a 2-3 years age gap is still too much in teen years. That's *NORMAL* and that's exactly what my mom has told me when I was that age.
Now imagine you are a 30-35 year old dude and a 20 year old is flirting with you and giving you her number. It's the same thing.... You as a man are insecure about getting older, yet here is this young lively girl showing lots of interest in you. You know it's wrong and honestly you know she isn't compatible, but it's flattering to have this young girl into you. So you call her, talk, set up a date, screw around, you begin to listen to her, realize you have nothing in common, get kinda annoyed, then just move on. It's still flattering though.
drawing the line between "problematic stories by women should exist bc exploring these taboo fantasies in fiction is healthier than copying them in real life" and "problematic stories should be written and approached carefully with a critical mind" is so difficult especially in a society where media literacy is simply not taught or made into a mockery
I don't think it is. Both of these statements can be true at the same time. If someone explores taboo fantasies in fiction, that doesn't mean they can't also approach stories about them carefully with a critical mind and differentiate between stories that are meant to realistically portray these topics and those that are not. After all, not every "problematic story" as you describe is written with the intent of being realistic or giving accurate information on relationships. I don't think that's a bad thing. So long as the stories that are not intended to portray these topics "carefully" are acknowledged by the author to be pure fantasy and not a role model for anyone to look at for a relationship, they have a right to exist. If they're not and they are put out with the purpose of warping the minds of young people, then that is a problem, but that problem can be fixed with education. Our focus as a society should NOT be trying to pick out which fictional stories should be allowed to exist and which ones should not based on their portrayal of heavy topics. It should be educating people on these topics before they read fiction on them. The main reason that young girls have been affected by this fiction is not because of a lack of media literacy, it's because of a lack of education. If these same stories were viewed by young girls who were properly educated on what a healthy relationship is, their minds being warped would be so much less of an issue.
@@needlefrick6857 Agreed! Being properly educated about these things is so important. We can't, and shouldn't monitor those fictional stories. We should pay attention on how to educate people, and better teach them right from wrong, so these things won't happen in real life. It's similar to violent media, in which it's ok to consume as long as you think about it critically, and properly understand these things. Properly educating people, rather than banning fiction, will lead to less cases in general. Banning fiction will just make the people being prayed on want to do it even more, and see you as the bad guy. It is dangerous, and impractical. I find it annoying that people act as if the fiction is the one thing to blame, and how minors should be sheltered from anything bad, even though that will just give predators more ways to groom. Sex ed and social emotional learning is a very important thing, that is sadly not taught often, and we should teach kids not to run to fiction for the best example of relationships. Teach them examples of healthy relationships vs unhealthy relationships, rather than do nothing. Then perhaps those fantasy wouldn't exist as often.
Agreed. People dont understand how because it's "just a story, " it wont have any affect on teenage girls impression of the world and the furthered glamorization of a very gross real life occurance
the author seems somewhat aware of it. there's even a straight up 10 yr time skip in which the leads have ZERO interaction so persephone is actually 30 when they get married. the comic, apart from the early chapters, routinely de-emphasize persephone's age. i kind of get the feeling rachel smythe regrets making perse so young - but being a serial story, the best she can do is draw less attention to it and age up persephone in her characterization
I guess but he doesn’t compare to normal men so I have a hard time viewing it in this light like it’s fantasy characters not as intense as aria and her teacher real people or actual human pigs in their 40’s gross and heaving to breathe stalking kids
@@RogueJinxel The thing is that its less age but more relationship dynamic. When I first read it, I was creeped out by how much he acted like a father to her, while she acted like a child. I mean their gods, so the age thingy is going to get messy. I just don't understand the characterization of the two. It was very extreme, one very mature, one very childish.
@@idontneedaname318 Idk, I think that it was more damage control from the author than her genuinely understanding the relationship was messed up. She's gone on record saying her favorite book and movie is Lolita, has said she wished she could lie about being a minor online, and she has gushed about the fact Persephone is a teenager at multiple points on her blog. All of this, on top of the fact Persephone is written to be completely ignorant to all things sexual, makes it seem like to me that Rachel finds the age gap quite romantic.
You have such an ability to tap into the adolescent brain from a place of understanding instead of judgement 🧠 I’m so happy you’re here to share your perspectives!
I think my other comment mentioning another channel that does extensive analysis and commentary of LO and let’s play got deleted. They shouldn’t be too hard to find
I wonder if the hyper sexualization of girls plays a lot into the problems that come with predatory women and girls. Also, I really hate how older women are mistreated. Older women are often labeled as cougars and joked about "robbing the cradle". WTF! And, older women are also called nags and used up.
@@savibang4412 I think what they’re pointing out is the double standard that older women are at least implicitly called out for it and it’s seen as weird/gross, while for older men in individual experiences (other commenters’ experiences) it’s been dismissed as “men being men” and more harmless
@@savibang4412 I don't think that's what they're saying. Most age gaps when between an older man and younger women are seen as normal, even becoming a massive point in the romantic media. I'll bet most hetero fictional pairings you can think of are an older man and younger woman. That's not even mentioning the gap between the actual actors used in those pairings. But in the eyes of the general public, older women who are with younger men are vilified. It's the exact same situations, the same manipulations, the same motivations, but because the woman is older it's seen as bad.
@savibang4412 if both parties are consenting adults and the woman never groomed the guy. Age gap relationships can also apply to two people that are 60 and 30 years old.
I think fiction is a safe place to explore these ideas that I was bombarded with as just a girl/woman in society. These works are not the danger, refusing to teach children about media literacy, critical thinking, and s*x is.
To act like media can't convey support for certain societal standards and thus can't perpetuate these standards especially onto minors who don't have experience with the reaI world makes no sense. Why are we okay with calling out media for normalizing and perpetuating harmful racist or homophobic or sexist stereotypes and ideas, until now? How is this different than any other harmful trope that is perpetuated by media that normalizes toxic ideas in real life? Media doesnt exist in a vacuum, it affects the way people think and what they consider to be normal, acceptable, or desirable. Media with abusive tropes like a 50 year old man dating a 19 year old that acts like a 13 year old should not be marketed to kids, at the very least
the problem is that fiction plays into reality which plays into fiction. it is a cruel cycle. And while fiction can be a safe place to explore those ideas, it's also not free from criticism. If you wanna write a weird ass reverse racism slavery book, by all means. but don't be so shocked when people call you out for the racist you are (yes, this is a real book. Look up "finding eden")
@@randomthoughts0829 i agree and i think all these stories should always come with warnings and disclaimers and to not endorse the content and emulate this type of behavior in this work of fiction and that grooming or large age gaps shouldn't be normalized or okay especially if you're underage
Another excellent video, Cheyenne. I really appreciate how the writing was streamlined and concise, and above all, fair to the fantasies and interests of girls and young women. I am reminded that Bella was also afraid of growing too old to be with Edward, which was one of her motivations to become a vampire. Combined with Lore Olympus whole deal, "Forever 19, lucky you". I think another important aspect of the age-gap fantasy is that under patriarchy, women are explicitly taught to *fear ageing*, specifically the supposed decay of our own and other women's beauty, abilities as potential brides and mothers and value overall. The fantasy allows the make-believe to remain in a perfect stage: THE stage, THE prime, THE safety of the role. Where we never have to worry about becoming undesirable or unable to perform. I'm 28 and I've caught myself wondering (uncritically, irrationally) if my body is "past it's prime", despite how I in every aspect am better off at my current age, just because of the glorification of our youngest adult forms. It's infuriating.
That's fair, but I think it's also fair that you wouldn't want to become so much older than your romantic partner, at some point you'd either stop being attracted to them, or you'd be a fully grown adult creeping on a teenager! I think if I were in that situation, the concept of being an old man whilst my boyfriend was still a teenager is a horrifying concept, no matter which way you swing it, if your priority is staying with them forever. (I don't think it was executed well to be fair)
Great video as always! In Russia these kinds of relationships are so normalised that people will often literally laugh at me for stating f-upness of the age gaps. Including teenagers. I remember one teacher at school sad that age gap should be around 15 years and “boys, your future wives are kindergarteners now”. Sickening. Here there are two arguments: “it’s legal so it doesn’t matter” or “girls are more mature so it’s ok”. But even when particular age gap includes a minor a lot of people will accept that saying, “she is old enough to bare a child” or “she was the one to seduce the man”. But I feel that only small part of population actually believes that.
I remember being * *terrified* * when I first got my period because it is true technically speaking that at 12 I could have gotten pregnant despite being under or undeveloped physically…. If people knew the sort of fear puberty age girls felt at that thought they would stop sexualizing them… I HATE the old enough to bear children thing, NO ONE says that to a puberty age boy after his first confirmation of development… I can’t even imagine in Russia. It is commonly like this in other cultures as well because of the “old enough to bear children” thing 😰
@@tessarae9127 Not disagreeing with you and thank you for sharing your experience as a woman. In the same way, please consider my experience as a man that "NO ONE says that to a puberty age boy after his first confirmation of development" is far from reality. Teenage boys are encouraged to seek sexual experience at the very first signs of puberty. As an example, I never thought about masturbating, even less sexually harassing women, before being repeatedly told that's what a teenage boy is supposed to do. Not showing much interest about sex as a teenage boy is seen as odd/gay by men and women alike, both teens and adults.
In your list of age spread in movies I noticed something. When the woman was younger she was a LOT younger. When the woman was older both examples were only 2 years older. For adults 2 years means nothing. Have you considered covering the age spread?
Honestly, it just seems like Hollywood hates women aging so there will hardly be a situation where the woman is in her 40s and the guy is in his early to mid teens. The teacher trope, for example, usually involves the teacher being in her 20s and the guy is probably in his late teens to early 20s so it's a college student and hot professor trope Edit: the only one I could think of atm is the guidance counselor and male student from _Easy A_ She was, maybe in her 30s but he was a 22 y.o. high school student (due to being held back a couple times) He was dating a high school girl as well. Idk if she was supposed to be 16 or 18 but yeah
@@spectre9340 The Graduate! Dustin Hoffman's character was supposed to have just gotten out of school. Meanwhile Ms. Robinson was a mother with a child his age. The actual age difference between the characters wasn't as great (maybe 15 years if I recall correctly) but quit the outlier.
The biggest gap I saw in a movie that shocked me was with Apolonia and Michael Corleone in The Godfather. The fact that Al and Stephanie were about fourteen years apart, casted as a couple and had a topless scene (mind that she was 18 by then) creeped me out.
"As long as we live in a society that sexualizes girls and women, we shouldn't be surprised that girls and women want to explore what that means for them in various fictitious ways."
For me, Twilights age gap never bothered me (probably because I was young when it came out) but the abuse that stems from the relationship got me. It was interesting to watch this because it really got me thinking of my growing up a teen girl especially comparing to my gender expression now as well as abuse i got put through because i was told that only older men "appreciated" fat girls and women. Im glad you brought this up and cant wait to see more of your content
Honestly the age gap never bothered me because Edward was always presented as another teenager (though an abusive one) like he was never written like he was supposed to be an actaul adult. And hell they even joked about Bella being physically older than him when they got married
@@Takejiro24 yep. They discuss that when talking about vamp children too. They're not allowed because vampirism freezes your brain in the same age (which tbh makes perfect sense if you physically aren't aging anymore - your prefrontal cortex wouldnt even fully develop) What got me with Edward was when she gets in her truck to go see Jacob, can't turn on the car, and slowly realizes that Edward is sitting in the car already just turning the engine he's ripped out in his hands, like wtf that's so controlling and creepy FOR NO REASON Meyers really missed her calling writing horror
@@GraveyardMaiden i totally agree. In other media the ages and age gap is where the abuse/power dynamic comes in but in twilight it had less to do with his age and more to do with him being a vampire and feeling more superior to her. It was never mentioned but as vampires it feels like because their bodies don’t mature neither do their minds, because Edward was a whiny man child throughout the books and movies
Age gap relationships is pretty much my biggest gripe about Fruits Basket, one of my favorite stories (and written by a woman). Evidently she just had a thing for age gaps (at least four girls end up with men 8+ years older). Some of them are handled better than others (the student-teacher romance is the least critiqued of all of them within the narrative), but that doesn't stop me from recommending it to pretty much any older teen. People are complicated, and so are their stories
Wow, it's been a minute since I've seen Fruits Basket. The only age gap I remember is between Tohru's parents (correct me if I'm wrong). There were more?
@@Takejiro24 Well, I miscounted, it's only three (Saki and Kazuma didn't actually get together), but there was Arisa and Kureno as well as Akigure, which is never really discussed, but he was seven or eight when she was born
That's because In Japan age gaps are considered more socially acceptable. I had it explained to me like this most Japanese men don't get to a good point in their careers until much later in life. so they are finally old enough to buy a house and support a family. Therefore are more desirable to much younger women looking to start a family than men their own age who are still struggling to get a start in their careers.
Yep. I adore Fruits Basket and I just have to pretend that the teenagers being shipped with adults are in college or something so I don't lose my mind. I also hate Shigure and Aya being flirty with Tohru. So gross.
Fruits Basket is pretty much my favorite animanga ever but this is something I struggle with a bit. Kureno and Arisa at least don't have any power imbalance and I just pretend Akigure is closer in age than they actually are (since I didn't even realize they had an age gap when I first read the manga). But especially Kyoko and Katsuya... man there's a lot going on there. But my ultimate stance on it is similar to yours (and this video's).
I'd add that young women also unknowingly romanticize the idea of the power they hold when they capture the attention of a man within a patriarchal society that doesn't give them much power.
Yes 100 percent I used to think this as well I. My teens to early 20s. It’s okay tho that’s normal only bc we are more influenced when our brain isn’t fully developed and much more impressionable then we realized
honestly i was a bit scared seeing so many of the comments of the preview posts going into the "problematic fiction bad and shouldn't exist and im so glad youre bringing it up" direction, now after the video im very glad it was a more nuanced take and hopefully something viewers will reflect on. it has become such a tired take to just point out "this would be bad irl actually" and let it stand like that, especially in media analysis videos. or on the other side completely dismissing the possible effect media can have on people due to bad media literacy and other aspects. to me the point about not demonizing the author is very important, to look at the grand scheme vs individual works. you can find it troubling that this trope is very prevalent and see it as a larger thing but also for the individual work it says nothing that it has the theme, since every story is told differently and bring something else to the table, and it is never on individual works to represent a whole issue and be perfect in every aspect.
I just ended a relationship with a 50 year old man, as an 18 year old myself. While yes, I hadn't known him before I was 18, and made a fully legally consensual choice to have a relationship with him, it's still a decision I struggle with every day and probably will for some time. I don't know where I'm going with this, but thank you for this video Cheyenne, it is helping me a lot to uncover what happened to me, and I'm sure helps others ❤
I broke it off with a guy in his 40s when I was 19. That was 10 years ago, and I still think about the negative impact it had on me. I still grapple with the consent-aspect of it all, because yes, I consented, but it doesn't make it okay and the older party is the responsible one. I'm proud of you for ending the relationship and recognising it was wrong so early!!! I hope this doesn't sound condescending, but it took me years to even have the thoughts you are having already, so I feel like you're on the right path to healing from it
@@allyas Disgusting why would old men want a teenager ? Yes 19 in my eyes is considered mentally still a child. What a creep. Why didn't you date a 18 or 20 year old guy?
Whoa, I'm in my mid 30s and I wouldn't even date someone in their 50s. My parents are in their 50s. X___X In my teens, I learned the hard way about older men. Many men who want younger women generally want someone to control, in order to uplift themselves. Hence why they avoid women closer to their age (cowards!) I hope you are at a better place in your life. I wish you safety and happiness.
@@MissMuttonmeat That is so true, it doesn't matter if you are on a legal age like 21+. These older guys want younger girls just to control them and feel better about themselves. It's super creepy that in YT there are a lot of videos from men encouraging older guys to date younger girls, even there are videos from women doing the exact same thing. And the comments are disgusting, you can clearly see they only want control and shallow pleasure.
to be honest, there are a lot of other things in lore olympus that coalesce with the fetishization of the age gap that make it uncomfortable and borderline reprehensible for me. particularly the author's use of persephone's sexual assault. she is assaulted by apollo and readers spent literal years waiting for the other shoe to drop and hades to find out. it is literally being dangled over the heads of readers as a plot device that should bring the two of them together. apollo is literally placed as hades's foil and an example of a bad man. the whole thing is just so icky because the sexual assault exists for no other reason than to draw out the idea of hades's rage and need to defend his damsel in distress.
I dated men over 40 starting when I was 19, though they always broke it off by the second date, never involving anything sexual. It was a brutal blow to my self image, as I grew up believing that older men liked younger women, so what does that mean about me? Was I THAT repulsive? What was so awful about me? After the fifth or so man dropping me, I asked him why he was doing this. He said it was because his friends and coworkers were razzing him for "chasing jailbait ". Still not sure how to digest that. Still hurt.
That's good that wiser people pressured him into not preying on you any farther... Relationships with that age gap are almost always exploitative and harmful, in ways it can take years for the younger person to realize, as Cheyenne pointed out. I'm sorry you didn't have the love and support you needed to avoid trying to go down this path.
That tweet that said if men could date teens without being judged they would. It wasn't his morals or values that stopped him, it was the shame from peers.
@@lordtette Really shows how important peer pressure is to keep the weirdoes in check-- though in these five cases they should have pressured hard enough to cause bruises 'cause the weirdoes were still trying to date women young enough to be their daughters.
It's horrible. You shouldn't shame yourself for things you didn't have control with. Grown men manipulated you, took advantage of you and made you believe in their sick phantasies about young girls. It surprises me that one of your "boyfriends" was sane enough to realise what was wrong in his actions, but it irritates me that that man stopped dating you ONLY when others found out about it. It should never be normalised when 40 years old man dates a girl which barely finished school. The same with grown women dating teenage boys (which is even more normalised than grown man/teenage girl).
I’m incredibly sorry that he hurt you like that and then objectified you by calling you “jailbait”. You’re a full person who deserves respect and an equal partner. They were absolutely right to shut him down on dating you, though
“Your age” by Rina sawayama and “would’ve could’ve should’ve” by Taylor swift came out within 6 months of 29 and I think it’s pretty telling that all these women who are around the age of 30 now and were teenagers/young women in the 2000s are realizing this.
So even though I’m not a female I’m really enjoying your videos. I really love hearing the feminist side on things. I’m very happy people are discussing their opinions and voice confidently. Wish you all good luck.
I do think young girls & femmes have been drawn to pop culture involving younger girl-older man set-ups, because young girls want to feel safe, and are taught that the only way is through an experienced men or masculine. And because we're not taught to critique any of this, it never occurs to us what we actually need safety FROM. This is what makes being a teenage girl so terrifying. Growing up means being hyper-aware of other people's behaviour, and denying yourself of outward agency to keep yourself safer than other girls...and even then that's no guarantee. Attracting someone older, especially if they're really good-looking puts perhaps more naive young girls, in mind of Prince Charming rescuing them from their own lives. The problem is, at that age, we don't think that if the crushes we have are on decent & ethical older people...then those older people absolutely won't want us as lovers, and nor should they. But media aimed at young girls never acknowledges or recognises this, except for maybe when teen dramas have a harder edge, and unfortunately there are real life older people who take absolute advantage of this. For me, this kind of what happens when girls have maturity enforced on them whilst having their agency emotionally robbed from them - when they are abused, they are more likely to side with their abuser or those demanding things from them. And make no mistake, it's that way by design.
Yes! I think part of the problem is that young girls aren’t taught what true safety or danger actually look like. Predators are always depicted as outright mean and scary, so if a grown man approaches you and showers you with compliments then he can’t be a predator, right? They don’t realize that manipulation and control often looks like kindness and charm.
Ok real story- fiction can help young girls also identify the issues with their relationships too. I was 17 and hooking up with a 23 year old (who I met when he was the chaperone of an overseas school trip) and I did feel empowered. Someone who found out (also teen girl) told me to go watch An Education and holy shit it below my mind. Still not ok what happened, but it helped me realize I wasn't the cool empowered adult I thought I was. I was a teen who fell for the fantasy
This was an incredible video; the other day i was talking with my bff and we realized that almost every girl our age that we know has been in a situation/relationship with someone significantly older than them and that's... that's fcked up
12:30 even our queen sailor moon, also from a story created by a woman, had a significantly older boyfriend. Usagi was in middle school and Tuxedokamensama I mean Mamoru was about to be or already starting college. Teensiest bit disappointed/surprised she wasn’t represented here 😢
@@lordtette in the manga he was 2 years older, but the writers at the anime made it so he was so much older, much to the chagrin of creator Naoko Takeuchi
Yep!! I will never forgive for kids and the localization of sailor moon because it took me reading the manga to realize he was in a college student and dating a 15-year-old he was only like two years older than her
As someone who had dated a 35 yo when I was freshly 18 (yes, a 17 year age gap) and only ended it about a year ago. . . yeah it fucks you up a LOT. I'm 23 now and I still find it disgusting that I was preyed upon so early. I didn't have a normal 'first love' experience for fuck's sake. If I could go back to my younger self, I'd pick her up and take her somewhere safer away from him!!
I don’t mean to be insensitive but what makes grooming/Pedophelia relationships so traumatic? I’m not saying it wasn’t that bad I genuinely want to know what it is like because u never experienced it.
So sad to read all these comments from younger girls about their dates with older men over 30 and how horrible the experience was. Those guys who say they want the younger girls obviously don't have the best intentions, but they say otherwise, but from experience and from all these comments just prove how creepy they are, and how disturbing YT is now promoting videos and ideas about how is super ok for older men to like young girls... is super creepy when they only want control and explicitly say they would change them once they turn 25 for a younger girl.
@@quantumangel737 I kinda always knew Pedophelia was bad since it was spoon feed to me at a super young age by the internet but I never dwelled too hard on it. However when I read stories like these I just can’t help but suddenly be hit with the realization of how disgusting and horrible it really is.
@@LeaveMeAlone3omgIgotloggedouta Based on the DSM-5 definition, a pedophile is anyone 16 and up who experiences persistent attraction to prepubescent children, typically 13 and under, who are at least five years younger than them. This is the actual definition. To call a 35 year old dating an 18 year old a pedophile is simply inaccurate. There's a lot of misinformation surrounding the topic, as it justifiably brings out a lot of emotions. But it's good to know what it is and isn't so that the problems surrounding it can be addressed. Still, I want to answer your question about where the harm comes from, since I truly think most people don't actually understand why it's bad, and it's kind of refreshing to see someone admit they don't rather than pretending they do to justify their anger. Most reasons people give are just "it's bad because it's bad" and then you'll be berated or called a predator for even asking a question. The actual issues are more complex, as well as multiple, so bear this in mind, as I'll be leaving a longer reply befitting of the topic's actual scope. Most notably, the trauma typically appears not during, but after childhood. A child will, under most circumstances, have little desire or natural understanding of intimacy, privacy, and vulnerability, and no deeper emotional or mental value is attached to sexual things. All of this typically develops on its own as someone ages. An adult who has developed these senses, is therefore capable of understanding when they're being violated, enabling the adult to appropriately act against unwanted contact. They've been given a fighting chance to protect what's valuable to them with the proper inbuilt defenses. But if that adult had been taken advantage of as a child, when they hadn't yet developed any natural understandings of these concepts, then at some point, they'll come to realize it after the fact, which can result in similar trauma to if it happened by force later in life. One way to think of it is to imagine a fortress, built around a stockpile of gold, solely meant to protect it. If someone breaks into your fortress and takes your gold by force, that's an obvious wrongdoing. But if you one day found out that the gold that's rightfully meant to be yours was stolen while the fortress wasn't fully built and was unfortified, or that someone convinced you to give that gold away before you could learn that gold had any sort of value, you'd feel like you were wronged. This goes double if the people whose job it is to keep your gold safe (in this case, trusted authority figures like family members or teachers) are the ones who took it. And contrary to popular belief, that's typically what happens, as most child predators are people their victim already knew and trusted. As a result, being preyed upon often leads to trust issues, feelings of being unsafe, a sense of being worth less than others, and a whole host of other issues. And given that abuse is often cyclical, many victims may later grow up to develop complexes that lead them to abuse others. Sure, some exceptions occur. Some people get groomed or abused as kids and then grow up into reasonably healthy adults who just aren't all that impacted. But the fact is that it's not a risk any adult should be authorized to make a child take. This is why it's important for all people to develop to a certain level of maturity before they can be expected to reasonably consent. It's also worth mentioning that a pedophile and a child predator, while not mutually exclusive, are two different things. Both are problematic, but a child predator is someone who actually acts or attempts to act against minors, which is a crime, whereas a pedophile isn't automatically a criminal, but essentially has a mental disorder that makes them attracted to children, which they may or may not act upon depending on their individual morality and mentality. According the leading authorities on offenders against children (and particularly the research led by forensic psychologist and director of Forensic Rehabilitation Research at ROHCG, Dr. Michael C. Seto, if you're curious), only 20-40% of offenders against children are actually pedophiles, with most offenders being people with substance control issues or traits of antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy.) This is why it's often said (and unfortunately often forgotten) that SA isn't usually about uncontrolled lust, but about taking and exerting power. Now, it's my personal opinion that pedophiles, so long as they aren't seeking to act on or glorify their disorder, aren't necessarily evil just because life handed them a cursed card. But they should still probably seek professional help all the same. Unfortunately, the majority of otherwise reasonable people who loudly proclaim that they want to violently harm pedophiles, rather than predators, likely discourages the innocent ones from seeking the kind of help they could use to maintain stability. Without that stability, there's far less incentive for them to uphold the social contract that keeps them from acting on their urges, especially if society will treat them the same either way. Which is is, again, why I thought it was important enough to specify the actual terms and their respective dangers. Most people don't do their homework on these things, don't care about the problem as much as they say they do, and then just end up contributing to the problem. But people actually understanding the issues and seeking out genuine answers to uncomfortable questions, as you did, is what's needed if we're to ever stand a chance at better solving them.
I'll add my two cents as a guy who used to be a bit problematic when it came to younger girls. I used to be a bit of a loner during my teens, and only gathered the confidence to approach girls in my early 20's. During that time I did end up in a romantic (thankfully not sexual) situation with a 15 year old, that I called off, once the reality of how different our worlds were finally dawned on me. Looking back, I think the main draw for me was her inexperience and the lack of expectations she had for me. I could be a complete degenerate loser, but in her eyes I was that grown guy with a six-pack that went to university and that was good enough for her to completely fall for me. At that time I was honestly scared of women my age and all the expectations they might have of me. I just felt unprepared for that and wanted some kind of escapism. Obviously these things weren't clear to me back then, but now, after many years in a healthy relationship, I understand what was going on.
I remember a while back, mothers compared the short and shirt sizes of young girls to that of their male counterpart and just how small they were boggled me! We allow these young children to wear short pink skirts and little flower tops but you must drop the act when you reach a certain age because “men will view you differently” We basically raise these girls as sexless beings until they’ve reached maturity and society shifts all the responsibilities of predatory awareness on them. Why must the girl be condemned? Why cant a girl no longer call her father “Daddy” after a certain age? Why cant a teenager wear pigtails? We were doomed with this complex the minute they put the pink band around our heads.
I remember feeling that gaining the attention of older men was something cool and that boys my age weren’t nearly as mature as them. While it is true that usually older people are more mature than younger people, these men that seek younger women are not. Yes, older men do seek younger women but it is usually the older men that have not matured. Young girls should save themselves the disappointment, if you’re looking for an older man who is mature he will most likely not be interested in you. It is not that mature older men seek mature young girls but immature older men seek girls that are equal to the age they are still in their minds or girls that are of the age they were when they were last relevant.
the topic of women aging in hollywood always makes me think of meryl streep in bridges of madison county. she almost declined the role because she thought she was too old to play the lead even though she was actually younger than the character (streep was 41 and francesca is in her 50s) and clint eastwood had to convince her that they wanted her specifically to play the role
Thank you for making this video. I’ve been processing a lot of trauma lately and one of the things that’s been on my mind is the fact that we talk about rape culture a lot as a society, but I think we also need to talk about how ‘predatory culture’ (don’t think this is a real term, it’s something I made up to describe it) is also normalized in our culture. I think videos like this is a great starting point for these discussions
The way that within a week of turning 18, a 27 yr old man aggressively hit on me and wouldn't leave me alone because I was 'legal' with the implication that I should just deal with it
I find it so interesting to hear that people into the vampire genre would be interested in an age gap because I've always loved Anne Rice and I do like Lore Olympus but I've never ever been into older men... When I was younger I always thought how cool it would be if you were a vampire, you could learn so much more because there is no time limit >.
I always liked the idea of being with a guy 10-15 years older than myself when I was younger. But now that I’m 28 I am very happy my husband is only 4 years older than me. I like to be able to talk about things from when I was a kid, you know old songs and movies, and he can relate with it. Also I don’t want him to die waaay before me 💔😅 you feel me ??
that's something i think about all the time - my parents are 11 years apart and my dad is definitely struggling with aging while my mom is still pretty agile and healthy. it's just going to get harder as they get older, so imagine someone 15, 20, even 30 years older??
Same! I dated muuuch older men in my teens/early 20s and I'm so glad my girlfriend is the exact age as me, because we can relate a lot better. I never thought it was that important, but it is.
@@sterlingmarshel6299 Well, he is almost 70, so. It's sort of expected that he would be aging... (not to mention genetic health conditions he has no control over)
Thank you so much for saying that media for young women doesn't have to be instructional! That's something that's always bothered me-fiction isn't a textbook, no matter the target audience. Fascinating video!
This is very fascinating for me, as someone who literally never had an Age Gap fantasy or pursued it (or found myself groomed into it.) I was very very peer aged in high school, either same age or no more than 1 year the gap. So this is a highly different perspective for me.
As someone who is a CSA survivor (several times over, since you have just one CSA trauma), I agree with the first half of the video but heavily disagree with most of the second half. The reason I did what I did with my first groomer at 15 was because of my own "sexual teacher older woman" fantasy I'd been fed through media, porn, and jokes and what other people told me was an enviable and good thing (I was called lucky so many times it took me nearly a decade to realize a 50 year old should not be doing sexual things with a 15 year old). A part of the grooming process, and the dangers of depicting these things uncritically and without condemning them, is getting the child to be comfortable with these ideas (along with the adult, I firmly believe you have to be radicalized to commit these acts like you have to be radicalized to become a bigot or fascist), *and showing them/bonding over porn and series that portray these relationships as enviable is one of the most common ways to do that*. I love shows like Bojack Horseman and Revolutionary Girl Utena, but those are the rare groundbreaking exceptions and not the norm, and they work because they show incest and CSA as the horrifying reality they are. If it's romanticized, that's dangerous, even if you haven't seen how. The "fantasy" is life shattering and has landed me in a suicide ward hold before (and gave me disturbing intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation throughout my teen years that nearly killed me several times over if it wasn't for my friends calming me down from planned attempts and meeting other people who'd gone through the same thing).
As a 18 year old teenager, the amount of times I have been hit on by men who are 10+ years older than me is huge, and what's really concerning, they don't see a problem with the age difference. Last week, I rejected a guy who was older than my dad and he was really confused with my reaction to him (I was appalled, lol). This stuff really messes up your self-perception, you just have become 'legal' and have to deal with this anytime you leave the house. When I was younger, I used to lower my age to turn off men who would try to get my number, and that didn't stop them at all. Creepy AF.
Talking about this topic, i guess the song 恋ゲバ by Atarashii Gakko makes me kinda understand more about age gap relationships. The music video itself was about a potrayal of a student-teacher relationship, and there was never something beautiful about it. Creepy? Yes.
Every time I hear of Lana's song Lolita, I think it would be interesting to compare it to Emily Autum's "Gothic Lolita", which was the one I had on replay during my teenage era. Despite the shared name the energy is so different. It always felt weird to see girls my age be into this... pedo-patriarchy system bs and not raging against it. Like, I was very much into the idea of wallowing in that uncertain, anxious, "what is expected of me?" hurting way but I also felt rage against said expectations, the way we're treated, and Emily's music encapsulated that so well imo. Just thought it'd be interesting to see other's ppl thoughts on it, since to me at the time Lana felt sort of an opposite for Emily. It's been a while tho lol
I had never heard of that artist (or that song) before but just checked it out. It's freaking rough to listen to, but thank you for introducing it to me.
Honestly Lana's music has this way of showing how scary girlhood is, while veiling it with glamor, like her song Lolita is a pretty good example of this motif of her work.
From what i remember, isn't Lana del Rey ever made a song ( idk which one ) about being in an age gap relationship? She even told that this song was based on her experience being in a relationship with her english teacher i think?
@@JesusGomez-ob2qtOn top of that, the way she was introduced to it would’ve been in a glamorous manner from a teacher who gave her special attention. She later talked about how she was shipped alone to Spain (which may have been where she met him?) in her teens because her mother saw her as troubled. It makes sense she uses the flowery imagery of the book to inspire her music. She’s still using this escapist, dream-like tone in her lyrics and poetry. I feel Lolita influences so much of her other music, not just the obvious references.
As a 17 year old bisexual guy, I find it difficult to understand what I had with a 27 year old man when I was 14. Even though we only went on "mini dates" and he only gave hints to liking me, calling me jailbait and comparing me to that guy from death in Venice. I still don't hate him, I'm aware how wrong that relationship was and the older I get I feel worse about it. He never touched me but I still feel a bit used :/ i have a need to sexualize myself even though I have an extremely low sex drive. It's not that I want to have sex with older men, I just want to be wanted.
THIS! I'm a woman who's also bi and when I'm Imagining myself in a relationship with a huge age gap disgusts me and yet I feel more attracted to older men that always makes me feel that I matter and I have a purpose...but at the end of the day, I don't feel that way anymore, that attraction slowly crumbles whenever I'm thinking I've done something wrong. It's very hard for me like and feel attracted to men that are my age. Is it because they're mostly immature? I don't honestly know anymore.
As someone who was groomed by their mother to be abused by men I have to say I think I liked these age gap stories because I related to them. I saw myself in the main character and I wanted to hold onto the hope that maybe some day I could find love and happiness with one of my abusers and maybe they could be kind to me. Of course I was wrong, but the fantasy helped me cope.
This also feeds in to women having a tougher time dealing with aging. It's a common trope (in movies and in real life) for a man to leave his wife and children for a younger woman. It's a whole point that doesn't seem to be taken seriously since it is so normalized. Plus, older women dating young men (still creepy) is seen as more of a joke rather than sinister. The whole topic of age and romantic relationships is something to look into.
I really love how nuanced you were with this. In middle school and high school, I really had a thing for older men and consumed a Lot of said media in question (luckily my parents taught me how to stay safe irl, so it was all just fiction to me), but nowadays online I see some women talk about how were taken advantage of at that age. Media that made me happy to be female and brought me happiness through hard times as a youth was also the same media that other women feel romanticizes a traumatic relationship for them, and they have a right to express that they feel that way. I wholeheartedly agree with you that there is no definitive answer. Every individual work of art is different, and every individual person is different, and so the most that can be done that I can think of is probably to just encourage novels/tv/movies/fanwork/fics to always put some sort of content warning for relationships that are not supposed to be attempted outside of fiction or something.
I went into this video expecting to disagree with you on the "yes, it's problematic irl but I still enjoy the media" side of things.... you surprised me with your super nuanced take and I really appreciate all the thought you put into seeing this from all sides! Thank you!
Growing up as an (at the time, undiagnosed) autistic adhd girl I was especially vulnerable to attention from older men. I didn’t understand a lot of my peer’s social cues, so I was oblivious to most flirting. The only flirting I really picked up on was inappropriate sexual attention from adults. It was scary but it was also an ego boost, like that my beauty was a more sophisticated taste that high school boys just couldn’t appreciate yet. I would often even convince myself that I had a crush on that adult (I think 1. to resolve some of the emotional distress that would have come from admitting that the situation was unwanted and 2. Because it is very natural to like the feeling of being desired). I became obsessed with age gap relationships in fiction because I think I was trying to understand what was going on. I remember thinking that some were romantic (I read a lot of fanfic!) but mostly consuming media that expressed it as scary. I remember this feeling of recognition when I read Lolita and The Lovely Bones. Like “oh. The adults who flirted with me as a 12-14 year old were gross. I had some close calls. Those situations could’ve been way more dangerous”. But by that time, my sexuality had already been programmed to look to much older men for validation. It’s been something I’ve had to work through as an adult so that I can have healthy relationships that aren’t formed on a power imbalance.
Wow. You have just taught me about myself. I have the same diagnosis and I have never dated anyone less than 5years older than me. Of course, my trauma also makes me scared that a person my age will not relate to me. I read Lovely Bones twice when I was 14. My gosh you have enlightened me.
INCREDIBLE im constantly hoping videos on this topic will articulate this clearly the way you did, 1) why girls like media like this, and 2) that its OKAY for girls to like media like this!! and additionally 3) its okay for women to create art and media about this because art is *for* exploring the complexities and fears of life. wonderful job!! thank you so much
Agree, though I don’t think that these type of fictional art should be pushed towards young girls, since they already don’t even know what they want in life, and they are not developed yet to deal with the emotional baggage that these form of art bring. It can be damaging. Furthermore, we should as women respect one another, and if we truly want to protect women, start helping one another and stop participating in these societal norms. Maybe discuss these with men too and see their point of view.
Aight so two things, 1) Lana's work does this thing where she talks about the horror of girlhood, and masks it with glamor, like not only with the lyrics but the music itself always has this unsettling touch of something menacing trying to come off as beautiful and enticing. It is very very scary in my opinion. 2) Age gaps between immortals and mortals really depend on what age the immortal person is coded as, like let's face it we all know how gross it is to see a dude in his 30s wanting porn of a character that looks and acts like they're 6 and say "she's not a child she's 3000 years old." That said the immortal character never really plays into the age gap fantasy in most media, but more of a "They're dangerous and mysterious, and totally better than men today." type of thing.
I'm a 14 year old who has been chronically online for a long time now. I've never been groomed. I know what it is. I'm quite self-aware and tbh, it's not like I'm a naive kid. I've always preferred fictional people. pixelated or just characters in a book. if I ever do talk to strangers online, it's usually on comment sections or on discord, where I only ever talk about school or 2d characters. I find the picture of me with a real person horrifying enough. I'm quite open about my age, so undeniably, there's going to be people who's gonna find me a good target. but I set clear boundaries, and if any rl picture are sent, it always has my face covered. I'm scared of adults. paranoia if you will. even with my confidence of not ever getting groomed doesn't mean the chances are completely zero. what's so good about rl romance. fictional characters can't break or judge me and I can pretty much know everything about them. much better than people.
I'll put my 2 cents on the conversation, as a 46 y/o heterosexual cis male: many men are quite uncomfortable with such age gaps, though it's not "cool" to point at other men's behaviour (as with many many other sketchy things in "The City of True Men" we often are forced to live while adhering to a certain "code of silence"). For those of us not particularly attracted by women way younger than us, that kind of fiction is cringy at best and quite alienating. Relations like that in reality are completely unbalanced, and sometimes hectic and/or toxic. Generally men beyond their early 20's who systematically search for early 20's women assume they will be easily malleable, though those men often wouldn't be considered as mature enough by women their age. On the other side, I've seen make very young women using "tantrums and scenes" (meaning a behaviour probably closer to what a puber/early teen would do) in a relation with an older man, as a way to excerpt power. Both parts seem, however, playing their expected roles in a constant power play. The man is celebrated as "the regulator, putting things in place" and the girl, while qualified as "childish and crazy", is perceived by those men as more desirable because a erratic conduct equals "passionate and hot"... really, it seems like I'm enunciating the plot of many late reggaeton songs :) While most of us, of any gender, would probably would "look our best" at our late 10's and early 20's, the whole "Lolita" thing neglects older women as undesirable (even to the extreme of considering late twenties women "old", DiCaprio style) while in reality a more mature person would had a lot to offer mentally, sexually and emotionally. If I may add, that subject would link to the whole fetishization of youth, but that's another can of worms. Excellent video. Please forget my grammar faults as English is not my mother language. Greetings from Spain!!!
i really really liked this video essay. like usually i don’t like watching videos of this topic because it’s always so,,, one sided? but i really liked your approach to this, because it was so nuanced!! i also love that you made the point of people liking things in fiction but not reality, because a lot of people miss that or believe fiction = reality. anyway cool video !!
Great video Cheyenne, I’m currently taking a course that encourages us to seek differing views and ideas to better understand the ones we hold as our beliefs. This video doesn’t contradict any of my personally held views but it did push me to think deeper and acknowledge uncomfortable truths, and for that I’m very grateful 💖🫶🏼 have a lovely day!
When i was a teen i was convinced this was normal, i was 14 dating a 18 yr old, 15 dating guys in their 20s, 18 when i dated a 30yr old. I only realized how fucked up this was when i myself reached the age of the guys. I had alot of guys in their 40s hit on me when i was at the beginning of my 20s and i am glad i was smart enough by that time to get out of this dynamic. I even remember my mother normalizing this to me, saying things like "girls are more mature and 3 years ahead of boys in development" .
Huuuh?.. so you’re telling me when I was a freshman in high, crushing on girls in my class, I was unknowngly in direct competition with men in their 20’s ? 😮
I remember my dad telling me to 'close my legs' while sitting on the side-walk (I wore shorts and not short shorts, shorts from the 2010s). He said because 'people could see through my shorts' bc the holes were big. I was never ever aware of this before, and it creeped me out. Because I was with a safe group, my scouting group which I knew for a couple years and all the boys were nice. NO ONE else ever said something like that to me. The only time was in a swimming pool and my swim suit needed to be ajusted bc my chest was falling out 😂. It always struck me as weird that as a girl I was the one who somehow needed to be aware of it, so like you said: men watch, we watch ourselves being watched.
20:27 of course the colors are almost impossible to distinguish after a while. I mixed up at least 2-5 character because the coloring is way too similar.
lana was groomed as a teen. a teacher at her boarding school introduced her to lolita and has always realted to lolita. she was also physically abused. lana used a music as a way to cope and share her experiences. it's the parents fault for letting their young impressionable kids listen to her. her music isn't for kids it's for adults and older teens. lana is a feminist and supports female artist and poc. she was clearing up rumors people made about her.
Yeah, the problem is usually that the reality doesn't meet up with the "fantasy". Lots of girls and young women do want relationships with older, mature men, but the reality is those men are TOO mature to be dating someone 10-15 years their junior. The men who are genuinely interested in that age group usually haven't matured at all so now you just have an older partner sucking the youth/energy out of you because they themselves are too scared to grow up.. 😊
Well no I'm a 36-y/o guy and I do want a relationship with a girl say 10-12 years younger; not because of the 'power dynamic' or to take advantage of her immaturity or any of that nonsense - but simply because I want my own family and women my age are often infertile by now, and frankly not as attractive either. It's best not to make assumptions, but rather ask and then gauge if they're telling the truth.
@@Pythoner hahahahhaa that's a huge paragraph for "I never matured properly so women my age intimidate me and making up biological nonsense that even a highschool student could contest is my only way to make myself feel better". Also if you really weren't fucking creepy you wouldn't feel so hot and bothered over someone talking shit about creepy people lol. Imo you should stay single because it's clear from this very tiny interaction that you don't give a shit about actually finding a person to share your life with but would rather have some hot bangmaid who can take care of you like your mommy when you're in diapers again. Sincerely hope no naive insecure young woman wastes their time with you 🙏
@@sachinalani I'm not bothered personally by your comment, I'm rather writing this for your benefit and others. And you're again making a bunch of assumptions, perhaps projected of of whatever experiences you had in your life (unfortunate ones it appears). I'm not looking for any bangmaid, I'm looking for a life partner, but am looking for one 10 years younger because they're more fertile and hotter - and that's important, for both staying together, and being able to take our time when it comes to building the relationship and having kids. I'm not insecure and I don't want anyone to take care of me, on the contrary I want to have my own family and will do everything to ensure they're happy and provided for. I'm also not being creepy I don't believe either, I'm completely upfront about my intentions, and can respect whatever decision.
Love you're videos. As someone who had to grow up learning what a messed up world we lived in. I always hated the idea of being prayed on by older people. The older I gotten, the more I feared of talking to strangers who I don't know personally.
Loved this video! This kind of discussion/question is in the opposite direction but I'm from Japan, where the h3ntai genre of underage children is really common. I've heard discussions where h3ntai child p'rn is somewhat a good way for pedophiles to release their urges without harming real-life children. While at the same time, theres also discussion about these forms of media actually normalize/perpetuate the harm of minors in real life. A lot of people defending (not just underage) but oversexualized characters in the form of anime, say that it's just fiction and people can distinguish fiction from fantasy. (Hence it doesn't affect how adults treat children) However, being a victim of casual SA as 9 years old, I genuinely wonder if media is a good way for people to dive into something that is just from their curiosity or if it's actually harmful. Idk if any of that made sense but.
What you're saying does make sense, and it brings up a really good point. I think (and I'm American and female, which definitely colors my views) that the part that plays the biggest part is who the audience of the fiction is. I'm not sure I'm going to explain this very well either, but I think that, while something that is geared towards entertainment for the people who would be the ones being victimized (children, young straight women and young gay men, etc), it can be used... like a tool? It can let young people explore the idea without the dangers of 'following through' with an adult, though of course there is, as you said, the concern of prevalence in media leading to normalization of it, to potential (and actual) victims thinking that it's just... how the world is. Which is gross and depressing. I think it can (at least partially) be balanced out by also having popular media that shows the reality of age gap relationships - I think it would be interesting if the creators of the original, rose-tinted age gap fiction then did more realistic fiction set in the same universes as the original, but that may just be me. Whereas media that's geared towards entertaining the abusers, the criminals that would actually be enacting the things that they're seeing in the media... That strikes me as more gross and also kind of terrifying? Like, is there actually any evidence that watching underage h3ntai actually keeps pedophiles from harming actual, living children? Or is it like more 'normal' p0rn addiction, where the viewer gets less and less from it, so they look for more intense, more violent and f*cked up stuff to keep getting that same high... eventually leading to violence against real, living people? In any case, I feel like the more media out that's for entertaining the abusers, the more likely it is that the abusers will see it as 'okay' and 'acceptable.' And that's something that abuse should never be.
@@jrj5893 now that you’ve laid it out like that, that makes so much sense. There’s definitely a difference between media that entertains and feeds abusers vs victims and that’s something I didn’t think about so thank you.
I just think it's really sad that there are no popular stories for teens/tweens that till them that they don't have to f*ck old men and that men who are into you are bad.
commenting again now that i'm closer to the end, thanks for this! i had some lightbulb moments because out laid everything out really nicely. i used to judge others for what they liked, and it makes perfect sense to want to explore these ideas safely.
I enjoyed this video a lot! Age gap relationships in fiction generally tend to annoy me nowadays, but I never really considered why a lot of tween and teen girls would seek out depictions of those scenarios. Thank you for explaining things in a non-judgmental way while not excusing the power imbalance of such relationships in real life.
ughhh buckling in for this one. i have been doing a lot of processing of my age gap relationship history and its been tough coming to terms with the bad parts of it so i think this video is just what i need to remind myself im not alone
I think this video covered a lot of bases of age gap fantasy in a really smart and fleshed out way. I personally think that, based off my own lived experiences, there is more to be said about why younger people are drawn to age gap relationships. I agree that it is a product of culture and is absolutely influenced by patriarchy, but I think there are some draws to being with an older person (typically man) as a young person that are a little more removed from patriarchy. I think that the prospects of being with an older man as a young person is driven by everything you said, but also the idea that an older person is more stable and figured out than you are. I also personally have been drawn to older men because, during puberty, I had a maturity level that didn't match my peers (largely more mature, but also fell behind in some respects) and was drawn to older men under the illusion that I may feel more comfortable with their maturity level. I absolutely think that all drives to be with an adult man as a teenager are made up in the teenager's head. The things that they think they will find do not exist in older men, but a teenager will likely not be able to come to this conclusion on their own, unless they have an unfortunate trial period of their fantasy that does not go as planned.
This is reminding me of Taylor Swift’s relatively new Midnights album since a song in that is her second time dipping into a retrospective on her age gap relationship which apparently impacted her a decent amount for her to write two songs about it so far apart.
Great points in this video essay, especially about the problems in society such as the lack of sex education and education about patriarchy and oversexualisation of young girls. Those countdown to 18 timers are grosser than anything depicted in media.
i really do love reading darker topics, even if at times those topics happen in the story since the character(s) were/are conditioned by the patriarchy. dark topics give an opportunity to shed light on several topics and _can_ offer such complexity. when it's endorsed, romanticized or glorified though... it's... eh. let me just start here: i do feel like it's definitely worth knowing what can be the root of dark topics being endorsed in fiction. there's a couple things: such as being exposed as a young child to the portrayal of topics, having trauma, internalizing society's standards, and possibly more. it's definitely truth that dark topics being portrayed that way will still continue to go on because of people constantly being conditioned to society portraying those things as that way, or because portraying trauma and/or mental illness as "normal", "beautiful", or "romantic" (to a little or major extent, depending on the person) in your *mind* is a coping mechanism that many people's brain develops. even i still struggle with trying to romanticize my mental illness or at least try to make it "normal" to me as a way to cope, though this behavior as mine has gotten occurred less than it did before in the end of the day, in so many cases, dark topics are endorsed, glorified, or seen as romantic by authors as a way of coping. and the people that consume that type of media, WITHOUT criticizing the media for endorsing, romanticizing, or glorifying those dark topics uses the media as a way to cope. though still, darker or questionable topics such as HUGE age gaps, etc. being endorsed, seen as romantic, or glorified in the media is still a very much a questionable thing (and pretty, not good), even if it's for the sake of coping. to me, its very much an unhealthy coping mechanism, and my views and based on my personal experiences and other people's experiences. the kind of media that endorse certain dark topics, especially dark topics rooted in patriarchal norms, can encourage or give fuel to the beliefs that certain norms in society that you internalize is okay or acceptable... despite the norms being very questionable or bad when it comes to morality. and despite that the norms can be really dangerous as they can very much affect you negatively to an extent. viewing society norms as acceptable or okay can influence you to seek out those things despite the affect it can have on your mental being. but anyways, i liked this video and i don't really have anything else to say. and yes i edited this comment for it to be shorter
Absolutely excellent stuff. I wish I could add more than one like to this. Way, way too often children's media gets treated with a degree of moral suspicion that we never bother to apply to adult works and I think it's fantastic to see you taking children and teens seriously as readers who can and do interpret and navigate art in the context of their lives and internalise, operate and resist the meanings there in. This really reminded me of an essay I read which focused on teacher-student stories in YA fiction and came to a similar conclusion (went and refound it Kimberley Reynolds' Radical Children's literature chapter 6 I think) so that was really cool.
I really like opening up with the song 29. It’s such a powerful song. Looking back, every single female peer online friend I had was groomed over the internet. Every single one.
Very good video analysis! I'd like to add two things: A) historically, it made sense for older men to marry younger women. It was seen as normal and common. The idea was that the older man, more settled into their career, and more stable financially could provide for a younger bride, and obviously it's easier to have children when younger for a woman. However, this obviously isn't applicable nowadays as most modern women don't marry or have kids until late 20s or early 30s. At that point, they are financially stable themselves too, and don't need to rely upon a man to provide for them like in the 1800s or earlier. B) in fiction, I think older male characters are depicted as more mature, and this appeals to young women. They like the idea of an older man, not an emotional teenage boy. So it plays on female desire to be with a mature, sexually experienced, probably financially well off male suitor.
I love this video. This is something we don't talk enough about, even amongst ourselves as women. The way we are sexualized so young but are never allowed to find any sense of fulfillment in our own sexuality because our bodies never belong to us but to men in a patriarchal society, is something I wish we explored a lot more. I would have loved a deeper discussion around how harmful normalizing age gap relationships for young women is even in media, particularly in the sense that there is definitely a power dynamic at play that is being weaponized against young women that is harming them. As much as we cant moralize all media for young women, just the existence of this age gap media in and of itself normalizes the existence of age gap relationships when within the same media it isn't pointed out to the viewer the dangers the young woman faces as a result of being in this type of relationship. Sure lets explore it because young women are curious about it but lets also protect young women from these situations at the same time. You get me? Again, Loved the analysis!!
I think this is a great starting point for further research and thought on the role of media in young girls' education and the social expectations placed on us (and how we should act upon them). As a young woman who's been very protected by her parents, it horrifies me a little to see how much it is expected of the average tween girl (i.e., in my household it was already established that I wouldn't date boys just because -- we are christians and believe that dating is meant to lead to a healthy, established marriage). But it also makes sense to see how that affects the media we consume. I used to read Lore Olympus, too, and even enjoyed it, until I started watching video essays on media and feminism, and that changed my perspective. I decided not to continue reading it, but I still believe fiction can sometimes be a way to explore different dynamics/worlds/relationships/aspects/etc that we wouldn't want in real life. Congrats on the fantastic essay!
Great, well structured video! The trope of young, human girl with ancient creature romance seems to go back to the idea that experience for men is valuable. Independence is valuable for men as well. Girls/women are seen as less valuable, in terms of romance, the more experience they gain in the world. I think it's debris from our cultural past, when women were financially dependent on men in their lives. Now, it seems incongruent
Yeah as someone with younger friends in college (I was 24, they were 18-19) it was CRAZY how I could feel the age gap but they couldn't. They'd pout when I pointed it out, but I'd always say "Right now you're the oldest you've ever been. You don't have maturity, you have a limited scope."
quick note, I'm fairly sure Demi's pronouns are they/them
In 2022 Lovato, in an interview with “Spout Podcast”, said that they recently started using she/her as well as they/them
you can also find their pronouns on their instagram page it says "they/them/she/her"
@@CheyenneLin Oh ok, I didn't have updated information. Thank you! And good work.
This whole thing is so confusing 😭
@green mayo man🇺🇦 I dont know what it means when you go by the pronounce they/them and she her at the same time. When I dont know someones pronounce yet how can I call them?
As someone who was groomed by older men more than once as a teenager, I can confirm that they are NOT at a higher intellectual, emotional, or maturity level than a) men my age, and b) me, a teenager. They're pathetic and opportunistic manbabies. Run girl, run.
Facts fr
this is anecdotal and reddit may not be the most reliable due to how many people karma farm (which, why??) but i have seen a number of reddit stories with age gap relationships, mostly young woman dating a much older man, and somehow the man was the immature and childish one.
@@rishabhanand4973 Yeah technically its anecdotal, but in a sense its a fact as well, its the truth, because why the younger women always have to be the mature one but the men are immature and infantilzed in a way
@rishabh anand
That's kinda the point. Its a red flag if a man dates significantly younger bc it usually means women his own age don't take his shit.
@@rishabhanand4973 *Flashsbacks to C-Bat guy*
We were supposed to think that Aria's parents were the baddies for... Not letting her date her teacher, who was a decade older than her, and even worse, knew that she was underage when he met her in the bar?!
omg is she talking in this video about Ezria? I’m so excited I hate that couple
Looking back, it's soooo fucked up. Her parents were right to react the way they did. If anything they didn't nearly go far enough. Ezra should have been arrested
OMG I ALWAYS FOUND THAT SOO WEIRD, i hated how their relationship grew closer as the show went on
i see you everywhere omg
Pretty Little Liars in general didn't sit right with me. It wasn't just Aria and Ezra, remember, it was also Spencer and her brother in law. Didn't he have an affair with her when she was 15 or some mess? And the way 14/15 year-old Alison was sexualised left a bad taste in my mouth. The whole thing was incredibly messed up.
I wanted to yell "yes!!" after every point you brought up, but especially "women artists don't have a responsibility to raise your children" and "women and girls aren't abused because of watching problematic media, they are abused because men are abusive". There is this expectation in society that girls and women have a responsibility to protect themselves from gendered violence - the same kind of expectation that pushes, for example, true crime creators to "explain" to women how to protect themselves from serial killers. Instead of targeting perpetrators, we teach women that it's their responsibility if they are abused.
Yup.
OMG YEAH. I realized that my mom always told me to bulk up my mentality by going under martial arts training, i meant for sure i do have fun with it and it helps my confidence to be more independent. But, now i sort of understand how my trauma and fear of men came from and to the point i'm tricking myself into believing that every men i know and met or basically every men in general is about to hurt me lmao. I guess that's what you get from hearing stories from your own family and friends got abused by men, and consuming stories about being abused by men. The suffering is real.
Edit: my english isn't good, so i hope i'm not sounding ridiculous here.
There will always be serial killers
I'm a man, I havent abused anyone. I just got here
@@Castigar48 ....You're joking though right
Sometimes I think John Berger's line of "Men look at women. Women watch themsleves being looked at" is the root of many heterosexual relationships and fantasies even for women. I used to be more attracted to the idea of a man finding me attractive than I was to the actual man, but it took me years to realise that.
That's a good quote because it describes my "relationship" with this one woman I really liked but I think she liked the attention not me.
THIS EXACTLY
@@NoName-zb1gm I'm sorry to hear that, man. She should have been upfront with you about not having deep feelings in that case if you were dating.
I'm not too sure that this is a gendered thing, honestly. I know tons of women will go through this. But there are also so many scenarios of men falling for or even becoming unhealthily obsessed over any girl who so much as offers them a single compliment when they aren't used to it. Thinking about it, it may even be a little worse with dudes since some truly believe they can't be SA'd by a woman, and find the idea of a woman being unable to keep their hands off them to be no less than validating.
@@trashtaletalksno. It’s not worse with dudes
I've found in my experiences that older men who pursue younger women often have a deep insecurity about getting older, not being competent enough for women their age, and a desire for control over an aspect of their lives. Young women/girls seem "safe" because they often expect so little, are eager to please, and don't have the life experience to draw from to call men on their bullshit.
Everyone is more attractive when they're young. Young girls don't go for older guys because they're attractive, it's because the girls are damaged and the men have money.
Ding ding ding! They are simultaneously immature and unwilling to grow.
I thought I should date someone older because I was always "so mature" for my age. But I've come to see how they date me because they want to stay young.
My last boyfriend admitted that he sought me out because he wanted someone who was 7 years younger than him. Because, he didn't want the responsibility of someone his age.
When he explained this... I realized I had to end the relationship and look at why I felt the need to go for someone that much older.
Just remember. Most Men even Successful ones prefer Younget Women. It would appear the only difference between them and creeps is that THEY attract the owner Women to them rather than seek them out themselves
@@silverhawkscape2677 Just remember that older, successful men can be creeps too. Generally, young women don't seek older men for their appearance or personality. It's the wealth that attracts-- financial security/benefits, gifts, and help with student loans are very appealing
THIS
This struck so many chords it was basically a symphony.
At 15 I was dating a 21 year old guy then, after breaking up 3 and a bit years later, ended up with a guy in his 30s. I was largely uncomfortable in both relationships but stayed because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. It was pretty much the "dream" as depicted by a lot of the media I was consuming. By itself the media wouldn't have been an issue but the adults around me also seemed to see nothing wrong with these things. When I was 14 one of my mums friends who was 24 regularly flirted with me and everyone just thought it was amusing because they knew I had a crush on him. At the time I was just flattered but looking back I'm honestly horrified.
I'm so sorry that happened to you, no adults should let a grown-ass man who's flirting with their minor child continue to be around them! And it's really sad how few of us were taught that the younger person is being victimized in relationships like the ones you were in. And taught that in a way that makes sense and relates to our actual experiences, not just being warned against older men or whatever.
I am so sorry. People can call me what they want but if a 24 year old would flirt with my 14 year old daughter that lad will be castrated without anaethesia for god's sake !
What a loser btw.
Wow. When I was 13, a 21 year old guy approached me, he even invited me to have a dinner at a restaurant.
How is this normalized in society???
Of course I rejected him, even though I was also brainwashed about liking older men.
What media are you consuming cause no matter where I go in society large age gap relationships are seen as absolute taboo, I’ve seen people lose their shit when a 16 dates a 14, it just always seemed like society was always against woman dating older men and the ONLY time when it is acceptable is when the man is younger than the woman, 30 yr old women can literally date 14 yr old boys and most men and women don’t seem to see that as problem enough for them to have a long relationship without anyone interrupting with little to no consequence towards the women
@@yamiletsoler3464 it's great to know you rejected him. So true, people should stop brainwashing young girls liking older men, sadly there are a lot of videos out there brainwashing girls to like older men, it's disturbing.
Bruh I had two professors who didn’t hide the fact that they were into me. It really was very uncomfortable as a young 20 year old woman that men who are twice my age and are supposed to be teaching me would look at me that way.
fr I had the same experience with one 50-ish teacher while being barely 20
Yeah i had a former professor in his 50s who asked me out right after i graduated. another professor, c. ben mitchell (who testified in congress against reproductive rights) asked me for a life sized cast of my body to hang in his office WHILE I WAS STILL A STUDENT. another professor dated my roommate while she and i were still students, and one night i stumbled into my living room in my underwear to find my graphic design professor sitting on my couch. he was only like 26 when we were 21 so it wasn't AS creepy in that instance
My art instructor in college flirted w/me( he looked a bit like Ed Harris in "Pollack" so he wasn't bad-looking) However,he was in his 50's or early 60"s & I was in my 30's at the time & I'm rather shy. Anyway,while it was hardly Lolita-esque,it still made me feel a bit awkward..
I had an affair with an history teacher when I was 20 and it was actually a healthy connection beside that he told me, that he was divorced. He wasn't. I go to hell thanks to him.
I had a professor who was 56 with a 22 year old daughter, i really looked up to him, even though he was a bit sexist I thought I could talk to him and maybe change his mind. so i tried and he almost immediately brought up Olivia Dunne, a gymnast I didn't know, referring to her as a "young woman", and saying "well she's made so much money off of guys looking at her pictures, how does it hurt her if I look at her pictures? How does it hurt my wife and daughter?" completely unprompted.
I didn't know how old Olivia Dunne was until I got home and looked her up. She's 20. I'm 21. It's so creepy to me that he is attracted to women younger than his daughter and even more disgusting, completely willing to share that fact with one of his young students. He sees Olivia as somehow manipulating men, holding power over them, just because she's found a way to monetize her objectification.
A different time when I was 19, I was working at a restaurant run by a couple, husband and wife in their 40s, and their lovely kids would also hang out in the back of the restaurant. The husband would make disgusting comments about me in front of his WIFE AND CHILDREN. he once said i couldn't go to serve a customer in the front because "once he sees her, he won't be able to stand up because he'll get a boner".
The wife would sometimes give me alcohol because she liked drinking and talking with me, and one night she was giving me white wine. The husband kept refilling my glass even when I said I was done and pressiring me to drink, and then got weirdly angry when I insisted on walking home instead of letting him drive me. It was so creepy
As someone *in* an age gap relationship, it's strange to me how age gaps (and even grooming) have been glamorized in media. I love my husband, and I'm glad we're together. For our entire relationship, I have been an adult free to do whatever I want, and capable of supporting myself. Age is *not* just a number, though, and it presents challenges. For us, there were worries about being able to grow together and make our lifestyles compatible. We've been able to manage that, but there's the concern of what I'm going to do later in life because he'll probably be gone before me. Another layer of difficulty is added because a lot of people make untrue assumptions based on the age gap alone. While I'm glad society is not accepting grooming and exploitation like it used to, I wish people would realize that an age gap isn't always unhealthy or abusive. Sometimes, an adult is compatible with an older partner, and that's the whole story. (When I *was* in abusive relationship, my partner and I were close in age and "looked great together." Looks can be deceiving.)
I have always been disgusted by relationships that are power imbalanced. Age can be a big part of that, and grooming is never acceptable. But ultimately, we need to talk more about a healthy balance of power than about age gap vs not. Every adult should have autonomy over their body and their life, and children cannot consent. Period.
Of course, there is some disparity in what is or isn't considered to be "a child"-to some, any minor[ person below the age of legal majority] is a child; to others, it's not quite so simple.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 right. That's why the question should really be, "Is this power dynamic healthy?" If you need to split hairs about what constitutes a child, then something unhealthy is already going on. An older adult shouldn't even be interested in someone who still has a parentally-enforced curfew, for example. In that case, they should BACK OFF, get therapy, NOT engage in grooming, and YEARS LATER, if that child has grown up and become their own independent person, then maybe that relationship would be okay.
@@Aelffwynn I don't really disagree with you, for the most part-but it's just as often minors themselves who will split hairs about whether or not they are or aren't a child. (Plus, sometimes the adult and non-adult in question may actually be only a couple years apart, and that's why hairs are being split about whether or not a relationship between them would or wouldn't be acceptable.) And it is fair to note that people don't really just reach a magical specific age when they are now fully developed & matured psychologically-speaking, or have their independent life completely together, or such. (I mean the brain doesn't typically even physically finish developing completely until sometime after the legal age of majority sometime in a persons mid- to late- 20s, but the exact age may vary from one individual to another.) Even physically speaking, different people may develop at slower or faster rates.
I don't think questioning what exactly is the line between child and adult always automatically means that anything inherently untoward is already going on. Especially not when it's being questioned as more of a general concept, not necessarily specifically because it's personally relevant to whether or not they themself can actually be in a relationship with a minor. But I definitely agree that the real question should be to ask if the relationship itself is healthy, and age or power dynamics may or may not factor into that quite a lot, all depending.
I do have to ask what you mean by "an older adult" however-do you just mean any adult who is by default obviously older than any non-adult, or do you specifically mean adults who have been adults for a little while and are older even than a number of other[ younger] adults? And I don't know that having a parentally enforced curfew is necessarily a reliable indicator of anything though, because even a legal adult(who is actually a fully independent person) could still have a parentally enforced curfew if they haven't moved out of their parent's home yet(because the owner of the home does technically have the right to limit the hours when people are free to come or go from their house and an adult might find themselves in a similar situation sometimes even when not living at their parent's home if they rent a room or whatever in a building that doesn't belong exclusively to them), and some parents never enforce any curfew at all(whether they should or not); but, still, I do see your point just the same and I do agree that there are definitely many obvious circumstances in which an adult should absolutely not be looking at non-adults in anything remotely close to a non-platonic type of way.
I also completely agree that whether or not the relationship has a healthy dynamic should take priority over whether or not there is a gap in ages, at least in a relationship between two adults. I didn't make my previous comment as a criticism or dispute of anything that you had said before-I only made that comment, really, just as an additional point to consider[ or to ponder further] in general along with all the other points which you had already made.
Like... It's just a question, in general. (What exactly IS a child, or not?) Not a question to be asked specifically when asking yourself whether or not it is okay for 'you'[ an adult] to be in a not-platonic relationship with a non-adult.
Making a blanket statement such as 'an adult should never be in a non-platonic relationship with any child' is all well and good... but it may become much less useful if not everyone all agrees on what exactly "a child"[ &/or 'an adult'] is or isn't, and some people consider all teenagers to still be children while other people do not considers teens to still be children at all despite also not quite being legal adults yet either. And it may occasionally be helpful to keep that in mind. ..Purely for discussion's sake. ((Especially since the legally recognized age of majority, itself, can sometimes differ drastically from State to State and/or between Countries.)) That's all I was saying.
Do we err exclusively upon the local legalities of it(declaring that a child is any legal minor), which can vary a lot from one State/Country to another(?)-or is there some other determining factor specifically by which we should be governing this decision or judgment with[ regarding what exactly a child is or isn't]?
Lucky you, really.
Yeah and this includes teenagers because they are children too.
I will always be thankful when I was 10 and my mum's friend was shopping with us. She saw a g-string (thong) in the kids section and blew up. She went on a rant about how no girl wanted to wear one at my age, it was men who wanted girls to wear it to make us look 'more mature' and justify their predatory behaviour. She turned to me and told me to promise to not dress for men, but for me, and to please understand the comment of 'you're mature for your age' means shit. I was still 10, and dating anyone 3 years or more older than me was predatory. She told me that until I understand that, I shouldn't date anyone older than a 3 year gap.
My mum tried to argue with her cause my mum's views are toxic, but I got what her friend was saying. Met my husband at 16 and his not even a full year older than me
what an adult, if only more people existed like her, less people would be preyed on or even feel self guilt about it, i'm glad the advice had a positive effect on you, goes to show what good parenting, even from a family friend can do
@@KawaiiStars she was also really comfortable with her body, dressed in semi-revealing clothing. I remember thinking 'she likes these types of clothing. If she's saying it, it must be very important'. She loved helping me dress more stylish, since my mum dressed me in age inappropriate clothing so I knew she wasn't just saying it cause she didn't want me wearing it.
@@o0BlackSand0o true, that's the most important part, trust, some adults don't get that and dump a message without consulting the child's psyche, i too have ignored advice both bad and good because i felt the advisor just didn't want me to have fun because they never let me do anything, like a strict nun might
her maturity is a treasure
That's such a good thing to say!
It:
1) Gives autonomy and agency to girls and women --- it reinforces that you are able to dress how you want
2) Points out that there is such a thing as age-appropriate clothing --- it shouldn't be controversial, but certain things aren't meant to be worn by kids. When you're five, you don't need a bra, etc
3) Points out the male gaze
10/10
I’m happy she said that
Young girls want to and are pushed to grow up quicker. I know I did and dated an older guy at 16. I’m now 40 and wish I was a kid again. I want to relive my childhood and just enjoy being a kid with no responsibilities. Please girls don’t rush to grow up, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
That lady who recently got arrested for lying about her age so she could attend high school gives me the feels. I wish I was at school again, the things I’d do differently 😢
That's so weird ! Last night I dreamt I lied about MY age to attend a fancy HS. Then I admitted my age & looked up classes for adults ,none which I liked since they were only one day long. Btw,I hated HS so I don't understand why I have dreams like that in the first place. That aside, you're so right; enjoy your youth & don't try & grow up too fast. I was a late v bloomer myself but that's the other side of the coin!🙄
@@ROBYNMARKOW
Oh wow that is a weird dream, it’s crazy what our unconscious mind can do. I’ve been having weird dreams as a side effect of medication, it’s like being in a weird abstract art film starring people I know every time I sleep. I wished I actually attended high school properly, I skipped too much to hang out with kids that thought were too smart and cool for school lol. That’s why I wished I’d spent more time in school being a silly kid having to only worry about homework and high school drama n gossip. Sending you all the best thoughts and vibes 👍🙏❤️
@@yelena86 Yeah,that is a coincidence. ! I wasn't a rebellious teen but I'd ditch classes ( especially math ) & just hide out in the library until the bell rang. I transferred from a small private school to one where the graduating class was 800 students ( myself included) so it was difficult for me though I liked the anonymity of being in a big school since the one I'd gone to previously was like a soap opera w/everyone knowing everyone's business. Anyway,u sound like a cool person so TC! 👍. Btw,do ever wonder if the people that u dk in your dreams are real ? ( No ,I didn't smoke any weed yesterday though it was 4/20😅)
I find that lady weird and other people who do that, I don't find the reasoning sweet. You're an adult pretending to be a child kwnowing you'll befriend kids and even date the kids at school.
@@lordtette
Yes of course you’re right. It’s not something I’d ever do. Her story just gave me the feels and made me nostalgic for my younger days. I don’t for one second think what she did was okay. It just put me in the mood to mull over my school days as I didn’t live it to the fullest and wasted away my time. Being weird is also okay. Wish you safe and well 👍🙏
I am a lesbian, and even then I am still affected by this "third person perspective" that I view myself from. Even though I would never want to date a man or think about how they might want to sleep with me, I still feel this need to perform and look how they want me to. I find myself seeking out if men think I'm attractive despite how the idea that they would want to sleep with me repulses me. It is crazy how influenced we as girls are by the male gaze and how it is perceived as the "neutral" perspective, and it genuinely makes me sad that even I will continue to be affected by it as an adult and how young girls are just learning to see themselves through this perspective and will struggle with it for most likely the rest of their lives.
I only realised I was gay at 21 because of this. And it's tricky, because it's social capital to be attractive to men, because they are often the gatekeepers of job success, so even if you'd unlearn it and don't internalise it anymore, it will still influence the way you're moving through the world.
Me personally is bisexual. I would like to date a girl like me one day but it's really hard to imagine what the relationship between women is cause the most of lesbian media is made by men for men, with tons of male gaze and sexualization and it's really hard to find good media made by women for women. It's sad to see that gays and bisexual men receive much more than lesbians and bisexual women when both should be equal. And because I can't relate to such media, I can't think about relationship with the woman without some hypothetical straight man watching me behind my back.
@@allyas exactly this 💯💯
@@allyas same here!!!! I have the worst internalized male gaze even though I'm a lesbian. This made it really confusing when I had relationships with men and hated it.
No one cares.
What really confuses me is that everyone has this obsession with the idea of young girls dating older men and having sex means "growing up". But at the same time it's an issue when society thinks by the time you hit older than 18 your undesirable.
No wonder there were alot of young kids and older who think having sex, getting a boyfriend/girlfriend, doing drugs, wear revealing clothes will make you a lot more mature. It's very sad. :(
THIS RIGHT HERE!!! I’m only 20 and I swear my sex appeal is already so much lower then when I was underage which makes me feel so gross in so many ways
@@dove8263 no literally? same. I'm 24 and my sex drive makes me feel like I'm already in menopause versus when I was a teenager. it really is a struggle to not internalize these feelings on top of society implying that women 25+ are worn out and useless. its a lie but it's a hard one to disrupt
This!! I'm almost 18 and never been in a relationship (happy with that, I'm focusing on my friends and passions), and for some people I'm still too young while for others I'm running late, it's so gross and confusing
Preach
@MaeRose26as a 30 year old man I have seen women with gray hair that took care of their health and look better than many young girls. These woman simply exercised and stayed lean and they look great.
Young girls these days have gone COMPLETELY insane, yet women blame men as usual. I don't even think young men like just how 304ish these young chicks are. At some point it just becomes nasty and pathetic. It's not men making women dress and act this way, something is insanely wrong with the female mind. The depravity, nastiness.
Do you know how many women want to cheat with me?????? Do you know how weird it is to be a man and have these women come up with all these completely insane sexual fetishes????
I don't think men are nearly as depraved as women are. At some point you just start to see women as nasty. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Idk what in the world.
These women will be completely insane, then find a way to blame men for their insanity.
Like women are the ones writing the romance novels and movies not men.....
These are your sexual fantasies, not mine.
Like yes of course younger looking women are more attractive, but like you don't have to walk around in shorts that show off your whole ass cheek. Women who are simply healthy in body AND MIND will retain their youthfulness. I would rather be with a mentally stable older woman than some of these completely depraved young girls.
About the Edward and Bella not being moralized while Hades and Persephonie are i think its just about the actual portrayal of it.
Hedes is Persephonies boss, they meet ay a party when she moved to a big city, he has a house and a car collection and a company. It's all the draws of a hypothetical relationship with an older person.
While Edward and Bella date like... teenagers. They meet as school, they go on walks on the forest, he lives with his family and she has to meet them all! That may be a relationship with a slightly older guy but its lives from being like... financially depandant on him. You really can buy into the whole 'Hes just stuck as 17 because he does act like he's 20 max"
But i truly did enjoy the video, you had some great points
I think in twilight universe it is that if you get turned to. a certain age your mentality as well as physically body gets frozen so i don't mind if Edward behaves like teenager and is never aged it's like as if edward was frozen in ice and defrosted and then met Bella while still having maturity of a teen
Edward never behaved like adult i mean just look when bella got pregnant he did behaved like a teen and got mad at Bella but it took him moment to realise that he was wrong
I don't think Edward was mature lol he was just an old school with old beliefs
A mature 100 yr dude would never fall for a girl in fiction unless he's a psycho or a person with ugly face :"""""/
@@rosec_rose6661 yeah, that’s what I meant by “you really can by into the whole“he’s just stuck at 17”.
But it’s not about how it’s explained away in-universe. If you believe all in-universe explanations than all those anime 1000 year old dragon girls that look like middleschoolers are ok to date, you know?
It’s about what is actually shown, how the character is portrayed and yup, Edwards definitely 17
And… wdym a hundred yo would never fall for a young girl in fiction unless ugly or a psycho? The video has a whole segment on Hades and Persephone and there are other examples. It’s a trope for a reason
In Lore Olympus characters including Persephone bring up the age gap thing being an issue several times with concern for Persephone, while in Twilight, the age gap is brought up but Bella quickly brushes it off with the whole "I don't care/age is just a number" mentality. And in Lore Olympus, Hades is aware of the age gap being inappropriate. Does it excuse the relationship happening anyway? Nah, but it's not the same as Twilight. Stephenie Meyer was like "he's a way older man and it's AWESOME" 😂 No shame in that woman I swear
Also, not to defend Twilight here, but Bella is much less sexualized than Persephone. Yeah, she got the sparkling Dude and Wolfboy swooning over her, but there's (afair) no focus on her boobs or ass or whatever. She doesn't seem like a naive little girl that isn't aware of her body (she also isn't framed as a person with the mind of a 10 year old girl, unlike Persephone at times). The male gaze is much less apparent than in LO. And while the wariness of Demeter regarding Hades is played for laughs or to demonize her, you (and the characters!) Are meant to emphasize with Charlie. Twilight has its own set of problems (especially the whole thing with Jacob and the baby), but the age gap really does seem like a much smaller problem than in LO due to several things.
@@Eagle_Owl2 that’s a great observation actually, I totally agree. Bella is a great essentially self-insert character. Just enough to be able to see yourself in her but still having a personality, a past and future, etc.
I'm so glad someone talked about this. Seeing this shit in the media and in real life DEFINTELY messed up my perception of love with who I liked and who I wanted to like me. Not only that, but seeing my female peers in high school talk about how they exclusively wanted to date older people and when we became the "older" I was so confused and torn up inside. I used to (still do) feel shame about how messed up I was about this, and it's unfortunate many people are still negatively affected by this
Agreed, for me it was also constantly knowing that despite my age, the fact that my chest was very “developed” meant that ppl would see me in a sexual way, and it was constantly reinforced when I was told that I couldn’t come out of my room unless I had a bra on, and learning that the only thing that kept my stepdad from saying certain female celebrities were hot was their age 🤢
Yo, I recall being a freshman in highschool and this one chick who might have been 18 or lower (all I really know is that, it was an elective journalism class, and she might have been a senior) was talking about how she wanted to date this 40 year old man with a beard. Like that shouldn't be normal. Just as much as its not normal for adult men to be like "I wanna date 18-20 year olds" when they are in their 40s. One is societal conditioning. The other is a predator that promotes said conditioning.
@@Dracomata the last couples lines hit the nail EXACTLY on the head 🗣️🗣️
17:11 Id argue though, those creators are not targeting kids with their music. lore olympus on the other hand does arguably target teenagers, it fills a webtoons demographic I call “horny but for teenagers” and frankly it’s public knowledge that LO is read by mostly underaged readers as Clementine’s now archived on the web archive video on the subject revealed. Edit: also the very weird Patreon images that goes way hard on the age gap including school uniform outfits.
True female rappers often say publicly that their music is not appropriate for children and is explicit while Webtoon has very little separation of demographics or content warning/ratings for their comics last time I checked. So I def be thinking about this when considering how younger audiences aren’t really able to properly consume this media yet.
It’s wild how before 18+ comics with sex scenes were on the app until around 2018. So crazy 😅
@@hhh1234h Thank you, so many female rappers make it CLEAR AF. Nicki, Cardi, etc yet people ant them to take care of their kids. I also it has to do with misogynoir. People ant Black women to be their mammys.
@@bmwjourdandunngoddess6024 I forget who but one said once something like, “why are you letting your kids hear my albums?”
So true, this is an important distinction to make! I also feel like comics/books have a bigger impact than songs because with the comics/books there are actual characters and a storyline and it's more immersive and whatnot and not just like 3 minutes and you're done thinking about it.
Was about to say this. Female rappers have their music rated as explicit, advertise almost exclusively to an older audience - meanwhile, LO is definitely marketed like a teen romance novel
I've never been one for significant age gaps, even as a teenager. It was always strange to me to see older men looking at my peers that way and even some of my peers being into that. I even remember this one time at 19, I was at a college party and a much older man (I want to say 30) was very aggressively hitting on me. I vented about it in an online space (yeah yeah should have seen it coming) and some guy who was also around the age of creepy guy told me I had no right to be offended by it and that I was "expected" to be fine with it, even reciprocate, since I was of legal age. My discomfort didn't matter, according to him, it was on me to remove myself from that situation, not the adult man for causing discomfort. I'll admit that at the time I questioned myself but looking back that guy was absolutely another creep, refusing to take responsibility for their own actions. I feel like it's something that's being pushed back on more and more, just this idea that "age is just a number" but we've still got a long ways to go.
Legal doesn't mean moral. You are right to be uncomfortable
A 30 year old man at a college party?!?! You should be asking him wtf are you even doing there.
Sounds like the same dudes backing creeps like DiCaprio.
Weirdos that say Shit like “they’re both legal adults” and “she should’ve been more responsible” and “the only women who have a problem with this are ugly old hags”.
I’m so sorry you went through that, hun. Creepy losers will do anything to validate their disgusting and objectifying ideas on women. It’s gross and pathetic, these closet pedophiles
@@saladcaesar7716 Also apparently, adult maturity of the brain doesn't start to happen till at least 24. The brain is still forming until that age. It's actual science supported by many studies and the only reason the age of consent is eighteen in most countries. Is the government realized if they were sending 18-year-old boys off to die. They should give them more rights. Instead of you know waiting til they were fully men to expect them to die.
@@charminglove8594 he’s def a freak, that’s what happens when ur so horrible u need to manipulate young women who are inexperienced. Older women know better.
my mother was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, and made me aware of some (too many) grown men’s dark intentions with young girls. it made me wary of men and i never was able to trust any of them. i remember being 8 years old and a sub sketched a portrait of me (mostly because i sat directly in front of the teacher’s desk). i said thank you and showed it to my parents but i always had a terrible feeling about it. this feeling continues to exist despite the fact i’m in my 20s now. when an older man smiles at me or looks at me. none of it has ever felt innocent. i think my parent’s experiences with abuse allowed them to be aware of the dangers children can face, and i am sad their trauma has served to protect me from a similar situation.
i remember when i was a freshman in high school, my dad told me that senior boys would probably take an interest in me (they didn't--im too ugly), but it didn't sound like he was saying it to warn me. rather than feeling creeped out by the idea, i found it exciting. i thought that if that happened, it would mean that i'm desirable. i was so insecure at the time that i can only imagine how dangerous that would have been for me!
You are not "too ugly". It sounds like you still are internalizing the fact that they did not prey on you, don't. You are so lucky you avoided that and it does not make you ugly.
In highschool I dated a17 yr as a 14 yr back then and it was the worst that ever happened to me, he usted to hold himself in higher regard since "he knew more and better" invalidating my opinions, and choices, being jelous and separating me from my friends by manipulation and I remember (not knowing at the time the meaning) that he called me "his loli" to his friends, so freaking gross 🤢🤮 ...he abus3d me too and it's being almost 10 years for healing myself. That scumbag was the worst example, I'm not saying that all men are like that, but he really broke me and my youth... and beings pretty or ugly are social constructs that change from country to decade, don't compare yourself to the others and find the style that makes you feel pretty and confortable !
same. im ugly and it would have been a dream for an older man to take interest in me when i was a teen. even at 18 now it would be a dream.
They didn't but not because you're ugly but because even a 2-3 years age gap is still too much in teen years. That's *NORMAL* and that's exactly what my mom has told me when I was that age.
Now imagine you are a 30-35 year old dude and a 20 year old is flirting with you and giving you her number.
It's the same thing.... You as a man are insecure about getting older, yet here is this young lively girl showing lots of interest in you.
You know it's wrong and honestly you know she isn't compatible, but it's flattering to have this young girl into you. So you call her, talk, set up a date, screw around, you begin to listen to her, realize you have nothing in common, get kinda annoyed, then just move on.
It's still flattering though.
drawing the line between "problematic stories by women should exist bc exploring these taboo fantasies in fiction is healthier than copying them in real life" and "problematic stories should be written and approached carefully with a critical mind" is so difficult especially in a society where media literacy is simply not taught or made into a mockery
I don't think it is. Both of these statements can be true at the same time.
If someone explores taboo fantasies in fiction, that doesn't mean they can't also approach stories about them carefully with a critical mind and differentiate between stories that are meant to realistically portray these topics and those that are not. After all, not every "problematic story" as you describe is written with the intent of being realistic or giving accurate information on relationships. I don't think that's a bad thing. So long as the stories that are not intended to portray these topics "carefully" are acknowledged by the author to be pure fantasy and not a role model for anyone to look at for a relationship, they have a right to exist. If they're not and they are put out with the purpose of warping the minds of young people, then that is a problem, but that problem can be fixed with education.
Our focus as a society should NOT be trying to pick out which fictional stories should be allowed to exist and which ones should not based on their portrayal of heavy topics. It should be educating people on these topics before they read fiction on them. The main reason that young girls have been affected by this fiction is not because of a lack of media literacy, it's because of a lack of education. If these same stories were viewed by young girls who were properly educated on what a healthy relationship is, their minds being warped would be so much less of an issue.
@@needlefrick6857 Agreed! Being properly educated about these things is so important. We can't, and shouldn't monitor those fictional stories. We should pay attention on how to educate people, and better teach them right from wrong, so these things won't happen in real life. It's similar to violent media, in which it's ok to consume as long as you think about it critically, and properly understand these things.
Properly educating people, rather than banning fiction, will lead to less cases in general. Banning fiction will just make the people being prayed on want to do it even more, and see you as the bad guy. It is dangerous, and impractical. I find it annoying that people act as if the fiction is the one thing to blame, and how minors should be sheltered from anything bad, even though that will just give predators more ways to groom. Sex ed and social emotional learning is a very important thing, that is sadly not taught often, and we should teach kids not to run to fiction for the best example of relationships. Teach them examples of healthy relationships vs unhealthy relationships, rather than do nothing. Then perhaps those fantasy wouldn't exist as often.
@@needlefrick6857 Yes!!
Agreed. People dont understand how because it's "just a story, " it wont have any affect on teenage girls impression of the world and the furthered glamorization of a very gross real life occurance
Glad you discuss Lore Olympus here. Very few readers of the online comics even acknowledge the weird age gap.
That’s true
the author seems somewhat aware of it. there's even a straight up 10 yr time skip in which the leads have ZERO interaction so persephone is actually 30 when they get married. the comic, apart from the early chapters, routinely de-emphasize persephone's age. i kind of get the feeling rachel smythe regrets making perse so young - but being a serial story, the best she can do is draw less attention to it and age up persephone in her characterization
I guess but he doesn’t compare to normal men so I have a hard time viewing it in this light like it’s fantasy characters not as intense as aria and her teacher real people or actual human pigs in their 40’s gross and heaving to breathe stalking kids
@@RogueJinxel The thing is that its less age but more relationship dynamic. When I first read it, I was creeped out by how much he acted like a father to her, while she acted like a child.
I mean their gods, so the age thingy is going to get messy. I just don't understand the characterization of the two. It was very extreme, one very mature, one very childish.
@@idontneedaname318 Idk, I think that it was more damage control from the author than her genuinely understanding the relationship was messed up. She's gone on record saying her favorite book and movie is Lolita, has said she wished she could lie about being a minor online, and she has gushed about the fact Persephone is a teenager at multiple points on her blog. All of this, on top of the fact Persephone is written to be completely ignorant to all things sexual, makes it seem like to me that Rachel finds the age gap quite romantic.
You have such an ability to tap into the adolescent brain from a place of understanding instead of judgement 🧠 I’m so happy you’re here to share your perspectives!
Yes!! Finally someone outside of the web comic world is talking about this damn comic!
I lowkey can't stand "Let's Play" webtoon lmao
I think my other comment mentioning another channel that does extensive analysis and commentary of LO and let’s play got deleted. They shouldn’t be too hard to find
@@absolutelynotellenRight and I especially hate that blonde guy Charles 🫤
@@ladygrey4113 Who??
@@bmwjourdandunngoddess6024 hopefully I don’t get deleted again but it was Pyrrhic and Victoria
I wonder if the hyper sexualization of girls plays a lot into the problems that come with predatory women and girls. Also, I really hate how older women are mistreated. Older women are often labeled as cougars and joked about "robbing the cradle". WTF! And, older women are also called nags and used up.
So the age gap is okay when the woman is older?!
@@savibang4412 I think what they’re pointing out is the double standard that older women are at least implicitly called out for it and it’s seen as weird/gross, while for older men in individual experiences (other commenters’ experiences) it’s been dismissed as “men being men” and more harmless
@@savibang4412 I don't think that's what they're saying. Most age gaps when between an older man and younger women are seen as normal, even becoming a massive point in the romantic media. I'll bet most hetero fictional pairings you can think of are an older man and younger woman. That's not even mentioning the gap between the actual actors used in those pairings. But in the eyes of the general public, older women who are with younger men are vilified. It's the exact same situations, the same manipulations, the same motivations, but because the woman is older it's seen as bad.
@savibang4412 if both parties are consenting adults and the woman never groomed the guy. Age gap relationships can also apply to two people that are 60 and 30 years old.
@@Neku628 then why the intense scrutiny?
I think fiction is a safe place to explore these ideas that I was bombarded with as just a girl/woman in society.
These works are not the danger, refusing to teach children about media literacy, critical thinking, and s*x is.
To act like media can't convey support for certain societal standards and thus can't perpetuate these standards especially onto minors who don't have experience with the reaI world makes no sense. Why are we okay with calling out media for normalizing and perpetuating harmful racist or homophobic or sexist stereotypes and ideas, until now? How is this different than any other harmful trope that is perpetuated by media that normalizes toxic ideas in real life? Media doesnt exist in a vacuum, it affects the way people think and what they consider to be normal, acceptable, or desirable. Media with abusive tropes like a 50 year old man dating a 19 year old that acts like a 13 year old should not be marketed to kids, at the very least
Yup. We should more more sexualized books and Media onto our Children.
the problem is that fiction plays into reality which plays into fiction. it is a cruel cycle. And while fiction can be a safe place to explore those ideas, it's also not free from criticism. If you wanna write a weird ass reverse racism slavery book, by all means. but don't be so shocked when people call you out for the racist you are (yes, this is a real book. Look up "finding eden")
@@randomthoughts0829 i agree and i think all these stories should always come with warnings and disclaimers and to not endorse the content and emulate this type of behavior in this work of fiction and that grooming or large age gaps shouldn't be normalized or okay especially if you're underage
@lolitaverseit’s crazy that’s what you got from it
Another excellent video, Cheyenne. I really appreciate how the writing was streamlined and concise, and above all, fair to the fantasies and interests of girls and young women.
I am reminded that Bella was also afraid of growing too old to be with Edward, which was one of her motivations to become a vampire. Combined with Lore Olympus whole deal, "Forever 19, lucky you". I think another important aspect of the age-gap fantasy is that under patriarchy, women are explicitly taught to *fear ageing*, specifically the supposed decay of our own and other women's beauty, abilities as potential brides and mothers and value overall. The fantasy allows the make-believe to remain in a perfect stage: THE stage, THE prime, THE safety of the role. Where we never have to worry about becoming undesirable or unable to perform.
I'm 28 and I've caught myself wondering (uncritically, irrationally) if my body is "past it's prime", despite how I in every aspect am better off at my current age, just because of the glorification of our youngest adult forms. It's infuriating.
That's fair, but I think it's also fair that you wouldn't want to become so much older than your romantic partner, at some point you'd either stop being attracted to them, or you'd be a fully grown adult creeping on a teenager! I think if I were in that situation, the concept of being an old man whilst my boyfriend was still a teenager is a horrifying concept, no matter which way you swing it, if your priority is staying with them forever. (I don't think it was executed well to be fair)
Great video as always! In Russia these kinds of relationships are so normalised that people will often literally laugh at me for stating f-upness of the age gaps. Including teenagers. I remember one teacher at school sad that age gap should be around 15 years and “boys, your future wives are kindergarteners now”. Sickening. Here there are two arguments: “it’s legal so it doesn’t matter” or “girls are more mature so it’s ok”. But even when particular age gap includes a minor a lot of people will accept that saying, “she is old enough to bare a child” or “she was the one to seduce the man”. But I feel that only small part of population actually believes that.
15 years????This is sick omg…
Because Russia is the only country that does this? Get your Russophia out of here.
Preach
I remember being * *terrified* * when I first got my period because it is true technically speaking that at 12 I could have gotten pregnant despite being under or undeveloped physically….
If people knew the sort of fear puberty age girls felt at that thought they would stop sexualizing them…
I HATE the old enough to bear children thing, NO ONE says that to a puberty age boy after his first confirmation of development…
I can’t even imagine in Russia. It is commonly like this in other cultures as well because of the “old enough to bear children” thing 😰
@@tessarae9127 Not disagreeing with you and thank you for sharing your experience as a woman. In the same way, please consider my experience as a man that "NO ONE says that to a puberty age boy after his first confirmation of development" is far from reality. Teenage boys are encouraged to seek sexual experience at the very first signs of puberty. As an example, I never thought about masturbating, even less sexually harassing women, before being repeatedly told that's what a teenage boy is supposed to do. Not showing much interest about sex as a teenage boy is seen as odd/gay by men and women alike, both teens and adults.
In your list of age spread in movies I noticed something. When the woman was younger she was a LOT younger. When the woman was older both examples were only 2 years older. For adults 2 years means nothing. Have you considered covering the age spread?
Honestly, it just seems like Hollywood hates women aging so there will hardly be a situation where the woman is in her 40s and the guy is in his early to mid teens. The teacher trope, for example, usually involves the teacher being in her 20s and the guy is probably in his late teens to early 20s so it's a college student and hot professor trope
Edit: the only one I could think of atm is the guidance counselor and male student from _Easy A_
She was, maybe in her 30s but he was a 22 y.o. high school student (due to being held back a couple times)
He was dating a high school girl as well. Idk if she was supposed to be 16 or 18 but yeah
@@spectre9340 The Graduate! Dustin Hoffman's character was supposed to have just gotten out of school. Meanwhile Ms. Robinson was a mother with a child his age. The actual age difference between the characters wasn't as great (maybe 15 years if I recall correctly) but quit the outlier.
@@danmorgan3685 oh yeaaaahh I almost forgot about Mrs. Robinson haha
She was even constantly referenced in _Fifty Shades of Grey_ 😂
The biggest gap I saw in a movie that shocked me was with Apolonia and Michael Corleone in The Godfather. The fact that Al and Stephanie were about fourteen years apart, casted as a couple and had a topless scene (mind that she was 18 by then) creeped me out.
"As long as we live in a society that sexualizes girls and women, we shouldn't be surprised that girls and women want to explore what that means for them in various fictitious ways."
For me, Twilights age gap never bothered me (probably because I was young when it came out) but the abuse that stems from the relationship got me. It was interesting to watch this because it really got me thinking of my growing up a teen girl especially comparing to my gender expression now as well as abuse i got put through because i was told that only older men "appreciated" fat girls and women.
Im glad you brought this up and cant wait to see more of your content
Honestly the age gap never bothered me because Edward was always presented as another teenager (though an abusive one) like he was never written like he was supposed to be an actaul adult. And hell they even joked about Bella being physically older than him when they got married
@@GraveyardMaiden Wasn't he a forever teen thanks to his vampirism?
And yes, teen or older, Edward was an abusive asshat.
@@Takejiro24 yep. They discuss that when talking about vamp children too. They're not allowed because vampirism freezes your brain in the same age (which tbh makes perfect sense if you physically aren't aging anymore - your prefrontal cortex wouldnt even fully develop)
What got me with Edward was when she gets in her truck to go see Jacob, can't turn on the car, and slowly realizes that Edward is sitting in the car already just turning the engine he's ripped out in his hands, like wtf that's so controlling and creepy FOR NO REASON
Meyers really missed her calling writing horror
@@GraveyardMaiden i totally agree. In other media the ages and age gap is where the abuse/power dynamic comes in but in twilight it had less to do with his age and more to do with him being a vampire and feeling more superior to her. It was never mentioned but as vampires it feels like because their bodies don’t mature neither do their minds, because Edward was a whiny man child throughout the books and movies
@@Takejiro24 yep so if anything he was just an abusive teen boy friend with an ego problem
Age gap relationships is pretty much my biggest gripe about Fruits Basket, one of my favorite stories (and written by a woman). Evidently she just had a thing for age gaps (at least four girls end up with men 8+ years older). Some of them are handled better than others (the student-teacher romance is the least critiqued of all of them within the narrative), but that doesn't stop me from recommending it to pretty much any older teen. People are complicated, and so are their stories
Wow, it's been a minute since I've seen Fruits Basket. The only age gap I remember is between Tohru's parents (correct me if I'm wrong). There were more?
@@Takejiro24 Well, I miscounted, it's only three (Saki and Kazuma didn't actually get together), but there was Arisa and Kureno as well as Akigure, which is never really discussed, but he was seven or eight when she was born
That's because In Japan age gaps are considered more socially acceptable. I had it explained to me like this most Japanese men don't get to a good point in their careers until much later in life. so they are finally old enough to buy a house and support a family. Therefore are more desirable to much younger women looking to start a family than men their own age who are still struggling to get a start in their careers.
Yep. I adore Fruits Basket and I just have to pretend that the teenagers being shipped with adults are in college or something so I don't lose my mind. I also hate Shigure and Aya being flirty with Tohru. So gross.
Fruits Basket is pretty much my favorite animanga ever but this is something I struggle with a bit. Kureno and Arisa at least don't have any power imbalance and I just pretend Akigure is closer in age than they actually are (since I didn't even realize they had an age gap when I first read the manga). But especially Kyoko and Katsuya... man there's a lot going on there. But my ultimate stance on it is similar to yours (and this video's).
I'd add that young women also unknowingly romanticize the idea of the power they hold when they capture the attention of a man within a patriarchal society that doesn't give them much power.
Yes 100 percent I used to think this as well I. My teens to early 20s. It’s okay tho that’s normal only bc we are more influenced when our brain isn’t fully developed and much more impressionable then we realized
Except that this supposed power is of course only an illusion, because ultimately it will always be the older man who is in power
honestly i was a bit scared seeing so many of the comments of the preview posts going into the "problematic fiction bad and shouldn't exist and im so glad youre bringing it up" direction, now after the video im very glad it was a more nuanced take and hopefully something viewers will reflect on. it has become such a tired take to just point out "this would be bad irl actually" and let it stand like that, especially in media analysis videos. or on the other side completely dismissing the possible effect media can have on people due to bad media literacy and other aspects.
to me the point about not demonizing the author is very important, to look at the grand scheme vs individual works. you can find it troubling that this trope is very prevalent and see it as a larger thing but also for the individual work it says nothing that it has the theme, since every story is told differently and bring something else to the table, and it is never on individual works to represent a whole issue and be perfect in every aspect.
I just ended a relationship with a 50 year old man, as an 18 year old myself. While yes, I hadn't known him before I was 18, and made a fully legally consensual choice to have a relationship with him, it's still a decision I struggle with every day and probably will for some time. I don't know where I'm going with this, but thank you for this video Cheyenne, it is helping me a lot to uncover what happened to me, and I'm sure helps others ❤
I broke it off with a guy in his 40s when I was 19. That was 10 years ago, and I still think about the negative impact it had on me. I still grapple with the consent-aspect of it all, because yes, I consented, but it doesn't make it okay and the older party is the responsible one. I'm proud of you for ending the relationship and recognising it was wrong so early!!! I hope this doesn't sound condescending, but it took me years to even have the thoughts you are having already, so I feel like you're on the right path to healing from it
Same! Except my guy was 36 when I was 19. And we have so many subscriptions in common! I can't believe it!
@@allyas Disgusting why would old men want a teenager ? Yes 19 in my eyes is considered mentally still a child. What a creep. Why didn't you date a 18 or 20 year old guy?
Whoa, I'm in my mid 30s and I wouldn't even date someone in their 50s. My parents are in their 50s. X___X
In my teens, I learned the hard way about older men. Many men who want younger women generally want someone to control, in order to uplift themselves. Hence why they avoid women closer to their age (cowards!)
I hope you are at a better place in your life. I wish you safety and happiness.
@@MissMuttonmeat That is so true, it doesn't matter if you are on a legal age like 21+. These older guys want younger girls just to control them and feel better about themselves. It's super creepy that in YT there are a lot of videos from men encouraging older guys to date younger girls, even there are videos from women doing the exact same thing. And the comments are disgusting, you can clearly see they only want control and shallow pleasure.
to be honest, there are a lot of other things in lore olympus that coalesce with the fetishization of the age gap that make it uncomfortable and borderline reprehensible for me. particularly the author's use of persephone's sexual assault. she is assaulted by apollo and readers spent literal years waiting for the other shoe to drop and hades to find out. it is literally being dangled over the heads of readers as a plot device that should bring the two of them together. apollo is literally placed as hades's foil and an example of a bad man. the whole thing is just so icky because the sexual assault exists for no other reason than to draw out the idea of hades's rage and need to defend his damsel in distress.
I dated men over 40 starting when I was 19, though they always broke it off by the second date, never involving anything sexual. It was a brutal blow to my self image, as I grew up believing that older men liked younger women, so what does that mean about me? Was I THAT repulsive? What was so awful about me?
After the fifth or so man dropping me, I asked him why he was doing this. He said it was because his friends and coworkers were razzing him for "chasing jailbait ".
Still not sure how to digest that. Still hurt.
That's good that wiser people pressured him into not preying on you any farther... Relationships with that age gap are almost always exploitative and harmful, in ways it can take years for the younger person to realize, as Cheyenne pointed out. I'm sorry you didn't have the love and support you needed to avoid trying to go down this path.
That tweet that said if men could date teens without being judged they would. It wasn't his morals or values that stopped him, it was the shame from peers.
@@lordtette Really shows how important peer pressure is to keep the weirdoes in check-- though in these five cases they should have pressured hard enough to cause bruises 'cause the weirdoes were still trying to date women young enough to be their daughters.
It's horrible. You shouldn't shame yourself for things you didn't have control with. Grown men manipulated you, took advantage of you and made you believe in their sick phantasies about young girls. It surprises me that one of your "boyfriends" was sane enough to realise what was wrong in his actions, but it irritates me that that man stopped dating you ONLY when others found out about it.
It should never be normalised when 40 years old man dates a girl which barely finished school. The same with grown women dating teenage boys (which is even more normalised than grown man/teenage girl).
I’m incredibly sorry that he hurt you like that and then objectified you by calling you “jailbait”. You’re a full person who deserves respect and an equal partner. They were absolutely right to shut him down on dating you, though
“Your age” by Rina sawayama and “would’ve could’ve should’ve” by Taylor swift came out within 6 months of 29 and I think it’s pretty telling that all these women who are around the age of 30 now and were teenagers/young women in the 2000s are realizing this.
So even though I’m not a female I’m really enjoying your videos. I really love hearing the feminist side on things. I’m very happy people are discussing their opinions and voice confidently. Wish you all good luck.
I do think young girls & femmes have been drawn to pop culture involving younger girl-older man set-ups, because young girls want to feel safe, and are taught that the only way is through an experienced men or masculine. And because we're not taught to critique any of this, it never occurs to us what we actually need safety FROM. This is what makes being a teenage girl so terrifying. Growing up means being hyper-aware of other people's behaviour, and denying yourself of outward agency to keep yourself safer than other girls...and even then that's no guarantee.
Attracting someone older, especially if they're really good-looking puts perhaps more naive young girls, in mind of Prince Charming rescuing them from their own lives. The problem is, at that age, we don't think that if the crushes we have are on decent & ethical older people...then those older people absolutely won't want us as lovers, and nor should they. But media aimed at young girls never acknowledges or recognises this, except for maybe when teen dramas have a harder edge, and unfortunately there are real life older people who take absolute advantage of this. For me, this kind of what happens when girls have maturity enforced on them whilst having their agency emotionally robbed from them - when they are abused, they are more likely to side with their abuser or those demanding things from them. And make no mistake, it's that way by design.
this was so insightful and put so many puzzle pieces together for me, thank you for sharing your wisdom
femmes?
Yes! I think part of the problem is that young girls aren’t taught what true safety or danger actually look like. Predators are always depicted as outright mean and scary, so if a grown man approaches you and showers you with compliments then he can’t be a predator, right? They don’t realize that manipulation and control often looks like kindness and charm.
Ok real story- fiction can help young girls also identify the issues with their relationships too. I was 17 and hooking up with a 23 year old (who I met when he was the chaperone of an overseas school trip) and I did feel empowered. Someone who found out (also teen girl) told me to go watch An Education and holy shit it below my mind. Still not ok what happened, but it helped me realize I wasn't the cool empowered adult I thought I was. I was a teen who fell for the fantasy
I'm sure you already know this, but it was absolutely not your fault, you were a literal child
17 and 23 is not much difference; same generation, same everything. Although in his place I'd wait until you're out of school.
@@PythonerOr maybe he can just get a women his age instead of waiting for a teenager to graduate
@@zuzu9190 Don't think 18 + 24 is a big deal, compatibility is more important, but whatever.
This was an incredible video; the other day i was talking with my bff and we realized that almost every girl our age that we know has been in a situation/relationship with someone significantly older than them and that's... that's fcked up
12:30 even our queen sailor moon, also from a story created by a woman, had a significantly older boyfriend. Usagi was in middle school and Tuxedokamensama I mean Mamoru was about to be or already starting college. Teensiest bit disappointed/surprised she wasn’t represented here 😢
Why couldn't they make tuxedo guy a fellow middleschooler
@@lordtette in the manga he was 2 years older, but the writers at the anime made it so he was so much older, much to the chagrin of creator Naoko Takeuchi
also cardcaptor sakuras parents and many of the same authors works depict age gap some meh ish and some very questionable
@ashleym.7233 also kinda creepy tho how they show teenagers hooking up in the Manga.
Yep!! I will never forgive for kids and the localization of sailor moon because it took me reading the manga to realize he was in a college student and dating a 15-year-old he was only like two years older than her
As someone who had dated a 35 yo when I was freshly 18 (yes, a 17 year age gap) and only ended it about a year ago. . . yeah it fucks you up a LOT. I'm 23 now and I still find it disgusting that I was preyed upon so early. I didn't have a normal 'first love' experience for fuck's sake. If I could go back to my younger self, I'd pick her up and take her somewhere safer away from him!!
I don’t mean to be insensitive but what makes grooming/Pedophelia relationships so traumatic? I’m not saying it wasn’t that bad I genuinely want to know what it is like because u never experienced it.
Woah
So sad to read all these comments from younger girls about their dates with older men over 30 and how horrible the experience was. Those guys who say they want the younger girls obviously don't have the best intentions, but they say otherwise, but from experience and from all these comments just prove how creepy they are, and how disturbing YT is now promoting videos and ideas about how is super ok for older men to like young girls... is super creepy when they only want control and explicitly say they would change them once they turn 25 for a younger girl.
@@quantumangel737 I kinda always knew Pedophelia was bad since it was spoon feed to me at a super young age by the internet but I never dwelled too hard on it. However when I read stories like these I just can’t help but suddenly be hit with the realization of how disgusting and horrible it really is.
@@LeaveMeAlone3omgIgotloggedouta Based on the DSM-5 definition, a pedophile is anyone 16 and up who experiences persistent attraction to prepubescent children, typically 13 and under, who are at least five years younger than them. This is the actual definition. To call a 35 year old dating an 18 year old a pedophile is simply inaccurate. There's a lot of misinformation surrounding the topic, as it justifiably brings out a lot of emotions. But it's good to know what it is and isn't so that the problems surrounding it can be addressed.
Still, I want to answer your question about where the harm comes from, since I truly think most people don't actually understand why it's bad, and it's kind of refreshing to see someone admit they don't rather than pretending they do to justify their anger. Most reasons people give are just "it's bad because it's bad" and then you'll be berated or called a predator for even asking a question. The actual issues are more complex, as well as multiple, so bear this in mind, as I'll be leaving a longer reply befitting of the topic's actual scope.
Most notably, the trauma typically appears not during, but after childhood. A child will, under most circumstances, have little desire or natural understanding of intimacy, privacy, and vulnerability, and no deeper emotional or mental value is attached to sexual things. All of this typically develops on its own as someone ages. An adult who has developed these senses, is therefore capable of understanding when they're being violated, enabling the adult to appropriately act against unwanted contact. They've been given a fighting chance to protect what's valuable to them with the proper inbuilt defenses. But if that adult had been taken advantage of as a child, when they hadn't yet developed any natural understandings of these concepts, then at some point, they'll come to realize it after the fact, which can result in similar trauma to if it happened by force later in life.
One way to think of it is to imagine a fortress, built around a stockpile of gold, solely meant to protect it. If someone breaks into your fortress and takes your gold by force, that's an obvious wrongdoing. But if you one day found out that the gold that's rightfully meant to be yours was stolen while the fortress wasn't fully built and was unfortified, or that someone convinced you to give that gold away before you could learn that gold had any sort of value, you'd feel like you were wronged. This goes double if the people whose job it is to keep your gold safe (in this case, trusted authority figures like family members or teachers) are the ones who took it. And contrary to popular belief, that's typically what happens, as most child predators are people their victim already knew and trusted. As a result, being preyed upon often leads to trust issues, feelings of being unsafe, a sense of being worth less than others, and a whole host of other issues. And given that abuse is often cyclical, many victims may later grow up to develop complexes that lead them to abuse others. Sure, some exceptions occur. Some people get groomed or abused as kids and then grow up into reasonably healthy adults who just aren't all that impacted. But the fact is that it's not a risk any adult should be authorized to make a child take. This is why it's important for all people to develop to a certain level of maturity before they can be expected to reasonably consent.
It's also worth mentioning that a pedophile and a child predator, while not mutually exclusive, are two different things. Both are problematic, but a child predator is someone who actually acts or attempts to act against minors, which is a crime, whereas a pedophile isn't automatically a criminal, but essentially has a mental disorder that makes them attracted to children, which they may or may not act upon depending on their individual morality and mentality. According the leading authorities on offenders against children (and particularly the research led by forensic psychologist and director of Forensic Rehabilitation Research at ROHCG, Dr. Michael C. Seto, if you're curious), only 20-40% of offenders against children are actually pedophiles, with most offenders being people with substance control issues or traits of antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy.) This is why it's often said (and unfortunately often forgotten) that SA isn't usually about uncontrolled lust, but about taking and exerting power.
Now, it's my personal opinion that pedophiles, so long as they aren't seeking to act on or glorify their disorder, aren't necessarily evil just because life handed them a cursed card. But they should still probably seek professional help all the same. Unfortunately, the majority of otherwise reasonable people who loudly proclaim that they want to violently harm pedophiles, rather than predators, likely discourages the innocent ones from seeking the kind of help they could use to maintain stability. Without that stability, there's far less incentive for them to uphold the social contract that keeps them from acting on their urges, especially if society will treat them the same either way. Which is is, again, why I thought it was important enough to specify the actual terms and their respective dangers. Most people don't do their homework on these things, don't care about the problem as much as they say they do, and then just end up contributing to the problem. But people actually understanding the issues and seeking out genuine answers to uncomfortable questions, as you did, is what's needed if we're to ever stand a chance at better solving them.
I'll add my two cents as a guy who used to be a bit problematic when it came to younger girls.
I used to be a bit of a loner during my teens, and only gathered the confidence to approach girls in my early 20's. During that time I did end up in a romantic (thankfully not sexual) situation with a 15 year old, that I called off, once the reality of how different our worlds were finally dawned on me.
Looking back, I think the main draw for me was her inexperience and the lack of expectations she had for me. I could be a complete degenerate loser, but in her eyes I was that grown guy with a six-pack that went to university and that was good enough for her to completely fall for me.
At that time I was honestly scared of women my age and all the expectations they might have of me. I just felt unprepared for that and wanted some kind of escapism.
Obviously these things weren't clear to me back then, but now, after many years in a healthy relationship, I understand what was going on.
Ur lucky most people don't recognize the harm
I remember a while back, mothers compared the short and shirt sizes of young girls to that of their male counterpart and just how small they were boggled me! We allow these young children to wear short pink skirts and little flower tops but you must drop the act when you reach a certain age because “men will view you differently” We basically raise these girls as sexless beings until they’ve reached maturity and society shifts all the responsibilities of predatory awareness on them. Why must the girl be condemned? Why cant a girl no longer call her father “Daddy” after a certain age? Why cant a teenager wear pigtails? We were doomed with this complex the minute they put the pink band around our heads.
I remember feeling that gaining the attention of older men was something cool and that boys my age weren’t nearly as mature as them. While it is true that usually older people are more mature than younger people, these men that seek younger women are not. Yes, older men do seek younger women but it is usually the older men that have not matured. Young girls should save themselves the disappointment, if you’re looking for an older man who is mature he will most likely not be interested in you. It is not that mature older men seek mature young girls but immature older men seek girls that are equal to the age they are still in their minds or girls that are of the age they were when they were last relevant.
the topic of women aging in hollywood always makes me think of meryl streep in bridges of madison county. she almost declined the role because she thought she was too old to play the lead even though she was actually younger than the character (streep was 41 and francesca is in her 50s) and clint eastwood had to convince her that they wanted her specifically to play the role
Thank you for making this video. I’ve been processing a lot of trauma lately and one of the things that’s been on my mind is the fact that we talk about rape culture a lot as a society, but I think we also need to talk about how ‘predatory culture’ (don’t think this is a real term, it’s something I made up to describe it) is also normalized in our culture. I think videos like this is a great starting point for these discussions
The way that within a week of turning 18, a 27 yr old man aggressively hit on me and wouldn't leave me alone because I was 'legal' with the implication that I should just deal with it
stephanie meyer basically said "oh the people aren't as weirded out by the age gap? how can I make an even weirder age gap"
I find it so interesting to hear that people into the vampire genre would be interested in an age gap because I've always loved Anne Rice and I do like Lore Olympus but I've never ever been into older men... When I was younger I always thought how cool it would be if you were a vampire, you could learn so much more because there is no time limit >.
I always liked the idea of being with a guy 10-15 years older than myself when I was younger. But now that I’m 28 I am very happy my husband is only 4 years older than me. I like to be able to talk about things from when I was a kid, you know old songs and movies, and he can relate with it. Also I don’t want him to die waaay before me 💔😅 you feel me ??
that's something i think about all the time - my parents are 11 years apart and my dad is definitely struggling with aging while my mom is still pretty agile and healthy. it's just going to get harder as they get older, so imagine someone 15, 20, even 30 years older??
Same! I dated muuuch older men in my teens/early 20s and I'm so glad my girlfriend is the exact age as me, because we can relate a lot better. I never thought it was that important, but it is.
@@ErinaBleu so People shouldn't date people with cancer because they'd die early?
@@ErinaBleu sounds like your dad didn’t take care of himself that’s on him
@@sterlingmarshel6299 Well, he is almost 70, so. It's sort of expected that he would be aging... (not to mention genetic health conditions he has no control over)
Thank you so much for saying that media for young women doesn't have to be instructional! That's something that's always bothered me-fiction isn't a textbook, no matter the target audience.
Fascinating video!
This is very fascinating for me, as someone who literally never had an Age Gap fantasy or pursued it (or found myself groomed into it.) I was very very peer aged in high school, either same age or no more than 1 year the gap. So this is a highly different perspective for me.
There's something really weird about hearing some people say they "cried tears of joy for the beauty of romance" while reading Lore Olympus.
As someone who is a CSA survivor (several times over, since you have just one CSA trauma), I agree with the first half of the video but heavily disagree with most of the second half. The reason I did what I did with my first groomer at 15 was because of my own "sexual teacher older woman" fantasy I'd been fed through media, porn, and jokes and what other people told me was an enviable and good thing (I was called lucky so many times it took me nearly a decade to realize a 50 year old should not be doing sexual things with a 15 year old). A part of the grooming process, and the dangers of depicting these things uncritically and without condemning them, is getting the child to be comfortable with these ideas (along with the adult, I firmly believe you have to be radicalized to commit these acts like you have to be radicalized to become a bigot or fascist), *and showing them/bonding over porn and series that portray these relationships as enviable is one of the most common ways to do that*.
I love shows like Bojack Horseman and Revolutionary Girl Utena, but those are the rare groundbreaking exceptions and not the norm, and they work because they show incest and CSA as the horrifying reality they are. If it's romanticized, that's dangerous, even if you haven't seen how. The "fantasy" is life shattering and has landed me in a suicide ward hold before (and gave me disturbing intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation throughout my teen years that nearly killed me several times over if it wasn't for my friends calming me down from planned attempts and meeting other people who'd gone through the same thing).
As a 18 year old teenager, the amount of times I have been hit on by men who are 10+ years older than me is huge, and what's really concerning, they don't see a problem with the age difference. Last week, I rejected a guy who was older than my dad and he was really confused with my reaction to him (I was appalled, lol).
This stuff really messes up your self-perception, you just have become 'legal' and have to deal with this anytime you leave the house. When I was younger, I used to lower my age to turn off men who would try to get my number, and that didn't stop them at all. Creepy AF.
Where did you met the 50 year old man ? Just curious
Talking about this topic, i guess the song 恋ゲバ by Atarashii Gakko makes me kinda understand more about age gap relationships. The music video itself was about a potrayal of a student-teacher relationship, and there was never something beautiful about it. Creepy? Yes.
Atarashii gakko appreciation yass
Otona blue also raises red flags for me, even though it’s a bop.
What’s the song title in English? I can’t find it
@@rinawinston815 koi geba. Just type it and you will find it though, the english name was something like "love revert"
Every time I hear of Lana's song Lolita, I think it would be interesting to compare it to Emily Autum's "Gothic Lolita", which was the one I had on replay during my teenage era. Despite the shared name the energy is so different. It always felt weird to see girls my age be into this... pedo-patriarchy system bs and not raging against it. Like, I was very much into the idea of wallowing in that uncertain, anxious, "what is expected of me?" hurting way but I also felt rage against said expectations, the way we're treated, and Emily's music encapsulated that so well imo. Just thought it'd be interesting to see other's ppl thoughts on it, since to me at the time Lana felt sort of an opposite for Emily. It's been a while tho lol
I had never heard of that artist (or that song) before but just checked it out. It's freaking rough to listen to, but thank you for introducing it to me.
Honestly Lana's music has this way of showing how scary girlhood is, while veiling it with glamor, like her song Lolita is a pretty good example of this motif of her work.
From what i remember, isn't Lana del Rey ever made a song ( idk which one ) about being in an age gap relationship? She even told that this song was based on her experience being in a relationship with her english teacher i think?
Lana was sadly groomed by her teachers when she was put in boarding school and I think lolita Is her wierd way of coping with it
@@JesusGomez-ob2qtOn top of that, the way she was introduced to it would’ve been in a glamorous manner from a teacher who gave her special attention. She later talked about how she was shipped alone to Spain (which may have been where she met him?) in her teens because her mother saw her as troubled. It makes sense she uses the flowery imagery of the book to inspire her music. She’s still using this escapist, dream-like tone in her lyrics and poetry. I feel Lolita influences so much of her other music, not just the obvious references.
As a 17 year old bisexual guy, I find it difficult to understand what I had with a 27 year old man when I was 14. Even though we only went on "mini dates" and he only gave hints to liking me, calling me jailbait and comparing me to that guy from death in Venice. I still don't hate him, I'm aware how wrong that relationship was and the older I get I feel worse about it. He never touched me but I still feel a bit used :/ i have a need to sexualize myself even though I have an extremely low sex drive. It's not that I want to have sex with older men, I just want to be wanted.
THIS! I'm a woman who's also bi and when I'm Imagining myself in a relationship with a huge age gap disgusts me and yet I feel more attracted to older men that always makes me feel that I matter and I have a purpose...but at the end of the day, I don't feel that way anymore, that attraction slowly crumbles whenever I'm thinking I've done something wrong. It's very hard for me like and feel attracted to men that are my age. Is it because they're mostly immature? I don't honestly know anymore.
As someone who was groomed by their mother to be abused by men I have to say I think I liked these age gap stories because I related to them. I saw myself in the main character and I wanted to hold onto the hope that maybe some day I could find love and happiness with one of my abusers and maybe they could be kind to me. Of course I was wrong, but the fantasy helped me cope.
This also feeds in to women having a tougher time dealing with aging. It's a common trope (in movies and in real life) for a man to leave his wife and children for a younger woman. It's a whole point that doesn't seem to be taken seriously since it is so normalized. Plus, older women dating young men (still creepy) is seen as more of a joke rather than sinister. The whole topic of age and romantic relationships is something to look into.
I really love how nuanced you were with this. In middle school and high school, I really had a thing for older men and consumed a Lot of said media in question (luckily my parents taught me how to stay safe irl, so it was all just fiction to me), but nowadays online I see some women talk about how were taken advantage of at that age. Media that made me happy to be female and brought me happiness through hard times as a youth was also the same media that other women feel romanticizes a traumatic relationship for them, and they have a right to express that they feel that way. I wholeheartedly agree with you that there is no definitive answer. Every individual work of art is different, and every individual person is different, and so the most that can be done that I can think of is probably to just encourage novels/tv/movies/fanwork/fics to always put some sort of content warning for relationships that are not supposed to be attempted outside of fiction or something.
I went into this video expecting to disagree with you on the "yes, it's problematic irl but I still enjoy the media" side of things.... you surprised me with your super nuanced take and I really appreciate all the thought you put into seeing this from all sides! Thank you!
Growing up as an (at the time, undiagnosed) autistic adhd girl I was especially vulnerable to attention from older men. I didn’t understand a lot of my peer’s social cues, so I was oblivious to most flirting. The only flirting I really picked up on was inappropriate sexual attention from adults.
It was scary but it was also an ego boost, like that my beauty was a more sophisticated taste that high school boys just couldn’t appreciate yet. I would often even convince myself that I had a crush on that adult (I think 1. to resolve some of the emotional distress that would have come from admitting that the situation was unwanted and 2. Because it is very natural to like the feeling of being desired).
I became obsessed with age gap relationships in fiction because I think I was trying to understand what was going on. I remember thinking that some were romantic (I read a lot of fanfic!) but mostly consuming media that expressed it as scary. I remember this feeling of recognition when I read Lolita and The Lovely Bones. Like “oh. The adults who flirted with me as a 12-14 year old were gross. I had some close calls. Those situations could’ve been way more dangerous”. But by that time, my sexuality had already been programmed to look to much older men for validation. It’s been something I’ve had to work through as an adult so that I can have healthy relationships that aren’t formed on a power imbalance.
Wow. You have just taught me about myself. I have the same diagnosis and I have never dated anyone less than 5years older than me.
Of course, my trauma also makes me scared that a person my age will not relate to me.
I read Lovely Bones twice when I was 14. My gosh you have enlightened me.
INCREDIBLE im constantly hoping videos on this topic will articulate this clearly the way you did, 1) why girls like media like this, and 2) that its OKAY for girls to like media like this!! and additionally 3) its okay for women to create art and media about this because art is *for* exploring the complexities and fears of life. wonderful job!! thank you so much
Agree, though I don’t think that these type of fictional art should be pushed towards young girls, since they already don’t even know what they want in life, and they are not developed yet to deal with the emotional baggage that these form of art bring. It can be damaging. Furthermore, we should as women respect one another, and if we truly want to protect women, start helping one another and stop participating in these societal norms. Maybe discuss these with men too and see their point of view.
Aight so two things, 1) Lana's work does this thing where she talks about the horror of girlhood, and masks it with glamor, like not only with the lyrics but the music itself always has this unsettling touch of something menacing trying to come off as beautiful and enticing. It is very very scary in my opinion.
2) Age gaps between immortals and mortals really depend on what age the immortal person is coded as, like let's face it we all know how gross it is to see a dude in his 30s wanting porn of a character that looks and acts like they're 6 and say "she's not a child she's 3000 years old." That said the immortal character never really plays into the age gap fantasy in most media, but more of a "They're dangerous and mysterious, and totally better than men today." type of thing.
I'm a 14 year old who has been chronically online for a long time now. I've never been groomed.
I know what it is. I'm quite self-aware and tbh, it's not like I'm a naive kid.
I've always preferred fictional people. pixelated or just characters in a book. if I ever do talk to strangers online, it's usually on comment sections or on discord, where I only ever talk about school or 2d characters. I find the picture of me with a real person horrifying enough.
I'm quite open about my age, so undeniably, there's going to be people who's gonna find me a good target. but I set clear boundaries, and if any rl picture are sent, it always has my face covered.
I'm scared of adults. paranoia if you will. even with my confidence of not ever getting groomed doesn't mean the chances are completely zero.
what's so good about rl romance. fictional characters can't break or judge me and I can pretty much know everything about them. much better than people.
I'll put my 2 cents on the conversation, as a 46 y/o heterosexual cis male: many men are quite uncomfortable with such age gaps, though it's not "cool" to point at other men's behaviour (as with many many other sketchy things in "The City of True Men" we often are forced to live while adhering to a certain "code of silence"). For those of us not particularly attracted by women way younger than us, that kind of fiction is cringy at best and quite alienating.
Relations like that in reality are completely unbalanced, and sometimes hectic and/or toxic. Generally men beyond their early 20's who systematically search for early 20's women assume they will be easily malleable, though those men often wouldn't be considered as mature enough by women their age. On the other side, I've seen make very young women using "tantrums and scenes" (meaning a behaviour probably closer to what a puber/early teen would do) in a relation with an older man, as a way to excerpt power. Both parts seem, however, playing their expected roles in a constant power play. The man is celebrated as "the regulator, putting things in place" and the girl, while qualified as "childish and crazy", is perceived by those men as more desirable because a erratic conduct equals "passionate and hot"... really, it seems like I'm enunciating the plot of many late reggaeton songs :)
While most of us, of any gender, would probably would "look our best" at our late 10's and early 20's, the whole "Lolita" thing neglects older women as undesirable (even to the extreme of considering late twenties women "old", DiCaprio style) while in reality a more mature person would had a lot to offer mentally, sexually and emotionally.
If I may add, that subject would link to the whole fetishization of youth, but that's another can of worms.
Excellent video. Please forget my grammar faults as English is not my mother language.
Greetings from Spain!!!
i really really liked this video essay. like usually i don’t like watching videos of this topic because it’s always so,,, one sided? but i really liked your approach to this, because it was so nuanced!! i also love that you made the point of people liking things in fiction but not reality, because a lot of people miss that or believe fiction = reality. anyway cool video !!
Great video Cheyenne, I’m currently taking a course that encourages us to seek differing views and ideas to better understand the ones we hold as our beliefs. This video doesn’t contradict any of my personally held views but it did push me to think deeper and acknowledge uncomfortable truths, and for that I’m very grateful 💖🫶🏼 have a lovely day!
When i was a teen i was convinced this was normal, i was 14 dating a 18 yr old, 15 dating guys in their 20s, 18 when i dated a 30yr old. I only realized how fucked up this was when i myself reached the age of the guys. I had alot of guys in their 40s hit on me when i was at the beginning of my 20s and i am glad i was smart enough by that time to get out of this dynamic. I even remember my mother normalizing this to me, saying things like "girls are more mature and 3 years ahead of boys in development" .
Huuuh?.. so you’re telling me when I was a freshman in high, crushing on girls in my class, I was unknowngly in direct competition with men in their 20’s ? 😮
@@Schoolboner well if you where crushing on me.... then I guess so
I remember my dad telling me to 'close my legs' while sitting on the side-walk (I wore shorts and not short shorts, shorts from the 2010s). He said because 'people could see through my shorts' bc the holes were big. I was never ever aware of this before, and it creeped me out. Because I was with a safe group, my scouting group which I knew for a couple years and all the boys were nice. NO ONE else ever said something like that to me. The only time was in a swimming pool and my swim suit needed to be ajusted bc my chest was falling out 😂.
It always struck me as weird that as a girl I was the one who somehow needed to be aware of it, so like you said: men watch, we watch ourselves being watched.
YOU ALWAYS NAIL IT WITH THE TOPICS, I CANTTTT. LOVE YOUUUUUUUU THANK YOU FOR EXISTING
20:27 of course the colors are almost impossible to distinguish after a while. I mixed up at least 2-5 character because the coloring is way too similar.
lana was groomed as a teen. a teacher at her boarding school introduced her to lolita and has always realted to lolita. she was also physically abused. lana used a music as a way to cope and share her experiences. it's the parents fault for letting their young impressionable kids listen to her. her music isn't for kids it's for adults and older teens. lana is a feminist and supports female artist and poc. she was clearing up rumors people made about her.
can i just say, thank you for being a video-essayist that makes like 30 min long videos and still puts subtitles for them!! its so helpful
Yeah, the problem is usually that the reality doesn't meet up with the "fantasy". Lots of girls and young women do want relationships with older, mature men, but the reality is those men are TOO mature to be dating someone 10-15 years their junior. The men who are genuinely interested in that age group usually haven't matured at all so now you just have an older partner sucking the youth/energy out of you because they themselves are too scared to grow up.. 😊
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True, all the actually mature men I’ve met are dating someone their age
Well no I'm a 36-y/o guy and I do want a relationship with a girl say 10-12 years younger; not because of the 'power dynamic' or to take advantage of her immaturity or any of that nonsense - but simply because I want my own family and women my age are often infertile by now, and frankly not as attractive either.
It's best not to make assumptions, but rather ask and then gauge if they're telling the truth.
@@Pythoner hahahahhaa that's a huge paragraph for "I never matured properly so women my age intimidate me and making up biological nonsense that even a highschool student could contest is my only way to make myself feel better".
Also if you really weren't fucking creepy you wouldn't feel so hot and bothered over someone talking shit about creepy people lol. Imo you should stay single because it's clear from this very tiny interaction that you don't give a shit about actually finding a person to share your life with but would rather have some hot bangmaid who can take care of you like your mommy when you're in diapers again. Sincerely hope no naive insecure young woman wastes their time with you 🙏
@@sachinalani I'm not bothered personally by your comment, I'm rather writing this for your benefit and others.
And you're again making a bunch of assumptions, perhaps projected of of whatever experiences you had in your life (unfortunate ones it appears).
I'm not looking for any bangmaid, I'm looking for a life partner, but am looking for one 10 years younger because they're more fertile and hotter - and that's important, for both staying together, and being able to take our time when it comes to building the relationship and having kids.
I'm not insecure and I don't want anyone to take care of me, on the contrary I want to have my own family and will do everything to ensure they're happy and provided for.
I'm also not being creepy I don't believe either, I'm completely upfront about my intentions, and can respect whatever decision.
Love you're videos. As someone who had to grow up learning what a messed up world we lived in. I always hated the idea of being prayed on by older people. The older I gotten, the more I feared of talking to strangers who I don't know personally.
Loved this video!
This kind of discussion/question is in the opposite direction but
I'm from Japan, where the h3ntai genre of underage children is really common. I've heard discussions where h3ntai child p'rn is somewhat a good way for pedophiles to release their urges without harming real-life children. While at the same time, theres also discussion about these forms of media actually normalize/perpetuate the harm of minors in real life.
A lot of people defending (not just underage) but oversexualized characters in the form of anime, say that it's just fiction and people can distinguish fiction from fantasy. (Hence it doesn't affect how adults treat children) However, being a victim of casual SA as 9 years old, I genuinely wonder if media is a good way for people to dive into something that is just from their curiosity or if it's actually harmful.
Idk if any of that made sense but.
What you're saying does make sense, and it brings up a really good point. I think (and I'm American and female, which definitely colors my views) that the part that plays the biggest part is who the audience of the fiction is. I'm not sure I'm going to explain this very well either, but I think that, while something that is geared towards entertainment for the people who would be the ones being victimized (children, young straight women and young gay men, etc), it can be used... like a tool? It can let young people explore the idea without the dangers of 'following through' with an adult, though of course there is, as you said, the concern of prevalence in media leading to normalization of it, to potential (and actual) victims thinking that it's just... how the world is. Which is gross and depressing. I think it can (at least partially) be balanced out by also having popular media that shows the reality of age gap relationships - I think it would be interesting if the creators of the original, rose-tinted age gap fiction then did more realistic fiction set in the same universes as the original, but that may just be me.
Whereas media that's geared towards entertaining the abusers, the criminals that would actually be enacting the things that they're seeing in the media... That strikes me as more gross and also kind of terrifying? Like, is there actually any evidence that watching underage h3ntai actually keeps pedophiles from harming actual, living children? Or is it like more 'normal' p0rn addiction, where the viewer gets less and less from it, so they look for more intense, more violent and f*cked up stuff to keep getting that same high... eventually leading to violence against real, living people? In any case, I feel like the more media out that's for entertaining the abusers, the more likely it is that the abusers will see it as 'okay' and 'acceptable.' And that's something that abuse should never be.
@@jrj5893 now that you’ve laid it out like that, that makes so much sense. There’s definitely a difference between media that entertains and feeds abusers vs victims and that’s something I didn’t think about so thank you.
I just think it's really sad that there are no popular stories for teens/tweens that till them that they don't have to f*ck old men and that men who are into you are bad.
commenting again now that i'm closer to the end, thanks for this! i had some lightbulb moments because out laid everything out really nicely. i used to judge others for what they liked, and it makes perfect sense to want to explore these ideas safely.
I really appreciate your nuance! I came into the topic with some judgement, but I feel more empathetic for artists who portray these dynamics
I'm proud to say problematic age gaps gross me out💀
Honestly still can't believe anyone supporting it,
been excited for this video, thank you so much Cheyenne for covering this!!! 🥰
I enjoyed this video a lot! Age gap relationships in fiction generally tend to annoy me nowadays, but I never really considered why a lot of tween and teen girls would seek out depictions of those scenarios. Thank you for explaining things in a non-judgmental way while not excusing the power imbalance of such relationships in real life.
ughhh buckling in for this one. i have been doing a lot of processing of my age gap relationship history and its been tough coming to terms with the bad parts of it so i think this video is just what i need to remind myself im not alone
I think this video covered a lot of bases of age gap fantasy in a really smart and fleshed out way. I personally think that, based off my own lived experiences, there is more to be said about why younger people are drawn to age gap relationships. I agree that it is a product of culture and is absolutely influenced by patriarchy, but I think there are some draws to being with an older person (typically man) as a young person that are a little more removed from patriarchy.
I think that the prospects of being with an older man as a young person is driven by everything you said, but also the idea that an older person is more stable and figured out than you are. I also personally have been drawn to older men because, during puberty, I had a maturity level that didn't match my peers (largely more mature, but also fell behind in some respects) and was drawn to older men under the illusion that I may feel more comfortable with their maturity level. I absolutely think that all drives to be with an adult man as a teenager are made up in the teenager's head. The things that they think they will find do not exist in older men, but a teenager will likely not be able to come to this conclusion on their own, unless they have an unfortunate trial period of their fantasy that does not go as planned.
This is reminding me of Taylor Swift’s relatively new Midnights album since a song in that is her second time dipping into a retrospective on her age gap relationship which apparently impacted her a decent amount for her to write two songs about it so far apart.
Great points in this video essay, especially about the problems in society such as the lack of sex education and education about patriarchy and oversexualisation of young girls. Those countdown to 18 timers are grosser than anything depicted in media.
exactly
i really do love reading darker topics, even if at times those topics happen in the story since the character(s) were/are conditioned by the patriarchy. dark topics give an opportunity to shed light on several topics and _can_ offer such complexity. when it's endorsed, romanticized or glorified though... it's... eh. let me just start here:
i do feel like it's definitely worth knowing what can be the root of dark topics being endorsed in fiction. there's a couple things: such as being exposed as a young child to the portrayal of topics, having trauma, internalizing society's standards, and possibly more.
it's definitely truth that dark topics being portrayed that way will still continue to go on because of people constantly being conditioned to society portraying those things as that way, or because portraying trauma and/or mental illness as "normal", "beautiful", or "romantic" (to a little or major extent, depending on the person) in your *mind* is a coping mechanism that many people's brain develops. even i still struggle with trying to romanticize my mental illness or at least try to make it "normal" to me as a way to cope, though this behavior as mine has gotten occurred less than it did before
in the end of the day, in so many cases, dark topics are endorsed, glorified, or seen as romantic by authors as a way of coping. and the people that consume that type of media, WITHOUT criticizing the media for endorsing, romanticizing, or glorifying those dark topics uses the media as a way to cope. though still, darker or questionable topics such as HUGE age gaps, etc. being endorsed, seen as romantic, or glorified in the media is still a very much a questionable thing (and pretty, not good), even if it's for the sake of coping. to me, its very much an unhealthy coping mechanism, and my views and based on my personal experiences and other people's experiences.
the kind of media that endorse certain dark topics, especially dark topics rooted in patriarchal norms, can encourage or give fuel to the beliefs that certain norms in society that you internalize is okay or acceptable... despite the norms being very questionable or bad when it comes to morality. and despite that the norms can be really dangerous as they can very much affect you negatively to an extent. viewing society norms as acceptable or okay can influence you to seek out those things despite the affect it can have on your mental being.
but anyways, i liked this video and i don't really have anything else to say. and yes i edited this comment for it to be shorter
Absolutely excellent stuff. I wish I could add more than one like to this. Way, way too often children's media gets treated with a degree of moral suspicion that we never bother to apply to adult works and I think it's fantastic to see you taking children and teens seriously as readers who can and do interpret and navigate art in the context of their lives and internalise, operate and resist the meanings there in.
This really reminded me of an essay I read which focused on teacher-student stories in YA fiction and came to a similar conclusion (went and refound it Kimberley Reynolds' Radical Children's literature chapter 6 I think) so that was really cool.
I really like opening up with the song 29. It’s such a powerful song. Looking back, every single female peer online friend I had was groomed over the internet. Every single one.
My boyfriend is a year and a half younger than me and nearly every time that’s brought up in conversation I’m called a cougar. It’s insane.
You hang out with the wrong people. that’s barely an age gap
Very good video analysis! I'd like to add two things:
A) historically, it made sense for older men to marry younger women. It was seen as normal and common. The idea was that the older man, more settled into their career, and more stable financially could provide for a younger bride, and obviously it's easier to have children when younger for a woman. However, this obviously isn't applicable nowadays as most modern women don't marry or have kids until late 20s or early 30s. At that point, they are financially stable themselves too, and don't need to rely upon a man to provide for them like in the 1800s or earlier.
B) in fiction, I think older male characters are depicted as more mature, and this appeals to young women. They like the idea of an older man, not an emotional teenage boy. So it plays on female desire to be with a mature, sexually experienced, probably financially well off male suitor.
I love this video. This is something we don't talk enough about, even amongst ourselves as women. The way we are sexualized so young but are never allowed to find any sense of fulfillment in our own sexuality because our bodies never belong to us but to men in a patriarchal society, is something I wish we explored a lot more. I would have loved a deeper discussion around how harmful normalizing age gap relationships for young women is even in media, particularly in the sense that there is definitely a power dynamic at play that is being weaponized against young women that is harming them. As much as we cant moralize all media for young women, just the existence of this age gap media in and of itself normalizes the existence of age gap relationships when within the same media it isn't pointed out to the viewer the dangers the young woman faces as a result of being in this type of relationship. Sure lets explore it because young women are curious about it but lets also protect young women from these situations at the same time. You get me? Again, Loved the analysis!!
I think this is a great starting point for further research and thought on the role of media in young girls' education and the social expectations placed on us (and how we should act upon them). As a young woman who's been very protected by her parents, it horrifies me a little to see how much it is expected of the average tween girl (i.e., in my household it was already established that I wouldn't date boys just because -- we are christians and believe that dating is meant to lead to a healthy, established marriage). But it also makes sense to see how that affects the media we consume. I used to read Lore Olympus, too, and even enjoyed it, until I started watching video essays on media and feminism, and that changed my perspective. I decided not to continue reading it, but I still believe fiction can sometimes be a way to explore different dynamics/worlds/relationships/aspects/etc that we wouldn't want in real life.
Congrats on the fantastic essay!
Great, well structured video! The trope of young, human girl with ancient creature romance seems to go back to the idea that experience for men is valuable. Independence is valuable for men as well. Girls/women are seen as less valuable, in terms of romance, the more experience they gain in the world. I think it's debris from our cultural past, when women were financially dependent on men in their lives. Now, it seems incongruent
Yeah as someone with younger friends in college (I was 24, they were 18-19) it was CRAZY how I could feel the age gap but they couldn't. They'd pout when I pointed it out, but I'd always say "Right now you're the oldest you've ever been. You don't have maturity, you have a limited scope."