this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
612 points (94.5% liked)
memes
9731 readers
1475 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- [email protected] : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- [email protected] : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- [email protected] : Linux themed memes
- [email protected] : for those who love comic stories.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Why are we infantilizing adults? Interpersonal relationships are complex and nuanced; we can acknowledge and even warn against the potential dangers of severe age-gap relationships without insulting the autonomy and choices of those involved. These neo-puritanical bullshit tendencies creeping in on the left needs to stop; it's a trojan horse for the next generation of conservatives. Reject non-nuanced conservative-bate thinking.
I get what you're saying, but often the age gap isn'tthe problem: the men are.
When a 40 year old man dates a 20 year old, often times the man is an absolutely toxic child. That's why the relationships are bad.
If both people were actually decent then things are okay, but that ain't the case.
I agree that the way we socially condition and, more importantly, hold men accountable are the real issues, which only reinforces my point. If the problem is men rather than age gaps, why disparage age gaps and not male behaviors instead? It's like trying to focus on getting the blood stain out of a carpet while somebody has an open wound on their arm and continues bleeding out; it's focusing on the wrong part of what's wrong in the scenario.
Maybe it's more like walking into the room, seeing three square meters of blood, then saying "holy fucking shit something is wrong"
Your misunderstanding is that people think the blood on the floor is the problem.
And you're right: sometimes there is a perfectly good reason why the floor is covered in blood.
Because muricans.
Serious question, who do you think is being infantilized here?
Subtext. This meme isn't about the image, it's about the culture upon which it is commenting. And a large reaction to that culture is beyond discouraging of age-gap relationships, it's prohibitive of them. This reaction wants to redefine adulthood as post 25, label anyone above 25 who shows interest in those under as automatically and inherently predatory (as opposed to potentially predatory), and in doing so severely infantilizes anyone under 25 as "incomplete" adults, as if adulthood is some kind of clear journey with a specific and obvious destination, who they deem incapable of evaluating risks and circumstances and making autonomous choices.
It's even more than that, it wants to make adulthood some kind of sliding window where the age of the older partner defines how "adult" and "capable of making decisions" we see the younger partner, and the older a person gets the more people at the lower end of the age range get excluded for them from this fictional adulthood. For example: 60 and 30 would also be seen as inappropriate.
Now it's perfectly normal for younger people not to find much older people attractive or suitable to have a relationship with and vice versa, and they may even find the idea repulsive, but this is still a personal preference. It's probably even the preference of the majority of people, but that does not mean we should take away the agency of adults to choose their partners when they have a different, non-conforming preference. At that point it has nothing to do anymore with protecting vulnerable people from predators, but about imposing your own preferences and dating standards on other people, and you're quite right in calling it out for the neo-puritanical and conservative thinking that it is.
Well-stated 👍
dis guy arguments.
It's interesting, I agree with what you say here and this is what I thought you were saying... But when I read it the first time without additional context it kind of sounded like the argument was that we are infantilizing the older individuals. It appeared that the argument could have been: we make the "rules" and apply them to the older half because they are the ones who are incapable of dealing with their emotions, needs and desires.
You are right that it is in the subtext. This is the same poor argument that men are unable to control their desires if a woman wears revealing clothing... Just restructured around women being "taken advantage of" by a "smarter more mature male".
It might also have been why the other commenter thought you were defending the conservative position. There are two steps here that you made when the intermediate step could also apply and would be an honestly revolting position to defend. I couldn't quite figure out if it was a reasonable position or a very well hidden dog whistle.
I guess all I can say to that is that while I try best to communicate my meaning clearly, I am a fallible human who will sometimes fall short of perfect wording. Thank you for reading my words with an open mind and inquiring for more information where necessary rather than jumping to conclusions, I guess.
This issue is constantly telling younger adults that their choices aren't valid and are subject to scrutiny by older adults, even total fucking strangers.