sherryleblanc's soup

anti-anti-survivor:

butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway:

closeonmarksnosedive:

butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway:

There’s folks on my dash saying that three year age differences are inherently abusive and can never be anything but predatory towards the younger partner and I’m just sitting here like……

I started seeing Hubby within a month of my 18th birthday. They’re five years older than me. There’s plenty to be said about the risks of dating someone who is enough older to hold power over you, but there are legit people going around saying it’s “sick” for a 21 year old to have feelings for an 18 year old.

It’s really frustrating to be infantilized by people declaring that anyone in my position is incapable of safely making my own decisions.

Look folks. You may think you’re being helpful, but in reality all you’re doing is degrading people’s confidence in their own right to self determination.

Age gaps, like any other differential traits related to structural power dynamics, has the potential to disempower one party. But saying it’s sick or abusive by virtue of existing is just…..bad rhetoric.

this is all very true. it’s disheartening to see people equate 2-3yr age gaps with pedophilia and/or abuse based entirely on ideological purity.

furthermore, though, even relationships with LARGE age gaps aren’t “inherently unhealthy” despite what people think.

the only thing that makes any relationship INHERENTLY anything is the behavior and intent of the people in it, so if the older partner in any of these scenarios behaves like a decent person, which shockingly IS POSSIBLE (and in fact not uncommon!) and is conscious of maintaining equality and good communication+boundaries in their relationship, it’s not actually an issue.

for example: my current partner is 13 years older than me. we got together when i was around 19/20, and he was 32/33. plenty of people in my life have insinuated nasty things about our relationship, but in actuality we’ve never had an issue related to our age gap at all. he’s patient with me and treats me with respect, and any issues we’ve had within our relationship have been the regular sort, minor disagreements over political opinions and the like.

spreading awareness for signs of abuse and helping others be mindful of potential power imbalances in their relationships is GREAT. knowledge is power, and people deserve to make informed decisions and to be able to recognize abusive people in their lives.

running around telling random strangers that their relationships are “sick and abusive” is useless. (and annoying)

So far you’re the only person who actually has understood the intention and frustration of this post. Thank you for that.

People can also be abusive to their older partner, and thinking otherwise and pushing the narrative that relationships with a given age gap are always predatory on the part of the OLDER person in the relationship is not a good thing at all. 

In order to prevent abusive relationships we need to make people aware of what abusive relationships look and sound like without spreading false information about what abuse looks like.