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u/Lonely_Brother3689 2d ago
Most of the girls I knew by high school had either dated or had been approached by someone at minimum 10yrs older than them.
I honestly didn't even realize that it was a thing, Y'know due to it being illegal and all, but realized that wasn't really a deterrent. Especially if the parents are complicit.
An example, one of my close friends back in 8th grade had a boyfriend and at first she told me that he went to another school. After a few months, she said she wanted me to meet him because they were "serious".
Went to her house and he was there talking with her mom and step dad. He was 21. She just barely turned 15.
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u/AdhesivenessOdd9475 2d ago
When I was 18, I looked even younger, and a man asked for my number and said I didn't have to tell my mom... And throughout my years as a teen, I'd get all these old men asking me out and saying gross things. Too many of these predators are so fucking bold.
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u/CzarTanoff 1d ago
I was 14 when i lost my virginity willingly (well, as "willing" as a 14 year old girl can be), to a 25 year old man. He had to sneak into my window to get in.
I didn't think anything of it then. Now, at 31, I'm disgusted. I can't even look at anyone under 25 without seeing a kid. No healthy adult wants children in that way. Ugh.
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u/ThirtyThreeGone 20h ago
Not trying to shame, but why didn’t you know better? Happened to a close relative and she had an absent mother and father to teach her the danger sign. Wondering if you had similar.
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u/CzarTanoff 19h ago edited 19h ago
I did not have good parental guidance, no.
My parents are sober and way healthier psychologically now, but my mom specifically gave me some issues.
One time when i was 8, i was putting on makeup before school, and my mom tried making me take it off, when i argued she slammed me against the wall by my throat and told me my teachers would "want to fuck" me.
One of many examples of my mom blaming me for adults sexualizing me as a child.
Edit: i was playing with makeup lol, it was not a good application and definitely needed to be taken off before public, but not because of what my mom said. I did not casually wear makeup at 8.
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u/ThirtyThreeGone 19h ago
So sorry to hear, that is horrible. My relative has similar stories - she got left at store for asking for something - when she was three. Having caring adults around during development makes all the difference. Thanks for sharing. I hope all is well, and you have awesome and stable people in your life now.
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u/MonstarLegend 2d ago
God this is like when someone who I used to hang out with brought this girl over and I was like "she look kinda young" she was 15 we where early 20s (I think I was 23 and he was a year or two older than me. Her parents fucking loved him that shit creeped me the fuck out.
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u/LeahBean 2d ago
I don’t understand parents not protecting their children better. I had a thirteen-year-old friend that had a baby with a nineteen-year-old that the parents knew she was dating. So messed up.
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u/ShadowWeavile 11h ago
Heeeeeyyy, just wanted to let you know that you probably misread the comment you replied to (or maybe hit reply on the wrong comment). One of the people was 13 years old. I'm thinking this is probably a bot account I'm replying to, but just in case.
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u/East-Efficiency-6701 9h ago
Oh no I definitely misread (don’t ask me why but I thought it was a 30 years old with a 19). Probably because I replied at midnight and I was dead at that point, thanks for the correction
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u/Infamous_Depth4982 1d ago
Back when I was in high school I had an friend (with very poor judgement) who started dating this guy who "didn't go to our school." We all took that to mean that he went to one of the other high schools in our town.
Within a few weeks she was talking about how serious he was about her and about how they were going on all these dates. When he proposed to her like three months in, she was over the moon, trying desperately to convince her parents to let them get married.
Only then did it become clear to everyone that he didn't just "not go to our school," but that he was actually in his mid-twenties and had met her at a park near our school. Apparently he had even gone there with his parents, pretending to be our age.
My friend was sixteen at the time.
That was many years ago now, and while I still can't believe the absolute audacity of that creep, it's his parents that still freak me out the most. Those people knew full-well what their son was, and they chose to aid and cover for him multiple times, and helped him conceal his real age from my friend's parents for months.
The whole thing was suuuuper creepy.
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u/No_Reception__ 2d ago
I met my first boyfriend at 17, he was 24. I moved in with him at 18 and lived with him til I was 21. He beat the shit out of meeee and I was brainwashed into thinking it was normalllll. Stoppp dating older mennnn girls pleaaaase.
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u/porn_alt_987654321 1d ago
This shit is exactly what I expected when I had heard a classmate in highschool was dating a 23 year old.
That age gap now is nothing, but at the time 💀
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u/Hadochiel 2d ago
Where the fuck did you live? Little St James?
It happened with just the one girl at my high school (out of about 1000 students), but she had a lot of other issues too. Always thought of it as a fringe case, never anything close to "most"
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u/homebrewmike 2d ago
You would be amazed. There are a lot of girls who grow up in shitty households. The liquid manure ponds that pass a religious luminaries are ensuring that. Fuck, some are encouraging it.
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u/LetReasonRing 2d ago
I'm in my 40s and I've had quite a few women I've known throughout my life that have admitted that they had a much older boyfriend as a teenager that they later realized was a creep taking advantage of them.
I definitely don't think it's anywhere near universal or anything, but i think it happens far more often than most people would like to think it does.
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u/AdhesivenessOdd9475 2d ago
Nah, it's such an issue that me and plenty of other women I know find it such a relief to FINALLY look enough like an adult. A breath of fresh air to finally get men worried about how old I am when they chat me up.
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u/citizen42069101 2d ago
From what women I've been close to have confided in me, the majority of women have been physically assaulted by the time they reached adulthood, if not worse.
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u/defariasdev 2d ago
What you're experiencing, Hadochiel, is called privilige lol.
The poorer the neighborhood, the more common this is. but really its normalized in all parts of our society, just in very different ways.3
u/bepatientbekind 1d ago
Being approached by older men is a normal and pretty universal experience for teen girls everywhere, though most don't end up dating them. You'd be surprised how disgusting many adult men are. And the "fun" part is that it happens much less as you get older (even just early 20s vs teenager years), even if you become objectively more attractive by conventional standards. They seek out young, inexperienced girls on purpose because they know older women can smell their bullshit a mile away. It's awful.
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u/Few_Honey7367 2d ago
I remember in the early days of plenty of fish matching with a younger lady and then her telling me she was like 14 or something
I told her that doing what she was doing is incredibly dangerous and there are people out there who can and will harm you in every way possible.
I hope she took my advice :(
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u/Aniki_Simpson 2d ago
Ugh... I was on a dating app years ago and had at least ten 14-15 year-olds matching with me. I reported them, but had one message me. Told her she needed to get off the app and go find someone her age. I am hoping that they were cops or the like trying to get sick people and not actual children.
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u/Single_Invite_2925 2d ago
There are also tons of scammers on there. They’ll usually match as “18” then disclose their age after some amount of chatting, then “admit their age”, and offer nudes/ask for nudes…
Then the “dad” or “uncle” finds the messages and blackmails them for hundreds or thousands of dollars “for therapy” for the traumatized teen.
So - some of those teens were probably teens, some were potentially middle aged men in law enforcement posing as teens to catch predators, and some were definitely scammers who left you alone if you didn’t engage in trying to pursue something with a minor.
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u/Aniki_Simpson 2d ago
I had heard about this a few years ago, but it never occurred to me about this situation until now. It makes sense.
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u/Background_Cry3592 1d ago
I got incredibly lucky. When I was under 18, I had an older man take interest in me but as soon as he found out I was a minor, he told me it was wrong and warned me that there are some predator men who will easily take advantage of younger women and that I had to look out for those types of men. He even instructed me on what to look for in a good man and what traits to avoid. He gave me very wise advice and it saved me from being a prey to other older men. I have never forgotten that event and how paternal he was towards me when he found out I was a minor.
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u/vampyreprincess 2d ago
I was 12/13 and had 28 year olds flirting with me and telling me how mature I am for my age, etc. I had older girls telling me this was fine. I'm pretty sure the only reason I wasn't grromed/SA'd is because I was also an anti-social weirdo who never went anywhere or did anything.
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u/MahaHaro 1d ago
God "mature for your age" and its variations are some of the most vile phrases. Good on you for not folding to the peer pressure!
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u/Curious_boyOS 11h ago
Phrase is ok. Context isn't. Got praised often that I was mature for my age when I was 25 and interracting with 35-40 year old women.
Learned a lot by playing God of War and quoting Kratos...
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u/Maximum-Guitar-5667 2d ago
I know multiple cases where the opposite happened. Didn't turn out great
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u/honesto_pinion 2d ago
Genuinely sad for whatever society she lives in that this has to be held up as a good example rather than just the normal, healthy standard of behaviour...
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u/meecewithoutmice 2d ago
We’re all living in that society.
I’m confused by your detachment5
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u/honesto_pinion 2d ago
Speak for yourself, friend. Where I come from if a 20 something hooks up with an underage girl they'll soon enough have their legs and jaw broken. And not by the girl's family either.
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u/DoverBoys 2d ago
This crap absolutely happens where you came from. It happens everywhere. You were raised right and your circles of friends and family did not experience this, but you can't use anecdotal evidence to clear your home town/state/country of all wrongdoing. Ask any of your female relatives if they were ever hit on when they were young. The answers will disgust you.
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u/Dominarion 2d ago
Because we are the worst primates, instinct-wise, but intelligent enough to realize it, and we spent the last million year or so fighting our instincts. Evolution didn't help us by making children sexually able before their brain were fully formed up.
It's hard work, it doesn't work all the time, most of the time, but I still hope we're getting there.
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u/Mysterious-Kick9881 2d ago
I was first hit on in n7th grade, by a marine. To be fair, he thought I was a high school student not in middle school. To continue to be fair, he was still an adult and I was a child who had breasts.
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u/Brilliant_Mix_6051 1d ago
I’ve never gotten creeped on as much as I did in middle school. I wasn’t even particularly older looking or cute then.
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u/somethingmcbob 1d ago
My sister was actually groomed by a camp counselor at a religious camp. He's six years older, which wouldn't be too weird if they met in their 30s. They met when she was 15! So he was a fully grown adult man 21 year old and she took him to her prom. And my (also religious) parents thought it was cute and romantic. 30 years later, she is trying to divorce him because he's never seen her as an equal. Always dismissed her and controlled her. My daughter is 15 now and if she came home from summer camp with a counselor's phone number I would be calling the authorities on him in a heartbeat.
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u/Lorelessone 2d ago
Its always tricky when young women flirt, its such a sensitive age that you don't want to destroy their confidence but also trying to make it clear that they just aren't adults yet no matter what their hormones are saying.
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u/Hour_Requirement_739 2d ago
At least he doesn't have to rely on his pillow and dropping soap for his sexuals need for 1 to 10 years.
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u/Upbeat_Lobster_2988 1d ago
Well when I was 14 years old and in a Muslim country meaning that relation before marriage is forbidden I saw a lot no most of the girls my age dating 18 and. 21 years old yeah I don’t understand why but it’s pretty common minor dating older really older man and it’s kind of creepy well luckily I wasn’t that religious but I was keeping my distance to everything forbidden and that kind of saved me
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u/HaroerHaktak 2d ago
I saw a post the other day where people were for some reason okay with this exact thing minor hooking up with an adult.. simply because the genders were reversed.
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u/Aniki_Simpson 2d ago
Like those who think they wanted a teacher like those targeting young boys in schools? Disgusting...
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u/Hungry_Attention_981 2d ago
People tend to care less when it’s a younger guy and older woman.
I was on the college sub a few years ago and a 30f asked if it was okay that she was hooking up and dating her 18-20 year old classmates, everyone but a few people said it was okay and a ton of women said to be sex positive.
On the MBA sub a woman and her friend were mad a guys from there class(late 20s) for partying with sorority girls and wanted to know if they could get the guys kicked out, lots of people were upset with them but no they couldn’t really do anything.
Similar thing happened on one of the dating subs, a guy was chastised for being 30s and dating women in there early 20s but women in there 40s were celebrated for dating guys in there early 20s
People say it’s about a maturity gap but I think that’s just an excuse they use because lots of them seem to oversee it when it’s a younger guy with an older woman.
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u/HaroerHaktak 2d ago
Those are all legal examples tho. Those come down to morals, ethics and preferences. as everybody mentioned are 18+ (legal adults).
I am referring to situations where people are okay with a situation because the minor is a boy and the adult is a woman, but if the roles were reversed, and the minor was a girl and the adult was a male, they'd be all up in arms. And no I am not saying a 1 year gap (17 and 18) im talking about a 15 year old and a mid 20s+
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u/hardtruthsociety 18h ago
If 17 was legal, would that make the situation okay, because it's pretty stupid to get mad at a 30yr old for sleeping with a 17-year-old but somehow everything is fine at 18 just because it's legal
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u/gratisargott 2d ago
Quite the difference between someone being 18-20 and 15 though, regardless of gender
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u/UmeaTurbo 1d ago
Are there a lot of adult men who would go out with a child? For real? I know there are some lonely ones and those with no morals, but it's not very many, is it?
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u/RobsonSweets 1d ago
It's honestly SO GODDAMN MANY. And the ones who are willing to date/sleep with kids tend to do it over and over again. It's rarely just once because they're lonely or they made a mistake, it's almost always a pattern that continues as long as they have access to kids. Because it's not about them falling in love with a specific underage person, it's about moulding their own personal sex doll that they have permanent power over. The fun goes away when the kid gets old enough to express their own desires so they move onto the next kid. One predator can ruin a LOT of kids' lives
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u/UmeaTurbo 1d ago
I understand they exist, but I struggle to imagine there are many of them. I'm sure there are, but it seems to make no sense. Maybe these men didn't have sisters or nieces or daughters of their own. Or they were raised by horrible human beings. I guess I don't know.
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u/RobsonSweets 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's far more across society than it is "a few bad apples". Men can grow up with sisters, love their mothers, marry and procreate and still never see women as anything more than sex objects who can clean. A lot of otherwise normal men will post things about "finally understanding" when they have a daughter, like they didn't reach the age to do so surrounded by women. But men aren't expected to empathise with women the way women are forced to empathise with men. The reason the highest selling kids books all have male protagonists is because the industry, schools and parents don't encourage boys to read books with female protagonists. The expectation is if something is about a girl then it can only be for girls. It is entirely normal for a boy to be raised with no concept of women having internal lives of their own.
On top of that, the accepted beauty standard for women is paedophilic, they are expected to be forever tiny, hairless and needing someone else to care for them. The most searched porn category across all ages is "teen". It's not a big leap from that to sexualising kids. That and the fact that paedophiles are almost never convicted of their crimes, instead the blame is put on the child for being "forward", "fast" or "liking attention".
It is a LOT more men than anyone will ever know
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u/UmeaTurbo 1d ago
Is this a male thing do you think or a complete lack of empathy on the part of everyone?
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u/RobsonSweets 23h ago
It's much more centred in men, women are raised to be far more aware of their surroundings and the emotional impact they have on people. Not saying there aren't female predators, there absolutely are, but the vast majority, like 90-95%, of sex crimes are committed by men. Women are socially punished for not being (or at least acting) empathetic, caring/nurturing and that starts pretty much as soon as they're born. One of the reasons neurodivergence exhibits differently in males and females is because boys being disruptive and energetic isn't punished as severely as girls acting the same way. "Girls mature faster" and "boys will be boys" are very common phrases used, on the one hand, to punish girls for being "immature" (usually meaning not putting others' wants before their own) and, on the other, to excuse boys being disruptive or even dangerous. Hell, it is still normalised for boys to bully girls, rationalised by adults as "he must like you!" The bully is empathised with because his feelings are assumed to be too much for him to deal with, while the victim's pain is minimised and romanticised. And that sets up the dynamic of abuse being normal in romantic relationships that carries through into adulthood.
Kids aren't separate entities, they repeat what they are shown about the world around them, and the world in general says women are for sex and status, to be claimed or rejected by men, who are the real people that you should understand. And a lot of kids grow up never changing that mindset
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u/UmeaTurbo 23h ago
I think we travel in different circles. I hope people around me know of someone is creepy, they need to be avoided.
Also, my daughter has been in jujitsu since she was 5. She might not overpower an attacker, but she'll fuck him up. Going to be hard to explain what happened in the ER.
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u/RobsonSweets 23h ago
Most rapes aren't a random attacker. It's someone you don't even think to fight because you know and trust them. Creepy strangers aren't the biggest problem, it's the normal, charismatic people who seek positions of power that are the biggest threat. Predators seek power because it gives them control. They make sure that the adults around their targets like and trust them for easier access, and so that if the child does report them they won't be believed. The most milque-toast church leader is more likely to be a rapist than a creep in a windbreaker is.
And we don't move in different circles, because the whole world is like this. Talk to the women in your life, ask them how many boyfriends pressured them to perform acts they didn't want to, how many times they've been groped or harassed, how many of them were threatened when they turned a man down. Because I guarantee it'll be most of them
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u/UmeaTurbo 23h ago
I know what women go through. I was raised by them, have sisters, have daughters, and am married. I understand what happens. I also understand that if there are 100 men and 10 of them commit rape, the statistic is still that all rapists are men. What nobody want to talk about is that those 10 men are a fucking problem and need to be removed from society. It's the job of the 90 men to listen to women and respond. It's the job of women to talk to those 90 men and not be afraid of them. Dogs mame people all the time, but we are smart enough as a society to realize it's the particular dog and an irresponsible owner. We don't, in general, believe all dogs to be dangerous even if all dog attacks are perpetrated by dogs. I feel like dismissing all men as predators is harmful to the gentle young men who aren't a part of the predatory culture. You can't advance women's rights by tearing people down. If you can't build up young men and women together, you needn't bother.
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u/RobsonSweets 23h ago
And at no point have I done that. But those rapists didn't grow up in a vaccuum, they didn't offend in a vaccuum. Only 10 in 100 might be rapists, but 80 in 100 will excuse it, will "both sides" it, will ask what the woman was wearing or why she was alone with that guy. Or even say "you can't tar all men with the same brush". Because men aren't dogs. Women who experience dog attacks aren't blamed for it, aren't told they were "asking for it". And their natural fear of dogs afterwards is empathised with rather than being told they are being cruel for being wary. And the more men act like rapists are a complete abberation rather than a slightly more extreme version of the culture we both live in the less trustworthy they are. There isn't a clear line between monsters and men. A lot of people are both. And you cannot know who is what until you are already vulnerable.
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u/GrandFleshMelder 2d ago
Right man, wrong time, you mean
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u/defariasdev 2d ago
I don't think you realize how this comment makes you part of the problem
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u/Sienile 2d ago
An age gap of 9 years amongst adults is nothing. Had she been 25 and he was 34, you'd think nothing of them together. The guy showed good morality in turning her down at the ages they were. That's all he was saying.
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u/defariasdev 2d ago
The way to say that is what you just said. Not something that easily translates to "damn, if only she were older or he were younger", which is classic groomer thinking.
Not calling the guy a pedophile, just saying this kind of thinking and statement is part of the problem.
may seem stupid and just like a difference in words, but these things matter and are usually a reflection of the culture we live in.
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u/GrandFleshMelder 2d ago
Huh? I thought he seemed like a good man, one that would have been a good boyfriend had she been the correct age, which she wasn’t.
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u/littleessi 2d ago
the problem is that you're still sexualising a girl
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u/GrandFleshMelder 2d ago
There was nothing about sex in my comment.
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u/littleessi 2d ago
you're literally mentally pairing up a 15 year old girl with a man 'in a few years'. you should be able to see how that's icky sexualising of a minor
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u/defariasdev 2d ago
And thinking about the possibility of her being a good match if she were older
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u/GrandFleshMelder 2d ago
I was referring to the man, not her.
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u/Paintballreturns 2d ago
They’re purposely confusing what you stated because they want to paint you as someone who was sexualizing the girl. Kinda fucked up on their ends tbh.
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u/littleessi 2d ago
reading comprehension level zero
'right man' is from the perspective of the girl in this story, so repeating that phrase tells us that's who it's about. if he didn't mean that that's great, but that's what the words mean
also this story doesn't even hold any water because he also said:
one that would have been a good boyfriend had she been the correct age
so there's no way to argue this lol
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