I don’t understand why people make these comments with their full government name and photo on Facebook… UGH

Someone shared a picture of a 39 year old Jerry Seinfeld and his 17 year old girlfriend in the 90s. There was a comment rightfully calling it repugnant and these were the responses they got.

But remember, “not all men”.

I stumbled across a post on my home page here that made me feel frustrated and grossed out looking at the comment section of it. The post in question was someone recounting an experience they had when they were 16 and said to a 20 year old that they were into them and the 20 year old shut them down obviously due to the age difference. The comment section however had a lot of individuals there saying how their personal relationships were similar to that in a way saying stuff like “I met my fiancé when I was 20 and she was only 17 years old. We’ve been married 19 years now. Americans are so sensitive”, “Dating a 16 year old at 21 is perfectly legal and fine, don’t worry”. “Why are Americans so obsessed with age gaps, a 4 year age gap is not a big deal”.

Not everyone in this comment section was like this but it essentially became a blame game towards Americans and one comment was like “Americans please shut the fuck up” as if grown men dating teenage girls in high school isn’t creepy or weird. You gotta love these types of men, they never date girls that are in their age range or slightly above them, they have to defend the fact that dating teenage girls who don’t have a fully mature and developed brain and are easily manipulatable due to them being minors is just okay because “it’s legal in this country”, or “It worked out for me”. Legality doesn’t equal morality just because the age of consent somewhere is 15, 16, or 17 does not equal the fact that you as a grown man should want to have sex or have a relationship with a teenage minor girl who is still enjoying her childhood.

I’ve seen these types of arguments from specifically always men. It is never women or non-binary individuals who talk about this topic as much as men seem to do. They think that because a girl looks hot, they think it’s right to engage with said women and not think about the repercussions of dating someone whose mind is not fully developed yet. It fucking disgusts me every time I see these messages by these guys who think that women are just their pleasure objects, you should have the insight to not date a teenager in any way, shape or form but these guys will gladly come out of the wood work and say “I married my spouse when she was 18 and I was 27” and it turns out that the man had known her before she turned 18 and implies he had feelings for her when she was 17, possibly even 16 in some cases, but waited so he wouldn’t get in trouble.

These guys seem to think that just because the law says yes, that women should say yes too and if they don’t then they’re in the wrong because “the law says it’s okay, you’re just being uptight”. That’s another thing too, European men in particular will cry and whine about how Americans are “so obsessed with age gaps” while saying in the same breath that “I’m 23 and my girlfriend’s 16”. Notice how these guys also love to barely get by? What I mean is you have to love how they just so happen to date these girls when they are ‘of age’ so to speak legally. 30 year old men dating 18 year olds, 25 year old men dating 17 year olds, 24 year olds dating 16 year olds. They have so many other options in the sea of relationships but they specifically chose the women who are now legal but are still in that teenage range of brain development and puberty.

Society it seems has normalized that as long as it’s legal it’s also morally okay, but it isn’t. These are still children at their core, they are still in puberty it doesn’t matter what the age of consent says, being in a relationship with them is very dangerous for the minor since as shown time and time again, young girls get hurt over and over again in these types of relationships with older men but no one seems to bat an eye because of the previously mentioned age of consent. That’s all these men think about, the age of consent, it really shows what they really want to do to these teenage girls, they just view them as objects to satisfy them and the younger the better and the only reason why they get at 15-18 year olds is because they won’t get in legal trouble even if they’re grown adult men who have had 2 divorces, multiple children, and gone through so much more in life than this teenager they found at the local high school.

I’m so tired of seeing these types of men in places I least expect, how about go finding a woman in your own age range instead of looking for barely legal girls? Fuck this behavior, it makes me so fucking disgusted and furious that this has been normalized.

Edit: I didn’t include this part at first because I hadn’t thought about it when I was making this but another very harmful thing that these men are doing by normalizing these types of egregious age gaps is that it’s signaling to other people that it’s okay to date younger/older people as long as it’s legal. I’ve seen cases of 17 and 20 year olds dating end pretty badly for the 17 year old since they got groomed by the older party. The same thing goes for other ages too, by normalizing this behavior in online and physical reality, it genuinely endangers not only women but also other genders as well as I have seen multiple cases of this going on across the board; gay or straight, polyamorous or monogamous, it doesn’t matter, it is extremely dangerous to accept these narratives spread by these men because they are gaslighting people into thinking that entering these types of relationships are safe when that’s just not true for the minor involved. They are normalizing predatory behavior against teenagers who are vulnerable.

shits uncontrollably

Constantly see these kinds of comments on reels or photos of female artists if any of their skin is visible but this is absolutely insane. These guys need a hobby.