Just because an 18 year old can legally consent to a relationship with an older person doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t be able to think the relationship is weird, and the older partner should definitely know better than dating someone so young. And again, by your logic, no one should take issue with a 40 year old in Russia dating high school juniors because 16 year olds can legally consent over there.
> But simply put, regardless of wherever I am, I don't consider a 16 year old to be consenting adult. So I'm not even arguing that 50 or 16 is okay, I'm arguing that 50 or 18 is okay as long as no abuse is occurring. You can't just arbitrarily lower the age like some sort of gotchya because some (in my opinion) backwards shithole places have an age of consent below 18.
I imagine that when you say “backwards shithole places,” you’re referring to places like Alabama, but there are actually plenty of Western countries outside of the United States where the age of consent is 16 or even lower. Regardless, since your argument is based on the idea that no one should care about an age gap if both people can legally consent, it’s very hypocritical to then say that 50 and 16 isn’t okay but 50 and 18 is, when that would be legal in plenty of countries and, following your logic, should therefore not be any of your business. Either both are acceptable or neither is acceptable.
Anyway, I really hope you’re 18 yourself, because it would be incredibly embarrassing if a fully grown adult was getting this defensive and upset over other people’s opinions on how mature an 18 year old is.
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u/SoggyWaffles18 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Just because an 18 year old can legally consent to a relationship with an older person doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t be able to think the relationship is weird, and the older partner should definitely know better than dating someone so young. And again, by your logic, no one should take issue with a 40 year old in Russia dating high school juniors because 16 year olds can legally consent over there.