• Vespair@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    If you thought I was defending conservatives, you’re wrong. There’s nuance to this; the topic is sexual dynamics but the purpose is dominance. This is a conservative kind of principle because it’s about limiting autonomy of consenting adults, enforcing social morals, and boogyman logic. We should be embracing and striving for a better, freer, more autonomous world, where everyone, women included, are empowered rather than limited, not just settling for a slightly preferable version of the patriarchy.

    Which means embracing a nuanced world. Which is why I said acknowledge and even warn against the potential dangers of severe age-gap relationships; we don’t have to be blind to real world dangers, but that we shouldn’t let fear of those dangers drive us into blind ignorance again or else we’re just repeating the same cycle. Hence the trojan horse. We get better when we accept difficult concepts rather than accept simplified extractions for the masses.

    edit: just in case my position is somehow still unclear, yes I’m using conservative as effectively synonymous with “bad” here. I’ll consider caring when they consider better conduct and positions.

    • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I dunno. Speaking as a male, the reason I see older men seeking far younger women is that it’s easy to seem like the smartest guy in the room when you’re also the oldest guy in the room. You can project an air of worldliness that makes you seem smarter and wiser than you really are. You can get younger women, legal women, fawning over you because they’re young and haven’t really experienced enough of life and people to be wise to the bullshit. They avoid women around their own age because they’ve been around, they know all the tricks.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Yeah, which falls under the risks I mentioned not to be ignorant to.

        But also, sometimes you’re a 23 year old who gets put on assignment at work with a 31 year old coworker and are surprised how well you hit it off.

        My point wasn’t “yay age gap relationships!,” it was to evaluate the world around you with the necessary nuanced rather than reductively.

        • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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          7 months ago

          Yeah. Not impossible for the to be healthy relationships but those appear to be the minority. With age generalay comes other factors, like financial resources, that strike a relationship power imbalance.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          7 months ago

          I don’t understand what you are arguing about it than. The post doesn’t say we should vote for age gaps in relationships to be banned. Supposedly you think it’s good to talk about the downsides of these relationships, but here you are, calling it a “conservative Trojan horse”. It seems like you actually do not want people to criticise it.

          • Vespair@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            I want them to criticize the right aspects. In general I want us to approach the world looking for more nuance, not looking for reductivism.

      • thisisnotgoingwell@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        I tend to agree with most of what you said but the main reason this is even a thing is that women typically date older men who are already established. Dating in your early 20s is basically impossible because your female counterparts aren’t looking for guys that are just starting out or figuring out who they are. Women seek security and sustainability and the 28 year old guy who knows himself and has his own house, good job and car looks far more appealing than the 21 year old who’s living with his parents or going to school. I’m not even criticizing women here, it makes sense.

        • zea@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 months ago

          Women seek security and sustainability

          This is a huge overgeneralization and sounding like it might have come from incel thinking, do you have a source to say how many young women are primarily looking for that?

    • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Not saying you’re defending conservatives - just embracing and diving into some of the nuance.

      Broadly, I agree with you on this. The main possible point of difference between us relates to the perceived level of risk associated with such relationships. For what it’s worth, I’ve linked a NIH study on the topic to the angry lunatic that also responded to my parent reply.