I have in mind a touchy subject yet one that, at the very least, is one that has come up as an issue or question to most people at some point, but I ask that you read it all the way through before you comment. The question I have to raise is of age and whether it is “just a number” as some people say, or whether there is some clear way of figuring out what is right in regards to what age can be with which others.

The short and seemingly clear answer to this question is simply that there are some people that are simply too young or too old for other ages. It can, however, be somewhat hard to define what these ages should be, and almost everyone has a slightly different view on the matter.

I believe that for me, at the age of 21, anyone younger than 16 would be too young for me to consider for being anything more than a friend; some people may consider this age to be too young, others may say it could be younger (although I doubt, or at least hope this is the minority). And what about going in the opposite direction, what becomes too old? 30? 40? 50?

Questions like these can, however, have a deceptively simple seeming to them. If someone sees two numbers, it is much easier to say yes or no to whether they should be allowed to be together. The real difficulty of it isn’t found in physical age but in maturity, personality and compatibility.

Assume a 16-year-old that is very mature and well grounded, personality is good and anyone that has any interaction with them would believe that they are older. If this is the case no one would be able to argue in a non-dogmatic way that they could not be with someone older, at the very least until they hit some invisible barrier which would be in different places for everyone. And in some of the cases it becomes incredibly hard to define this barrier.

Now what of the older one, say the person at 21 since I mentioned that age already when referring to myself. If they get along well and have similar points of view, interests and get along well, should age and this arbitrary barrier is an obstacle? What if on the other hand the person at 21 is immature and acts more like someone who is 15? Should that make a difference at all in the case?

Another issue of note to this is that of setting, before hand, a defined limit in either direction, let’s say for the sake of argument here that this range should be five years in either direction. How strictly should such a guideline be followed? In a case where the people are at each others extremes (five years away from each other) but the older one has their birthday before the younger, should any romantic interest stop until such a time as the younger has celebrated their birth? Perhaps the problem can be squirted by setting it, not in terms of age, but by the years of birth. If, again using myself since it makes for easy math, someone is born in 1985 and the range would become from 1980 to 1990 for the years of birth of any possible person that they may have a romantic relationship with.

Until this point the discussion may appear to have been cold and logical, setting boundaries that the heart doesn’t necessarily seem to follow. I am a hopeless romantic, and as such in certain things believe that the heart wants what it wants, but what if the heart wants someone who is 13 or 85? (To be charitable to my position I would like to explain that this wanting is not to be considered a purely sexual or purely physical desire, but a desire to love the other for their personality and for what they are as a whole.) What of a case where upon meeting, there is no love in a romantic way at this point, but after discussion and discovering more of the person as a whole a love starts to develop, I doubt many would argue that this is impossible, if only theoretically so.

In such a case what is to be done? Is it that it is a case of a mistake in what type of love is present? How could anyone be sure that this is in fact the case? If this does happen should a relationship be thought of as a good or bad thing? What if the relationship is non-sexual, as it has started, and remains so the two are enjoying the love in a non-sexual way, but only romantic (i.e., say they are dating and a couple)? I myself believe such a relationship is possible as my view on sex is that it is not necessary to a relationship or life to be happy and fulfilling. (A view which I know not all people share, I know it is not shared as many people I have spoken with have spoken with have made this claim along with saying I am crazy for having this belief.)

The questions I am addressing may, however, have more of a theoretical importance than a practical one. I say this because it would seem very possible that love is claimed to be the basis of a relationship with large age gaps when in fact that is not the case at all. There are only a lucky few that have never felt nor will never feel the pain of being lead on by someone who they believed loved them (whether by willing or unintentional cues from the other). And if this can be faked is it ever possible to truly judge how legitimate the love here is?

In theory anything is possible and the question can be discussed, not just that but perhaps should be discussed (take a look at my post on Liberty for some explanation of why) and in discussion perhaps clear guidelines can be set. But in a practical sense, as already said above, it would seem to be impossible to discover what people’s true emotions are, it can sometimes be hard enough to discover ones own emotions let alone know with any certainty what another person’s are (this is the problem of other minds).

I would therefore like to conclude by commenting that although in theory age may be able to be seen as unimportant, it is “nothing but a number”, practically this is of no use to anyone. In real life there needs to be a set of restrictions based on age or perhaps on the year of birth, how this is set is still hard to discover and always up for debate. Perhaps this could be a small range for younger people, in order to protect them from harm, and increasing slightly as age increases, but this I do not know how to set clearly. I do not believe there is anything more I can say on this topic at this point and I therefore leave it to you to get the discussion going.<br /><br />Post edited by: dragon_14, at: 2007/09/18 14:04

oooh I like your topics, like one a day .
This one is interesting too, but even tho the things we discussed on liberty, I dont think like an age restriction will work or is such a good idea.
Everybody has different thoughts and needs, and one at 16 can be more mature than one at 21 as you said. I think you said everything nicely about the age things. About that belief you spoke about I dont think your crazy, I kinda share that idea.
But like I said, you said most of it about the age, but like an age restriction won't be good I think, or what points of the liberty topic makes you want that or think its something good?

Summ: Thanks for the feedback on the topic. It's not that I necessarily think that an age restriction would be a good thing though. With what I said about Liberty it is more the discussion of topics like this that is a good thing. By discussing topics such as these we avoid dogmatism and can come to better more rational decisions. So it's open for debate, why is an age restriction good or why is it not? Is it because of what I said about the heart not being rational?

dragon: Would you do me a favour and put line breaks in between paragraphs? It's just that it's hard to read the whole chunk of text.

hand: Sorry about that, my next post will be broken up a bit more, hope you can still get through this one anyway.

Shawn,

You bring up a VERY intereting topic here!

I, like you, believe that age is just a number (as long of course as we are not approaching the area of peodophilia... which I know YOU are not referrring to, and to which you know of MY thoughts n the matter!).

Regardless of this belief, I have found that many people do it fact define a person by their Date Of Birth. They may be considered a gr8 person, if the other believes them to be the same age as them (say 17) but not if they are 25.

For some reason a &quot;warning bell&quot; seems to jump up in the others head which says.. &quot;no, I can't be with someone 8 years my senior&quot; (or vice versa) regardless of whether or not, until that point, everything has been great between them.

Therefore, for the sake of the other persons sanity, it is always a wise thing to ensure that both parties are aware of both peoples ages when they FIRST begin to connect. Nothing worse than falling in love just to then ask the question and be rejected!

So I guess basically what I'm saying buddy, is that I don't think age has anything to do with love... as long as both parties are up front about it from the start.

Cheers,
Ad.

Awesome, lovin your posts dragon.

Age, this has been an extremely relevant topic to me recently since, once I had my 18th birthday, I seem to have thrust into a the gay world of possibilities. Such liberation, such grant of power to do as you will...

Anyway, I've made friends with a few other gay folk, some older, some not-so, some younger. Most of which between the age bracket of 15-30. Personally, and just a basic preference, I wouldn't go past 16, and past 27. The further they are from my age, the less chance they'd probably appeal to me as anything more than mates. Specially being 18, one couldn't really go much younger.

I don't feel all the comfortable with attempting to get intimate with someone younger, to me, it just doesn't come naturally, I especially don't like it when they're younger than my siblings for some reason ('m the eldest), but yeah, a lot of gay dudes do think differently. Many boys, younger than I are a lot more experienced sexually and find nothing wrong with being with men older than even myself. All i can say to them is, well, be careful, don't be manipulated, and try and make sure its all cool as much as i can.

Thing is though, the legal age of sex and/ or adulthood: 16/ 18/ 21, are, I think, overrated. With special focus on 18 and 21. Do people really change/ mature all that much from 17 to 18? Or from 20 to 21? Yet those ages seem to have walls in between em that make you either legally fuckable, or illegally fuckable. Although 16, fair enough, is a young age.

Maturity, thus sexual awareness, is also a factor, but for some reason, the non-existent age wall seems to come into effect here. For some reason, a mature 16 year old, with a 23 year old, seems a lot more tolerable than a mature 15 year old being with a 22 year old. Although the gaps are the same, 15 seems dangerously close to the early adolescent, or prepubescent years.

I gotta say, I'm disgusted though at the old sex-hungry (high twenties - fifties) who actually try to get with boys as young or younger than I, for sex. And are even willing to pay for it. I mean, an older man going for a relationship is one thing, but once they're deliberately targeting MUCH younger men for fucks, it just goes beyond the fences of my personal line of morality.

I think everyone should have a basic idea of what age bracket they should come after. And not go chasing some young meat, just for the nice fuck they could get out of it. I'm sooo sick of those 30s-50s ppl who'd message ya about the different, and disturbingly elaborate things they'd want to do with their tongues... I'm just thinkin... Dude... I'm 18... You're old enough to be my dad's uncle... Do not you feel the slightest tug on you're conscience? Or the younger fellas, who just give themselves to these sugar daddies. Keep it conserved youngins!!

So to me, it could depend on...
- Age, is the person, at their age, appropriate?
- Year gaps, depending on the age, is the year-gap appropriate?
- Intentions, is the younger one being manipulated into anything?
- Maturity and Awareness, does the younger one know what their getting themselves into?
- And finally, Personal preference, in the end of the day, it comes down to the choice of the two, if they're passion for one another is enough to plow through these age barriers and moral rules? Then they will try.

yeeaaneways.... rant OVER!
,C
*hug to alllll*

...

double...

bloody...

post...

WOO!

lol <br /><br />Post edited by: C_Dude, at: 2007/03/23 18:15

I'm loving all the feedback on these posts makes me happy. Anyway I'm going to try and address some of the points...

Ajm :The point about whether or not it's cool at the start can sometimes be irrelevant. In some cases boht people start out not wanting anything more then to be friends, but then one or the other, sometimes both, change their mind about what they want becaise they fall for the other. It's happened to me where someone I wanted to just be friends with, due to their age. Later into the friendship they confessed they fell for me and asked me out. Had I also fallen for them, even though we started not wanting anything more, where would things stand?

C_dude: Many good points. It does have lots to do with personal preference what someone wants. Some people do just get along better with certain age groups. Or only fall for certain people. I knew it would come up, but I tried to avoid sex, I also find it disgusting when there are these predators. Moral rules are definetly a big issue though. I think I'll make another post about that topic, would be useful for many things I've seen in this forum.

The reason that many of the age things are in place are based completely by governments needing to make a limit, it does seem to be arbitrarily defined however, considering how many different countries have different ages of majority. The question then seems to become do any of them have it right?

Hey man, loved ur views on the topic. i do agree with everything you mentioned and i'm happy to see that the anti descrimination laws have finally came through to make the legal age of consent 16 flat across the board.
it is a shame however that some sites still do discriminate against the age limits and for example this very site mentions that persons communicating/grooming persons under the age of 18 who are of the age of 18 will be dealt with by some child protection authority i forgot the details... but still it is wrong.
lets say your 18 and u have some1 who is almost 16 and there is 2.5 year gap in ages, u could go 2 jail for i think from memoary 2 and a half years.
what's wrong is when you get a 45 yo man who grooms a 21yo guy and can get away with it legally.
the amount of mental traumor that that person may have to deal with is un believeable. For this reason the laws have been put in place protect the younger people but it's only cos the gonment is 2 F*#ken lazy to make better laws that make this world a happer place. i agree that some sort of age gap should apply. for example there is 11yrs dirrerence between my mum and dad but they're old...
Maybe the government needs to bring a scale into perspective. 3 yrs age difference 4 ppl under 10 with a year tollerance 5 yrs difference 4 ppl under 16 with a years tollerance and a 10 yr age difference for people under 25 with a years tollerance.
The way it would work is 4 the person in the relationship with the younger age is taken into consideration and worked out if the older person is suitable. For those who are over the age of 18 maybe could apply for permission to date a person older than their age difference allows. the permission would either be granted or dissallowed after a &quot;case&quot; has been heard and relevent parties have been screened for previous sexual offences.
I don't know but this is just an idea that would in my view help the community be protected by preditors and therefore be able to get rid of some headaches and heartaches when it comes to dating. afer all not every person is at the same mental age as the next.
I know this because i'm 23 and feel and act like i'm 19 but hey what can you do. I've been groomed by a pedofile at the age of 16 and when i was in a pretty miserable state. i'm 23 now and i'm still living with the pain of it all and my own history.
I don't particularly want to go into details tho and i'm trying to put it all behind me to move on.