To not look at this couple in the same way anymore?

Of COURSE you don't feel like you were exploited, you're happy & that age gap is now irrelevant as adults. I've an old friend who was abused for many many years when young BUT he was kind to her so she has zero trauma. Intellectually she knows she was abused but emotionally she doesn't feel it. That's immaturity you still have even at 16 imo

I'm going to assume your friend was much younger.

It's a huge stretch to then insist that a legal, mutually consentual encounter is similar to a child whose trust is horrendously betrayed by an adult.
And no I don't think 16 and 20 is definitively a child and an adult, I think people labour that point to make it sound bad.

Lack of diversity & narrow world view?! We're not talking about interracial relationships here, or same sex ones, this is about adult men in relationships with teens.

I know a LOT of ppl here are feeling personally attacked cos this is how their relationship started & they are still secure & happy - great for you guys, genuinely - which makes it impossible to take a neutral stance. Most adult/teen relationships will be exploitative for, what should be, obvious reasons.

Of COURSE you don't feel like you were exploited, you're happy & that age gap is now irrelevant as adults. I've an old friend who was abused for many many years when young BUT he was kind to her so she has zero trauma. Intellectually she knows she was abused but emotionally she doesn't feel it. That's immaturity you still have even at 16 imo 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don’t see anything wrong with it. In fact I would find it more odd for a 16 year old girl to date a 16 year old boy because 16 year old girls are so much more mature generally. I certainly didn’t date boys my age when I was 16. I preferred someone who could drive for a start!

OK, then - thanks, I didn't know that.

Not the second scenario that I pondered on, then; but it's sounding a lot to me like the first scenario.

I think you are being completely ott. She was of age and its only 4/5 years of a difference.

You’re being really weird. They are hardly Lolita and Humbert Humbert. If it creeps you out, just don’t think about it.

Before 16 the age of consent was 13. And 12 before that.

I don't think any of us now can properly know what the intentions were of the people who made that law, when they did.

We also don't know if they were choosing 16 as a positive step - i.e. 'we believe that you are fully capable of choosing to be sexually active with anybody once you are 16' or as a negative one - i.e. 'children should not be having sex, but if they insist on it, we are setting 16 as an absolute minimum after which we won't automatically press charges'.

Then again, it may well have been deliberately designed to give older men who were attracted to girls aged 16 freedom from prosecution and an air of respectability if they managed to get them to have sex with them. A great many laws have traditionally been made - even up to the 1980s - to centre men and their desires, whilst restricting woman and putting them firmly in their place of subservience and as facilitators of men's lives.

OP, if it's icky for a 20 year old to find a 16 year old attractive, because the 16 year old is a child, why is it totally fine for a 16 or 17 year old to find that same 16 year old attractive?

What an extraordinary angle to take. It's fine because they are on the same page. You may as well ask why it's not OK for a 10yo to slap and bite a toddler with who they want to squabble, when it's understandable if another toddler does it.

And just because many of us find it concerning when an adult and a child form a sexual relationship, that in no way means that there can't also be great concerns with two children of the same age, if the behaviour of one of them is unacceptable or controlling.

How is 2 f/t working people going out creepy

I think people are looking at this through today’s optics where the average 16 year old is very much unscathed by reality and protected from having to grow up and make adult decisions and is very naive about life in general.
Yes their were girls like that but the average 16 year old 45 years ago had a f/t job. A lot lived in their own rented places that they had to view and make the decision to take rent the place and fund and organise everything including moving heir belongings in. (No suitcases on wheels In those days)
Then getting themselves to work on time, having to take on extra work to balance the monthly budget in order to pay the rent and bills. (Not minimum wage, 3 million unemployed so you took what you could get) Then having to source pans, plates cutlery etc
After doing a 40 hour working week and going to your extra job/jobs, to fund luxuries such as food there is shopping for the food which is restricted to Saturdays and your lunch time as shops shut at 5.30pm. Cooking, cleaning, laundry etc

You can’t compare today’s 16 year old girl with 16 year old working women from another era

I'm obviously so dated, doesn't bother me at all.
At 16 I actively wanted to go out with older men, they were more interesting.
I also wouldn't mind a daughter going out with a 20 year old. My son is 20, still goes to the park to play footie with his mates and is sweet, kind and gentle, the thought he would be seen as predatory

The age of consent just means what it says - that’s the legal age of sexual consent. It was never intended to dictate who could date who.🤷‍♀️

yup, as I said upthread, crab bucket mentality

Or maybe that’s more disgusting than the 20-year old being more mature for his age, because people these days think someone is a baby at 16, but a fully grown adult who should be holding down a job, financially independent and only mixing with adults in full time employment at 20, with any deviation from this a sign of depravity and immaturity, because we all know that human beings emerge overnight into adulthood at the age of 18.

16 year old studying A-levels at a sixth form college goes out with 20-year old who is living at home with Mum and Dad. Shock, horror. How disgusting. Not.

I got pregnant at 18,in the 60s you got married..I had just before this got friendly with a 23 year old policeman,who used to walk me home after the late train. My late DM said he was too old for me! I got pregnant, married to the man who made me pregnant,he was one month younger than me. At 19 he was manager of a posh jewellery shop in London. Then the violence and coercive control started (police weren't interested in domestics in the 70s) a couple of male friends (one who was bi) asked about his sexualality) he got very drunk one night,told me he was gay, married me for a respectable "front" for his middle class family. Divorced when he insured me for a very large sun and tried to kill me. Now,re- married, but wonder what would have happened if I had married the kind caring policeman! My oldest DD left home at 16, because she had a live in job in stables with a very early morning start

I would definitely agree with you.

I suspect a lack of understanding of diversity among people and narrow world view.

You can be mature while still living at home between 16-20. Maturity doesn't require trauma to exist.

As an aside I think it’s wrong to confuse trauma and adverse life experiences with ‘maturity’. People who were kicked out of home etc at 16 are not necessarily mature. They have had to cope with trauma and learned to go it alone.

Unless you are pursuing some kind of sporting/musical career or have parents in the military or other unusual circumstances, moving out at 16 is not usuall. It suggests problems at home. I don’t think it means that someone is emotionally mature. I mention that as living alone at 16 is often used as an example of ‘maturity’ when it is not the case.

We understand the concept. We don't know why it's horrifying to some.

4 years? Two people over the age of consent?
Not creepy.

I can’t believe so many here don’t understand this concept.

Having a marriage that has lasted 10/20/100 years doesn’t make the start of it any less creepy if there was an inappropriate age gap then!

A 20 year sleeping with and being sexually attracted to a 16 year old is gross. It was “back then” and still is now

Back when?

I have been around for a long time and a 4 year age gap, even at 16 wasn’t considered anything but normal

Coming on here, it is eye opening

I really didn’t know that going out with someone 4 years older was such a huge deal

I actually don’t think I would have got married if the choice was restricted to someone less than 4 years older than me.