To think that a 35 year old man setting his dating range to age 21+ is revolting?

Yes.

Young women are infantilised by society and treated as if they are not capable of making decisions for themselves. Women are seen as passive during sexual encounters with men, rather than enthusiastic participants or even instigators. Women, especially young women are sexual beings who know what they want and what they are doing. Sure, we make mistakes but that’s life.

I have been a teenager and in my twenties before. People who think that their daughters are innocent virgin flowers are very much mistaken.

I wonder if the same people arguing that 21 year-olds are fully fledged adults say the same about young adults who want to modify their bodies. She's 21, if she wants to hack her breasts off and fashion a penis put of her arm, she can!.. right?

It's a narrow window 😂

Only on mumsnet are you a child until practically 26 years old yet middle-aged by about 30 😆

Yep and it's depressing and also insulting to young women as though they don't know their own minds

You know that the idea that the brain "reaches maturity" at 25/30 or whatever is absolute bollocks, right?

There really is quite the undertone of misogyny here, isn't there?

A 21 year old woman is an adult and fully capable of deciding who she wants to shag.

Where’s your evidence? Just because you say that doesn’t means it’s fact 😂 plenty of 30 year olds have shit lives and make bad decisions. I don’t care what you think. You are also wrong

There are plenty of reasons why young women would want an older man: financial security, emotional maturity, accomplished and confident.

I think also with a lot of age gap pairings, it wasn't that someone specifically wanted an older or a younger person, they fell in love with that person, who happened to be a different age to them.

Someone upthrad pointed out (correctly IMO) that when someone introduces a personal anecdote and says that they/their parents got together with a big age gap, posters with opposing views are generally too polite to say "Yes, your hysband/dad is a total creep".

The inverse is also true however. If someone jumps in to say that their mid 20s darling daughter is a first class graduate... but still rings me up to ask how to boil an egg, or cries down the phone for hours at some petty trivia- people are generally too polite to say that yes, your daughter sound inept and childish for her age, she should have a better grasp on both her emotional regulation and the practicalities of adult life.

That’s just ridiculous!

My dad is eighteen years older than my mum. She was 17 when they met, married for 33 years and had three kids together.

There are plenty of reasons why young women would want an older man: financial security, emotional maturity, accomplished and confident.

Often, young women who have abusive or neglectful fathers seek out older men for romantic relationships. This was the case for my mum. My dad saved her from the horrible beatings her alcoholic father used to give her. He provided for her and looked after her and my sisters.

Ive never understood why people have such an issue with age gap relationships. If people are happy, good on them. We all have different life experiences.

You could but it would be very unwise due to being so young and not having even finished school ,whereas a 21 could 5 years out of school and been working for several years ,there's a huge difference in the maturity levels of a 14 ,year old and 21 year old.

The brain is immature at 14, and at 21.

Comparing a 21 year old adult's maturity level to that of a 14 year old child is insulting, ridiculous and just wrong.

And I see we've stretched the goalposts for child even further, from 25 to 30 😂

21+ is fine, he's saying his age bracket of acceptance is 21 to old! It would be bad if he said 21-29 only.

Imagine all the teachers ,nurses ,police officers ,Doctors etc under 30 saying no sorry I'm just to immature to treat,you ,arrest you,teach your child etc.

I thought it was 25 ( although apparently it's all nonsense anyway)

That's bad science.

The research that was done analysed the brains of young people and found that their brains continued developing into adulthood.

The study was then stopped at 26, so they never found out if the brain is EVER "fully developed."

A 21 year old might still make more bad/impulsive decisions than a 30 yo, but pretending that they aren't perfectly capable of making rational choices for their life is really disrespectful to them.

so no-one under 30 should be employed in any role of any responsibility?

Let's start by telling all the nurses they are too immature to be left to deal with patients until they reach 30, shall we 😂

If a 21+ year old can't be trusted to date or have sex with whoever she wants, surely she cannot possibly be trusted with medical issues?

This isn’t about ‘choosing a sexual partner’. It’s about men more than a decade older chasing younger women

No because the brain reaches maturity around the age of 30, and 30 year olds are much more likely to have their lives sorted out and be less easily swayed by the opinions of older men. I would say that after the age of 30, age gaps are much less creepy.

At 14 you can have sex, get pregnant, have a baby, get married in some countries where opinions on ‘adulthood’ differ from the UK. Doesn’t mean anything. The brain is immature at 14, and at 21.

I remember being in a massive night club at seventeen I shouldnt even have been in a club then .

I got separated from my friend who was a year older.
I went to one of the numerous bars in the club and a man hitted on me almost right away.
He bought me a soft drink I was driving then and I wasnt daft enough to drink and drive.
He wanted me to go back to his flat in the city center.
I told him i have to be up tomorrow. His answer was he would be my alarm clock.
He was around 34 maybe 35.
He gave me a business card and said never mind we can always meet again.
I didnt meet him. The business card was a print of his warrant card he was a CID officer.
My god I dodged a bullet.
When my friend found me she was shocked when i told her what happened.
I still have that card.
I found him on facebook a few years ago wow.

@spanishcheese you make him sound about 50. It's actually 21 year old men that struggle to get dates because the women around their age are all usually dating older. But agree it's no one else's business and will be up to the women.