To think a 22 year old dating a 16 year old is dodgy?

No, the Romeo and Juliet law would allow you to date your own age and so many years. The number of years would go up as you aged. So a 16 year old might be their own age plus 2 and a 19 year old might be their own age plus 5. Obviously you can't protect people forever with laws and it would be inappropriate at some point (probably 20) but it does emphasise to people at young ages that age gaps aren't just innocuous things but have very real implications for a relationship in terms of maturity and power dynamics.

There are lots of kids having underage sex now, do you think there shouldn't be a law to protect them? The police system seems to be coping just fine currently and with current attitudes turning against age gap relationships amongst the young I don't see this being a massive problem. Most young people would call a 20 plus year old chasing a 16/17 year old a nonce.

Do you think it's sensible at the moment to have laws where you can't have sex at all until you turn 16 then miraculously you are mature enough to have a sexual relationship with much older adults. It's insane!

so your nearly 30 year old partner was attracted to children?…

I can and will say what I like. When it comes to men with sick perversions involving 16 year old girls I will never remain quiet. I’m not trying to reframe anything btw, it is vile now and it was vile then.

When I was 14,I had a 'boyfriend' of 21

All he wanted was sex and to treat me like shit because I refused

My mother treated it as totally normal and wanted to put me on the pill-this was early 90's

Around this time,there where two girls at school (who where in the year below me) and every lunchtime,they would walk down the drive,get in the car of a man who looked to be in his 30's and drive off for the hour

They'd come back looking like they'd been dragged through a hedge backwards,giggling and both seemed to think he was their boyfriend

Parents knew all about it and the teachers would watch them while tutting about 'if they get themselves pregnant...' while making no attempts to stop them or contact the police

My cousin (who spent time in care when her mother died) had a 'boyfriend' who was in his 40's

She was 13

Ds and I tried to phone her social worker and police but where told 'shes making her own lifestyle choices and we cant do anything' and they didnt do a thing even when he beat her so badly,she ended up in hospital and almost died

This was 3 years ago

Times are changing and we see it for what it is-abuse but things move very slowly (as in my cousins case) and much more needs to be done,instead of blaming the girls,the men need to be dealt with

So you're saying an adult 18 year old should not be allowed to date a 21 year old, but a 16 year old could date a 19 year old? How old a person do you think a 20 year old should be permitted to date and at what age should people be allowed a completely free choice?

As the legal age of consent is 16 and people are legal adults at 18, how on earth do you think all this could be policed and do you think the inevitable law-breaking would be worth all the time and expense of policing?

Haha she wasn't exploited! She is a very well-adjusted happy professional woman in her thirties, with no issues and with absolutely no need to discuss her marriage with anyone.

It's offensive to insist that you know better than someone else about their own situation though. If someone started a relationship especially decades ago where those sorts of age gaps weren't considered taboo, and they've been happy for years, it's not okay to try and retrospectively reframe their lives like that.

I've condemned the men in those relationships, not the girls that are now adults.

I think there should be a Romeo and Juliet law until someone turns 20 ideally. The permitted age gap could increase with age. I think the science behind brain development should be publicised more widely so people understand that relatively large age gaps at young ages are inherently dodgy.

I was 16 and met a guy at a festival, it was mid 00s. Found out later he was about to turn 25 and realised it was not uh great but he didn't know how old I was either (I mumbled something about being in college, having just started sixth form). But then we continued to see each other and he leaned on me a lot for mental health support, I came to stay with him, saw him at uni and he revealed he had been dating someone else for a year while taking me out on dates. I forgave him, we had a short reunion and then were friends.

He was at my wedding. Later I couldn't attend his wedding (felt terrible about it) and he cut me off completely, persona non grata. He took some of my friends with him, they think I'm awful apparently. The more time has passed and my DH has said how uncomfortable it made him feel, the more uncomfortable I have felt about our "relationship". He has two daughters now, and I wonder if he ever thinks about how he treated me.

What about it? Do you think they are more enlightened than us?

How do you think the age of consent or marriage aligns with women's rights globally? Do you know infant children are being married off to old men in some countries and this has been going on for generations? Is this okay too,?

Honestly I despair!

The poster said their daughter was in year 13, I was referring to them specifically.

@Marshmallow4545 With your clearly extensive knowledge of brain development, how old do you think someone should be before they are allowed by law to freely date another person who isn't the same age? Should there be some sort of tapering so that the age gap can gradually increase the older someone is? Do you think there should be a maximum gap at any age?

I'm interested because you have been vociferous on this issue and have even condemned people who have been happily married for decades, having started a perfectly legal relationship in their teens.

I was 16, he was 21. Most considerate boyfriend ever.

My DD's are horrified

I had a boyfriend in his 20s when I was 17. Never thought anything of it and he was a really lovely, considerate bloke. We split up when I was away at university as I wanted more freedom but, looking back, I think he taught me what to expect from a partner- he set the bar very high. Nothing at all weird or inappropriate about it.
Funnily enough I am now the older one in my marriage with an 8 year age gap. DH was only 24 when I met him. We're both in our 50s now.

So what about all the people worldwide who marry and bring up kids at that age and have done so for generations. In india for example the average age for marriage was 16.2 years only a couple of decade ago.

Another poster missing the point. We haven’t discussed the outcome of the relationship. We are discussing the point where a grown man is attracted to a child. How the relationship plays out is not particularly relevant. A grown man still got into a relationship with a 16 year old, yes, just legal to have sex, and that’s utterly fucking grim. We know why they do it. We know.

You were still a child. Your frontal cortex would have reflected this and therefore your decision making. You therefore wouldn't have been allowed to vote or legally drink.

Why the assumption that all 17 year olds were doing A levels? I had finished mine a few months before I was 18. And I was working full time and doing them in evening classes. As well as living in my own flat

Nobody can make anybody else feel a way about anything. This is true about legal and illegal activity. Ethical and unethical behaviour.

Sometimes though it takes someone else to shake you out of your denial and cognitive dissonance. Someone unequivocally acknowledging that what happened was not ok. It doesn't matter about laws and social norms at the time. We are more enlightened now and science has helped us to understand more about brain maturity and the impact this has on our decision making.

This is why attitudes have changed towards 16 and 17 year olds.16 and 17 year olds must now stay in some form of education or training as they are too young to make the decision to stop learning. We don't let them smoke or drink because this adversely impacts young brains more than more mature brains. The science is informing our approach.

The facts remain, if you got into a long term relationship at 16 with someone in their mid/late 20s your brain development will have been mismatched. This should have been obvious to the adult in a way it wasn't necessarily obvious to the child. The fact that the adult continued to pursue the relationship in this context is gross and almost certainly involved some element of grooming

And no I wouldn't be pleased if my sixteen year old daughter had a much older boyfriend. I don't live in a society where that's currently considered acceptable.

I'm not so naive that I don't realise I might feel differently if it was the norm and considered socially fine. Decades ago it genuinely wasn't as big a deal - I remember my mum describing boyfriends with cars and jobs that she had when she was 15/16 and she seemed unfazed at men that age showing me interest when I was mid teens as well.

The person in question has presumably been an adult for decades though and it's entirely up to them about how they feel about a relationship they entered legally and consentually.

That's what's gross?

Don't worry, most posters who disagree haven't made 'insinuations' about how disgusting this is, we've been pretty direct about it. Quite frankly, most people would be disgusted by this relationship because it feels wrong to normal, well adjusted adults. I feel sorry for the woman, imagine having a child with a grown man who fancies girls in their mid-teens. That's fucking gross.

I don't agree with this at all.

Sometimes we are all capable of cognitive dissonance and denial. It's really difficult to accept that the man you love and have built a life with is also capable of exploitation and manipulating children. It's a common problem in grooming cases where girls and women really struggle to accept that they are victims. I think the more people that call out the behaviour for what it is the better.

It doesn't matter how mature you feel and how this is encouraged by your partner. You are still a child at 16/17. Your frontal cortex is nowhere near fully developed and the difference between the brains of a child of this age and an adult will be plain to see in a brain scan. Any idea that the relationship can be in anyway equal is an illusion.

Grim that, 29 year old getting with a 16 year old.

I can see why these kinds of gaps were viewed differently a few decades ago - people left school early and were often working at 16, and a level of maturity was expected, so probably less of a developmental gap between that and someone in their early twenties. And there wasn't the same social stigma.

It's different now as it would be very stigmatised and the majority of 16 year olds are probably much younger for their age due to how they're brought up.