Attitudes to underage/borderline relationship in the 90’s/noughties…wtf?!

[spinningbirds]

In about 2001 when I was 16, I was training pretty seriously in a sport, helped a lot by a successful older girl in the sport (17/18). This older girl appeared to be in a relationship with her female ex-coach’s ex-boyfriend, (she’d met him when being trained by her ex-coach, a several years earlier.)

The boyfriend was by this time 35. She was just 18. I was 16.

Her very nice parents somehow (?!) came around to the relationship, which I now know had started when she was 14. The girl an d the boyfriend invited me and another girl (also 16, also heavily involved in the sport) to go on holiday with 2 of them; I’d never been abroad without my parents before. The 4 of us went to Lanzarote.

I think that by me and the other 16 year old being there too (we all shared a self catering flat) it made it their holiday somehow “ok’?!

I don’t have anything specifically bad about the guy to say, other than that he always treated me coldly, perhaps he knew I didn’t like him. On the first night of the holiday the other three agreed to have some drinks when we arrived. I declined, and asked for just coke… he put vodka in it anyway. I soon felt weird, and freaked out, not knowing I’d had alcohol; I hadn’t been drunk before. The three of them laughed their socks off at me, sat on the bathroom floor of the flat in confusion, feeling sick. Only a long time later that evening did they confess the trick. Haha.

Anyway the holiday was fine, the couple had separate bedrooms but engineered plenty of alone time…

24 years later, this whole thing makes me feel creeped out. What was my mum thinking sending me on holiday with a bloke nearly 20 years older than us? Were times so very different in 2001?

For the record, the couple are still together. My mum said today she think they actually started dating when the girl was 13. But they’ve built a life together now, so that’s ok, isn’t it..

Anyway the whole thing makes me feel creepy AF, does anyone else have crazy shit like this from 20 years ago/could you give me some therapy to feel less weird about it?!!!

When I was in the 6th form in the early 1970s a large number of the Upper 6th girls had boyfriends in their 20s. Most wouldn't have given a boy of their own age a second glance.

This objection to "borderline" relationships and large age differences is very much a new thing, IMO

FWIW there was a 25 year age difference between my grandmother and grandfather (married 1922). They celebrated their golden wedding.

The Rolling Stone also paid her school fees (she'd been at a comprehensive before then). So horrible, imagine going out with a schoolgirl.

I was born in 1969, H in 1967.

He is adamant that anyone at school going out with a younger girl would have been looked down on - can't get a girlfriend his own age.

I remember when we were in second-year (Y8) one of the girls in the class had a boyfriend from the upper school; and we all thought it was unusual and called him a cradle-snatcher. (IIRC it lasted about a week.)

In 1986 one of the girls in Youth Choir, who would have been 18 at the time, went out with one of the younger members of staff, probably 24/25, whom I believe she knew from church. Again, my circle found this a little unusual and we felt she would be missing out on an enjoyable stage of life. (They ended up getting married.)

Oh, and I had a paper-round during the Mandy Smith era, and I distinctly remember thinking that all the adults involved had behaved appallingly.

(Mind you, I also remember being decidedly unimpressed by Ruth Lawrence's dad so maybe it's just that I can't imagine a life unlike mine...)

He was 28! It was done as joke but so not funny now

Because the culture they grew up in normalised it.

I was 16 in 1994. It was the norm for 14-16 year old girls to have older boyfriends with cars picking them up from school and nobody batted an eyelid at it.

I never had a boyfriend at school, but I did lose my virginity to a 38yo at 16 - someone I'd known for about 3 years and had met dog walking. It took me a lot of years to come to terms with the fact that I'd been groomed, as, in my head, it was me who instigated it and I had left school and was working full time night shifts in a care home, so I certainly didn't feel like a child at that point.

I was out clubbing from 15/16, living on my own at 16/17, and went on to have a relationship with a 28yo who I met in a club just before I turned 17. Never really thought of him as a predator though. I had mostly older friends too, so it never seemed strange to have an older boyfriend, and the friend I was with the night I met this man was in her late 20's. It lasted about a year I think.

As an adult, I've always had relationships with older men as I've just never been attracted to anyone my age or younger. Never sure whether this is because of my experiences as a teen, or just because that's my preference though! There's certainly a lot of stuff I need to unpack about it all.

That's just reminded me, we had an assembly on valentines days . It was at middle school so I was 13 at the oldest. The teacher decided to get some girls on stage to read out their valentines, he asked me to do it but I hadn't got a Valentines card so he made me a card. It said in it "from Mr Big ". I don't think I understood it at the time but I felt uncomfortable so I hid the card back stage and couldn't go on without a card. The worst thing is I thought that teacher was a lovely man.

Totally agree- I kind of cringe when I think how I had bought into it.

was watching a documentary about the 60’s years ago which made a similar point. Contraception and ‘free love’ didn’t free up women to have the sex they wanted - it just meant that women no longer has the social rules to protect them and were often pressured into having sex or made to feel square or frigid if they didn’t.

It's disgusting, why are older men even entertaining the idea of young women and girls.

For many girls in my school, their “ambition”
was marriage and kids, sahm, bloke to look after them.

so achieving this at 16 was basically seen as life sorted.

i do wonder if this is the same with the current grooming gangs situation. It’s their “way in”- girls who want a man with money to look after them, and have visions of a family of their own. They prey on girls in care because they are the ones who want a family and dream about a stable home with a man who loves them.

As a society we still hold marriage and kids as the pinnacle of a woman’s achievement. How many times on here are women “proud to be Mrs”, change their names to advertise marital status etc. childless and “career” women are pitied.

as a teen I did not want a boyfriend. Didn’t mind a bit of a snog in a nightclub, boost the self esteem, but completely uninterested in “settling down”. I was seen as square, “tight”, too picky. Many of my friends had a deadline of 23 to be married with the first child.

we need to be empowering girls to be financially independent. Teach them that education and jobs will mean they don’t need a man. Give them new ambitions of paying their own way and self supporting.

Some of these stories are horrific but I know from my own experience that older man / schoolgirl was totally normalised in the 70s and 80s and for quite a while after. Like other pp many of us had older boyfriends when we were 14 and upwards. If I could go back in time, I'd give us all a good talking to about it because we thought it was romantic to have a man with a car taking us to restaurants or pubs when we were underage. My parents knew about it, as did most others, but I think their generation was a bit naive perhaps and also most of our dads were older than our mums by a good 4 or 5 years, and many of them had met and got married young, so that maybe coloured what they thought.

When my own dd was 14 or so, her attitude to boys was so much healthier (also helped by having a brother I think) and she had friends who were boys, knew a wide group of both sexes and finally her had first boyfriend from her year group when she was 16. I think that really brought home to me how dreadful it all was when I was that age.

yep not just in real life. We rewatched mermaids recently and charlotte was 15 and joey was 26. Her mum was encouraging them to be in a relationship. And then they did and he left town and it was weird like he was the tragic hero of the story. Never crossed my mind watching it as a teen that he was a creepy predator who took advantage of a vulnerable 15 year old.

one of the girls at my school at 16 started dating a camp counsellor from the school camp we all attended. It was a month long camp and the counsellors were employed by the board that owned the school. Everyone thought it was romantic at the time. Now seems creepy.

Some of them were creepy predators. Absolutely.

But many weren’t. It wasn’t seen as predatory, so they didn’t see themselves as predators.

The girls were seen as precocious.

Many of the boys/men were actually really respectful. I went out with much older boys, men and sex wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t the expected part of a relationship that it is now.

This would not have been acceptable anywhere I went to school.

These threads always shock me. Anyone dating outside of their immediate age group was always the subject of much comment.

But this is how awful things happen. It is predatory. Whether or not they would have seen their actions as such. There’s a reason they went for younger children.

The band Lush even had a song about how disgusting and pathetic such men were:
’you just want a daughter without a wife/ you don’t need a girlfriend you need a life.’ And it’s called The Childcatcher!

When I was 15, a girl in my class was seeing a well known married with children top flight footballer. Even the teachers knew about it.

Fucking grim, and I’d go as far as saying it screwed her up for life.

Views were a bit different but also just as the case now, once young people are 16 (18 in some circumstances) parents do not have the ability to step in and stop in many cases, especially where the relationship is borderline eg it's their active coach (which would be a safeguarding concern if under 18) but an older person they met through a hobby. As a parent you can raise concerns with your young person, you can put barriers in the way by not allowing sleepovers at your house for instance but ultimately if a 17 year old wants to date a 32 year old the law is in their favour however muck ick you feel, and you don't want to risk alienating them because it may drive them more into the arms of this person. I see myself as the voice of reason towards my dc rather than outright no. My younger dd was up to far more than I knew, not too icky (we're talking 18-20 year olds when 14-16) despite thinking I was on top of everything, her good friend was covering for her and also there was the 2 hour window between school ending and me being home 3 x a week (working one day and taking her elder sister to medical appointments, therapy etc on others)

We should also remember that Princess Diana was 19 when she was engaged to Prince Charles and was 20 years and 20 days old on her wedding day. He was 32.

Everyone said it was a fairytale love match. She thought she loved him. He said "whatever love is". All for a virgin wife.

The rest is history.

No.. there is never a reason for an older man to want a younger woman.

Don’t you think that came from a gradual awareness of the power imbalance? That they were at the forefront of calling it out?

We had Mandy Smith and Bill Wyman, and many others.
We had Charles and Diana
Girls were seen as having the power to attract men ‘despite themselves’, we weren’t seen as innocent. We got ‘what did you expect’ and ‘what were you thinking’. We were supposed to protect ourselves because ’everyone knows what boys are like’.
Girls who could ‘bag’ an older man were getting a foot up the ladder as the lads were already earning, with a car and maybe a house. That was advantageous, in comparison to two youngsters starting at the beginning together.

DM called me a Lolita because an older man was paying attention to me, lending me pornographic books and so on. He was grooming me up to BSM. I was just trying to work out what sex and relationships were supposed to e like having been raped by a random in the hotel on holiday. I confided in someone older, hoping he’d make things clearer. I genuinely think he would have attempted to make things good for me- it was about the control and power for him. The whole Dom thing.

Reading this and can think of many examples, I was at secondary in the 90s:

Year 8 girl got pregnant and kept it a secret until the baby was born, apparently she said it was the older lodgers baby. She returned to school after some time off, nothing happened with the lodger and I doubt she was even asked about it.

My 24 year old friend had a 23 year old boy racer boyfriend with a car, we all used to get in while he drove around stoned out of his mind.

Another girl in my year started dating the new Geography teacher in 6th form (I mean, I'm sure it started then) No comeback or issues from the school about it.

I had a boyfriend I was 15, he was only a year older but it was a coercive, controlling relationship. He wanted me to stay over his house one night, so I said my Mum wouldn't let me, so he went and asked her himself, and she said yes! I honestly felt like I just had to then, my mind couldn't think of a way out. This relationship still makes it very hard for me re sex and general intimacy. Massive, massive ik.

When I was 16 I used to hang out with a 23-24 year old. Heavy flirting. Occasional snog and a lot of booze. No sex. He was really into me but I just liked him as a friend. Now I obviously wouldn't entertain it but I was immature and it was somewhere between enjoying the attention (bullied at school when younger and had just blossomed) and hoping we could be mates. He wasn't predatory, but nowadays I don't think many decent men that age would be willing to express feelings for such a young girl and spend nights alone in the house together etc (I worked with his friend whilst at 6th form).

Another girl was dating a 37 year old outwardly respectable man. Her parents had to let her get on with it as there was no real way to stop her. He wasn't breaking the law and she had to go out to study and work Pt and they didn't want to make it more exciting than it was. Must have been so worrying for them. That was really odd to us others.

The early 20s ones were more borderline. The chap I knew had questioned the age gap but reasoned that we got on well as people and it wasn't a sexual relationship so what was the harm in it sort of heading that way.

The Smithy and Lucy storyline looks impossibly dated now. I was interested to see if there would be any references on Gavin and Stacey as it seems unthinkable to use it as a joke now even such a short time later. I can't remember whether their relationship was said to be ever physical.

Not a gradual awareness in my world. Already ick.
Always judged the men.

It wasn’t ok. Nobody in my immediate group thought it was ok.

I still vividly remember how we all responded to the grossness (and power imbalance) when Chris Evan’s married Billie Piper.

I’m incredibly sad that this wasn’t everyone’s experience. It was never right.

Teachers and sixth form used to be just frowned upon rather than illegal. There was a whole plot line in Hollyoaks around the law changing.

I think you might be a touch younger than me. Billie Piper and Chris Evans, I don’t think I was looking at popular culture then. I was working abroad with a toddler I think, and had DS2 before they married. (Did a quick google).