School girls with older boyfriends- does it still go on?

[Floogal]

Hi this is a piggyback of this thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5440587-to-think-a-22-year-old-dating-a-16-year-old-is-dodgy

Although I agree that it is a bit dodgy, if the guy was any older it would definitely be more problematic.
However, when I was growing up in the 90s, I knew a few girls UNDER 16 going out with guys well into their twenties (some even in their 30s). The first incident I remember was when I was in year 8 , this girl in my class was bragging about her 6th form boyfriend. I remember also girls of 13-15 being picked up by guys in cars.
Sometimes these men would befriend school boys in order to be introduced to the female class mates. Especially by giving access to cigarettes, alcohol and hash.
The thing is a lot of the girls certainly didn't look or actually older, and many of them weren't particularly pretty. It just made wonder what do the guys got out of it (obviously the girls had bragging rights). Was it because some men are simply desperate for sex and romance, they would overlook age? Or were they simply paedophiles?
Looking back it bothers me that society likes to talk big about protecting children and women from predators, and how much they hate predators. (I mean how come they weren't castrated by the girls' parents, or their own parents?). Yet it seemed accepted. Also, because these were seen as cool guys it would be overlooked. While people are very quick to label boys and men- often innocent - of being creepy if they don't fit certain criteria.
Does this still go on?

You're asking what the guys got out of it? Really?

Should have put 'what else?'.

Because no women their own age would go near them as they were creepy pervs. I grew up in the 90s and we went to flats of 20+yr olds and they were pervs who couldn't get women their own age. They bought us alcohol sold us weed or bought us tabs etc.

This was definitely a thing when I was younger. As a mother of a teenager daughter, I don't think it's the same now. Anecdotally, I think this is something to do with the way we socialised? At 16, me and my friends were regularly in nightclubs where there were older men around. I don't think there is as much opportunity for teens to get in nightclubs underage and so they just aren't as exposed to older men. Just my take on it; could be totally wrong!!

Nowadays we'd recognise 95% of these relationships as grooming/sexual exploitation. That's actually what you're describing with the befriending boys and so on. It just wasn't a known phenomenon then. But the girls who went through it grew up, realised it was really wrong and fought for it to be recognised as criminal. They are heroes really.

I agree 👍 💯

I agree. The kind of age difference I'm talking about is with girls over 16 but still very young. At 17 me and my friends were dating guys much older than us. But we were above the age of consent. I think it was definitely more culturally normal back then. I don't think I was groomed but I equally don't think very highly of the men who thought it was appropriate either!

I grew up in a notorious northern city. Many girls were picked up after school by their “boyfriends” and hung out in the taxi office etc.

This is now recognised as the illegal grooming it always was. Back then people just ignored it.

When I was 16 I had a bf in his 30s. I obviously didn't see that as an issue at the time (until it went wrong) but wtaf

That's one reason I was always hot on proxy sales of tobacco and alcohol when I worked in retail. I would see gangs of young teens hanging around outside while the guy went in to buy it. Sad cases

I recall my uni boyfriend telling me that he'd gone out with a 16 yr old once. He'd thought it 'weird' that she'd turned up with a pal. Sensible of her, I'd say.

His comment about it was one of the red flags. Apparently, 16 yr old girls have a 'glow' to them. boak

It may have been a thing but as I remember it, we judged both the sad men who did it and the girls who were foolish enough to be involved. The britpop band Lush even had a song about the phenomenon called The Childcatcher.
So, yes, it happened. But plenty of people still thought it was wrong then and it wasn’t normal. In fact, going more than one school year up or down was considered just plain wrong.