20 and 40 year old women

[OkNotOkInbetween]

Huge age gap. Is it ok or not? And what would be considered grooming. 

(Both women)

Situation - they had seen each other around (live near one another), clearly giving each other the eye over months, clear find one another attractive. 

40 year old thought the 20 year old was older and slid into her DM's. 
20 year old happy to chat back, they both fancy one another, 20 year old assumed 40 year old was younger.

After a week or two of talking, flirting and having a laugh via chat, both then find out each others ages. 

20 year old entirely unbothered. 
40 year old completely horrified and now wondered if the 20 year old had inadvertently been groomed by her.

40 year old now does not know wtf to do.

This ^

LOL, there are absolutely lesbians who target much younger girls, for various reasons.

I had a relationship with a man 27yrs older when i was young. My family flipped out about it but once they met him they all loved him and i would say it was one of my better relationships! My exDH was nearer my age and so cruel to me, ruined my life :(

We managed 4yrs but then it was just 'impractical', i wanted to get on in life but he wanted to stay a perpetual teenager. No hard feelings.

I would say just dont take it tooo seriously.

There is nothing wrong with it. Usually the older woman is nurturing in some way...

I think I have read it all now… But at least we get to the crux of it, after all what can OP possibly have in common with a 20 year old? Certainly not life experience. It is sex, and for me, with this age difference, it will always feel predatory, in the same way that I view older men with very young women.

There's quite the swing of the pendulum in terms of opinion on this thread.

Which incidentally is identical the swing of the pendulum in my own mind.

There are different ways of fetishising age gap and being "nurturing older woman" is one of them. It still creates a power imbalance because even without ill intentions, you won't take someone as seriously or treat them fully as your equal if your default attitude towards them is to nurture them as someone younger, less experienced and needing your age-related wisdom

I think nurturing is not part of it when they just want to shag each others brains out.

At this point they are purely thinking with their Fannie's.

If you're not a lesbian you won't get it. This is a common trope in Lesbian fiction. The powerful isolated older woman and the young woman who is finding her power and brings joy and life to the older woman...

Listen, Lesbians aren't men, we mostly all loathe porn, violent sex, don't have rape fantasies or pedophilia.. It's a different culture to straight culture which caters to men and ideas of grooming.

i genuinely don't think every lesbian / pan / bisexual woman reads lesbian fiction and bases their real life relationships on a made up fantasies of people who are quite often very single

so i dont know how is that relevant to an actual 40yo going after someone who is probably still in some sort of educatoon

I think its too much of a gap. If she was 28/29 better

I don't see the issue. Unlikely to last but fine for a bit of fun

Did you post before? About sliding into the DMs of the local shop worker?

And this is a very fair point

Yes except last time it was a 23 year old…

Not grooming, and very different from an older man targeting younger women. Of course could be a financial/life experience imbalance but that is common in plenty of relationships between people of the same age and no-one considers that a power imbalance. Relationships that don't involve males are far less likely to be exploitative/abusive. "Power imbalance" is a male problem, not an age problem.

I think (speaking as a lesbian) there are quite a lot of age gap lesbian relationships /flings and it is less often problematic than in straight relationships. Of course there are some predatory older women, and there are also younger women who hit on older women because they are attracted to age.

This situation of the OP however is not grooming and there is no abuse of power. It is one of two women who like each other and didn't initially realise the extent of the age gap.

It is unlikely to be anything lasting but even for a fling the 20 year old is very young. I'd be inclined to say stay away. If the younger woman was 25-30 and the older one was 45-50, it would be less of a maturity gap for even just a fling, than with her being 20.

If these two do meet, the older one needs to be cautious and mindful of her actions.

Having said that I had a couple of boyfriends in the 1980's, in my late teens, who were early to mid 30's and whilst I now recognise this was a bit off, at the time they were lovely to me, much nicer and more stable than guys my own age, and I was definitely the one who held all the cards.

"Power imbalance" is a male problem, not an age problem.

Uh, no. It has nothing to do with sex. Lesbians are just as capable of having power imbalance in relationships.

Oh FFS. I wouldn't have bothered posting.

I think the truth is somewhere in between. It's naive to think that there is as much power imbalance between homo and hetro-sexual relationships. It's also naive to suggest that there is no difference between the two.

Male power relationship imbalances are different from lesbian ones. I'd say between women it usually would take the form of emotional manipulation.
Remember straight culture caters to men's needs and vices. Lesbian culture to women's needs and vices. We are different.

"Not grooming but ick". Agree. I wouldn't want this for my ds1.

The truth is that same sex relationships can and do experience power imbalance. It's naive to suggest otherwise.

Not sure why you're tagging me, @MattDamon

Both are well over the age of consent. Other parties need to butt out.