We can’t truly protect people from abusive relationships under capitalism. Any situation in which you’re forced to be financially dependent on a romantic partner is one where you can be exploited or abused. My impression is this is much more common with big age gap relationships since the older partner is more financially and socially savvy and the younger one is more naïve to potential abuse and less financially secure generally. Not to say of course that an abusive relationship requires financial dependence, but I would wager that most that become very bad DO contain some element of this, whether it’s manipulating one partner to cede control of their finances to the other, all the couple owns is under one name, coercing the other partner to leave their job etc etc. One very strong way to ensure that your victim stays with you is to make it impossible for them to stay anywhere else.
Hard rules like age of consent laws protect young people from exploitation and abuse in this fashion, but it’s not enough. No one should have to be financially dependent on their romantic partner. In a socialist society we could help remedy this by providing universal employment and a low cost of living to all to reduce the possibility that an abuser could financially control their victim. We could also provide quality transitional housing, childcare etc to those who make the decision to leave an abusive relationship.
I don’t know the exact situation between DiCapro and this woman but I would expect that she is most likely financially dependent on him, or will become so shortly. That’s typical of 21st century abusive relationships. My opinion is there is little chance that they have a relationship made up of mutual respect since there isn’t much that a 48 year old and a 19 year old really have in common, and I think anyone who wouldn’t be your friend otherwise is ever a good candidate for a romantic relationship. It’s more likely that he is using his money to live out a power fantasy.
Is it “okay” that they’re together? Probably not, if it is an exploitative and unequal relationship (and it almost certainly is). There isn’t anything inherently wrong with a big age gap but the conditions of our society make it almost certain that there is bad shit going on here.
oh good, this is really 189 comments of old dudes who want to fuck teenagers arguing with normal people. lol
:visible-disgust:
oh fun, I think I see the trick going on here. good mix of sockpuppets and hitting an actual nerve for the handful of dudes on here who still have some misogyny brainworms. clever.
Might I suggest that infantilizing young women and suggesting they dont have the agency to decide who to love or fuck is actually also a form of misogyny?
I’m a young woman. Most of us have either dated someone older or had a friend who did.
That’s often fine within reason, but there is a specific type of sleezeball who goes out of their way to date women younger than their daughters.
If you’re older than 30 and trying to date teenagers, there is probably something deeply wrong with you.
Leonardo DiCaprio is like 50 and dating someone who was in highschool at the start of the pandemic. That’s fucking gross.
Also the type of dude who cares enough to argue for this shit is almost always sus. It gives off big libertarian vibes.
:libertarian-alert:
Yeah, seriously. Some commenters in this thread would probably be aghast to hear that the first time I had sex was with a guy in his mid-twenties when I was 18.
Even at the time I thought it was a little weird on his part, but hey. He was cute and nice to me, and I was very horny. We had a good time. I broke up with him a year later. No harm done.
I’m probably gonna get banned for this but I didn’t even intend on wrecking with this post.
:epstein: up in here lol
The line has to be drawn somewhere because the only alternative Ive seen is sex liscencing and that has eugenics issues.
18 seems like a reasonable place to draw it, though based on my experience talking to young people Id personally put it at 19.
He’s an actual groomer, he grooms young women into having sex with him and dumps them before they turn 25. It’s not as bad a pedophilia but he’s getting there.
Yeah wtf is going on with people, yes it’s mere legality doesn’t mean it’s actually totally fine. I think people feel bad because they mightve dated an older person once - which is fine! We all have done dumb shit!
Also, the people imagining themselves dating 18 year olds when they’re 50 is gross and I’m not sorry about it. But that doesn’t mean they can’t do what they do, they just also have to accept that there are people that will think they’re gross for serially dating 18 years. Take your lumps.
It’s more than a little weird and creepy and can easily be predatory. I liked dating older men as a teen early 20s cus homeless prostitute and gold digging oldies got me abused less. I didnt really think anything of it until one of the dudes got this dumb happy look on his face and asked if I knew what day it was. It was Father’s Day and he was elated that people might think we were father daughter. Looking back I looked like 12 and most of these dudes were pedos idk (I remember one getting angry as shit that I had pubes)
But yea power dynamic and adults are still kinda children until their ~mid 20s. I dont find an issue with a 30something and a 50something or older tho, I just dont really consider a 23 yr old an adult (and taking some university classes recently really reinforced that for me, like ffs these “adults” act like they’re still in middle school and looking back I acted similarly)
