Also in Glee, that later on, when Ryder talks about being molested as a child by his babysitter all the boys think he's crazy for feeling traumatised. And at least the show doesn't try to glorify this but I feel they don't explore his trauma properly or get any of the other boys to acknowledge why it's bad
This!! They should have made it a actual storyline but instead made it a single scene. But at the same time I'm glad it wasn't explored cause I do not have faith in the Glee writers to explore such a serious topic with care and respect.
justin bieber saying "i feel uncomfortable" and "i feel violated" and the situation still getting brushed off as a joke is so sad to me. for a kid to even be able to name those feelings and say them out loud is pretty brave and impressive, and yet he was totally ignored. he was exposed to such an unsafe environment when he was just a kid who wanted to sing and dance.
(Long comment!) You didn't touch on it as a serious note but I genuinely believe the fact that Hollywood so consistently casts men in their 20s and 30s as these teenage characters has influenced the interpretation of these tropes, and media in general. As an audience member, of course we can intellectualize and break down how inappropriate it is to pair adults with teenagers, it's more difficult to do when we look at them and see two fully grown, mature adults playing around. The normalization of this has sort of made ages in fiction nebulous a lot of the time, as (unless the story is specifically about their ages) ages in fiction these days tend to be for the sake of plot convenience. A lot of teenage characters are basically written and acted as if they are adults, who just happen to be going through coming-of-age arcs or forced to go to school, or dealing with teenage problems. If anything it seems like what most writers want to be doing is writing about adults, but in immature scenarios. Adult characters are expected to be boring or to act mature and not have the kind of fun and ridiculous antics that are prevalent in high school movies. Everyone wants to write about that innocent, chaotic time, but through the lens of an adult. We secretly all crave to live like teenagers, without having to actually be them. A lot of teenagers these days seem to dislike a lot of content that exists about teenagers because they feel like it doesn't reflect them, but what they often don't realize is that it usually isn't for them. Most content about teenagers is made for people who were teenagers in the past, reflecting, not for current teenagers. The 'teen party comedy' isn't for teenagers. The 'teen horror' genre isn't for teenagers. Most movies about teenage characters aren't for teens, and them always being played by adults is partially in reflection of this. It is the nature of being a writer, and of being a reader, for the majority of the media you engage with to be reflective of your past, encompassing experiences you have lived through and can relate to. Teenagers don't make movies, they don't make TV shows. The only people who know what it's like to be a teenager in 2023 is a teenager in 2023. You won't get movies about what that feels like for another 10-20 years, when those current-teenagers are the adults making them. Makes it all the more alarming what happened in mid90s though. Who was that for!? lol There is NO age group that wants to see a 27-year-old woman with an 11-year-old boy.
This is my big problem with Euphoria. Adults are writing very explicit scenes for teenager characters. I have 2 nieces 13 years old, and they were telling me kids in their class were watching it, and they wanted to too. They are not even to high school yet but want to see this "high schooler" show. I tried explaining to them it's a show about high schoolers but not for high schools. And they could not believe that! They then wanted to know why older people wanted to watch these "high schoolers" act like that.
@@Vex_TheJester i liked the movies Diary of a wimpy kid when i was in the middle school, didnt rewatched it in a while but i think its pretty good for teenagers??
As a man who was groomed and sexually abused by an adult woman, people have very strange reactions when they find out. In my case, people often discover when they realise the age difference between me and my son, who was born when I was 14. Many are actually supportive of me, understanding that it was a traumatic event in my life, and the perpetrator was a exploitative. I think it has to do how I frame, when I talk to people (considering it resulted in a child, people are bound to ask) I make sure it wasn't a situation that I was in control, or that it was somehow a non-horrific experience. However, I've also many people who shift the blame to me, that I was a boy so it's obviously something I'd do anyways, so any trauma is actually a result of my irresponsible teenage boy behaviour. Some people, and surprisingly mostly women, tend to downplay the situation completely, for them it's not something bad or abusive, but also they don't blame me. A few people even fetishise it, men and women, which obviously makes me feel ultra uncomfortable and anxious. People just love ignoring how hurt a boy can be by an adult woman.
I'm so sorry, having a kid that young is hard, my mom had her first child at that age. My father was about 5-10 years older than her, and now I kinda wonder how consensual their relationship really was in the beginning. I know he was bad to her and the rest of us for the rest of our lives, tho. People may not believe you, but your perspective made me really re-contectualize my mom's history of abuse. It was much longer than I considered, I am not sure if my mom sees it that way, either, but also we don't talk about those things. I hope you are healing and I hope you have a good support network to help raise your son, you both deserve a good life.
I'm so sorry for your experience, and for any continuing trauma you experience in your life because of it. What happened to you was absolutely wrong, and you shouldn't bear any of the guilt for it on your shoulders, regardless of how you reacted at the time. You were a child with a child's outlook on the world, and an adult with bad, selfish intentions took advantage of that. It is also wrong of people to try to blame you, or to gas-light you by acting like it was either not a big deal or even something that should be desireable. While you shouldn't feel any pressure to speak out and share your experience, it was very brave and strong of you to share your story publicly, and hopefully the fact that you shared it will do good in changing how other people view such things. Stay strong and be well.
@@SLYKM Thank you for you answer, and I'm sorry for what your mother went through. I didn't have it as bad as most people, I suppose, with the teen dad thing. For one, the pregnancy is what actually led it to be found out and of course stopped. Then, my parents took care of him early on, never pushing me to do anything I wasn't ready for, and in fact everything I did to become his father was out of my own will. What hurt me was the trauma from the events itself, not so much having a child, even if I was upset with him existing in the beginning, it was just a backlash from what his mom did (Even if I didn't acknowledge at the time as such). Today, my love for him is absolute and I don't hold the circumstances of his birth against him at all.
@@zackreagin8384 I've spent far too many years in denial of what happened, in the beginning I didn't even acknowledge it for what it was. She'd shower me praise and love when she wanted something, and make me feel awful when I didn't provide (usually stealing from my parents), and the feeling of obsession she made me develop for her made me unable to understand what had happened, even as I suffering from the consequences. Only when I understood I was able to start healing. I don't keep it inside anymore.
I’m a female survivor of female abuse and I get told “women don’t do that”. The male survivors I know get told that,blamed and that they liked it. Including when it was their female relatives. It’s so gross.
FRFR, as a black man, I've been sexualized in my tweens/teens. Its your typical male stereotypes coupled with the myth that all black men are "well endowed", are hyper-hypersexual and give litter regard for their sexuality/sexual boundaries... anything for some 🐈⬛. Its a narrative pushed down our throats, and nurtured by a community/family/home environment that can nurture sexual assault masquerading as "positive/affirming early intimacy experiences" (by older men and older women), unresolved sexual assault (until recently, it was assumed that we would just "walk it off" and no therapy was needed. This has changed in the community, and we are better for it.). Thanks for this post. Its a story we all need to here. The myth that men don't care/are desperate for sex needs to be reshaped, males must learn how to push back on this and proceed without the hypertextualization of themselves and their prospective partners.
That's a thing I never quite understood. Why the hell are so many stories focused on sexualizing minors at all? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against portraying teenagers as sexual beings. I would even argue that it can help adolescents in this phase of their life when they see that certain developments are just normal. But why the topless shots? Why the camera angles and lighting to create a sense of eroticism for the viewers? It's so easy to be a little more subtle.
how can you be for portraying people as sexual beings and also be wanting no sexuality shown? Because I take it that you mean subtly in that everything is merely hinted at and nothing physical is ever shown.
@@harrybudgeiv349 There is a difference between acknowledging or portraying something and making it erotic for the viewers. Lighting, camera angles, the amount of clothing, etc. are all choices made with certain intentions. You can show that sexual acts happen without showing off the characters as objects for the audience to gaze at.
Love the video, it so weird how people sexulize these types of relationships, and how people sexulize older women that are "pretty" in such and "old" age.
My brother is 14. I was 16. That is beyond fucked. Looking older, and some young teens DO look wierdly older, DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN ADULT. You might as well say that if you surgically made a 15 year old look 32, then suddenly it'd be fully okay to break the law. When i was 16, on instagram a random 23 year old (allegedly) woman reached out to me, and I wasnt just super sexy she just fixated on a random account, and I was into it but a few hours in she says "love you!" and I said I was now not comfortable with continuing, I wrote about it on my profile and she got really mad and so I blocked her. I got a "this is strange adult behavior" ick as a child.
Great video! I really appreciated you talking about how even though the women are the predators in this situation, the writing gives them no power at all and fully dehumanizes them instead. Even though they're technically in the 'position of power' in the narrative, the way they are written still takes that power away by presenting them without any real characterization or nuance for the satisfaction of the younger male character.
"It wasn't actually 13 and 17, the actors were 11 and 27, if the first one doesn't sound too bad." No way, Andrew, it's a great video but the first one is absolutely wild, any girl who did that when I was 17 is getting fully ostracized, gets "Maxwell" as her new nickname, and possibly gets beaten up. If she was a guy definitely she would be, I think guys would be creeped out and mostly too confused to have the same reaction to her, but I don't doubt girls would take violent action. The boy's brother might've had enough of a shock response to overcome that initial confusion and may also be more likely than the other guys to do so. Either way, not only would she face criminal charges, but it could still ruin her life even before that. That is truly batshit insane.
Okay i have another example, it’s not Hollywood tho, but Netflix. Billy Hargrove from Stranger Things. They try to add up to him being one of the villains of season 2 and 3 by him flirting with Mrs. Wheeler. With the same Mrs. Wheeler who made a sport of googly eyeing the 17 years old boy, alongside with her bored middle aged housewife friends (yes, Dacre Montgomery, the actor being in his 30-s not helping here again). It was creepy, it was predatory and if someone really look at the details, can see that Billy is deeply scarred. He lives with an abusieve father and his mother abandoned him. He starts to flirt with Mrs. Wheeler in a situation, where he can get seriously hurt, it he doesn’t find his stepsister. He is a wild child because he is trying his best to have as much control over his life outside of his fathers house, as he can. Somehow they wanted to write a “bad boy” but they ended up with a missunderstood teenager, who apperently lets older women to prey on him. And Mrs. Wheeler, who has a daughter THE SAME AGE, as Billy (both Nancy and him are 17 at the time) she is the one who should have know better. Maybe i liked Billy too much, but this one thing made me so uncomfortable when it happened that i almost screamed. At the end, nothing happenes but still…you don’t make a villain by making a minor in an aweful situation, doing stupid shit in an attempt to regain control over his life.
I was so glad when she changed her mind last minute but frankly, she already went too far anyway by even entertaining going for him. Other than the fact that she’s married with 3 kids, Billy is a literal damn high schooler. That’s gross.
THANK YOU. When I first watched that scene, I was like, "Uh, no, Duffers, you're better than this," and everyone likes it because of, what, tension??? The fact that I see comments about that scene is nothing but praise or admiration is concerning.
as a 27 yo woman, i can't even think of dating someone younger than 24-25. idk, but even guys 20-21 yo are like teens to me. and to make actors kiss ? i feel physically sick and bad for both actress and an 11 (!!!) yo child actor
so excited to watch this!!! i have seen so many video essays on the sexualization and normalization of young girls in relationships with older men, thank you for calling out the inverse!!!
I guess that this actor Sunny is like Brooke Shields when she was filming Pretty Baby. Brooke was 11 and she had to kiss a grown man for the movie. He was 29. And the script presents him as an adult, not a minor. The movie, as we know, is about a 12-yr old raised in a brothel. While filming the kissing scene, Brooke was uncomfortable kissing the man. He wasn't keen on kissing a minor but she looked like she "just sucked on a lemon" and the director told her that this didn't count as her first kiss to get the scene. Hollywood is terrible to minors, isn't it? And even with the character's ages 13 and 17- that's still illegal. 13 is under the age of consent in the US in all states. If a 17-yr old was with a 13 yr old, it's time to call the police. It would still be illegal and it wouldn't matter if the state's age of consent law is 18 and it would be legally worse for the 17-yr old if they live in a state were it's 17.
Every young boy or girl has atleast once in their lifetime experienced that weird crush on an older person, in most cases it's a famous singer or actor/actress, a tv host, your older sister/brother's friend or even a model on an ad. It's part of the process of growing up and discovering ourselves. But then for some reason weird directors/writers make it a theme or wish fulfilment stories, and sometimes they just make it worse in unimaginable ways. I remember watching a movie where a kid with a very disfunctional family would have a crush on a female school friend, and then he would secretly take photos of her, and it was implied that he masturbated to these photos in the library. They literally wrote a young boy as a creep. Simply bizarre.
@felipe21279 What do you mean not a 12 year old kid? Like a 12 year old can't be shown as creepy? A 12 year old can't be shown acting with an adult? In what context are you saying not a 12 year old kid?
I would like bring up the double standards persona 5 has. It makes the first villain a teacher who preys on female students only to make a teacher an option to have romantic relationships with. Imo it infantilizes the female teacher and it makes her into a love interest no 5. I hope this is a safe space to express my disgust because I'm tired of people being ok with this
What makes it worse is that this is not the only teacher who tries to be romantic with a male student. Persona 3 has the main character's class teacher admitting to wanting to take control over the main character over the internet while speaking to her online friend who happens to be the main character. But the teacher has no remorse she just gets embarrassed that the person she said all this was us, the player. She literally blushes. Persona 4 has this nasty teacher who calls a 15 year old idol a jailbait and is so creepy towards the male students. This is played for laughs
Yes that's because there's something inherently wrong with what society expects from young men. It's expected from them to say yes to any opportunity they get for sex with a woman. If a 17 year old man says no to sex, simply because he didn't felt ready yet, he will absolutely be called a coward by his male friends or even get his sexuality questioned by them and it doesn't matter if the women that offered him sex was in his age or a 30 year old women. It's even believed to be "more impressive" if you banged an older woman. Men between 15 and 25 push and pressure each other into having sex with women and this can go as far as paying a hooker as a gift for that one friend in their friendgroup that is 20 and still a virgin and absolutely disregarding if this friend is actually comfortable with having sex yet. it's an extremely problematic and disgusting mentality that i believe does a lot of lasting damage to the sexual behaviour of men when they grow older because they pushed themselves into sex when they were not ready at that time. Damage that probably isn't well researched and understood because society refuses to accept this as problematic.
full disclosure im not done the video but am i the only one who found it REALLY WEIRD how in young sheldon georgie (17) got a 29 year old woman pregnant. like he lied about his age at first but he eventually admitted it, and the woman (mandy) freaked out. if they left it at that, it’d be ok. (well like not ok but not as predatory) but they didnt leave it at that. their relationship is ENCOURAGED, and has its own genuine development. i dont mean that in a good way. georgie literally becomes the father of this child. im p sure he drops out of highschool too. edit: mandy and georgie are getting their own spinoff show.
And creates success for himself later. The issue is with consent laws. If you don't want people to be legally able to consent to things until 18, then you have to change the laws. People do not look at these things the same. Many people would even say that it's predatory even if he was 18.
For what it's worth, this plotline is why I stopped watching Young Sheldon. It grossed me out too much (a lot of Mary Kay Letourneau vibes there), and I couldn't wrap my head around a female character like Mandy actually WANTING to have a child with an underage high school dropout who lied to her about his age. Of course, this pairing is going to be the centerpiece of the next Big Bang spin-off .... 🙄
I think the point of Georgie and Mandy’s relationship is to parallel George and Mary’s relationship and how history repeats itself because both couples dealt with the same circumstances. George and Mary themselves point this out a lot. Even their names are practically similar! SPOILERS FOR THE BIG BANG THEORY FINALE(AT LEAST THE FIRST 11 MINUTES) If it makes you feel any better, I don’t love the ship either. And they don’t stay married anyway. Matter of fact, Georgie has more than one ex-wife! Just hope Veronica isn’t one of them. Just sayin, she would’ve been the perfect endgame.
They’re a victim of circumstance. Her options would be to either have an abortion, raise the baby on her own, or keep the baby and marry Georgie. The first two are high sins and would make her a complete outcast in her community. The show takes place in TEXAS. You have a baby unwed and/or have an abortion in Texas in a religious family and you get disowned. Literally never see your family ever again. Kicked out and forced to start a new life somewhere else. Religion and society play a big part in the show. Mandy and Georgie’s relationship is not at all glamorized. Like I said, they are victims. Hell, if the show took place in the modern day, Mandy would be committing first degree murder in the state of Texas for getting an abortion!
It's nice to see more men speaking out about this issue. Leonardo Di Caprio gets a lot of flack for dating 18 year olds but yet the pool boy trope is still a fantasy in a lot of adult women. It should be the same throughout.
A male teacher having sex with a female student is rightly seen as a serious crime. If you reverse the genders, however, lots of people will not see the boy as the victim of a crime. Instead, they will see him as 'lucky." I think the reason is that sexual fantasies involving older women are incredibly common among adolescent boys. So when a guy hears about a 13-year-old boy who got to have sex with his attractive teacher, we can't help but remember how much we would have loved it if that had happened to us. But just because we may have fantasized about that happening to us when we were 13 doesn't mean that what happened to that boy wasn't legally and morally wrong. It doesn't mean that the boy wasn't harmed by the experience. I met a guy when I was in college who had an affair with a woman in her 30s when he was 14. The woman got pregnant, and even though his parents had her prosecuted and she went to prison for statutory rape, he was required to pay her child support. I know another guy who started dating a 32-year-old woman when he was 16. They got engaged when he was 21 and married at 22. They were married for 26 years before she passed away. Arguably, that relationship stunted him emotionally. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn't dated anyone since his wife died. But the story is actually worse than that. I recently heard him say he had been with his wife since he was 14. That just seems so much worse than 16. His parents chose not to go to the police when they learned about the relationship, but if they knew it started when he was 14, I think they would have made a different decision.
Not to mention you’re forgetting girls and women have r*pe fantasies, and you’re forgetting that not every adolescent boy is straight. There are gay adolescent boys and bisexual adolescent boys, they have sexual fantasies about adult men, as well as heterosexual girls. Whomever tells you adolescent girls don’t is a fudge lie. Yet… it’s not about the gender of the minor, it’s about the gender of the abuser.
It’s also odd, because women have r*pe fantasies as adolescents, some gay boys have fantasies about being r*ped by an adult man… yet… when a minor is abused by a man both a gay male and a heterosexual female recognize the abuse and don’t say they are lucky. How come?
9:10 I’m writing a boy protagonist who is pursued by an older woman. She’s a small part of the overall story, but she shows up a couple times and triggers his ptsd around their initial encounter. I hadn’t really thought about how she feels about it because it’s an uncomfortable topic, but since the questions are right here, I may as well try to answer them. She definitely has daughter who looks just like him, but that’s because he and her military husband are spitting images of each other. Because the married couple hasn’t seen each other in so long she’s still thinking of her husband as looking just as young as the protagonist despite being twice his age. She’s more concerned about getting caught again than actually recognizing she’s doing something wrong despite it being obvious on the outside looking in. Also though the daughter doesn’t know the nature of the relationship, she’s jealous that her mom is spending more time thinking about some random lookalike in her class. The protagonist gets confronted with how angry the daughter is despite the relationship being one sided on the lady’s end. It gets sorted out but it leads to him realizing the lady’s been stalking him without him realizing and taking pictures. It’s horrible behavior and she’s a minor antagonist, but thanks for inspiring me to think even deeper about this Apologies for the wonkiness of the first half, I tried to copy and paste it out of the comment making box, but highlighting the whole thing can be risky because I accidentally wrote an emoji and all I had highlighted to save was gone forever.
10:51 also, while I’m not entirely set on her age, I’m thinking a new 22, his age is 10, same as her daughter. So it’s supposed to evoke this same alarm and concern as you show for the child actor. I hope the kid wasn’t too traumatized by the event, but I would not be surprised if that had a lasting bad impact on him.
the psychological conditoning, even after doing a whole comment thinking about when I was 11, and how my little brother is 14, runs so deep that even after all that I still had a quick, momentary thought of "that kid's cool." Holy fucking shit. No, that's wish fulfillment, voyeuristic childhood dreams but not reality. Being sexually abused, like he was and its clear he realizes how fucked it was, doesnt make you cool. It's not something to feel less than of, its just completely neutral to your character. I mean if you survive something and go out punching, I'll respect you for that, but that's a completely different kind of respect to "wow he kissed a 27 year old woman, this is gonna completely remove all safety he feels regarding adults, I mean the actor will now weaken how much he can care about people like teachers and parents when he gets a pit in his stomach realizing that the english substitute he really loved is, now, theoretically someone who he could be sexually with." The guy's who say, "no way, little boys cant be raped by women" must think the kids ghislaine maxwell abducted are sooo lucky
now imagine if it's was a 27year old man with a 11year old girl instead and people find out the age it's would of been hell in the USA its would of been a big outrage world wide the biasness by people is unfair
This stuff happens in Queer Media as well. In Queer as Folk, the main Character hooks up with a 17 year old boy on his 30th birthday. In the original British version, the boy was 15. And then there’s “Call me by your name” which was heralded as a masterpiece. I wanted to see it till I read the plot synopsis.
If I could say anything about underage relationships, it would be that they directly frame and influence the same people’s relationships in the future. I believe that your memories mostly reflect half your current age in every facet of life, but I’m mostly interested in how childhood play influences adult hobbies, which become retirement jobs. This play is often rooted in relationships or the way they end, which is where it often becomes problematic. I think the important thing to recognize is that though we all learn new things at the same ages, what we learn varies from person to person. For most people that’s merely what hobbies you have, but for autistic people it can be the social norms themselves.
If you want an example of a POC/non-white age gap relationship involving an adult woman and underage boy, I remember watching an episode of Why Women Kill on Paramount+ about two years ago and there was an episode where the character portrayed by Lucy Liu, who is Chinese descended, was having an affair with her friend's underage son, which leads to her friend trying to kill her and or ruin her life at all costs. I don't remember much since I didn't care to finish it, but apparently the son even got a tattoo of Liu somewhere on him in the series, which in my opinion, his mom had all the right reason to be mad at Liu if the son was underage. I don't remember the rest of what happened and I didn't really care to finish the series. I know the defense in that season from what I remember is how the boy first had the crush on Liu in a flashback scene when they were younger, which still doesn't help the fact that a grown ass woman half his age agreed to sleeping with him. If I got any info wrong, I'm sorry cause I haven't watched it in two years, but I do remember the basics like grown ass woman having affair with underage boy and also the woman also almost dying by her crazy friend.
This!! I was going to add this- not to mention their sexual relationship is implied to have started significantly earlier than when the show started! So creepy
I'm late af, but I'm in my 30's. Ive grown up with adults being attracted to minors of any gender as its been extremely normalized. It bothered me then as it does now. I couldn't imagine dating someone in their early 20's let alone a TEEN. Disgusting.
Remember Miller's Girl, the new one. Martin Freeman is 52, Jenna is 21 but is supposed to be in high school. That's my Dad and me. Well, I'm 19, so then my older sister. People probably say "well its been succesfully un-normalized for men and girls." Nope, it happens there too. That JUST came out.
It's honestly so fascinating for me as somebody who just really disagrees with you on a lot of the background things, politics, culture, feminism, to watch your videos because I actually agree with the points you make. I mean I'm glad we agree on this, don't get me wrong. It's just interesting to me to see how you think about it versus how I think about it.
Even as a young teen, I understood something was weird about adult women hitting on minors :/ I have to say people misunderstand Lolita so much, the companies fucked the original author over. He said he wanted a plain book and it was very much NOT a romance book. But the publishing companies and the movie adaptations ruined that and romanticized it. That shit is not romantic. Personally (As long as both members are of legal age) and are both happy, I can look the other way. Like a 26 year old woman and a 38 year old man, I don't care. It's when it's someone is the lowest age possible age that I don't like it. Like they're barely legal dude :/ Also can we accept that predatory relationships can happen between both genders. I hate it when people brush off men's experiences and take it as a joke. You know these people would flip a switch if the genders were reversed
If I can say, I live in Massachusetts where the age of consent is 16, that doesn't suddenly make it okay for someone over like 18 or 19 to have sex with a 16 year old. Outside of Romeo and Juliet laws, an adult and minor cannot have sex with each other even if said minor is at or above the age of consent. So even if 16 is the age of consent, a 16 year old sleeping with people old enough to be mothers is still illegal
Another example: The affair of Gabrielle with her 17 year old gardener in Desperate Housewives, which was later revealed that he was 16 when they started the affair. The character of Gabrielle was 29 when they started the affair, and yet the show portrayed this as a sexy little secret and as being ok because he's super hot and she's super hot and he's a male so he wants it anyway. I mean it's not like the show didn't communicate that this affair is scandalous, they did, but more so because she was cheating on her husband and not because she was sleeping with an underaged boy.
I've literally thought this before. Underage Females and older men treated as it should be, even Underage boys and men. Then when it comes to Underage boys and older women the law might come down if the right person knows but it's mostly seen as an "at a boy" to the teenage boy. Hi five or a let's praise him attitude. It's the whole double standards thing
This reminds me of a movie that came out RECENTLY (last year I think?) a rom com where a late 20s something woman gets with a 16-17(?) y/o rich boy she was paid to date. I forgot what it was called but I didn't expect it to take that turn and I cringed the whole way through.
as someone whos gona through stuff like this. I really appriciate that there is aknowledgement that this happens to guys as well. not to down play womens right activits and there experiances its just nice to know that it does happen to men as well
It would have been interesting if you talked about Risky Business, which is literally just about Tom Cruise playing a 17 year old trying to find an older woman.
This is not the only one, The Girl next door had the female lead Meg played by a 22-year-old, and understandably because the character she plays endures the vilest forms of torture that you would never want to have a child endure, (that should the actress age match, it could be straight up child pornography) but why "pair" her up with the male lead who WAS actually 14 when he acted in it? At the very least the romantization of them both wasn't as blatant.
So many times hollywood and media in general tend to make older male with younger female abuse seem horrible while the inverse is considered awesome . In reality both are horrifying and in general the attitudes need to change
10:42 That’s worse than what happened in fucking Cuties. You should’ve included That’s My Boy (2012). Also, getting handsy on Justin Bieber is so wrong _twice_ over, not just once over, considering that it’s well… you know.
I can tell you from personal experience that this kind of thing happens in the real world. Not to go into unnecessary details, but I have been in inappropriate situations as a minor three times. Two of those women were friends of my mother.
7:29 Parental control I think minor can smoke and drink just not to be the ones the purchase the substance because it's also illegal to sell those kind of things to minor. Which is why it's safe to not sell to anyone under 21 full stop. Positive, thank God 16 can't illist in the *Army.* you're only young for so long....... sad, that's why recruiting youngsters a thing....
I agree with you and you as still seeing it today. I know on Young Sheldon Maddie didn’t know Georgie was 17 at first but it comes off kinda gross when you think about how quickly Georgie had to grow up because he got her pregnant. The writers didn’t have to make them that much of an age difference. They could have had him a baby momma in high school who moved away or didn’t tell him until he was an adult. There was so many ways they could have had the relationship.
And interview with a vampire. I never got over Kirsten kissing Brad Pitt 😖 And anything to do with a young Shirley Temple. They made that baby play a kid prostitute in a movie 🤦🏽♀️
Licorice Pizza feels like it was written by people in the industry who already do these things, like I just imagine a man who dated/groomed a young actress writing it, bc the woman in the movie doesn't seem to be written by a woman.
I have no context for the first clip. But the legality of the incident is dependent on the laws of the state/municipality. If he was 16 or 17 in a place where the age of consent is 16 or 17, then it's entirely legal for them to have sex. The issue isn't whether or not it's legal, it's whether or not we should review and rewrite the laws on the books. You cannot have this discussion without actually taking a huge dive into the laws and why they exist in the first place. Age of consent, age of majority, Romeo and Juliet statutes, statutory rape policies, all of these things need to be talked about, in part, because they are social constructs. For example, the age of majority being 18 is entirely arbitrary. There is no scientific, biological, or real legal reason as to why 18 is the age of majority (except maybe that 18 is sooner than 20 for the military to get soldiers, and because of this, the voting age was lowered to 18 in America to quell dissidence over the Vietnam War). There are people who argue that the age majority should be moved up to 25 as that's when the brain has "developed fully". And since many people point to education systems as the metric for why adulthood was set to 18, others point to 21 or 22 to be the "true" age of majority in America because that's when college ends. There's more to it, obviously. I'll just wait to see what others have to say on this.
Another movie is "Class". Our society is so wrong, if it is a young boy/older woman, we think well that is OK, it will not effect him in anyway, But, if it is reversed, everyone is up in arms and want to put the man in prison.
Funny enough, Poor Things was running for the Academy Awards for best film just recently, while also falling neatly into the situations you described: ambiguously-aged and barely-verbal immature person, who is played by an adult, is seduced by an actual adult who has little characterization beyond being rich and predatory, then what does the director do? Basically hardcore p*rn scenes between then, only to then frame it as the ambiguously aged character reaching sexual maturity. I know that this movie is based on a book, but if the book already portrayed such relationships in this way, maybe it's not the best piece of media to be adapted to film
perhaps an unpopular or even controversial opinion but: i think consensual, artistic representation of this trope is an important line in the sand. it is my understanding that abusers are typically people who were abused, not people who saw it on tv and decided "it's okay!" if this were true, wouldn't you be just as outraged by horror films? war movies? violent video games? most pornography? art is where people go to release the demons inside them so they don't act it out IRL. "tv said it was cool" doesn't hold up in a court of law. if you can't separate fantasy from reality, that's a problem of the mind, not the art. to illustrate with an analogy, a vampire is a vampire because they were a victim of a vampire. and if you've seen enough vampire portrayals, you know there are ones who can control their appetites in spite of the trauma they have been carrying. the consuming of controversial art is like a vampire drinking True Blood.
Young man/older woman relationships in fiction are just wish fulfillment, the writers barely disguised fetish. Theres also this thing of men being the active part of sex, the one on top, which in this case is reversed but not to the point of leaving the man as the receiver like in more dominatrix kinda stuff. And lets just accept people are inherently interested in taboos, I guess you could most if not all "kinks" or prefences are based on one or many. In this case is very interesting because its something that most men will never experience and it just ends up being a "what if"
I thought this was gonna be as dumb as twitter antis towards loli but straight predator women with minors is disgusting. Any minor with an adult is disgusting
I feel like people just have a different perception of assault when it comes to women raping male teenagers, at least when they initiate the interaction and seem willing
Desperate housewives also has this trope, with Gabrielle and John. In my memory it was mostly portrayed as a sexy thing and romanticized, but it's been a while since I watched that
I recall a scene on the "George Lopez" sitcom. It went something like, GEORGE: son, you can't go over to Miss Martin's house anymore.' SON: Why? GEORGE: well, back when she was a teacher, she had sex with a boy your age. SON: (not seeing the problem) And she killed him???
I was NOT ready for you to go “White people alert, white people alert” 😂😂😂 Thanks for acknowledging that though I had no qualms you already understood it!
As a small kid I saw a scene from Melvin Van Peebles movie that I believe was Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song that I'm fairly certain had a kid engaged in a sexual relationship with older women in the opening scene. I haven't attempted to rewatch it and confirm what I saw due to... reasons that happened to me in life, but I'm pretty sure that I saw the scene clearly, as opposed to how Itoi saw that murder scene that he thought was a r@pe scene that inspired him to make Gygas for Mother 2.
You're cute and very smart. Some of these boys know exactly what they're doing. Not all are innocent. Don't tell me you didn't wish you were hot enough to get the girl back in the day. LOL
@AwesomeYena I get your larger point, and you are technically correct. All I'm saying is when I was 15, my first full experience was with a person who was 22 or 23 at the time. Was it technically correct? No, but I was the one who broke it off with them and broke their hearts. Do I regret it? Honestly, that's a hard question to answer because I know they cared deeply for me. And I don't consider myself a victim. And there were extenuating circumstances that honestly don't paint me in the best light.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was a 70s blaxploitation movie where he grows up in a brothel and loses his virginity at like age 10. Then he's an adult performing in live shows. Also, Chris Brown said he lost his v-card at like 14, so there's that.
There is this movie i saw a recap of recently where a 20 something teacher and one of her students, who is a small child of color, end up surviving an apocalyptic disaster and start surviving toguether, cut to a couple year later the kid is in his late teens and the woman begins showing interest in him, i watch it thinking it was gonna be a found family story about motherhood, but it had to get sexual or the movie wouldnt have gotten the weird people to buy tickets 😒
I'm so sorry, like your video is amazing, but what's with the negative remarks about men's rights? Do you think you can only talk about this stuff in a negative way for men?
It's weird how this spins off into a legal argument about age of consent. It's a pretty bad argument to say If the state can't enslave you and call it "conscription" then you shouldn't you be able to consent to a personal relationship. These are just arbitrary judgements. One is turning someone into a weapon for the political authority and the other is voluntary association. The legal test should be is the person involved mentally capable of forming consent in that given situation. The legal test should not be, does Andrew think it's icky lol. If you want to say a 16 year old boy couldn't form consent for sex with an adult, then yes it should be considered criminal. If you say he can form consent, then it's none of your business. (That's the ACTUAL libertarian position btw.) Really the question of if someone has the ability to consent should be down to psychological development, not age. There are some 20 year old who really shouldn't be considered capable to sexual consent and the law does nothing for them. What you're describing as older women being objectified is really more like idealization, which makes sense when the story is being told from the perspective of the boy. It's also interesting that the comedians who complain about being censored are "hacks" (we could name some very commercially successful one but okay) and yet where are all the super funny progressive comedians? I don't think our list of them would be nearly as long lol Saying you wouldn't mind censorship if you weren't saying garbage, is kind of like saying "you don't need your privacy if you're not doing anything wrong." Imagine watching this and thinking "He left out POC." Why would you even care to pander to someone like that?
Also in Glee, that later on, when Ryder talks about being molested as a child by his babysitter all the boys think he's crazy for feeling traumatised. And at least the show doesn't try to glorify this but I feel they don't explore his trauma properly or get any of the other boys to acknowledge why it's bad
i blocked out most of season 4 and beyond but holy fuck i forgot about that
And it's never brought up again... such a missed opportunity
This!! They should have made it a actual storyline but instead made it a single scene. But at the same time I'm glad it wasn't explored cause I do not have faith in the Glee writers to explore such a serious topic with care and respect.
Glee does a lot of things wrong but at least they got his trauma right.
justin bieber saying "i feel uncomfortable" and "i feel violated" and the situation still getting brushed off as a joke is so sad to me. for a kid to even be able to name those feelings and say them out loud is pretty brave and impressive, and yet he was totally ignored. he was exposed to such an unsafe environment when he was just a kid who wanted to sing and dance.
Fully agree
that happened to me too and I got told I was dramatic and a weirdo.
It’s very disturbing
If he was a girl and a man did this to him, he would’ve been shunned from society
Sadly, people wouldn't really care because it's a boy involved instead of a girl. Humans are so hypocritical it disgusts me
(Long comment!)
You didn't touch on it as a serious note but I genuinely believe the fact that Hollywood so consistently casts men in their 20s and 30s as these teenage characters has influenced the interpretation of these tropes, and media in general. As an audience member, of course we can intellectualize and break down how inappropriate it is to pair adults with teenagers, it's more difficult to do when we look at them and see two fully grown, mature adults playing around. The normalization of this has sort of made ages in fiction nebulous a lot of the time, as (unless the story is specifically about their ages) ages in fiction these days tend to be for the sake of plot convenience. A lot of teenage characters are basically written and acted as if they are adults, who just happen to be going through coming-of-age arcs or forced to go to school, or dealing with teenage problems. If anything it seems like what most writers want to be doing is writing about adults, but in immature scenarios. Adult characters are expected to be boring or to act mature and not have the kind of fun and ridiculous antics that are prevalent in high school movies. Everyone wants to write about that innocent, chaotic time, but through the lens of an adult. We secretly all crave to live like teenagers, without having to actually be them.
A lot of teenagers these days seem to dislike a lot of content that exists about teenagers because they feel like it doesn't reflect them, but what they often don't realize is that it usually isn't for them. Most content about teenagers is made for people who were teenagers in the past, reflecting, not for current teenagers. The 'teen party comedy' isn't for teenagers. The 'teen horror' genre isn't for teenagers. Most movies about teenage characters aren't for teens, and them always being played by adults is partially in reflection of this. It is the nature of being a writer, and of being a reader, for the majority of the media you engage with to be reflective of your past, encompassing experiences you have lived through and can relate to. Teenagers don't make movies, they don't make TV shows. The only people who know what it's like to be a teenager in 2023 is a teenager in 2023. You won't get movies about what that feels like for another 10-20 years, when those current-teenagers are the adults making them.
Makes it all the more alarming what happened in mid90s though. Who was that for!? lol There is NO age group that wants to see a 27-year-old woman with an 11-year-old boy.
More people need to read this
Someone pin this comment!!!!!
This is my big problem with Euphoria. Adults are writing very explicit scenes for teenager characters. I have 2 nieces 13 years old, and they were telling me kids in their class were watching it, and they wanted to too. They are not even to high school yet but want to see this "high schooler" show.
I tried explaining to them it's a show about high schoolers but not for high schools. And they could not believe that! They then wanted to know why older people wanted to watch these "high schoolers" act like that.
Triple dog (2010) is a great movie for teenagers I absolutely love it, because the kids act like kids and are played by kids
@@Vex_TheJester i liked the movies Diary of a wimpy kid when i was in the middle school, didnt rewatched it in a while but i think its pretty good for teenagers??
As a man who was groomed and sexually abused by an adult woman, people have very strange reactions when they find out. In my case, people often discover when they realise the age difference between me and my son, who was born when I was 14. Many are actually supportive of me, understanding that it was a traumatic event in my life, and the perpetrator was a exploitative. I think it has to do how I frame, when I talk to people (considering it resulted in a child, people are bound to ask) I make sure it wasn't a situation that I was in control, or that it was somehow a non-horrific experience. However, I've also many people who shift the blame to me, that I was a boy so it's obviously something I'd do anyways, so any trauma is actually a result of my irresponsible teenage boy behaviour. Some people, and surprisingly mostly women, tend to downplay the situation completely, for them it's not something bad or abusive, but also they don't blame me. A few people even fetishise it, men and women, which obviously makes me feel ultra uncomfortable and anxious. People just love ignoring how hurt a boy can be by an adult woman.
I wrote this comment before watching the video. Sorry, I can't keep watching after hte 90s movie segment.
I'm so sorry, having a kid that young is hard, my mom had her first child at that age. My father was about 5-10 years older than her, and now I kinda wonder how consensual their relationship really was in the beginning. I know he was bad to her and the rest of us for the rest of our lives, tho.
People may not believe you, but your perspective made me really re-contectualize my mom's history of abuse. It was much longer than I considered, I am not sure if my mom sees it that way, either, but also we don't talk about those things.
I hope you are healing and I hope you have a good support network to help raise your son, you both deserve a good life.
I'm so sorry for your experience, and for any continuing trauma you experience in your life because of it. What happened to you was absolutely wrong, and you shouldn't bear any of the guilt for it on your shoulders, regardless of how you reacted at the time. You were a child with a child's outlook on the world, and an adult with bad, selfish intentions took advantage of that. It is also wrong of people to try to blame you, or to gas-light you by acting like it was either not a big deal or even something that should be desireable. While you shouldn't feel any pressure to speak out and share your experience, it was very brave and strong of you to share your story publicly, and hopefully the fact that you shared it will do good in changing how other people view such things. Stay strong and be well.
@@SLYKM Thank you for you answer, and I'm sorry for what your mother went through. I didn't have it as bad as most people, I suppose, with the teen dad thing. For one, the pregnancy is what actually led it to be found out and of course stopped. Then, my parents took care of him early on, never pushing me to do anything I wasn't ready for, and in fact everything I did to become his father was out of my own will. What hurt me was the trauma from the events itself, not so much having a child, even if I was upset with him existing in the beginning, it was just a backlash from what his mom did (Even if I didn't acknowledge at the time as such). Today, my love for him is absolute and I don't hold the circumstances of his birth against him at all.
@@zackreagin8384 I've spent far too many years in denial of what happened, in the beginning I didn't even acknowledge it for what it was. She'd shower me praise and love when she wanted something, and make me feel awful when I didn't provide (usually stealing from my parents), and the feeling of obsession she made me develop for her made me unable to understand what had happened, even as I suffering from the consequences. Only when I understood I was able to start healing. I don't keep it inside anymore.
I’m a female survivor of female abuse and I get told “women don’t do that”.
The male survivors I know get told that,blamed and that they liked it. Including when it was their female relatives. It’s so gross.
i don't understand how did a woman abuse you? with what? she touched you or there was penetration?
FRFR, as a black man, I've been sexualized in my tweens/teens. Its your typical male stereotypes coupled with the myth that all black men are "well endowed", are hyper-hypersexual and give litter regard for their sexuality/sexual boundaries... anything for some 🐈⬛. Its a narrative pushed down our throats, and nurtured by a community/family/home environment that can nurture sexual assault masquerading as "positive/affirming early intimacy experiences" (by older men and older women), unresolved sexual assault (until recently, it was assumed that we would just "walk it off" and no therapy was needed. This has changed in the community, and we are better for it.).
Thanks for this post. Its a story we all need to here. The myth that men don't care/are desperate for sex needs to be reshaped, males must learn how to push back on this and proceed without the hypertextualization of themselves and their prospective partners.
Very well said.
And, Im very sorry for your terrible experiences.
That's a thing I never quite understood. Why the hell are so many stories focused on sexualizing minors at all?
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against portraying teenagers as sexual beings. I would even argue that it can help adolescents in this phase of their life when they see that certain developments are just normal. But why the topless shots? Why the camera angles and lighting to create a sense of eroticism for the viewers? It's so easy to be a little more subtle.
how can you be for portraying people as sexual beings and also be wanting no sexuality shown? Because I take it that you mean subtly in that everything is merely hinted at and nothing physical is ever shown.
@@harrybudgeiv349 There is a difference between acknowledging or portraying something and making it erotic for the viewers. Lighting, camera angles, the amount of clothing, etc. are all choices made with certain intentions. You can show that sexual acts happen without showing off the characters as objects for the audience to gaze at.
This is why I can’t watch Rick and Morty….first episode was the first red flag for me.
@@Dhorannis Super well put. More people need to understand this distinction.
anime also be like....
Love the video, it so weird how people sexulize these types of relationships, and how people sexulize older women that are "pretty" in such and "old" age.
My brother is 14. I was 16. That is beyond fucked. Looking older, and some young teens DO look wierdly older, DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN ADULT. You might as well say that if you surgically made a 15 year old look 32, then suddenly it'd be fully okay to break the law. When i was 16, on instagram a random 23 year old (allegedly) woman reached out to me, and I wasnt just super sexy she just fixated on a random account, and I was into it but a few hours in she says "love you!" and I said I was now not comfortable with continuing, I wrote about it on my profile and she got really mad and so I blocked her. I got a "this is strange adult behavior" ick as a child.
Great video! I really appreciated you talking about how even though the women are the predators in this situation, the writing gives them no power at all and fully dehumanizes them instead. Even though they're technically in the 'position of power' in the narrative, the way they are written still takes that power away by presenting them without any real characterization or nuance for the satisfaction of the younger male character.
Damn, now I wonder if there ARE good examples of media that actually frames such relationships as predatory.
"It wasn't actually 13 and 17, the actors were 11 and 27, if the first one doesn't sound too bad." No way, Andrew, it's a great video but the first one is absolutely wild, any girl who did that when I was 17 is getting fully ostracized, gets "Maxwell" as her new nickname, and possibly gets beaten up. If she was a guy definitely she would be, I think guys would be creeped out and mostly too confused to have the same reaction to her, but I don't doubt girls would take violent action. The boy's brother might've had enough of a shock response to overcome that initial confusion and may also be more likely than the other guys to do so. Either way, not only would she face criminal charges, but it could still ruin her life even before that. That is truly batshit insane.
thankyou for writing this
"Maxwell"?
Okay i have another example, it’s not Hollywood tho, but Netflix. Billy Hargrove from Stranger Things. They try to add up to him being one of the villains of season 2 and 3 by him flirting with Mrs. Wheeler. With the same Mrs. Wheeler who made a sport of googly eyeing the 17 years old boy, alongside with her bored middle aged housewife friends (yes, Dacre Montgomery, the actor being in his 30-s not helping here again). It was creepy, it was predatory and if someone really look at the details, can see that Billy is deeply scarred. He lives with an abusieve father and his mother abandoned him. He starts to flirt with Mrs. Wheeler in a situation, where he can get seriously hurt, it he doesn’t find his stepsister. He is a wild child because he is trying his best to have as much control over his life outside of his fathers house, as he can. Somehow they wanted to write a “bad boy” but they ended up with a missunderstood teenager, who apperently lets older women to prey on him. And Mrs. Wheeler, who has a daughter THE SAME AGE, as Billy (both Nancy and him are 17 at the time) she is the one who should have know better. Maybe i liked Billy too much, but this one thing made me so uncomfortable when it happened that i almost screamed. At the end, nothing happenes but still…you don’t make a villain by making a minor in an aweful situation, doing stupid shit in an attempt to regain control over his life.
Right, Mrs Wheeler was never painted as a morally flawed person. They just wanted us to sympathize with her for being a lonely housewife.
I was so glad when she changed her mind last minute but frankly, she already went too far anyway by even entertaining going for him.
Other than the fact that she’s married with 3 kids, Billy is a literal damn high schooler. That’s gross.
THANK YOU. When I first watched that scene, I was like, "Uh, no, Duffers, you're better than this," and everyone likes it because of, what, tension??? The fact that I see comments about that scene is nothing but praise or admiration is concerning.
as a 27 yo woman, i can't even think of dating someone younger than 24-25. idk, but even guys 20-21 yo are like teens to me.
and to make actors kiss ? i feel physically sick and bad for both actress and an 11 (!!!) yo child actor
Talk to you in 20 years 😂😂😂
Speaking of Katy Perry, look up her interaction with Bo Burnham, still gives me chills when I think about it
Also, wasn't she also wrapped up in some sexual misconduct controversy with several men?
What happened now?
@@ericgolightly8450Welcome to UA-cam is the context
Her what
What's going on in he-
so excited to watch this!!! i have seen so many video essays on the sexualization and normalization of young girls in relationships with older men, thank you for calling out the inverse!!!
I guess that this actor Sunny is like Brooke Shields when she was filming Pretty Baby. Brooke was 11 and she had to kiss a grown man for the movie. He was 29. And the script presents him as an adult, not a minor. The movie, as we know, is about a 12-yr old raised in a brothel. While filming the kissing scene, Brooke was uncomfortable kissing the man. He wasn't keen on kissing a minor but she looked like she "just sucked on a lemon" and the director told her that this didn't count as her first kiss to get the scene.
Hollywood is terrible to minors, isn't it?
And even with the character's ages 13 and 17- that's still illegal. 13 is under the age of consent in the US in all states. If a 17-yr old was with a 13 yr old, it's time to call the police. It would still be illegal and it wouldn't matter if the state's age of consent law is 18 and it would be legally worse for the 17-yr old if they live in a state were it's 17.
Poor girl, she must have felt so violated. Adults, women or men should leave minors tf alone... 😢
Hollywood is terrible in general
Every young boy or girl has atleast once in their lifetime experienced that weird crush on an older person, in most cases it's a famous singer or actor/actress, a tv host, your older sister/brother's friend or even a model on an ad. It's part of the process of growing up and discovering ourselves.
But then for some reason weird directors/writers make it a theme or wish fulfilment stories, and sometimes they just make it worse in unimaginable ways. I remember watching a movie where a kid with a very disfunctional family would have a crush on a female school friend, and then he would secretly take photos of her, and it was implied that he masturbated to these photos in the library.
They literally wrote a young boy as a creep. Simply bizarre.
So you think that film should never have a person portrayed as a creep? I'm not understanding the point you're making here.
@@harrybudgeiv349 not a 12 years-old kid. Do you understand now?
@felipe21279 What do you mean not a 12 year old kid? Like a 12 year old can't be shown as creepy? A 12 year old can't be shown acting with an adult? In what context are you saying not a 12 year old kid?
I would like bring up the double standards persona 5 has. It makes the first villain a teacher who preys on female students only to make a teacher an option to have romantic relationships with. Imo it infantilizes the female teacher and it makes her into a love interest no 5. I hope this is a safe space to express my disgust because I'm tired of people being ok with this
What makes it worse is that this is not the only teacher who tries to be romantic with a male student. Persona 3 has the main character's class teacher admitting to wanting to take control over the main character over the internet while speaking to her online friend who happens to be the main character. But the teacher has no remorse she just gets embarrassed that the person she said all this was us, the player. She literally blushes. Persona 4 has this nasty teacher who calls a 15 year old idol a jailbait and is so creepy towards the male students. This is played for laughs
Kawakami romance route is like the one thing keeping p5 from being a 1p
(10:40) This is disturbing. I am glad you are shedding light on this incident.
NO FR like did nobody notice how disgusting that is?? The exploitation is gross.
You missed the jesus joke when you said "he consents, she consents, but who did no one think to ask."
The "leave enough space for Jesus at the dance" meme popped in my head then lol
@@liuchaquanI was thinking this too 😂 they didn’t leave room for Jesus!
that was the exact joke he was making
I think it was a reference to that
Jesus would say, “Erm, it’s actually whom.” Or something, I don’t read the Bible a lot.
When young males and older women have relationships is a pat on the back and congrats, when its a young woman and an older man everyone loses it.
Yes that's because there's something inherently wrong with what society expects from young men. It's expected from them to say yes to any opportunity they get for sex with a woman. If a 17 year old man says no to sex, simply because he didn't felt ready yet, he will absolutely be called a coward by his male friends or even get his sexuality questioned by them and it doesn't matter if the women that offered him sex was in his age or a 30 year old women. It's even believed to be "more impressive" if you banged an older woman. Men between 15 and 25 push and pressure each other into having sex with women and this can go as far as paying a hooker as a gift for that one friend in their friendgroup that is 20 and still a virgin and absolutely disregarding if this friend is actually comfortable with having sex yet. it's an extremely problematic and disgusting mentality that i believe does a lot of lasting damage to the sexual behaviour of men when they grow older because they pushed themselves into sex when they were not ready at that time. Damage that probably isn't well researched and understood because society refuses to accept this as problematic.
full disclosure im not done the video but am i the only one who found it REALLY WEIRD how in young sheldon georgie (17) got a 29 year old woman pregnant. like he lied about his age at first but he eventually admitted it, and the woman (mandy) freaked out. if they left it at that, it’d be ok. (well like not ok but not as predatory) but they didnt leave it at that. their relationship is ENCOURAGED, and has its own genuine development. i dont mean that in a good way. georgie literally becomes the father of this child. im p sure he drops out of highschool too.
edit: mandy and georgie are getting their own spinoff show.
And creates success for himself later. The issue is with consent laws. If you don't want people to be legally able to consent to things until 18, then you have to change the laws. People do not look at these things the same. Many people would even say that it's predatory even if he was 18.
For what it's worth, this plotline is why I stopped watching Young Sheldon. It grossed me out too much (a lot of Mary Kay Letourneau vibes there), and I couldn't wrap my head around a female character like Mandy actually WANTING to have a child with an underage high school dropout who lied to her about his age. Of course, this pairing is going to be the centerpiece of the next Big Bang spin-off .... 🙄
I think the point of Georgie and Mandy’s relationship is to parallel George and Mary’s relationship and how history repeats itself because both couples dealt with the same circumstances. George and Mary themselves point this out a lot. Even their names are practically similar!
SPOILERS FOR THE BIG BANG THEORY FINALE(AT LEAST THE FIRST 11 MINUTES)
If it makes you feel any better, I don’t love the ship either. And they don’t stay married anyway. Matter of fact, Georgie has more than one ex-wife! Just hope Veronica isn’t one of them. Just sayin, she would’ve been the perfect endgame.
They’re a victim of circumstance. Her options would be to either have an abortion, raise the baby on her own, or keep the baby and marry Georgie. The first two are high sins and would make her a complete outcast in her community. The show takes place in TEXAS. You have a baby unwed and/or have an abortion in Texas in a religious family and you get disowned. Literally never see your family ever again. Kicked out and forced to start a new life somewhere else. Religion and society play a big part in the show. Mandy and Georgie’s relationship is not at all glamorized. Like I said, they are victims. Hell, if the show took place in the modern day, Mandy would be committing first degree murder in the state of Texas for getting an abortion!
In what world is taking accountability for your actions a being a father to the child you fathered a bad thing.
It's nice to see more men speaking out about this issue. Leonardo Di Caprio gets a lot of flack for dating 18 year olds but yet the pool boy trope is still a fantasy in a lot of adult women. It should be the same throughout.
Very true!! I think its so fucked how we treat teenage boys like they're adults in some circumstances. Its really fucked
A male teacher having sex with a female student is rightly seen as a serious crime. If you reverse the genders, however, lots of people will not see the boy as the victim of a crime. Instead, they will see him as 'lucky." I think the reason is that sexual fantasies involving older women are incredibly common among adolescent boys. So when a guy hears about a 13-year-old boy who got to have sex with his attractive teacher, we can't help but remember how much we would have loved it if that had happened to us. But just because we may have fantasized about that happening to us when we were 13 doesn't mean that what happened to that boy wasn't legally and morally wrong. It doesn't mean that the boy wasn't harmed by the experience.
I met a guy when I was in college who had an affair with a woman in her 30s when he was 14. The woman got pregnant, and even though his parents had her prosecuted and she went to prison for statutory rape, he was required to pay her child support. I know another guy who started dating a 32-year-old woman when he was 16. They got engaged when he was 21 and married at 22. They were married for 26 years before she passed away. Arguably, that relationship stunted him emotionally. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn't dated anyone since his wife died. But the story is actually worse than that. I recently heard him say he had been with his wife since he was 14. That just seems so much worse than 16. His parents chose not to go to the police when they learned about the relationship, but if they knew it started when he was 14, I think they would have made a different decision.
Fantasies about older men are absurdly common among adolescent girls. That can't be why people see these situations differently.
Not to mention you’re forgetting girls and women have r*pe fantasies, and you’re forgetting that not every adolescent boy is straight. There are gay adolescent boys and bisexual adolescent boys, they have sexual fantasies about adult men, as well as heterosexual girls. Whomever tells you adolescent girls don’t is a fudge lie. Yet… it’s not about the gender of the minor, it’s about the gender of the abuser.
It’s also odd, because women have r*pe fantasies as adolescents, some gay boys have fantasies about being r*ped by an adult man… yet… when a minor is abused by a man both a gay male and a heterosexual female recognize the abuse and don’t say they are lucky. How come?
A young boy being abused by an adult woman is just as much of a serious crime. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be.
This is so important omg thank you for speaking on this!!
P.s. you're also very funny and I like your delivery
9:10 I’m writing a boy protagonist who is pursued by an older woman. She’s a small part of the overall story, but she shows up a couple times and triggers his ptsd around their initial encounter. I hadn’t really thought about how she feels about it because it’s an uncomfortable topic, but since the questions are right here, I may as well try to answer them. She definitely has daughter who looks just like him, but that’s because he and her military husband are spitting images of each other. Because the married couple hasn’t seen each other in so long she’s still thinking of her husband as looking just as young as the protagonist despite being twice his age. She’s more concerned about getting caught again than actually recognizing she’s doing something wrong despite it being obvious on the outside looking in. Also though the daughter doesn’t know the nature of the relationship, she’s jealous that her mom is spending more time thinking about some random lookalike in her class. The protagonist gets confronted with how angry the daughter is despite the relationship being one sided on the lady’s end. It gets sorted out but it leads to him realizing the lady’s been stalking him without him realizing and taking pictures. It’s horrible behavior and she’s a minor antagonist, but thanks for inspiring me to think even deeper about this
Apologies for the wonkiness of the first half, I tried to copy and paste it out of the comment making box, but highlighting the whole thing can be risky because I accidentally wrote an emoji and all I had highlighted to save was gone forever.
10:51 also, while I’m not entirely set on her age, I’m thinking a new 22, his age is 10, same as her daughter. So it’s supposed to evoke this same alarm and concern as you show for the child actor. I hope the kid wasn’t too traumatized by the event, but I would not be surprised if that had a lasting bad impact on him.
I would love to read that
HAROLD AND MAUDE REFERENCE. Thank you honestly one of my favorite movies that Is not talk enough
I was so excited to see it! I'm usually the one it to introduce to others because hardly anyone's ever heard of it where I'm from.
the psychological conditoning, even after doing a whole comment thinking about when I was 11, and how my little brother is 14, runs so deep that even after all that I still had a quick, momentary thought of "that kid's cool." Holy fucking shit. No, that's wish fulfillment, voyeuristic childhood dreams but not reality. Being sexually abused, like he was and its clear he realizes how fucked it was, doesnt make you cool. It's not something to feel less than of, its just completely neutral to your character. I mean if you survive something and go out punching, I'll respect you for that, but that's a completely different kind of respect to "wow he kissed a 27 year old woman, this is gonna completely remove all safety he feels regarding adults, I mean the actor will now weaken how much he can care about people like teachers and parents when he gets a pit in his stomach realizing that the english substitute he really loved is, now, theoretically someone who he could be sexually with." The guy's who say, "no way, little boys cant be raped by women" must think the kids ghislaine maxwell abducted are sooo lucky
now imagine if it's was a 27year old man with a 11year old girl instead and people find out the age it's would of been hell in the USA its would of been a big outrage world wide the biasness by people is unfair
Loving this channel, the feminist take on mens issues is great!
This stuff happens in Queer Media as well. In Queer as Folk, the main Character hooks up with a 17 year old boy on his 30th birthday. In the original British version, the boy was 15. And then there’s “Call me by your name” which was heralded as a masterpiece. I wanted to see it till I read the plot synopsis.
If I could say anything about underage relationships, it would be that they directly frame and influence the same people’s relationships in the future. I believe that your memories mostly reflect half your current age in every facet of life, but I’m mostly interested in how childhood play influences adult hobbies, which become retirement jobs. This play is often rooted in relationships or the way they end, which is where it often becomes problematic. I think the important thing to recognize is that though we all learn new things at the same ages, what we learn varies from person to person. For most people that’s merely what hobbies you have, but for autistic people it can be the social norms themselves.
Honestly this is a mens right issue and IT NEEDS TO BE SAID. heck, this is the type of stuff my feminist friends will argue for the aid of young men.
If you want an example of a POC/non-white age gap relationship involving an adult woman and underage boy, I remember watching an episode of Why Women Kill on Paramount+ about two years ago and there was an episode where the character portrayed by Lucy Liu, who is Chinese descended, was having an affair with her friend's underage son, which leads to her friend trying to kill her and or ruin her life at all costs. I don't remember much since I didn't care to finish it, but apparently the son even got a tattoo of Liu somewhere on him in the series, which in my opinion, his mom had all the right reason to be mad at Liu if the son was underage. I don't remember the rest of what happened and I didn't really care to finish the series. I know the defense in that season from what I remember is how the boy first had the crush on Liu in a flashback scene when they were younger, which still doesn't help the fact that a grown ass woman half his age agreed to sleeping with him. If I got any info wrong, I'm sorry cause I haven't watched it in two years, but I do remember the basics like grown ass woman having affair with underage boy and also the woman also almost dying by her crazy friend.
Hey, to be fair to "Stacey's mom," the song is a crush that is not reciprocated by mom, tho the music video really muddy's the waters.
great video! one other exampe is Gabby Solis (grown adult) in Desperate Housewives and her gardener (16 y/o boy)
This!! I was going to add this- not to mention their sexual relationship is implied to have started significantly earlier than when the show started! So creepy
I'm late af, but I'm in my 30's. Ive grown up with adults being attracted to minors of any gender as its been extremely normalized. It bothered me then as it does now. I couldn't imagine dating someone in their early 20's let alone a TEEN. Disgusting.
Remember Miller's Girl, the new one. Martin Freeman is 52, Jenna is 21 but is supposed to be in high school. That's my Dad and me. Well, I'm 19, so then my older sister. People probably say "well its been succesfully un-normalized for men and girls." Nope, it happens there too. That JUST came out.
I was praying she was in college. Didn’t know she was a teenager in the movie from what I’ve seen in the trailer.
"pool boy" has no strictly underage limitations and never has...this as your way of selling this certainly doesn't do anything about that tbh...
Oh and in SoCal the aged out,"pool boy_ is a proud trope .and gets about 25 an hour I believe...
It's honestly so fascinating for me as somebody who just really disagrees with you on a lot of the background things, politics, culture, feminism, to watch your videos because I actually agree with the points you make.
I mean I'm glad we agree on this, don't get me wrong. It's just interesting to me to see how you think about it versus how I think about it.
kids have to wait to use the rest room and adults have to wait to express opinions
A consent alone morality is insufficient, especially when age gaps show up.
Normalize frowning upon sexual deviancy
Even as a young teen, I understood something was weird about adult women hitting on minors :/
I have to say people misunderstand Lolita so much, the companies fucked the original author over. He said he wanted a plain book and it was very much NOT a romance book. But the publishing companies and the movie adaptations ruined that and romanticized it. That shit is not romantic.
Personally (As long as both members are of legal age) and are both happy, I can look the other way. Like a 26 year old woman and a 38 year old man, I don't care. It's when it's someone is the lowest age possible age that I don't like it. Like they're barely legal dude :/
Also can we accept that predatory relationships can happen between both genders. I hate it when people brush off men's experiences and take it as a joke. You know these people would flip a switch if the genders were reversed
If I can say, I live in Massachusetts where the age of consent is 16, that doesn't suddenly make it okay for someone over like 18 or 19 to have sex with a 16 year old. Outside of Romeo and Juliet laws, an adult and minor cannot have sex with each other even if said minor is at or above the age of consent. So even if 16 is the age of consent, a 16 year old sleeping with people old enough to be mothers is still illegal
Another example: The affair of Gabrielle with her 17 year old gardener in Desperate Housewives, which was later revealed that he was 16 when they started the affair. The character of Gabrielle was 29 when they started the affair, and yet the show portrayed this as a sexy little secret and as being ok because he's super hot and she's super hot and he's a male so he wants it anyway. I mean it's not like the show didn't communicate that this affair is scandalous, they did, but more so because she was cheating on her husband and not because she was sleeping with an underaged boy.
I've literally thought this before. Underage Females and older men treated as it should be, even Underage boys and men. Then when it comes to Underage boys and older women the law might come down if the right person knows but it's mostly seen as an "at a boy" to the teenage boy. Hi five or a let's praise him attitude. It's the whole double standards thing
This reminds me of a movie that came out RECENTLY (last year I think?) a rom com where a late 20s something woman gets with a 16-17(?) y/o rich boy she was paid to date. I forgot what it was called but I didn't expect it to take that turn and I cringed the whole way through.
its called no hard feelings
I started typing a long comment about my little bit of history and perspective on this subject... but thought better of it 😂
as someone whos gona through stuff like this. I really appriciate that there is aknowledgement that this happens to guys as well. not to down play womens right activits and there experiances its just nice to know that it does happen to men as well
The ACTOR was 11? That's fucked up
It would have been interesting if you talked about Risky Business, which is literally just about Tom Cruise playing a 17 year old trying to find an older woman.
This is not the only one, The Girl next door had the female lead Meg played by a 22-year-old, and understandably because the character she plays endures the vilest forms of torture that you would never want to have a child endure, (that should the actress age match, it could be straight up child pornography) but why "pair" her up with the male lead who WAS actually 14 when he acted in it? At the very least the romantization of them both wasn't as blatant.
So many times hollywood and media in general tend to make older male with younger female abuse seem horrible while the inverse is considered awesome . In reality both are horrifying and in general the attitudes need to change
You’re so underrated oml
Mid90s would have been a great film if it weren’t so creepily cast.
10:42 That’s worse than what happened in fucking Cuties.
You should’ve included That’s My Boy (2012).
Also, getting handsy on Justin Bieber is so wrong _twice_ over, not just once over, considering that it’s well… you know.
American Pie with Stiffler's Mom is always one of the first I think of
I can tell you from personal experience that this kind of thing happens in the real world. Not to go into unnecessary details, but I have been in inappropriate situations as a minor three times. Two of those women were friends of my mother.
7:11
Ohio isn't a pre-register at 16 state either. Good call picking, Ohio.
7:29
Parental control I think minor can smoke and drink just not to be the ones the purchase the substance because it's also illegal to sell those kind of things to minor. Which is why it's safe to not sell to anyone under 21 full stop.
Positive, thank God 16 can't illist in the *Army.* you're only young for so long....... sad, that's why recruiting youngsters a thing....
How the F🦆 did I walked myself into the negative.
I agree with you and you as still seeing it today. I know on Young Sheldon Maddie didn’t know Georgie was 17 at first but it comes off kinda gross when you think about how quickly Georgie had to grow up because he got her pregnant. The writers didn’t have to make them that much of an age difference. They could have had him a baby momma in high school who moved away or didn’t tell him until he was an adult. There was so many ways they could have had the relationship.
For women/girls you can do the movies the color purple, beloved , bastard out of Carolina, thirteen, Eves bayou. Just to name a few.
And interview with a vampire. I never got over Kirsten kissing Brad Pitt 😖 And anything to do with a young Shirley Temple. They made that baby play a kid prostitute in a movie 🤦🏽♀️
Hick is another one worth mentioning. So is that other film also starred in by Chloe Moretz, I think it was called Kickass or something.
Licorice Pizza feels like it was written by people in the industry who already do these things, like I just imagine a man who dated/groomed a young actress writing it, bc the woman in the movie doesn't seem to be written by a woman.
I have no context for the first clip. But the legality of the incident is dependent on the laws of the state/municipality. If he was 16 or 17 in a place where the age of consent is 16 or 17, then it's entirely legal for them to have sex. The issue isn't whether or not it's legal, it's whether or not we should review and rewrite the laws on the books. You cannot have this discussion without actually taking a huge dive into the laws and why they exist in the first place. Age of consent, age of majority, Romeo and Juliet statutes, statutory rape policies, all of these things need to be talked about, in part, because they are social constructs.
For example, the age of majority being 18 is entirely arbitrary. There is no scientific, biological, or real legal reason as to why 18 is the age of majority (except maybe that 18 is sooner than 20 for the military to get soldiers, and because of this, the voting age was lowered to 18 in America to quell dissidence over the Vietnam War). There are people who argue that the age majority should be moved up to 25 as that's when the brain has "developed fully". And since many people point to education systems as the metric for why adulthood was set to 18, others point to 21 or 22 to be the "true" age of majority in America because that's when college ends.
There's more to it, obviously. I'll just wait to see what others have to say on this.
Before I watch, the fact this even has to be said speaks volumes.
Ok I just found my new fav channel!
Another movie is "Class". Our society is so wrong, if it is a young boy/older woman, we think well that is OK, it will not effect him in anyway, But, if it is reversed, everyone is up in arms and want to put the man in prison.
bros just mad his bully slept with his mom.
Sorry guys i just had to make this comment
Funny enough, Poor Things was running for the Academy Awards for best film just recently, while also falling neatly into the situations you described: ambiguously-aged and barely-verbal immature person, who is played by an adult, is seduced by an actual adult who has little characterization beyond being rich and predatory, then what does the director do? Basically hardcore p*rn scenes between then, only to then frame it as the ambiguously aged character reaching sexual maturity.
I know that this movie is based on a book, but if the book already portrayed such relationships in this way, maybe it's not the best piece of media to be adapted to film
I'd love to hear your take on Baby Reindeer
perhaps an unpopular or even controversial opinion but: i think consensual, artistic representation of this trope is an important line in the sand. it is my understanding that abusers are typically people who were abused, not people who saw it on tv and decided "it's okay!" if this were true, wouldn't you be just as outraged by horror films? war movies? violent video games? most pornography? art is where people go to release the demons inside them so they don't act it out IRL. "tv said it was cool" doesn't hold up in a court of law. if you can't separate fantasy from reality, that's a problem of the mind, not the art.
to illustrate with an analogy, a vampire is a vampire because they were a victim of a vampire. and if you've seen enough vampire portrayals, you know there are ones who can control their appetites in spite of the trauma they have been carrying. the consuming of controversial art is like a vampire drinking True Blood.
Young man/older woman relationships in fiction are just wish fulfillment, the writers barely disguised fetish. Theres also this thing of men being the active part of sex, the one on top, which in this case is reversed but not to the point of leaving the man as the receiver like in more dominatrix kinda stuff. And lets just accept people are inherently interested in taboos, I guess you could most if not all "kinks" or prefences are based on one or many. In this case is very interesting because its something that most men will never experience and it just ends up being a "what if"
3:13 hey! that's entrapment right there. i just didn't want to leave you hanging
You got an insant sub when that Harold and Maude clip started playing 😂. Top notch reference.
I thought this was gonna be as dumb as twitter antis towards loli but straight predator women with minors is disgusting. Any minor with an adult is disgusting
You should have added "unless you're prepared for the opposite"
If it's reversed, it's now a problem to everyone.
Man or woman, boy or girl, no matter what, THESE THINGS in movies are PROBLEMATIC. NO MATTER WHAT.
I feel like people just have a different perception of assault when it comes to women raping male teenagers, at least when they initiate the interaction and seem willing
You said justify the means too many times and i had to take a slipknot break.
Man what the fuck where those Justin Bieber clips
It's disturbing. It's happening publicly and no one's saying anything about it.
20:30 my mom does that lol (not this much tho)😭
Desperate housewives also has this trope, with Gabrielle and John. In my memory it was mostly portrayed as a sexy thing and romanticized, but it's been a while since I watched that
14:00 ya right a better story!
Good video!
~ Roarr!
I recall a scene on the "George Lopez" sitcom. It went something like,
GEORGE: son, you can't go over to Miss Martin's house anymore.'
SON: Why?
GEORGE: well, back when she was a teacher, she had sex with a boy your age.
SON: (not seeing the problem) And she killed him???
I was NOT ready for you to go “White people alert, white people alert” 😂😂😂 Thanks for acknowledging that though I had no qualms you already understood it!
As a small kid I saw a scene from Melvin Van Peebles movie that I believe was Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song that I'm fairly certain had a kid engaged in a sexual relationship with older women in the opening scene. I haven't attempted to rewatch it and confirm what I saw due to... reasons that happened to me in life, but I'm pretty sure that I saw the scene clearly, as opposed to how Itoi saw that murder scene that he thought was a r@pe scene that inspired him to make Gygas for Mother 2.
You're cute and very smart. Some of these boys know exactly what they're doing. Not all are innocent. Don't tell me you didn't wish you were hot enough to get the girl back in the day. LOL
You're missing the point.
@AwesomeYena I get your larger point, and you are technically correct. All I'm saying is when I was 15, my first full experience was with a person who was 22 or 23 at the time. Was it technically correct? No, but I was the one who broke it off with them and broke their hearts. Do I regret it? Honestly, that's a hard question to answer because I know they cared deeply for me. And I don't consider myself a victim. And there were extenuating circumstances that honestly don't paint me in the best light.
@@bluewheels3980 Watch the video, this time fully.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was a 70s blaxploitation movie where he grows up in a brothel and loses his virginity at like age 10. Then he's an adult performing in live shows. Also, Chris Brown said he lost his v-card at like 14, so there's that.
More Gay characters and more Disabled Character's would be good to.
There is this movie i saw a recap of recently where a 20 something teacher and one of her students, who is a small child of color, end up surviving an apocalyptic disaster and start surviving toguether, cut to a couple year later the kid is in his late teens and the woman begins showing interest in him, i watch it thinking it was gonna be a found family story about motherhood, but it had to get sexual or the movie wouldnt have gotten the weird people to buy tickets 😒
Another good example is the movie “Private Lessons”
Wait pool boys are children? I thought thats just what people who cleaned pools were called
10:18
wait is that THE BOY?
How did I never hear about mid90’s it’s like cuties but somehow worse!
I'm so sorry, like your video is amazing, but what's with the negative remarks about men's rights? Do you think you can only talk about this stuff in a negative way for men?
off topic but TUCA AND BIRTIE PAINTING, ARCADE FIRE ALBUM COVER, AND CAGE THE ELEPHANT ALBUM COVER YIPEEEE
It's weird how this spins off into a legal argument about age of consent. It's a pretty bad argument to say If the state can't enslave you and call it "conscription" then you shouldn't you be able to consent to a personal relationship. These are just arbitrary judgements. One is turning someone into a weapon for the political authority and the other is voluntary association.
The legal test should be is the person involved mentally capable of forming consent in that given situation. The legal test should not be, does Andrew think it's icky lol. If you want to say a 16 year old boy couldn't form consent for sex with an adult, then yes it should be considered criminal. If you say he can form consent, then it's none of your business. (That's the ACTUAL libertarian position btw.) Really the question of if someone has the ability to consent should be down to psychological development, not age. There are some 20 year old who really shouldn't be considered capable to sexual consent and the law does nothing for them.
What you're describing as older women being objectified is really more like idealization, which makes sense when the story is being told from the perspective of the boy.
It's also interesting that the comedians who complain about being censored are "hacks" (we could name some very commercially successful one but okay) and yet where are all the super funny progressive comedians? I don't think our list of them would be nearly as long lol
Saying you wouldn't mind censorship if you weren't saying garbage, is kind of like saying "you don't need your privacy if you're not doing anything wrong."
Imagine watching this and thinking "He left out POC." Why would you even care to pander to someone like that?
Me and the gang going back in time to save young Justin Bieber who's in?
people of color : The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete