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Melbourne
I wish age gap discourse hadn’t spiraled the way it has because I want there to be a safe space to say “Men in their 40s who date 25 year olds aren’t predators, they’re just fucking losers”
… honey you just described a predator LOL
No, I said what I said. But thank you for providing an example of how this topic has become insufferable on the internet.
i am honestly burningly curious about how a 40 year old man who fucks around with college grads is not a predator
“College grad” is not a developmental stage, nor is it what I would describe a 25 year old as. I was 4 years out of college at 25. My mother had two children at 25. You can be a fucking congressman at 25.
There’s a difference between a man who is immature and buys into misogynistic views of beauty and aging and one who is a predator. Also, many actual predators? Not losers and able to move through society pretty freely being seen as cool and the ideal, so conflating the two isn’t helpful.
This is going to be my final response to any attempt at discourse. You’re welcome to continue amongst yourselves.
also sometimes a 40 year old and a 25 year old just weirdly find each and it’s a perfectly normal relationship - like all human relationships are complex and situational, it’s so rarely an either/or thing let alone just one thing only
if a 40 year old dude only dates 25 year olds, DiCaprio style or something adjacent to it, then yeah he’s a loser
if a 40 year old dude meets a 25 year old through social event or friends or whatever and they happen to hit it off and make a go of it, and this isn’t some sort of reoccurring pattern for the guy, that’s just a relationship with an age difference
being predatory means something specific, and man I agree w/ OP and really wish people just stopped ascribing it to any and all relationship dynamics they personally might not like
predator and groomer - two words that need to go up on the “can’t use till you learn their meaning” shelf
Something I find really stressful is this seemingly endless creep of infantilisation and removal of autonomy from young people. Like, not to be all “in my dayyyy” about it, but… at 16, my friends and I were expected to be broadly responsible for our presence in the world. Most of us had jobs, we navigated public transport, looked after younger siblings. We were expected to make informed decisions about our future careers and our sexual partners. We were allowed to leave education and work full time (this was not necessarily good thing - I think increasing the school leaving age to 18 was broadly for the best). Most of us were smoking, or drinking, or both - again, not good things, but just facts - and many of us were sexually active. Many of the AFAB people I knew were on the pill. Legally, we could live independently, or get married with adult consent.
Legally (I live in the UK) we were not minors, although we inhabited an odd legal limbo until we turned 18, and we were certainly not “children”. Intellectually, socially, though, we were considered (young) adults, or at the most “older teenagers.” We were expected to read mostly adult books (rather than middle grade or YA), watch the news/read papers, watch mostly adult television.
And I do think we a bit under-protected, under-supported, and in some cases - neglected and financially exploited - and I’m not necessarily advocating that. But it did make us feel, I think, in charge of our own lives, capable and competent to make decisions.
At 16-17 my parents knew they could leave me alone overnight/for a couple of nights, and I wouldn’t starve or burn the house down. I felt comfortable getting cross country trains on my own, or booking and staying at a hotel (yes, with my boyfriend.)
Then there was this… creeping of sentiments that we were all Too Young to trouble our heads about certain things. A lot of it was good - more stringent licensing laws, raising the school leaving age, raising the minimum smoking age(!) - but some of the broader cultural stuff was… a bit patronising? Eg, the introduction of “New Adult” as a category of books aimed at 18-25 year olds, the way cartoons and books written for the 9-12 age group were being marketed as for the 12-15 age group, referring to late teens as “children,” etc etc.
Then, in 2008, there was the big financial crash and suddenly my generation were (broadly) robbed of all the usual markers of adulthood and success, meaning that we got ‘stuck’ in the lifestyles and modes our late teens/early 20s. And suddenly, all the emphasis shifted from social and legal protections for late teens/ younger adults, to legal restrictions on their freedoms/rights, and strange philosophical protections on the emotional states.
So, OF COURSE a 23 year old can’t buy a beer without carrying an ID card, and a 17 year old can’t have a crush on a 16 year old, but also, because you’re *children* you don’t need to live like adults. So the UK government got to save money by saying “18 isn’t a proper adult,” then “20 isn’t a proper adult,” and “25 isn’t a proper adult” because it meant they could refuse to give single occupancy housing benefit rates to people of those ages (I think they’ve raised it over 30 now.) Or by refusing to clamp down on exploitative temporary/zero hours contracts - because they’re just “temp jobs for young people!”, or by raising the retirement age because “60 is far too young to retire. You’re not a real adult until 35.”
And it means the discursive environment is such that you can claim that a 21 year old trans person is too young to make their own medical decisions, or a 15 year old is too young to consent to the contraceptive pill.
Meanwhile, they are not offering additional *protections* to these newly infantilised adults. 18 year olds are still encouraged to saddle themselves with enormous educational debt, or allowed to have credit cards, or expected to pay rent, or no longer receive child benefits. You still have to *work*. In fact, in the States, they’re looking to removed child employment restrictions - but that’s fine, because 20 year olds are being protected from making their own medical decisions, and adults get to say which books their teen kids are reading in school, and kids aren’t allowed to change their name or what they wear without parental consent.
We can see what these people are doing to the rights of children - so why are we being so complacent in expanding the definition of ‘child’?
Regardless - 25 is VERY CLEARLY an adult. At 25 I was married, had two kids, an overdraft, rent to pay, and experience of living in the world for 6 years. I had more in common with someone of 40 than I did with someone of 15. Hell, at*20* I had more in common with someone of 40 than someone of 15. Any sexual or relationship decisions you make at 25 are your own to make.
Of course there are likely to be power imbalances in a 15 year age gap - which is why most 25 year olds don’t date 40somethings - but not actually necessarily. And yeah, a 40 year old who only dates 20somethings is a skeeze - just like a 30 year old who routinely ingratiates themselves with rich 80 year olds is a skeeze.
But if any young people are reading this (doubt it)… your rights are much, much more important than your protections.
Yes, young people should be protected, but if someone claims they’re protecting you while denying you access to personal autonomy, financial stability, intellectual curiosity, or sexual self-determination because you’re “too young” to need, or understand those things… be very suspicious of their motives.
And if you’re legally an adult, ask yourself why you don’t feel comfortable defining yourself in those terms.
This thread is from 2023, and now with the Cass report we have seen the real, tangible danger that comes from infantilizing adults in their 20s.
the long reply above mentiones this, but I want to emphasize this: many western societies have lost their “rituals of maturity”. Young adults don’t get to buy a house, starting a family is a lot of stress if all adults in the household have to work fulltime, and it’s almost impossible to find a job above minimum wage that offers career options. All of which are things which previous generations enjoyed more broadly, and which were seen as steps into adulthood.
Only a few decades ago, 90% of the people in the region where I live owned their own houses. Granted, they were often shitty ones, but they were their own. Today, not even 50% own the place they live in.
We’ve removed the milestones of adulthood, it’s no wonder we increasingly infantilize adults. And the worst is, this does nothing to prevent real predators from preying on under-protected people! With the removal of the milestones of adulthood, we also removed a lot of the safety net previous generations could rely on.
All of these additions are absolutely spot on, but there’s one more thing I want to add, and that is to point out how the “a 40yo dating a 25yo is inherently predatory” type of age gap discourse increasingly treats predation, not as a conscious, specific behaviour, but as an ambient effect of being in proximity to someone younger. Because if, as it’s so frequently argued, it’s impossible for people of different ages to have anything meaningful in common, such that there’s no legitimate grounds even for friendship between (say) a 25yo and a 40yo, let alone something romantic or sexual, then what’s being implied is that either that everyone is at all times only a single interaction away from natively turning predator, or that predation is somehow natural, automatic, reflexive - neither of which is true.
But believing that it is is incredibly fucking dangerous. Because if there’s no good or safe or reasonable way for someone older to interact with someone younger outside of a strict workplace or familial relationship (and sometimes not even then), then what we’re doing is saying that it’s inherently unsafe or wrong for younger people to learn from older people, or for older people to mentor them, or for (say) twentysomethings and fiftysomethings to exist in the same spaces as equal adults. We’re saying that an eighteen-year-old should feel bad and weird about hanging out with a two-years-younger friend they’ve known since infancy because it’s inappropriate for minors and legal adults to be friends. (I truly wish this was a hypothetical example, but no, it’s not: I have legitimately seen multiple accounts of teenagers getting stressed out about exactly this type of thing because of this discourse.) And by acting as if the age gap power imbalance can only ever go one way, we’re also completely ignoring the reality of things like elder abuse or older people being scammed or exploited by younger people.
But beyond all this, if you assume all older people are inherently dangerous to younger people, you’re leaving yourself horrifically vulnerable, not only because you’re not putting any effort into learning what actual predatory behaviour looks like, but because age gaps are not the only fucking vector for predation or abuse. If you can’t distinguish between a safe adult/older person and a suspicious adult/older person or between trustworthy behaviour and manipulative behaviour because you’ve trained yourself to screen categories rather than actions, not only will you miss out on many cool friendships, but you’ll be vulnerable to exploitation if and when someone, be they older or not, eventually sneaks past your guard, because you won’t know to recognise what they’re doing.
Yes, there are absolutely times when an age gap is, in and of itself, a massive red flag, but if you can’t distinguish between “45yo man marrying 18yo girl he’s known since she was 12 the very moment she’s legal” and, say, “35yo divorcee marrying 50yo widower she met at an art show,” or “19yo dating a 17yo from the next school over after meeting at a mutual friend’s party,” or even “22yo has an extremely fun consensual one night stand with the 38yo they met at the bar,” then you’re going to be very poorly placed to recognise any abusive dynamics that don’t perfectly align with the optics you’ve internalised as being indistinguishable from abuse, because the optics and the abuse are two different things. The one might indicate the presence of the other, but it doesn’t guarantee it, and you can certainly have the abuse without the optics.
And particularly in the context of conservatives increasingly insisting that just existing as a queer or trans person around children is an inherently predatory act, it makes me feel absolutely insane, how quickly so many people have conceded to the exact same type of logic (that an older person just existing around a younger person for non-familial, non-work reasons is inherently suspicious), argued for the exact same reasons (think of the children!) without stopping to question it at all.
Melbourne
Why do we treat human variation—or divergence from a norm—as if it’s a malfunction, rather than contextual transformation?
Let's first look at something which we all know changes state and comes in many different forms. Water. Ice, steam, mist, humidity, waves, rain ... but
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Ice is not a failure of water. 🌊
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Steam is not a disorder of water.
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Rain isn’t a malfunction of clouds.
We recognise each of those states as valid. From childhood we are introduced to many forms of water learning that sometimes, as steam from a kettle, it can hurt. Other times, running around in a spray of water from a hose, is can be the most fun and yet, other days, as the rain falls on a day we hoped to go for a walk, it can just ruin our plans. But we don't fixate on getting rid of those states of water forever.
So, Why are we still talking about regulation and dysregulation as though one is right and the other is a problem and should be eliminated?
🧠 Dysregulation Is Not Bad. It’s Biological.
This is not a critique of how the term dysregulation came to be. That word served a purpose, helped build awareness, and gave language to a pattern. It can still be used.
But we’ve evolved. And it may no longer serve us to keep labeling what we feel and experience as something broken.
Because when we name something only in contrast to “good,” we stop learning from it.
We either try to evade, excise, or control it—never explore it.
Think of How to Train Your Dragon.
The dragons were seen as a problem for centuries—dangerous, wild, destructive—until someone said:
“What if they’re not the enemy? What if they’re just... living?”
🔍 Language Shapes Perception:
Join me for a moment - let's step out from the main hall of water analogies into the corridor!
Language is more than words—it’s how we map reality.
It doesn’t just describe what we see; it teaches us how to value what we see.
Think about the words disorder, dysfunction, or dysregulation.
These prefixes—“dys”, “dis”, “mal”, “un”—don’t just mark a change. They imply a problem. A fall from grace. A wrongness.
But what if these words are shaping how we see the entire spectrum of human experience?
Let’s take a moment to zoom out and consider this:
We don’t say “dyswater” for steam.
We don’t say “malwater” for humidity.
These are seen as states—not value-laden conditions.
There’s no assumed “good” or “bad” among ice, steam, or liquid—just transitions based on environment and context.
What about Available - Alert - Alarmed
These are descriptions. They do not provide detail about why or how this state exists. They leave room for every individual experience however they are a good indicator of what regulatory tools are likely to be needed or what skills need to be called on. No different to driving, in times of emergency and Alarm we will only call on what we have already practiced and know. We learn most when Available.
⚙️ The Nervous System: Still Vital, Still Intelligent
Let’s explore nervous system states not as good/bad, but as responsive, natural, and intelligent.
1. Rest and Digest: The Regenerative State
(What most people call “regulated”)
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Parasympathetic nervous system leads
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Slower heart rate, deeper breath
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Digestion and bonding activate
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Learning, healing, and connection happen
This is a beautiful state. But it's not the only valuable one.
2. Protect and Act: The Responsive State
(Too often labeled “dysregulated”)
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Sympathetic nervous system takes the wheel
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Adrenaline, cortisol rise
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Alertness spikes, digestion slows
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The body gears up for fight, flight, freeze, or fawn
This isn’t a malfunction.
It’s the body responding to threat or stress in the most precise way it knows how.
Some people flip between these states rapidly. That doesn’t mean they’re failing—it means their safety radar is working overtime.
💡 Feeling Is Not the Problem
Let’s say it clearly:
Feeling is not dysregulation. Feeling is information.
It’s your body talking—not just to the world, but to you.
The nervous system isn’t betraying you. It’s reporting back.
So instead of saying, “Why am I like this?”
We might begin to ask, “What am I learning from this?”
Somewhere it is written that emotion is Energy in Motion (E-motion) and if you can recognise how that energy was generated and ensure it moves through us, then it can make for an easier life. Others will refer to the somatic experience and how to facilitate body movement so as to maintain emotional balance and stability.
🧬 The Two Generational Wounds
1. Panic Instead of Presence
Many of us were never taught to feel without fear.
We learned that emotions were:
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Punishment
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Chaos
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Weakness
We were taught to shut them down. But here’s the cost:
What we shut down, we can’t learn from.
Even in medicine, healing comes not from suppressing the illness, but studying it. Control can buy time. Excision can eliminate a problem from view but
Presence is what starts the healing—not avoidance.
2. Performing Peace: Disconnection as Safety
A lot of people—consciously or not—have taught themselves and their children to:
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Numb out
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Pretend
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Suppress
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Perform calm
Why? Because the world rewards it.
Certainty sells. Politeness is safe. (and if we were being cynical, commercialism relied upon it)
But underneath it, something cracks.
Because true safety doesn’t come from pretending. It comes from being with what’s real.
🔄 Humans Aren’t Just Reactive—We’re Reflective
Animals react.
Humans can reflect.
We can learn to:
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Track our nervous system
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Name what’s happening
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Support our own shifting states
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Increase our capacity, not our control
This isn’t about becoming “regulated.”
It’s about becoming more available—to ourselves, to others, to life.
🌱 Adults Change Too
We understand that kids change:
Infant → toddler → teen. We support them accordingly.
But adults change too—and across 50+ years of adulthood!
And yet there’s almost no recognition, modeling, or infrastructure for adult nervous system growth.
We grow, adapt, and respond. But support? It’s scarce.
🪞 Modeling Matters
You wouldn’t expect a child to read if they’d never seen a visual representation of their words. So too, we can't expect children to navigate, regulate or manage emotion beyond what they see adults do.
So why do we expect them to manage their nervous systems without ever seeing us do it?
If we tell a child “you're flipping your lid” but we never name our own overwhelm, what are we expecting? If we never model consistently a return to Available after being Alert or Alarmed - then it is no wonder they are left confused, or worse, invalidated.
Catchy phrases can’t replace lived modeling.
Show, Don’t Just Say
They need to see:
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Overwhelm named with care
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Regret acknowledged
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Recovery modeled
Not perfection. But presence.
Suggested Shift in Language 🔁🧾
Instead of dysregulation, try:
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Responsive state
"I'm overwhelmed, I need to focus on regulation for a few minutes"
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"I'm feeling protective, this makes me less available right now"
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Refer to being Available or Alert or Alarmed. These maintain privacy.
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I'm in Alert mode, give me a few minutes to take a look through my concerns
Acknowledgement: Learning skills takes time because knowing gives you nothing without practice.
So too, using new language takes time and practice.
These phrases offer description, not judgment.
They invite curiosity, not correction.
They maintain connection while facilitating accountability.
Language matters.
Let’s make space for better ones. ✨
🧭 From Control to Curiosity
Dysregulation is not failure.
It’s not bad behavior. It’s not a shameful flaw.
It’s the body doing what it knows best.
It’s your system responding in context—like steam in the heat or ice in the cold.
We don’t try to fix steam.
We don’t fear humidity. (well, I dread it but that is because I'm a mild winter person!)
We just understand: It’s still water.
Still vital. Still necessary.
What if we treated human states the same way?
What if we stopped naming our responsiveness as wrong—and started honoring it as truth?
Let’s stop trying to control the tide, and start listening to the current.
Because nervous system responsivity isn’t something to regulate out of existence.
It’s something to understand, support, and respect.
Regulation is the practice of acting to or moving between a Regenerative and a Responsive nervous system state.
Melbourne
Sexual Freedoms: Navigating Gaps in Desire with Care and Clarity
What happens when neither partner feels sexual, or when one partner desires intimacy while the other doesn’t? It might be time to talk—or communicate in any way that works best for you and your partner(s).
It’s about sharing information, inviting perspective, and exploring possibilities, with the emphasis on curiosity and care, not solutions or expectations.
🌱 A Framework for Talking About Sexual Gaps Without Pressure
This 3-step framework is designed for anyone navigating mismatched sexual desire or changing intimacy patterns. It helps bring clarity, opens space for dialogue, and encourages mutual understanding without requiring immediate action or deep emotional processing on the spot.
The steps are:
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Inform
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Invite
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Intend / Ideas
🧠 1. Inform
Share the facts of what’s happening—without diving into your emotional responses just yet.
You might say:
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“I’ve noticed there’s been a significant gap in our sexual connection.”
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“I’m letting you know this because it’s starting to matter to me in ways I can’t ignore.”
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“These gaps feel ongoing, and it’s no longer feeling like a one-off.”
At this stage, try to stay with observable realities. You’re painting a picture. If the other person says they don’t understand, stay curious:
“Which part doesn’t make sense?”
“Do you want me to rephrase?”
Remember, what’s clear in your mind may take a few tries to express.
🗣 2. Invite
Open the floor to their perspective, without assuming, judging, or interrupting.
You could ask:
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“Is there something going on for you around why we’re not having sex?”
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“Have you sex shifted or been impacted by anything lately?”
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“Is this something that feels okay for you, or is it also something you’ve been thinking about?”
Stay in listening mode. If you’re surprised, say so:
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“That’s unexpected. I’m glad you told me.”
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“I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thanks for sharing.”
This step is about connection, not correction. You’re inviting information—not demanding it.
🌀 3. Intend / Ideas
Now, you can begin to gently explore what’s next—without pressure to solve things immediately.
You might share:
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“I’ve been thinking about my needs and desires, and wondering what that means for us.”
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“I’m considering dating again or finding other ways to express my sexuality.”
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“I’d like to keep playing and being close with you, but I don’t know if that’s possible anymore.”
Then ask:
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“Do you have thoughts on how we might move forward?”
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“Is there anything you’d like to explore together—even if just for now?”
Remember: They’re not responsible for solving this for you. But inviting their thoughts helps you co-create awareness. It also ensures no one is blindsided if your choices shift in the future (e.g., more solo time, exploring kink with others, reallocating energy or finances).
🔍 Optional Reflection: What’s Behind the Need?
If your partner(s) ask why this is coming up for you—or why sex feels important—it’s okay to pause.
You might say:
“Thanks for asking. I want to share how I feel, but I need to do it at a time when I won’t expect you to change for me right away. Otherwise, I’ll risk feeling more rejected or resentful.”
This is emotionally honest and protective of your peace. If the conversation becomes triggering or you need support to unpack it more deeply, a trusted therapist or supportive friend might be a safer place to begin.
🧭 Final Thoughts: Sexual Gaps as Self-Discovery
Sometimes, our frustration around missing intimacy isn’t only about our partner—it can also reveal what sex represents to us:
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Connection?
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Play?
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Reassurance?
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Personal freedom?
Exploring this can be a gift.
It might change how you relate to sex entirely—and even deepen your physical connection with others.
💖 Wishing You Gentleness and Growth
Whatever comes next, I hope you feel:
✔ Seen
✔ Heard
✔ Empowered
✔ Free
May your needs be honored.
Your curiosity protected.
Your body and spirit nurtured.
You’re allowed to want more.
Melbourne
Something I’m working on lately is trying to find healthy approach when it comes to engaging with opposing viewpoints re: discourse and politics. Because yes, there are trolls and bad actors, and it’s seldom worth wasting your energy on them; but particularly online, you can’t always immediately distinguish these people from, say, a teenager grappling inexpertly with difficult topics, or a boomer working with outdated language and assumptions, or someone who’s been given bad information - and these are all people that it can be worthwhile attempting to reach, even if you don’t always succeed. I don’t want to burn myself out, but I don’t want disconnect, either, and so I’ve been thinking: what approach best allows me to remain optimistic while still drawing boundaries?
Here’s my current solution: to treat potentially difficult conversations with strangers like a rewilding project. A sort of social conservationism, where the idea is to untangle what you can in passing, leave behind a few potential seeds, and then move on: a project of impact over intent. Nobody expects conservation efforts to succeed in a day, and it would be foolish to fixate so heavily on trying to plant a single tree in arid soil that you’ve got no energy left for more achievable goals. Inevitably, you’ll encounter areas that can’t be recovered - or at least, not by you - in which case, any time you spend making sure of their unviability is just due diligence, and only becomes a waste if you commit yourself to trying to salvage the unsalvageable. But by the same token, you don’t want to over-engage with a healthy area, either. You want to see what’s needed, give it a push in that direction if it’s within your capabilities, and then keep going.
And maybe this is a strange way to think of things, but I’m finding it helpful. The fantasy of completely flipping someone’s perspective if you can only find the exact right thing to say is a powerful one, but it’s not a realistic expectation to carry around for 99.9% of interactions, and as such, there’s a need - for me, at least - to detach the success of the exchange from the visibility of the outcome. I can’t see into someone else’s head, and in all probability, I’ll never speak to that particular stranger again: therefore, my concept of catharsis needs to change. So instead of thinking, Did I change their mind? and considering anything less than a yes a failure, it’s better to ask, Did I do my best to give them something to think about?, because realistically, this is all I can actually do. I can’t control how a stranger receives what I say, but I can make an effort to be clear, calm and comprehensible, and that ought to be worth something.
Melbourne
I actually started this weeks ago, but then didn’t finish it in much the same way as I’ve not been finishing a bunch of other things. I decided I would finish it now in honour of the 100 (maybe??) block wide wall of TNT.
Melbourne
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