| Posted: 03 May 2026 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | 1
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During the Me Too movement, there was a very valid reckoning regarding the power imbalances that can occur in age-gap relationships, particularly ones involving relationships that started when the younger partner was in their late teens/early 20s. I remember watching this cultural shift play out in real-time with the show RIVERDALE, where the first season had a storyline involving a student having sex with his teacher, and it was played for sex appeal. Five or six seasons later, referring back to that same storyline, the characters were saying, “Oh, you were a victim! You were groomed!”
There has been a strange confluence between this legitimate reevaluation of these specific types of age-gap relationships, a largely Conservative moral panic regarding pedophilia and human trafficking (while turning a blind eye to people involved with actual human traffickers), and a set of terminally online Gen Zers that likes to infantilize themselves, and it leads to some really weird takes like, “Is a 35 year old dating a 29 year old grooming?”
Edited by Michael Roberts on 03 May 2026 at 1:38pm
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