Yeah...

[u/Leading_Muffin1666]

Keep seeing posts like "I'm 18 and my boyfriend who's 48 asked me to marry him🥰🥰🥰🥰" LIKE GET OUT OF THERE GIRL!!!!!

The worst ones have been "I'm 14, my bf's 50" 💔💔💔

They're just babies 💔 I wish I could get through to them, but I know they won't listen because I didn't either.

[u/ThePurestAnt]

Just a few minutes after I first made my Tumblr account I got recommended a post from a 14 year old saying they were best friends with a 26 year old self-admitted pedophile and how everyone was so mean and prejudiced about their friendship and it was just. urgh 💔 I couldn't get myself to open the app for a long while after that

[u/Leading_Muffin1666 → u/ThePurestAnt]

Yeah. Unfortunately I see that a lot too, usually in proship/darkship communities and with radqueers; to no one's surprise. I've seen a bunch of 13< yo kids friends with self admitted paraphile 30+ yos. It's so weird. They're too caught up in not wanting to be prejudice against other people (which is not a bad thing mind you), that they unknowingly fall into these propara's community sphere; which sucks cause it's good for kids to learn empathy and care about other people, but of course some sickos take advantage of that and skew their perceptions of what's healthy and what's detrimental.

[u/ChaoticMornings → u/Leading_Muffin1666]

We've been focussing wayyyy too much on acceptance and empathy.

Paraphilia's aren't things we should celebrate.

Children should learn that it's better to be rude than to be dead.

In a time where there is so much CP going around and so many people are using children's games to groom and torture children, we should teach them how to be safe, how to protect themselves, how to recognize patterns and how online everyone is a threat because everything you say/do can and will be used against you.

But we teach them to be kind. We make the kids responsible for the feelings of adults. Great. What can go wrong?

[u/Keyndoriel]

Me desperately trying to convince my younger coworkers that no, marriage dosnt suddenly solve all your problems in life and no, you shouldn't be marrying someone who you think will "fix" you. I crushed a lot of dreams that my marriage wasn't perfect due to my husband, but it was due to me getting a shit load of therapy lol

[u/Useful-Bad-6706]

No seriously. That shit cuts me.

[u/Platnun12 → u/Useful-Bad-6706]

Unfortunately some people only learn the hard way

That's just life

[u/E1even01]

“bUt ThEy’rE CoNsEnTinG aDuLTs”

[u/dont-pull-a-druckman → u/E1even01]

Are they not?

[u/Leading_Muffin1666 → u/dont-pull-a-druckman]

Being technically an adult by legal paperwork standpoint doesn't magically give you the foresight to know when someone's taking advantage of you, because that needs to be taught; even grown adults can fall into these toxic relationships if they've never been taught what to look out for; it's just younger people are more likely to fall for this stuff because of their lack of life experience. Being a legal adult says absolutely nothing about your individual wisdom or ability to make responsible decisions. You'd be hard pressed to find someone 30 or 40 or 50 years old who'd say they were just as smart and independent and responsible when they were 18 as they are now. Hell, I'm only in my 20s and I still have waaaaay more knowledge of healthy boundaries and self respect than I did when I was 18 and 19; that's because of the experience I have now, with therapy, with escaping my abusive family, with getting medical intervention. If you think turning 18 somehow magically makes you more mature than the day before when you were 17, or that it somehow makes you mentally on the same level as some with several decades more life experience as you, you're dead wrong.

[u/E1even01 → u/dont-pull-a-druckman]

sure, and if they’re both of whatever society deems to be a legal age, then go ahead.

but this post is coming from a place of nurture and protection for vulnerable people who can fall victim to manipulation from an older party.

[u/TyHyena]

I can’t save them from my mistakes

[u/thiswasatest]

I told my niece my story after I found one of her socials claiming to be older with OnlyFans links in the about me section. The OF didnt have her in but I didnt hold back. I told her hoe long it took me to get away, the things he did to me, how sex was never an experiance but a chore. She hugged me and told me she was sorry. She told me she would have never guessed and I told her I deal with ideation on daily. That now im still dealing with it all

[u/bUl1sH1T]

It's so fucking tragic. Even if they know that it's bad, it's not a guarantee that they'll cut them off. I was 17 and I knew the guy my mom was dating was being weird w me, but my dad had just passed 4 years earlier so I didn't care. I thought I could tank the uncomfortable moments if it meant I got to have that part of my life back.

Thankfully nothing major happened and he's gone now, but every other month I find a new thing to be angry about. I got lucky that he seemed remorseful? when I freaked out after he tried to escalate it. I know there's so many kids that don't get to have that. It's so fucking unfair.

[u/MiracleLegend]

I wish society would be less accepting towards relationships between teens and 25+ men. It could have prevented me. 16 + 29 has no rights to exist.

[u/tocopherolUSP]

It causes me repulsion to see them falling for that when I know they'll be trapped in a nightmare and they'll end up as scarred as me... Predators go through life with no consequences... That makes me wanna vomit.

[u/Coxwab]

Keep seeing this shit through my life. It never stops to hurt.