Not Safe for Work. Contains Adult Content. Possibly triggering discussion of legal teen sex.
Hugo Schwyzer made a post last month on Jezebel about ‘barely legal’ porn, questioning its prominence and coming to the conclusion that it’s often about power and often an undesirable thing in men. The article was overwhelmingly focused on men being aroused by 18-19 year old women. It didn’t touch on women who have barely legal fantasies, or who like to dress up as a school girl / cheerleader / etc. and engage in roleplay.
I’ve never held his viewpoint to be sure, for a multitude of reasons. For one thing, I fucking love the idea of May / December relationships, and stories about younger women and older men, as do many women. It’s one of the main kinks that J.E. Keep and I write and publish (check out Tiffany or Amy’s series!).
High school is often the point in time that most of us become who we will be for the rest of our lives, and make friendships that stick with us through the years. Love or hate high school, it makes a very deep cut on you.
More important than that, people like the idea of ‘first times’, of virginity, of youth and passion. Of awkward uncertainty and figuring things out. Of finding themselves. Of figuring out what types of things you like, what type of men and women you’re sexually attracted to. It’s when we lose our virginity, find out our sexuality, and start to explore our passions both sexually and otherwise.
Truthfully, most people don’t lose their virginity after high school – the average age is somewhere around 15. And it’s unlike other sexual encounters. It’s naïve, and scary, and arousing, and different. It’s new and strange and amazing. Of course people want to relive their first times – why wouldn’t they?
As well, I’ve been trying to find proof of his statement that “women’s fertility peaks between 22 and 26” but most of what I find is that phrase, unsourced. Searching this phrase actually gets Hugo Schwyzer’s article on page 1 of google. It is, at the least, debatable.
Moving on, I want to look at the issue of power dynamics and how it relates to age, specifically in regards to older men lusting over younger women with the presumption that they do so because they feel less awkward and bumbling.
I’ve known many women of many ages, and I’ve learned that some are younger than me with a greater awareness of sexual nuance and pleasure. I’ve met some older than me that weren’t even aware of some of the more vanilla sex acts. Some porn stars at 18 are as brilliant as porn stars at 50. Some women are just more emotionally and sexually mature at a younger age than others.
I’m not saying that some young women aren’t exploited in sex work or in relationships, and I’m not saying that some of the time it’s because of their age and vulnerability that people choose to exploit them. However exploiting a young woman is different than exploiting a child, and should be treated accordingly.
This feels a lot like infantalization; presuming that women need others to make and regulate their choices because even at the proper age of consent, we don’t trust women to know the full scope of their decisions. I understand that his piece was mostly focused on male desire and why men have these desires; however it still comes across as condescending to both genders to say that the only reason that men desire young women is because they’re vulnerable and innocent – and implicitly too stupid to know better.
Most importantly, though, is I want to ask – what is wrong with the concept of men and women lusting for teens of legal age while watching pornography?
Unfortunately I feel this has an awful lot to say about the mentality of the person with this line of thinking. Either they don’t trust themselves and their line between fantasy and reality, or they don’t trust everyone else’s line between fantasy and reality. Hugo goes on to say that he is concerned that looking at barely legal porn could potentially harm a man’s ability to get off to his older wife, however he offers no proof of this claim, however anecdotal. Barely legal porn was a huge thing when I was young in the 90s and he said this goes back to the 70s and yet I’ve seen no proof that divorce rates have gone up because men have stopped wanting to have sex with their wives.
Few individuals require sex to meet up their fantasies every single time they engage in it, and I feel comfortable and confident with people, as a whole, having a distinct line between fantasy and reality – and most of us can find both to be fulfilling in different ways.
I’ve come to the conclusion that a healthy adult has no issue separating fantasy and reality without any negative impact upon their real life. But not only that, your average adult is more thoughtful then we often give them credit for. Few of us are good at expressing that verbally or textually, but I trust others enough to understand their own thoughts and desires, and what they mean to/for them.
I’ve eased up on trying to analyze and discern other peoples motivations so much, because it usually just ends up revealing more about my own perspective than theirs.
I completely agree. I think a lot of trouble arises when we try to lambaste someone with a particular fetish or like as being *blank* where *blank* stands for mentally ill, or troubled, or wrong, or bad, or scary, or whatever. Having thoughts and fantasies don’t define someone – their actions do.
Most people are reasonable enough to know when their fantasies can and should be acted out in real life, and those who don’t are part of a small minority. We hear about the people who do bad and illegal things based on their fantasies because it’s still so very, very rare. That’s because most people enjoy responsibly – and realistically.
Long time reader, first time commenter here. Nice blog, BTW!
As someone who actually works in the adult industry I can testify that the trend towards younger girls is ABSOLUTELY about power. The men who come into my work and pick a “fresh-faced” girl are always invariably the “creeps” who will try to get away with more than they’re allowed to. They will pick a homely(by society’s standards) looking eighteen year old over a (conventionally) attractive girl in her twenties because it isn’t about a particular set of attributes they associate with youth, it’s because they feel the need to assert their supposed male superiority. It’s more of a reflection on certain men in our society (usually those in the MRA camp) who through their own inadequacies are incapable of seeing a female partner as an equal.
That is not to undermine the sexual autonomy of young girls AT ALL – as you rightfully said, there are those who can make informed choices without the guiding influence of adults.
I’ve definitely seen that – the ones trying to take advantage of young women. They think that if they’re young they won’t know the ‘rules’, or that they’ll be too scared to tell the men no. I’ve also seen plenty, though, that are creeps of the normal persuasion (like you and I?
) that just think young women are more youthful, or energetic, or ‘sweeter’.
And I like that you brought up the issue of looks. Certain men do try to take advantage of women that are less attractive because they feel they’ll be easier to manipulate. Since they assume the women have less self esteem, they assume they’ll eat up the littlest bits of affection.
I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the blog! Happy to have you reading!
I think what I’m really trying to say is that while some men focus on young women because they’re creeps, not all men who like young women are creeps.