I’m not trying to witch hunt on anyone nor will I use this to inform witch-hunts in the future, it’s just something I am wondering about.

Also forgive the use of “ephebophile,” I’m not using it in an apologist sense but because - when formulating my question - I was more thinking about people attracted to teenagers.

  • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
    31·
    3 hours ago

    seek out friendships or romantic relationships with young adults?

    So, there are kinds of people you hear about culturally that despite whatever age bracket they are in, for some reason, keep wanting to go out with people that have just come out of high school, and are 18+.

    For SOME reason, they KEEP trying to get into these kinds of relationships.

    I wonder why that is? Not “oh, this random person I encountered and have good chemistry with happens to be lower age than me, but my previous and next partners have been a roughly sensible age for me”. No, these people keep going for that age range specifically; people who are legally adults, but only just.

    I wonder what motivates these people to do that? 🤔

    • FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Yes, a fair point. That is part of what I was wondering actually - is someone who exhibits that behaviour doing so because a young adult is adjacent to a teenager, in their eyes?

      Your observations bring us onto some natural follow-up questions.

      • Is Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, someone suffering from ephebophilia and toeing the line legally? Most of the internet seems to think so and seems disgusted by his dating habits.
      • If a young adult is non-minor, should we tolerate much-older adults only dating young adults? If not, do you think it should it be solved with a sliding scale of “acceptable dating ages” based on your own age, or merely with social punishment (e.g “cancelling”) - or is it a non-policeable issue?