Anyone else remember before the ACA when it was 18 and some insurances would let you stay on an additional 4 years if you were in college? That was a driving factor in me going to college when I wasn’t ready and burning the fuck out. At least it was a public school and I didn’t have any debt.
I remember being rejected by a lot of the insurers while i was in college because i had taken an anxiety med
right before the ACA you could stay on til you were 24 i think through cobra if you were in college in my state. it was pretty nice since i decided to start using the insurance for realsies right before my 18th birthday, which was more expensive than college funnily enough.
Oh yeah, cobra was a nightmare, I was on that for a few months and I think it was something like $500/month? Which was absolutely bonkers in mid 00s dollars. Staying on the insurance while in college without paying for cobra was a perk that my dad’s job offered, so it was cheaper for me to be in college than not if I wanted healthcare.
When I was in college, the university provided Healthcare. Sure we had to go to the student health center but the doctors were professors in the med school.
my undergrad didn’t offer a student plan but my grad program did. so i bounced a bit.
Lol, no. He has wealth and fame. It’s not a meeting of minds. It’s loneliness.
The older he gets, the more the distance will be between them, with each new young woman.
For some men, that’s their ultimate fantasy. But only if they never see the partner as an equal or anything more than a possession or toy to use.
Eventually, hell be less desirable, but still wealthy, and we’ll have an Anna Nicole Smith situation.
However, nobody seems to be being hurt at the moment…it’s all consensual and everyone goes in eyes open. It’s just sad.
A girlfriend half my age sounds awesome at first, but I can’t imagine what we would talk about. Hard to see such a relationship being stable. (At least for me)
They probably talk about how he wants to fuck her and she wants to ride around on his yacht.
I hope you’re at least over 40! The generally accepted healthy maximum age gap is half the age, plus 7. That’s not scientific, but what most people find acceptable in others.
In the case of Leo, it’s not just the age gap but the power imbalance due to his wealth. That imbalance is partly why so many celebrities sate other celebrities. The other is PR and also their schedules. It would be difficult to maintain a regular job and have a relationship with someone who travels for work, months at a time. It’s similar to military families, now that I think about it.
I’m 32 and I know of an 18 y/o girl who had a crush on me. We had plenty to talk about and had a similar sense of humour.
But for me, I wouldn’t be comfortable entering into a relationship with a girl 14 years younger than me. It just doesn’t sit right with me and I feel like it would be frowned upon.
What about what they want? We are always talking about this one sided and it infantalizes the other party. Is a 20 year old not allowed to make decisions on who they are sexually or romantically attracted to? At the risk of becoming very unpopular in this thread, two consenting adults where no grooming has occurred should be fine most of the time.
I can no longer tell what is bait, but I’ll bite.
The person you’re replying to said the woman was 18. Society has to make a cut off at a certain point, and 18 isn’t necessarily a bad place, but their life experience and mental faculties are not on an even footing with a 30+ year old. The “brain isn’t developed until 25” isn’t correct, but it’s not wholly wrong. The idea is that the closer one is to underage the easier it is to take advantage of them even if you did not directly groom them. I think that’s why most people direct criticism at the older party in age gap relationships.
Some women may be attracted to older men for perfectly healthy reasons, and vice versa, but generally people marry others within a few years of their own age. The gap in age of married couples has decreased as women have gotten more freedoms. I’m not able to say with certainty that in an equal and free society women prefer men in their age group, but it sure seems like the more rights women have the smaller that gap is. One would argue that says something about what women are actually attracted to, on the whole.
Not all younger women attracted to older men have trauma, but it’s not unusual. An 18 year old is likely to still be living at home. If they don’t always feel safe at home, an older man with their own place seems like a great option. It’s not the man’s fault that the woman has a bad home life, but the fact that the woman may not be able to be completely independent leaves her in a vulnerable position that he may unwittingly be taking advantage of. In her mind, her older boyfriend is “safe”, but really her home is unsafe and he is just the alternative. That’s not a healthy foundation for a relationship. Of course that’s not everyone’s story, or potentially even most people’s story, but an 18 year old generally doesn’t have the experience to know what healthy relationships look like. Two people figuring it out together can be tough but it’s a learning experience, whereas a more experienced partner is likely to have an established framework that they can force on the less experienced one. Again, not saying this is always happening, and it can be coming from a positive place, but generally this dynamic makes the less experienced partner into the one learning from the other all the time, which puts them at a disadvantage, even on a subconscious level. “Oh, he’s more experienced, he probably knows what’s best, I should just do what he says”. They’re less likely to have developed their own sense of self and ability to enforce boundaries. You’d hope that the older person would be helpful in this process, but really that’s not the outcome you generally see. The way men are positioned in society already puts women in a deferential position, adding in this idea of age equating to wisdom or maturity, it’s hard not to see how a young woman might be poorly positioned to fully find or express herself in an age gap relationship, not to mention the coercive effect money can have.
Two consenting adults should indeed be able to do what they want, but people regularly consent to things that are bad for their overall wellbeing. People are free to smoke and drink and do all sorts of things. Being able to do something doesn’t free you from being judged for your behavior. It’s not always the correct judgement, but social norms generally get more progressive (fair/inclusive) and age gaps are increasingly frowned upon, which I think speaks to a society that’s seen the harm they have done and is rebuking them for it.
I’m not super invested in this topic, was just offering another perspective.
You make a few fair points, but they all reduce to “a young adult can’t be trusted to make their own choices” due to any # of life / societal circumstances.
I’m really just against the infantalization of young adults. My point wasn’t that we have enter relationships we are not comfortable or that there are not older folks who prey on the vulnerable. We all know that happens and it’s obviously fucked. The scenario I’m describing is two consenting adults, not one consenting adult and another being manipulated.
The issue is you often don’t have to manipulate someone into doing something that is harmful for them, especially if they do not have the life experience to know what harmful looks like. I’m not saying they should be barred from doing things, but it’s natural to question a relationship where there is a power imbalance, and generally age gap relationships exhibit that imbalance. An imbalance does not mean manipulation occurs, just that there is an opportunity there. Saying young people don’t generally have as much life experience is not infantilizing, it’s generally factual. That is easy to exploit even if you are not intending to. When people make these arguments, I’m always curious as to how many young people they actually know and interact with in a non work environment. The difference between speaking to an 18 year old and a 20 year old is often gargantuan. I wonder if they are not willing to give an 18 year old with their first job more leeway for mistakes than an older person who’s now had several jobs. I think it’s good to give people who are just learning more grace, and to expect more of people who have been around longer. I don’t think that’s infantilizing, I think that’s recognizing the situation people are in and meeting them where they are at. I don’t see how that does not obviously translate to interpersonal relationships.
I will add that I generally see women (the ones more likely to be on the younger end of this equation) advocating against age gaps. Often, women who speak from personal experience note that it was not a positive experience for them. I’m sure some say it’s positive, but the stats seem to indicate that they are on the whole not good either short term or long term. So I generally err on the side of lived experience and statistics, especially when they corroborate each other. I don’t think people are advocating for laws against them, but it makes sense for society to warn of the issues, like we should do with all other things that can cause harm when people would not otherwise be aware of it.
Is a 20 year old not allowed to make decisions on who they are sexually or romantically attracted to?
To be fair, is that a decision anyone can make? That is, we can’t usually control whether or not we’re attracted to someone.
But to your point, yeah, what consenting adults do should be nobody else’s business. We can acknowledge that we wouldn’t personally want such a relationship for ourselves without taking away others’ autonomy.
As to OP, it sounds like they personally didn’t want the relationship, in which case it doesn’t matter how bad the 18 year old wanted it. Nobody’s obligated to take part in a romantic/sexual relationship they don’t want to have, no matter how desperate the other party is for it.
Yeah, I’ve talked to quite a few young women about this topic. Almost universally, they are offended that people are trying to police and shame their sexuality if they are into older men, or say that there is nothing wrong with younger women dating older men even if they don’t personally want to do it.
How is that awesome even at first?
Seggs
No, in Bobbi Brown’s book she talks about having sex with him before he got really famous, and while he was not very good at it, she said it was colossal, and she was engaged to Tommy Lee.
Wow, what a trustworthy source, not attention seeking at all.
At first, the censorship in that article annoyed me. But after thinking about it, it’s hilarious that people can write and publish an article entirely about somebody’s penis, yet they still see the need to censor words like “dick” and “sexual.” As if somebody who chooses to read about someone’s penis is going to be offended by such words, or the article writer has to pRoTeCt tHe cHiLdReN somehow (???)
I just can’t get over how stupid our modern dystopia is.
Dong so big it turned into Lovecraftian horror: unnamable
The call of Cockthulu
sounds like she had a Lars Von Trier like “confusingly large” moment
if you love it put a ringadingdong on it.
:( Why’d you do that, Leo? I was gonna eat that cake… I don’t care how much you love chocolate, that was inappropriate and impolite!
They did it the other day to my fancy new bbq tongs. And before that it was a pate of grated cheese.
I don’t get it… car insurance? Medical insurance?
What does that have to do with liking younger girls? (Assuming that’s the connection to Leo)
Medical insurance. As a young person, you can be covered by and use your parents’ insurance until you hit 26.
You can also be used by Leo until you hit 26, since that’s too old for him. Allegedly.
Did they raise the age at some point in the last couple decades? I had to enroll in community college longer to keep mine when I couldn’t find a job that offered coverage and that was when I was only like 19 or 20.
Yeah I think maybe it had something to do with the ACA. There’s a caveat which I did not mention in the other comment, and it is, of course, tax related. I do believe you have to be in a position where you can be claimed as a dependent on your parents’ taxes. So long as that’s true, you can be on their health plan until 26, at which time you have to get your own.
For being covered by your parents’ insurance, 26 sounds surprisingly old. I would’ve expected 18
You’re not wrong. It used to be 18.
I’ve been told that he dates young women, then drops them when they reach a certain age.
Leo keeping it fresh
While he, himself, gets… Less so.
In Germany medical family insurance ends with turning 25 unless you were insured otherwise for some time in between for example by serving in the Armed Forces
I mean if you’re a dependent at age of 26 without a medical diagnosed illness. Then maybe the insurance cutoff isn’t problem. I have 2 adult children in mid 20’s. They moved out at age 18 and 19 without my support. They have their own insurance and income. It is possible.
You’re right, the problem is more than the cutoff, its that medical insurance is tied to employment. Say someone loses their job due to no fault of their own; company is downsizing, work is automated, the CEO buys into the AI hype to replace workers, or theres unforseen funding cuts to the organization. Then you’re out of a job and don’t have health insurance. Maybe your entire industry isn’t hiring anymore, and the local coffee shop that’s hiring doesn’t offer any benefits. Of course, they won’t hire you anyways because why would they want someone with an advanced degree when they expect you’ll just leave as soon as you find something better. Or you need 3 years prior experience as a barista before being considered.
They need to offer lower cost personal health insurance. That is what Obama Care did but it penalized people without insurance. That part was removed later down the road. The issue is that not enough people signed up. The Gov. was basically trying to force people into signing up and that doesn’t work. Why sign up if you already have health insurance. People stayed at their jobs due to 2008 crash.
Ehhh as someone who has a chronic illness (with a nice $20k/month prescription if you don’t have insurance), the issue is if your health is so bad that you can’t work 40 hrs a week reliably…that’s when you need insurance the most but then you get dumped.
I managed it but boy it was scary.
Shhh. You’ll get downvoted for being remotely successful
Damn, now I have to become homeless just to get ⬆️
