This is my first post to LessWrong, and I'm not actually sure if the audience here will care about this topic. But I think of all audiences, this post probably has the best chance of really being understood here, due to it challenging some widespread misconceptions.
In summary, this is post to express my frustration at the current societal obsession and misunderstanding of "grooming." Everyone is quick to use that term, but nobody seems to realize fully what grooming actually is, and how it may or may not be relevant to whatever claim they're trying to make.
In particular, I'm thinking about something I've been seeing more frequently online. Adult age-gap relationships being called grooming based entirely on the age difference. Firstly, grooming is not just about age. Secondly, the default reasoning for this claim is founded in misinformation.
If you ask someone with this opinion what their reasoning is, it's usually something like "The prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing until 25."
This is claim is founded in a myth. Jay N. Giedd, who conducted the study most likely to have led to this misunderstanding said, “When we started, we thought we'd follow kids until about 18 or 20. If we had to pick a number now, we'd probably go to age 25.” The study did not even go up to 25.
The brain never "finishes" developing at all, and in some ways our cognitive abilities decline with age. Younger brains are better at learning and are more adaptable. It's not linear, with older adults always being more intelligent or capable than younger adults.
I'm sure everyone knows (either directly or indirectly) many people who are older then them who are not more intelligent or who may be prone to making bad decisions. Growing up, I witnessed the adults around me make many choices that even as a child I knew were bad choices. Sometimes I told them this, and of course as an adult, they "knew better" and ignored my opinion. As an adult now, I see older adults fail to understand things the younger generations do easily.
Another point against adult age-gap relationships can be older people have more experience, and therefore are more capable of manipulation. This assumes bad faith, and I'm not a fan of arguments based on bad faith. Being older does not necessarily equal better social skills anyway, because social skills vary pretty wildly based on personality.
Additionally, a younger person can just as easily take advantage of an older person, hence the "gold digger" stereotype. Younger people can hold power in a relationship. The older person may think this is as good as they'll ever get, and they may want to do whatever they can to keep their partner. Because of that thinking, they may put up with more mistreatment or spend large amounts of money to keep their partner happy.
All that in mind, if a 20 year old and 40 year old are dating, it's very reductive to assume the older one must be more intelligent, prone to better choices, or is manipulative, based simply on the fact they're older. It's also silly to assume the younger person must be gullible, less intelligent, or a victim (without any further details). It's also pretty disrespectful to both people in the relationship to make these assumptions.
What I personally believe it comes down to is discomfort at other people's relationships. Sometimes it can be hard to disconnect emotions from what is right or wrong, so we try to justify the discomfort with a reason for why the uncomfortable thing is bad.
I also believe one of the ways this has spread is tied to progressive circles on social media and through drama influencers. These social circles create a culture around finding problems in order to feel/present themselves as more "progressive." This is a pretty pessimistic take, but I always see this opinion the most in those circles. I don't think it's self-aware, of course.
Anyway, if you're truly concerned for someone, the real focus should be "How does your partner treat you?" Because the answer to that is what determines whether something is abusive or grooming, not simply how many years difference there is.
Which brings me to another point, the misunderstanding of what grooming is.
Modernly we understand this mainly to be intimate relationships between adults and children or adolescents (and now also younger adults dating older adults.) But grooming has another meaning as well, which is to shape someone into your ideal. It's about manipulating someone to become how you want them to be. Grooming is not sexual or romantic by default, but people generally only recognize it or care about it in that context.
This means grooming can absolutely be present within same-age relationships, friendships, etc. This is even more reason why the right thing to ask someone is not "How old are they" but "How do they treat you?" If grooming is the concern, other questions might be, "Do they try to change you?", "Do they love you the way you are right now?", "Do they try to isolate you from other people?"
The fact that these aren't the questions we ask feels dystopian to me. At what point did our poor understanding of brains and how long we've been alive become more important to us than how we treat each other?
I'm not in a large age-gap relationship (just a few years), so this really doesn't apply directly to me. I just find it frustrating that infantilizing adults is becoming increasingly accepted, and that we're also using our poor understanding of brain science to disempower younger people in general. Forced victimhood onto strangers isn't helpful or empowering, if you really want to support younger people you need to empower them. Not diminish their capabilities and intelligence.
One critique of age-gap relationships I do understand is not wanting to date someone in a different stage of life, but of course that comes down to preference rather than abuse. When I was younger I did date men significantly older, and I enjoyed that part of the dynamic. Now, I enjoy that me and my partner are close enough in our stages of life to remember most of the same things, with each of us also adding something new.
This is my first post to LessWrong, and I'm not actually sure if the audience here will care about this topic. But I think of all audiences, this post probably has the best chance of really being understood here, due to it challenging some widespread misconceptions.
In summary, this is post to express my frustration at the current societal obsession and misunderstanding of "grooming." Everyone is quick to use that term, but nobody seems to realize fully what grooming actually is, and how it may or may not be relevant to whatever claim they're trying to make.
In particular, I'm thinking about something I've been seeing more frequently online. Adult age-gap relationships being called grooming based entirely on the age difference. Firstly, grooming is not just about age. Secondly, the default reasoning for this claim is founded in misinformation.
If you ask someone with this opinion what their reasoning is, it's usually something like "The prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing until 25."
This is claim is founded in a myth. Jay N. Giedd, who conducted the study most likely to have led to this misunderstanding said, “When we started, we thought we'd follow kids until about 18 or 20. If we had to pick a number now, we'd probably go to age 25.” The study did not even go up to 25.
The brain never "finishes" developing at all, and in some ways our cognitive abilities decline with age. Younger brains are better at learning and are more adaptable. It's not linear, with older adults always being more intelligent or capable than younger adults.
I'm sure everyone knows (either directly or indirectly) many people who are older then them who are not more intelligent or who may be prone to making bad decisions. Growing up, I witnessed the adults around me make many choices that even as a child I knew were bad choices. Sometimes I told them this, and of course as an adult, they "knew better" and ignored my opinion. As an adult now, I see older adults fail to understand things the younger generations do easily.
Another point against adult age-gap relationships can be older people have more experience, and therefore are more capable of manipulation. This assumes bad faith, and I'm not a fan of arguments based on bad faith. Being older does not necessarily equal better social skills anyway, because social skills vary pretty wildly based on personality.
Additionally, a younger person can just as easily take advantage of an older person, hence the "gold digger" stereotype. Younger people can hold power in a relationship. The older person may think this is as good as they'll ever get, and they may want to do whatever they can to keep their partner. Because of that thinking, they may put up with more mistreatment or spend large amounts of money to keep their partner happy.
All that in mind, if a 20 year old and 40 year old are dating, it's very reductive to assume the older one must be more intelligent, prone to better choices, or is manipulative, based simply on the fact they're older. It's also silly to assume the younger person must be gullible, less intelligent, or a victim (without any further details). It's also pretty disrespectful to both people in the relationship to make these assumptions.
What I personally believe it comes down to is discomfort at other people's relationships. Sometimes it can be hard to disconnect emotions from what is right or wrong, so we try to justify the discomfort with a reason for why the uncomfortable thing is bad.
I also believe one of the ways this has spread is tied to progressive circles on social media and through drama influencers. These social circles create a culture around finding problems in order to feel/present themselves as more "progressive." This is a pretty pessimistic take, but I always see this opinion the most in those circles. I don't think it's self-aware, of course.
Anyway, if you're truly concerned for someone, the real focus should be "How does your partner treat you?" Because the answer to that is what determines whether something is abusive or grooming, not simply how many years difference there is.
Which brings me to another point, the misunderstanding of what grooming is.
Modernly we understand this mainly to be intimate relationships between adults and children or adolescents (and now also younger adults dating older adults.) But grooming has another meaning as well, which is to shape someone into your ideal. It's about manipulating someone to become how you want them to be. Grooming is not sexual or romantic by default, but people generally only recognize it or care about it in that context.
This means grooming can absolutely be present within same-age relationships, friendships, etc. This is even more reason why the right thing to ask someone is not "How old are they" but "How do they treat you?" If grooming is the concern, other questions might be, "Do they try to change you?", "Do they love you the way you are right now?", "Do they try to isolate you from other people?"
The fact that these aren't the questions we ask feels dystopian to me. At what point did our poor understanding of brains and how long we've been alive become more important to us than how we treat each other?
I'm not in a large age-gap relationship (just a few years), so this really doesn't apply directly to me. I just find it frustrating that infantilizing adults is becoming increasingly accepted, and that we're also using our poor understanding of brain science to disempower younger people in general. Forced victimhood onto strangers isn't helpful or empowering, if you really want to support younger people you need to empower them. Not diminish their capabilities and intelligence.
One critique of age-gap relationships I do understand is not wanting to date someone in a different stage of life, but of course that comes down to preference rather than abuse. When I was younger I did date men significantly older, and I enjoyed that part of the dynamic. Now, I enjoy that me and my partner are close enough in our stages of life to remember most of the same things, with each of us also adding something new.