Question about age gap

[Steerpike]

Edward is a creep, for plenty of reasons that have nothing to do with his real age. His actions scream abuser. Stalking? Check. Controlling? Also check. Emotional blackmail? That too.

Oh, but it's okay because Bella is The One, and she's going to live happily ever after with him.

Same can be said for Angel. Certainly stalking and emotional games. He tries to be controlling as well but Buffy isn’t as easy to control. I’ve seen the same sort of things in other works as well. It almost seems to be a trope in YA/Teen paranormal romance.

 

[FifthView]

Vampires gonna vampire.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Same can be said for Angel. Certainly stalking and emotional games. He tries to be controlling as well but Buffy isn’t as easy to control. I’ve seen the same sort of things in other works as well. It almost seems to be a trope in YA/Teen paranormal romance.

It's also a trope in bodice ripper novels. Which are aimed at the adult market, but apparently, writers of YA paranormal romance love to take the Harlequin romance model and pour their paranormal teen romantic heroes into that mold.

But I suspect the greater criticisms of Edward than of Angel, even if they act in similar ways, are as much based on the heroines they're paired with as on themselves. Bella is a thoroughly bland character who only lives for Edward. She needs Edward to make her whole, and it looks like her creator bent over backwards to make her out to be that way. Buffy, in contrast, has plenty of personality and is whole in herself. She doesn't need anyone to make her whole. She can exist perfectly well without Angel.

 

[Let's Light Universe]

Personally I think that it's one hell of a double standard that you speak of. That said, I do not personally read relationships with characters that are under age since becoming of age myself. It comes across as pervy to read on about relationships that are of an intimate nature between underaged characters regardless of how old their partner is. It simply does not appeal to my adult mind like such a story might have when I was underaged/similarly aged to the protagonists of such stories. Twilight, for example, is easily justified by the fact that, clearly, after becoming a vampire, the boy stopped aging physically and for the most part did not continue to mature mentally either. hence why they continue to waste their days in high school pretending to be underage.

Another good point I'd like to bring up is that anything outside of a wholesome relationship between an underage character and an older character, will not be well received by adult audiences as they might be by children audiences. It's pretty normal in a child's mind for them to have crushes on adults, but it is not considered okay for an adult to crush on a child. It's predatorial in the minds of adults.

 

[Steerpike]

Personally I think that it's one hell of a double standard that you speak of. That said, I do not personally read relationships with characters that are under age since becoming of age myself. It comes across as pervy to read on about relationships that are of an intimate nature between underaged characters regardless of how old their partner is.

Since children's books are typically written by adults, are you suggesting it is 'pervy' for them to contain romantic elements?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Pro-pervy here. I once dated a 28 year-old when I was 17. When we're talking about immortals, I think we can take it as a case-by-case basis.

 

[Let's Light Universe]

Since children's books are typically written by adults, are you suggesting it is 'pervy' for them to contain romantic elements?

Given that I said "personally" and then stated personal feelings, in what stretch of the imagination did I insinuate, entertain, or suggest that it is actually pervy to include romance? I said I do not read stories of intimate, in this case meaning sexual, relationships between any underage character and another character regardless of the age because they come across that way to me. Not that simple romances are. I merely stated an opinion that such elements do not belong in children books. Such themes belong in adult books. I can give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you simply misunderstood my intended meaning. The example in my mind at the time was specifically twilight which does in fact have a sexual relationship between Edward the vampire and Bella the high schooler.

 

[WooHooMan]

I got a story where a 27-year-old man is dating an 18-year-old girl. An older couple pointed-out to him that it was a little weird for him to go after a girl that much younger, even citing the “half your age plus seven” rule.
The guy, at first brushed off the criticism before pointing-out that the woman of the couple was an immortal that was some 500 years older than her husband. She responded with “that’s different”. Which the reader can take to mean either that immortality changes the rules or that it’s okay if they are physical the same age or whatever. In any case, the weirdness that the reader picks-up is addressed in the story.

Point is: sometimes you don’t need to change something iffy about your story. Sometimes you can acknowledge any weirdness or criticism in the story and move on.
Perhaps you can work it to your advantage. Maybe the guy has some hesitation or is conflicted about pursuing a younger partner? Maybe the girl has trouble relating to or understanding a partner whose psychologically/mentally much older? Maybe you can mine some drama from that ore to make the relationship more engaging and maybe address some of the reader’s apprehension. Basically, make some lemonade out of this lemon.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Pro-pervy here. I once dated a 28 year-old when I was 17. When we're talking about immortals, I think we can take it as a case-by-case basis.

In that vein, I'm currently beta reading a memoir an acquaintance of mine is working on. It includes a relationship she had with a guy in his mid twenties, who she started sleeping with when she'd just turned 17. She describes it as wonderful, she was very comfortable with him, could confide some deeply personal stuff in him, felt safe. And it's clear in the writing that he respects her. (It's also a sharp contrast to the previous guy she'd dated, who was around her age and a real jerk.)

Reading that, I can't find it in me to say there's anything wrong with that. But it's all in the framing. If the twenty-something guy had been creepy, had been using his adult status as leverage over her, anything like that, then it would be entirely different.

And the memoir is being written as an adult book. It covers her youth, but it's meant to be seen from an adult perspective. When you're writing for YA, there's an assumption (maybe correct, maybe not) that the young readers won't catch all the nuances of situations like that.

 

[MiaC]

Ive aged my characters to 18. I said screw it. I'll make them 18...2 years..whatever. I actually kinda like that more, I wanted to make it more adult like anyway and their age was causing a problem.

 

[Steerpike]

Given that I said "personally" and then stated personal feelings, in what stretch of the imagination did I insinuate, entertain, or suggest that it is actually pervy to include romance? I said I do not read stories of intimate, in this case meaning sexual, relationships between any underage character and another character regardless of the age because they come across that way to me.

Thanks for clarifying your comment. I understood it was your opinion--that's the nature of posts here--and was asking for your further opinions about the writers who write that sort of content. There is sex in some YA and Teen books and I'm curious how you view the adult authors who write that material.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

(None of the following counts for aromantics or aromantic asexuals. It's also a bit of a long history lesson, so if you don't want to read, it's okay).

As for why it's okay for specifically immortal-mortal pairings (and not what I assume is immortal-immortal), I think that people are more accepting because vampires live forever and humans don't. This is obvious, but there are implications, at least for Twilight. Plus, it has to do with how individualism and more agency can also come with loneliness and anxiety.

If someone were to live forever, do they really age? Do they actually gain any meaningful experience that "advances" them to another stage of maturity, since 17-year-olds and 40-year-olds all experience friendship and love? We argue that a 17-year-old and a 26-year-old shouldn't get together because of the hefty advantage the older has over the teen due to their having more life experience, and their more intimate know-how of how manipulation and coercion work to distort human perception. The teen, in a similar vein, is not as knowledgeable, or biologically mature--their brain is not as developed and they don't have the emotional resilience people assume adults have.

For the general vampire, though, I'd say that the relationship is more acceptable because a vampire isn't likely to have a lot of intimate, soulmate--matched partners in other vampires--because the overall population is limited, the options of romantic love they'd think it worth devoting to is also limited. What defines their emotional and psychological age is a lot more...messy. Let's think about the number of vampires in proportion to humans--there are a lot fewer vampires than humans. The vampire population is completely dependent on the human population. If there are no humans to turn, there can be no change in the vampire population--except perhaps a decline...a lot of Twilight vamps would probably start accidentally killing each other in fits of thirstiness if they can't find food.

And that's what I think it is--people nowadays want that ageless and changeless romantic love that vampire lovers can offer, depending on the writer's revision. So if a vampire and a human fall in love, there's a higher potential of a long-lasting/eternal passion. Many people desire deep and lasting intimacy over absolute (or what they think of absolute) autonomy. And it's not being alone in a room empty of other people for the rest of one's life that some are afraid of, but the idea that they will never have a deep and meaningful bond that will persist until they die. There's also the idea that if two people are in love, they will not intentionally hurt each other in any way.

It's possible to argue that when it comes to immortals, what determines their true age isn't how long their body lasts or the amount of experience they have. For humans, how long the body lasts is exactly how old they are and defines their physical age because our bodies are literally slowing down. In contrast, a vampire's body just stops altogether. Can we say that they have aged at all, at least by how we define aging? Do they even have a life? If they don't, why people find them attractive? (And I don't just mean Bella, I mean why are vampires so fascinating and why has the vampiric figure captivated people for thousands of years?) We may not want to wait and figure this out of we want to avoid being alone forever.

Historically, it wasn't until the industrial age when American and European poor, young people moved to the cities to earn money for their families back in the village that people began forming romantic relationships relatively independently. Poorer people knew they were especially vulnerable to monopolistic millionaires and loose government policies--they were alone, miserable, and had to fend for themselves in a way that didn't happen in 17th century England, where villagers routinely knew and openly asked about what we'd think of private information. Privacy wasn't a concept, and when it happened, some young people found it a lonely and oppressive reality. I think the feeling persists or has been cycled back because:

1. Honestly, there are very oppressive laws and policies that allow people to be oppressive and disrespectful to others they feel superior to, and vampires reflect a protective haven for some people as well as an oppressive entity to others.
2. It's hard to maintain a relationship when the involved persons cannot understand each other's struggles without the ability to communicate effectively.
3. Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of the first, if not the first, piece of media that depicts vampires and interactions with them as erotic. (If not exactly romantic.) Its preternatural antagonist, Dracula, is an invasive force, but he is also an independent and strong force that barrels through Britain's oppressive socioeconomic system like how a termite goes through wood. There is the potential of being protected. That theme of passing through boundaries is erotic and anxiety-ridden in of itself or made out to be in the novel because the idea of someone breaking boundaries is thrilling to a lot of people, especially if it's to do it in spite of disapproval, censure, or oppression. It has been for a long time. Britain also has a long history of classicism where people sought to succeed or just survive despite their class and predestined socioeconomic fate.
4. While "protected", there is also the sense that there will be no boredom. Since a vampire by the time of the late 1800s is still considered a foriegn and alien entity, there's a thrill still when many think about vampires, where before they were mainly thought of as just evil demons who are enemies of God and Heaven.

Low risk, high reward. The stakes are feeling lonelier and lonelier and helpless, the reward is never again having to feel alone and being supported, even if it's just suggestive. The psychological (not practical or physical) appeal is great.

However, there's still the element of one's psychological agency being in danger. I think some people think that since a vampire can't change, they can also theoretically be manipulated by a human bold enough to oppose them. I'd say, sure it's possible, but (just in Twilight) that human would have to have undetectable to that vampire, or be far away and have a supernatural agent as their helper or something--an exceptional case. A human doesn't really have a chance against a vampire in Twilight.

 

[WooHooMan]

Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of the first, if not the first, piece of media that depicts vampires and interactions with them as erotic. (If not exactly romantic.)

Minor point: The Vampyre predates Dracula by like 70 years and it’s a bit more romantic, I’d say. And then there’s Carmilla which had some serious lesbian subtext some 20 years before Dracula was published. Really, Dracula de-romanticize vampires quiet a bit (at least until the 90’s film adaptation). I don’t believe there were too many romantic vampires between 1900 and like 1990-ish.

Also, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the age gap is nowhere near the most off-putting thing about the romance in Twilight. I’d say the stalking, codependency, endangerment and so forth are more what people don’t get behind. The age difference is pretty negligible to most people. Like, if it was just the age difference, I don’t think too many people would care.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

I never knew that about Carmilla, nor have I ever read The Vampyre. I slept too long on it seems. Also, none of what I'm going to point out applies to asexual, aromantic, aromantic asexual, and demisexual individuals. As a culture and society, we're very into sex. Probably because it's a space of the struggling dynamics of social control versus personal intimacy.

Still, I wasn't talking about Dracula as romantic, but erotic. Even though being able to be sexually attracted or stimulated by a partner is conventionally thought of as part of the deal with romance. Or at the very least being sexually attracted to a potential partner was, and sometimes still is, considered necessary for a person to fall in love and to want to stay close to that person, a sort of ingredient to the recipe of romantic love. I point this out because I don't want to make it as if I'm saying that this novel was romantic or in any way psychologically healthy and being turned on doesn't have to lead to love. But it was, still is, considered necessary if a person were to ever fall in love, kind of like being in different dimensions of intimacy that look like stages. Eroticism and romance aren't exactly the same. The first can lead to a closer bond, but not always.

So yes, I'd say that Dracula isn't romantic, as I've said it's erotic. Love isn't always about that thrill that can turn sexual, as it does in Dracula. In other words, I'm saying vampires have always thrilled people, even when they were demons. (Just not sexually....by conventional thought. Pretty sure there were at least some people who got too excited when they sat in bed thinking about vampires.) I believe there is a kink or fetish called exophilia, where a person literally gets turned on by the deformed, alien, freakish, or monstrous.

And to your second point, are you saying that the person who posed the question about the age gap phenomena while using Twilight as one of their first examples is not actually thinking not about the age-gap phenomena we find in vampire stories shown today. I'm a bit confused since it didn't seem like they were specifically asking about the immortal/mortal age-gap phenomena?

This is what they asked:
But my question is why does no one bat an eye when it's an immortal character with a teen girl but when it's two mortals people care. Is it because the immortal appears to be the same age as the teen? Because there's no way his mental maturity level is the same (which is people's reason for thinking the 24 year old is a creep in the first place)

So I'm just confused. Is it just pure hypocrisy or is there a reason behind why it matters sometimes and not for others?

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

Another thing, do you have a counterargument to the argument that a vampire can't retain the mental maturity of a 17-year-old? Since we're working with fantasy fiction, we're more obligated to dive deep into the "why" of race-creation/revision.

You say, "Because there's no way his mental maturity level is the same (which is people's reason for thinking the 24 year old is a creep in the first place)". However, you haven't cited any reason why you and others think the same way, and I include you in those who argue that. By saying "there's no way his mental maturity is the same", you reveal your opposing opinion of the statement "His mental age is 17 forever", even though you say "some people" as if the vague "people" are treated as a distant entity in your sentence. The affirmation of the opposite opinion shows you think similarly to the "people".

You also say "Is it because the immortal appears to be the same age as the teen?" right before that statement I already quoted, which leads me to think that you've already drawn a strongly believed conclusion that people tolerate the age gap just because they look the same, or similar enough. While I can't refute that that may be a part of it, I don't think that a large enough number of the watchers or readers think this is the biggest justification as much as an added justification when they're confronted.

Some people haven't actually considered the look-like-a-teen justification because most people don't try to justify or explain their preferences, especially when they've just come across something they really like. Kids and teens and people with the first-time engagement with loved activity, etc., aren't likely to question the ethics of liking that thing unless it's something like being turned on by the fantasy of being raped or spanking people (Moral norms constructed and enforced through social passive and active action.) A sports-watcher doesn't really sit in their room thinking to themselves, "Why do I like sports so much" unless they are confronted by someone's apparent disgust for sports and for them for watching/liking sports. They're not likely to question themselves if they aren't the type of person who cares what people think of their character.

Not trying to prove you wrong, though. I am seeing that this could be broken down further, and I'd like to know how you came to that conclusion and the breakdown/analysis that led to it.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

Please Look at the Comment Below, it is the real Response to WoohooMan

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

I'd like to edit some of what I wrote. The bold sentence should read: So yes, I'd say that Dracula isn't romantic, as I've said it's erotic. Love and romance don't always have to have that thrill that can turn sexual as I've described. Dracula definitely doesn't display healthy romance, but it is erotic in language and tone. The language and tone lend themselves to the theme of the thrill of the invading foreigner doing what they want in the British characters' "home" territory.

"I'm a bit confused since it didn't seem like they were specifically asking about the immortal/mortal age-gap phenomena?" should be read as, "I'm a bit confused since didn't it seem like they were specifically asking about the immortal/mortal age-gap phenomena."

Apart from these, I also wanted to say that though it may be that many will argue that the age-gap--if it is an age gap, as we haven't really talked more about why it is or isn't one--in Edward and Bella's relationship is proof of the abusive nature of their relationship:

1. I never said that those people were wrong. As I don't want to automatically disagree or agree with others and disregard analytic and careful thought.
2. Saying that the age gap is just proof of the abuse is less about answering the question of why we tolerate the age gap in most vampire-and-romance-YA-media and more about proving that Twilight is horrendous. Instead of deflecting from the question that was asked, I think we should take some time and actually answer it, which was "why does no one bat an eye when it's an immortal character with a teen girl but when it's two mortals people care".

Coming from my second point above about deflection, I want to also point out that when people like or first start liking a thing, they normally don't question why they like it. Kids, teens, and people engaging with the activity or thing don't sit in their homes and deeply ask themselves, "Why do I like being Superman so much, and should I like him?", or (not kids or teens) "Why do I like being whipped during sex? Should I like that?". They just sit and enjoy. People only question the ethics or integrity of their preferences when another person(s) shows their apparent disgust for those preferences or outright confronts them for liking them, which is not always bad. Race-play shouldn't be a thing, as we demean the non-white person to a sexual feature of sex, which now when people are being more open and freer with sex, is bad since many feel they don't deserve censure or some form of social punishment for being attracted to black people just to degrade them similarly to how they are outside of sex. However, it can get puritanical when some people feel disgusted by a kink for some ideological reason and then go after people who express their kinks. They will argue that the person is sick in the head for wanting to be whipped. The same sometimes goes for non-sexual things, like when people express they like playing the Sims 4 because they get to create worlds and someone says or implies they shouldn't because you're able to kill sims in numerous ways, and if they do they are somehow mentally ill or "weird", which usually means that they think that the person has a distorted mind.

Finally, about Carmilla and The Vampyre. When I brought up Dracula, it was to point out a very popular novel inspired by the British government and men's fear of being invaded and colonized, just like they were doing around this time to many regions. The novel is cited as a text revealing this anxiety by historical and literature scholars. There would be other texts showing such anxiety before or after its time (eroticism, not romance), but this novel is one of the most popular for its then-popular written-accounts-as-novel style and its "boldness" of detail.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

Correction, people have always and do want that ageless love. It has had different forms though.

 

[WooHooMan]

Well, I was just throwing-out some trivia about vampire fiction. Just flexing my knowledge of the genre is all, no big deal. Not trying to argue about anything. Definitely not trying to address every point in your post.

Although, I personally don’t pick-up on much eroticism with Dracula. I see his portrayal in the book as being a dangerous monster (as were his brides) and despite Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee being handsome men, I believe their portrayals of the character were meant to be creepy and/or intimidating as was seemingly standard for vampire portrayals in the 1900’s as opposed to the more romantic/erotic vampires of the 1800’s or the post-1990 vampire genre.
But, y'know, that’s just my assessment.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

I'm sorry that I might come across as argumentative. I do appreciate the Carmilla and The Vampyre input, because I truly haven't heard of the latter and it made me think more. I also thought more about the book than the movies, as those movies were produced much later for an entirely different audience, therefore having very different portrayals to affect a different audience with what they're familiar with. An adaptation of a revision you might say since Dracula is a pseudo-revision of the vampire myth.

With the eroticism of Dracula, it's not really if someone--excuses me for being crude--popped a boner, or otherwise got horny, or was positively turned on by the action. It's more in the language and idea of crossing boundaries, as people if the Isles have that history of the intimacy of punishment, especially corporal punishments or punishments involving harming/destroying the body. In a hierarchical society like medieval to even present Britain, lined by Christian principles of controlling the sinful body for a clean mind and closer connection to God, the idea of rebellion from its most subtle to its most overt forms can be twisted easily into a sexual experience. Rebellion is sexy or turns some people on, even if it's the "evil" rebelling against the "good". To the audience of the late 1800s, the vampire wasn't necessarily erotic but there is certainly more of a chance that people were sexually stimulated because of that colonizing and fear of being colonized anxiety. Again, I don't think people thought of vampires as romantic as much as erotic. Did some think so, of course, but the primary idea or sense is one of disgust and trepidation that lends to a sexual thrill.

It's completely cool and doesn't mean anything weird or bad that you as an individual don't feel that erotic component, you're not alone. However, if we're talking society at large or the primary ideology affected and creating its own influences....yeah societies and its peoples across all of human history have been and are quirky. and diverse in many ways due to cultural, political, etc. circumstances.