Accountability in Music • Page 241

this. seems that most people can't resist the urge to throw in that extra little statement.

 

I think my feelings of age gaps when one is a teen or barely an adult is well known so I won't harp on that lol, but yeah I def don't see it as black and white. Like people automatically dismissing it cause they were both teens make me feel a kinda way. And I am gonna hardcore project for a sec but I remember being a freshman in hs and thinking how COOL the senior boys were and I tried so hard to impress them and seem down and cool and even tho three years is like nothing, at that age it felt vast. Idk if this is that situation cause maybe this girl wasn't an insecure lil pile of mess like I was (and still am lbr lol) but I guess I'd just echo sentiments that it depends how the girl feels and also adding the nice guy thing is dumb af

 

I don’t know, I see a BIG difference between 14 and 17. Once you turn 16 you start to gain a little more freedom and independence, start driving, might get a job, you just start doing different - more grown up things - that you didn't do before 16.

I know at 16, I started driving, going to parties, working, drinking, spending large amounts of time away from home, etc. Things I would have never considered doing when I was 13, 14 or 15.

Like, I couldn't imagine going to a high school senior party and there being 13 and 14-year-olds. That's beyond weird to me.

That said, my high school was different than most because it was just 10th grade through 12th grade (9th grade was still middle school) so we didn't have large age gaps at our HS so it would have been really weird if a senior was dating a freshman.

I also see a big difference between like, say, 23 and 18 just because life experiences between 18 and 23 is significant. When I was 24, I dated a 20-year-old and even that was weird for me. She was still in college and I was starting a career and we couldn’t have been in more different stages in our lives despite age difference being just four years. Hell, she couldn’t even go to a bar with me. It didn’t take long to realize that things weren’t going to work out just based off what stages of our lives we were in.

 

I was in high school 5 years ago and the consensus was any gap larger than 2 years was weird

 

yeah that's all I can think of, like 14 some people are getting their first period and 17 you're driving a car

fun fact guys in Romeo and Juliet he's 17 and she's 14

 

As someone in high school right now I feel like I should say:

-My best friend started dating an 17-y/o when she was 14 (They're still together, she's 16 & her s/o is 20)
-My ex dated two 18 year old boys when she was 15

In both of these situations I was weirded out, but I trusted both of these people's judgements because of their maturity & my respect for them, and generally, having met or at least talked to all of these individuals, it made a lot of sense to me because people during these ages can vary DRASTICALLY in their maturity.

Tbh I still think it's incredibly sketchy, but I kinda want to say I think the legitimacy of teenage relationships is no one's business but the people in them, but I'm also not entirely comfortable justifying potential manipulative/predatory behavior that way, but who knows.

 

When I was 22/23 I started sleeping with a woman that I worked with who was 36/37. I thought we were dating. In hindsight, we definitely were not. She would never want to go anywhere where we would see people she knew. Most of the time she only wanted to go to my apt or her house or a bar / restaurant where she didn’t know anyone. At the time I remember being offended thinking like ‘what the hell, I am an adult?!?’ Being the age now that she was then I understand what was going on better.

Even though it is perfectly legal once everyone is over a certain age I think it is very weird, personally. If I weren’t married I would not date a 23 yo now, and even that is 5 years beyond where the law sets the line in most places. Any of my coworkers who are that age look like BABIES to me. I don’t mean that as a negative on being young – being young is great – more just with age I now have a different perspective, where the older person in a relationship with a large age gap definitely strikes me much differently than they would have when I was younger.

 

I dated a guy when I was a freshman in high school when he was 17 and a senior in high school. Looking back, in reality, I was desperately trying to figure out and ultimately repress my queerness. Was I naive in the moment? Yes. And surprisingly none of my friends or anyone mentioned how creepy it was.

 

Beyond whether or not it's weird I think most of us can agree it's not something to "cancel" the band over. Hot Mulligan wasn't even a band until after this happened.

 

I don't even know what a Hot Mulligan is but I think its a valid discussion. For high schoolers it just seems to be such an arbitrary distinction based on how they've historically split the grades up. Like my high school was grades 9-12, but I remember some neighboring towns were actually grades 8-12, and I remember hearing about how senior guys there would be dating and trying to date 8th grade girls.

 

Omg u saying it as 16 and 20 is just wild. I can't even imagine dating a 16 year old while in college??? I was like 17 and dating a college aged dude and I judge tf outta him lol .It's that thing where no, four years isn't a lot, but wow such different life stages. Like at 16 I was a dumbass and at 20 I was still a dumbass but a different kind of one lol so i can't even imagine

 

I started dating my girlfriend when she was 17 just after my 20th birthday. 22 and 24 now and we live together.

Going out for the first time wasn't my idea and I hadn't even really thought about it before, so I was pretty cautious and skeptical given she was the youngest possible age I'd ever even consider dating at the time. But we just clicked on that first date like I hadn't with anyone else before.

Our lives weren't all that different tho. We were coworkers, went to school (and I just switched programs so I had a long-ass time to go) and lived at home. Drinking age here is 18, so we were going out to clubs together pretty quick. We just weren’t in different life stages, and when that became clear, I went through with it. Really glad I did.

I understand skepticism towards age gaps tho, there's a lot of room for shit to goes sideways. I'm not always sure what to make them.

 

This is just wild. I was like 17/20 but 22/24 is so inconsequential.

It's fine my mind has just been blown by math in this thread today!

 

Haha well it’s still probably worth evaluating the merits of 17/20 relationships for reasons you and other folks have mentioned above, but I believe we did it in a healthy way.

 

I don't know if I fully agree with this. I think in this situation specifically he had the right to say that, just because people were quick to call him and the rest of the band pedophiles. That being said, people responding to allegations of assault/abuse, where they clearly did something horrible and wrong, it's an odd and unnecessary comment to make.

 

Nobody has "the right" in any situation responding to allegations. Respond with sincerity and leave out the extraneous "I'm one of the good ones" bs. The response was otherwise fine but "I'm a good person" is literally inconsequential to any discussion about allegations and more often than not is a deterrent to criticism.

 

It’s hard for me to kind of reconcile the two sort of competing concepts here. In a lot of states, legally, people within four years of each other can date even if one is over 18 and the other is not. But in practice it’s definitely a case-by-case thing. If Hot Mulligan had been a thing at the time, and the girl was a fan, there may have been a power imbalance there that would have made it a morally wrong relationship even if it isn’t illegal. But that wasn’t the case there. As it stands, they were both in high school and underage at the same time, and I don’t want to remove or erase the agency of either party, but specifically of the girl. And we haven’t heard from her about this so nobody can speak for her either.

I’ve mostly thought in the past that if you were close enough in age to be in high school at the same time, it’s fine. But after reading the posts in here and reflecting I’ve come around to thinking that, while it definitely can be fine and likely is in many cases, it shouldn’t be automatically *assumed* to be fine by outside observers.

 

I think most of the comments in here just go to show how varied everyone's experiences and opinions about teenage relationships are. I dropped out of high school at 16 and started college early so I could have more flexibility to work full-time. Half my friends at the time were high school juniors who weren't even driving yet. There was a point at age 17 where it felt like it would have been weird for me to date someone in high school because I was already in college. I guess I just see the whole thing as a giant grey area I don't really feel equipped to pass judgement on.

That being said, I think when scrutinizing the relationships of guys in bands like Hot Mulligan or whoever, we should be careful about making these judgements not for the sake of the guys, but for the girls who it seems like sometimes get dragged into these conversations without them asking for it to be brought up themselves.

I care way more that someone thought it was okay to post this girl's name and private accounts for the sake of calling this guy out than that he made some shitty comment about being a "good guy" or whatever.

 

Yeah I feel really awful for her that she was dragged into this seemingly without her permission. If there actually wasn't anything wrong about the relationship from her perspective, she's being used as a prop by these people. And if there was something wrong with it, seems likely she wasn't prepared to share anything with anyone publicly. And I am 100000% against victims' stories being shared without their consent. So either way, really despicable thing to do to her.

 

Yeah that's exactly how I feel. I understand that no one wants to sit on information that someone might be a creep because you want to be able to warn other people, but I also don't want to see teenage girls ending up as collateral damage in getting that point across.

 

I met my wife when I was 26 and she was 21... Even at that time I was a bit worried about the age difference but the longer we were together the less I think about it. I think if she had been 20 I wouldn't have gone through with the relationship tho. We are married now, I'm 32 and shes 27. Sometimes we talk about high school or middle school and its really really weird for me to think like, i was in college and she was in 8th grade... time and age are a strange thing. The younger you are, the more it matters obviously.

 

At the end of the day, this is all extremely subjective and entirely depends on the two people in the relationship and the power dynamic that exists between them. I dated an older person in high school and it was a perfectly good relationship. We're still friends to this day and I'm grateful for so many of the experiences I had during that time. On the flip side, when I was 20, I dated a 27 year old and while we didn't have a power imbalance per se, there was a lot of pressure on me to be ready for things like marriage and joint finances that I think really impacted me during those years when I should have been developing as my own adult. Our personal experiences are varied and that's what makes talking about these things important.

I think we can all agree on the point that it is strange to be having this conversation with no input from the girl who was in the relationship. I don't agree with anyone who is trying to "out" shitty people without the express consent of the people involved in the situation. I have also had my own strange experience with a man in a band that ended up being something I was able to forgive and move on from. We're friends again and I would feel extremely violated and hurt by anyone who tried to call him out on my behalf when it's not something I want at all.

 

My partner and I have a 12 year age gap... Imagine how weird it is to think I was in like 1st grade when he was graduating high school. lol But I do agree, that the younger you are the more the age difference thing is weird or inappropriate.

 

I just turned 26 when I started dating my girlfriend, who was 20. It’s definitely weird thinking about the high school thing. I turned 30 in January and she turns 25 in June. It’s still weird sometimes lol.

 

I'm always gonna be staunch in my feelings about age gaps with youngsters (the judgment sensor keeps developing until 25, y'all) but it's fine if folks in here don't agree with me.

I was 25 and had a several month thing with a 21 year old and while we had some fun and he was great, the age difference showed. It just did. I wouldn't do it again.

Partner is turning 33 and I'm 28. The age difference is irrelevant. I would not have said the same thing if we were a decade younger each. But again - to each their own. I'm not telling anyone who is fine with their experiences to feel like a victim, or even that they ARE one. I'm just always going to be fiercely protective of young people in these situations - ESPECIALLY pre-21 - because somebody has to be.