#and also tbh. every one of us will fuck up repeatedly and catastrophically in our teens

[thedreadvampy]

honestly not to get into this but I think we've got to find a better way as a like online community of squaring the following facts

teenagers should not be held to the same standards as adults and need to have space to screw up and learn from their mistakes

children, teenagers and young people are particularly vulnerable to bullying, manipulation and grooming

people, particularly children and young people, should have access to age-appropriate spaces where they're not constantly presented with sexual imagery and expectations

there is a substantial power differential not just between adults and children, but between older and younger teens

we live in a culture which overwhelmingly pressures teenagers to act as adult as possible, and we should aim not to feed into that pressure

significant age gaps in relationships are often dodgy, manipulative and leave lasting damage regardless of intent, especially when you're college age or younger and regardless of whether or not it is, technically, legal.

with the related facts that

teenagers are still responsible for their actions

there is no hard and fast cutoff point for this learning curve and vulnerable stage, and people in their late teens and early 20s are often similarly vulnerable even after passing the age of legal majority (and in my experience often abruptly much more targeted by creeps once they pass the age of consent)

Teenagers and young adults are going to be friends with each other and that's normal

Teenagers are going to have sex with each other, talk sexually to each other and fantasise about sex. that's a normal part of development and if it's not pressured there's nothing at all wrong with having sex with someone a similar age. yes even if one of you's 15 and one's 16. IF you feel safe doing it and IF it's genuinely what you want to do (and being a teenager is messy and confusing so you may not know but. be careful with yourself there will always be a later)

teenagers are capable of intelligently engaging with topics, and capable of learning

teenagers need to, to some degree, retain a degree of responsibility for their own internet experience (not in the sense that it's their fault if they get targeted, but in the sense that personal blogs, 18+ content and other content not targeted towards

like there must be a better way to square this than Everyone My Age Or Younger Who I Agree With Is A Literal Minor How Dare You, Also Here's A Callout Post I Wrote About A 19 Year Old For Shipping Two Teenage Characters Together When They Are A Literal Adult.

like dividing the world into Literal Adults and Literal Minors isn't.........working great, is it? people who are very clearly to my eyes still Youths (you know, like 19 or 20) are looking down at 17 year olds from their Lofty High Horse of Adulthood instead of engaging with them as people, and simultaneously people that age exist as Schroedinger's Minor - if we like them then they can't be expected to do better and if we don't like them they're, idk, pedos for having 17 year old friends even though like. my dude I have been in university classes that contain both 17yo and 21yo people, is it unreasonable for them to interact as equals???

age discourse on this site is fucked my guys and I'm speaking as someone who was Very Much Pushed To Grow Up Too Soon and consistently targeted by adults demanding sex and emotional support from 14 on. like I'm not here to diminish the importance of building safe environments for teenagers, I just think that necessarily means treating teenagers and young people as whole individuals with specific needs, not seeing an arbitrary cutoff below which you are not to be interacted with or criticised. that isn't how you create a healthy relationship between adults and young people, it's how you create a highly exploitable and exploited system of alienation, and it leaves a lot of people who should be getting support and protection out in the cold.