15yo and a 17yo boyfriend

SingleSue

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

If I look at couples my age, or my parents age, or my grandparents (long dead) age, it was always man older than woman, usually a few years. So it seems to have been the in thing for generations of women.

It was certainly normal for my parents, mum was 15, dad 17 when they met and they married when they were 17 and 19.

They celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary in the summer.

Comms69

It's hardly a massive age difference.


I'd be supportive and see how it develops.

phryne

15 and 17 is fine. If it were 15 and 25 I could see your point!

Stoke

I'm 28, but growing up I always found the whole young girl, older lad thing really uncomfortable. I used to see 13 year old girls getting with 17 year old lads. Always found it a bit weird to be honest, but some people would call me Victorian in my views.

clairec79

For people between the ages of 13 and 16 they say risk of child sexual expoltation is when the age difference is more than 4 years

http://www.youngpeopleshealth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Teenagers-and-their-sexual-partners-what-age-difference-should-raise-concerns-of-sexual-exploitation-Dr-Louise-Cook.pdf

So in this case it wouldn't be seen as unusual

Stoke

clairec79 wrote: »

For people between the ages of 13 and 16 they say risk of child sexual expoltation is when the age difference is more than 4 years

http://www.youngpeopleshealth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Teenagers-and-their-sexual-partners-what-age-difference-should-raise-concerns-of-sexual-exploitation-Dr-Louise-Cook.pdf

So in this case it wouldn't be seen as unusual

Perhaps it's just me, but for me, the gap is irrelevant. When a young girl is going out with a 17 year old lad, say she's 15, his brain is more developed than hers and naturally he will be more 'forward' thinking. He may expect her to do some things that she doesn't feel ready for yet, and she may feel compelled to do it. That's not fair on her.

It's tricky, because the line is arbitrary. Does a girl instantly begin to understand the world, the day she turns 16? No, but the line has to be somewhere...

Like I said, I'm probably Victorian in my thinking.

Comms69

Stoke wrote: »

Perhaps it's just me, but for me, the gap is irrelevant. When a young girl is going out with a 17 year old lad, say she's 15, his brain is more developed than hers and naturally he will be more 'forward' thinking. - are you sure... He may expect her to do some things that she doesn't feel ready for yet, and she may feel compelled to do it. That's not fair on her.

It's tricky, because the line is arbitrary. Does a girl instantly begin to understand the world, the day she turns 16? No, but the line has to be somewhere...

Like I said, I'm probably Victorian in my thinking.

I don't necessarily have the right answer, but I wouldn't assume anything based purely upon age

NaughtiusMaximus

Stoke wrote: »

Perhaps it's just me, but for me, the gap is irrelevant. When a young girl is going out with a 17 year old lad, say she's 15, his brain is more developed than hers and naturally he will be more 'forward' thinking. He may expect her to do some things that she doesn't feel ready for yet, and she may feel compelled to do it. That's not fair on her.

I thought the general consensus was teenage girls mature emotionally a year or two earlier than boys (obviously there are exceptions), so a 17 year old boy and a 15 year girl are probably more likely to be on a similar wavelength with each other than with a person their own age of the opposite sex.

Stoke

NaughtiusMaximus wrote: »

I thought the general consensus was teenage girls mature emotionally a year or two earlier than boys (obviously there are exceptions), so a 17 year old boy and a 15 year girl are probably more likely to be on a similar wavelength with each other than with a person their own age of the opposite sex.

I'm not an expert.... I don't have kids.

But just think whether you'd want your 15 year old daughter knocking about with a 17 year old who's about to turn 18.

Remember that every time you give advice to others along the lines of "it's okay for some lad who's getting wasted at the weekends, and doing whatever, going into clubs etc, to also be chatting up a school girl daughter of yours in the week"....

That's essentially one strand of it, right or wrong.

onomatopoeia99

Stoke wrote: »

It's tricky, because the line is arbitrary. Does a girl instantly begin to understand the world, the day she turns 16? No, but the line has to be somewhere...

Like I said, I'm probably Victorian in my thinking.

You should read the judgement from the Law Lords in the case Gillick vs Wisbech and West Norfolk AHA & the DHSS which begain in 1983 and ended in 1985. Lord Scarman and others have quite a bit to say about the arrival of the ability to make decisions in teenagers, and how it is a gradual process, not something that arrives fully fledged on the morning of their 16th birthday.

The case revolves around consent to medical treatment, specifically abortion, where statute law is not clear, and the verdict does not draw an arbitary line in the sand like there is for sexual offences with under 16s, so we have a much better system for recognising the ability to consent to medical treatment than we do for sex.

For a bunch of crusty old buffers (as the tabloid press has historically portrayed the senior judiciary, because they don't know the names of footballers or characters an Coronation Street), they are surprisingly enlightened.