Others may not realize until later in life that the relationships weren’t healthy. However, you could argue that these assessments can’t be taken at face value, since many of the girls – either because of emotional immaturity or a desire to protect their romantic partner – might not want to admit that the relationships are harmful. In research I’ve conducted that hasn’t been published yet, I found older adolescents typically also don’t describe these relationships in negative terms. Yet after the relationships ended, they were more likely to paint the relationships in a negative light. In one study of teenage mothers, most of them described their relationships as consensual and not exploitative. While most people tend to see these relationships as a form of sexual abuse or predation, most of the girls in the relationships don’t see them that way. Only a handful of studies have asked girls themselves how they feel about these relationships. However, we found that there were no characteristics that distinguished girls who entered into relationships with significantly older men from girls who didn’t. We wondered if these negative outcomes might simply be a function of the types of girls who enter into them – for instance, girls who are more sexually active or more willing to engage in other risky behaviors. For instance, we found younger girls are more likely to be depressed while in the relationship and continue to report depression five years later.
They’re also more likely to drink alcohol and do drugs and have increased suicide risk.Ĭlearly, when girls date older men, there are a host of negative outcomes.įurthermore, the younger the girls are, the more likely they are to have negative outcomes from these relationships and the more likely those negative outcomes are to last.
Girls in relationships with people at least three years older than them are more likely to have sex at a young age, less likely to use contraception, more likely to become pregnant and more likely to contract a sexually transmitted infection. There has been quite a bit of research over the years on how these types of relationships affect girls.
MATURE GAY FUCKING YOUNG TEEN BOYS SERIES
These were the questions my co-authors and I set out to answer in a series of studies on adolescents in relationships with people significantly older than them. How do these relationships affect the teens who are in them? And are they always bad? About 5% of men report that they had a romantic relationship with a woman significantly older than them while they were adolescents. Somewhere between 36% and 41% of sexually active adolescent girls report having been sexually involved with a male partner three or more years older than them. “There he is,” my wife says.Yet age-discordant relationships are quite common. I poke my head through my wife’s office door: it looks like a sixth-form common room, with my wife seated centrally, a school bully holding court. “She just sent me down to get wine.”Īfter a few more minutes I head upstairs. The youngest one comes back in and pulls a glass from the cupboard. I’m just tired, I think, or maybe it’s a Gemini thing. I find myself briefly alone with my thoughts, which are confused and contradictory.
The old-school boys drift into the garden. The youngest one comes back into the kitchen holding his year 7 photo in one hand, and a picture of Ryan Gosling on his phone in the other, with his head stuck between them: an evolutionary tableau. From upstairs I hear shrieks of merry laughter, and some regular shrieks. I open one of my dressing room beers, and sit. “Trying to find more pictures of me when I was little.” “They’re upstairs,” says the youngest one. “Look!” my wife says, taking the picture.“My baby!” A sudden peal of laughter reaches us from elsewhere. He is holding a framed picture of himself in his school uniform, from year 7.
The youngest one comes in from the garden. Illustration: Benoit Jacues/Benoit Jacques for the Guardian