Can we talk about age dynamics within queer communities? I got some time today y’all.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot as someone who has often dated older men and who is now 30, being approached by 20 year olds.

It’s a conversation a lot of folks just...avoid. But many of us had sexual experiences with folks far older than us because of the isolation of queerness + predatory older folks looking for young folks.

And I notice that while some cis men in their thirties and forties go after younger folks on purpose, some just see it as a part of queer culture. They erase the power dynamics that exist, especially when the top is older and more financially stable.

The thing is, young folks can have all the life experience they want. They could have been through some real real shit. And still? If you’re 18, 21, and 30+ year olds are getting at them? And those folks have a pattern of this behavior? Then we gotta start asking some questions

Two consenting adults can have fun, yes. That can be dating, that can be sex, that can be whatever. I just don’t want folks to act like there isn’t power involved. And not just when the older person is topping either!

As someone who grew up quick for a variety of reasons, I was still a kid at 18. Same even at 21. I still *looked* like a kid, too. I was smart and cute or whatever, but as someone who is 30 now, I’m not even sure how someone in their mid-thirties got with me when I was 24.

We ended up living together and he admitted (before that) that I was more emotionally mature than him. That felt like an affirmation at the time but that’s concerning. Not in an I-just-came out way, either. He had been out since his early twenties and I had since my late teens.

For a 32 year old to be with—not just fuck—a 24 year old you have to have real conversations about power, how that shows up, how that can go south, and more. We didn’t have any of those convos and at 24 I wasn’t thinking about those types of things *on that level*

And I want to be clear:

1. I’m talking about folks in that 18 to early 20s range dating people in their thirties and up. Not 30-40, 30-50, etc pairings.

2. My faults + the faults of those I dated are not your (the reader’s) faults. So don’t project that onto me.

I know couples with large age diffs, where one partner was like 23/24 and they worked out. No one felt taken advantage of, they openly discussed inherent power dynamics.

But that’s not necessarily the norm I’ve observed or experienced, even as someone “more mature for my age”

AND it is hard to say what the norm is bc we avoid the subject. I’ve talked personally to friends and chosen fam about it.

AND I can see why older folks go after 18+ younger folks and why those younger folks get with older folk: the disposability and desirability politics of of older queers, femmes, trans folk, fat folk, disabled folk, etc. I get it. I just want us to be real about what’s going on.

I especially thought about it back in December because of how romanticized the fictional relationship was in this short, but you see it in so much of our queer cinema: https://twitter.com/anthoknees/status/1205585327936565249?s=21 https://twitter.com/anthoknees/status/1205585327936565249

And this doesn’t even get into power dynamics regarding RACE, class status, occupation, physical location, MONEY, needs, and more. Because, whew.

I don’t regret starting to have sex at 16 but I will say that it wouldn’t have hurt if I—me personally, not you, not your cousin, not your boyfriend—had waited a few years. Not on some prude shit, just on some I-was-really-young shit.

And it’s worth noting that I have had sex and dated people younger than me. The last two people I dated were 38 and I was 30. And when I was 26 I met a 22 year old. I wasn’t interested not just bc age, but bc he had never had any sexual experiences. Most he had done was kissed.

So with this ex I was especially cognizant of power. He had only come out at the end of undergrad, but he was a grad student and I was an undergrad when we met because he went straight after undergrad and I was a non-traditional student.

Eventually got to know him and we started dating and stayed together for a significant amount of time. But throughout we talked a lot about pace, desires, experience, and power.

Post-thread thought: I put the onus/responsibility on the older person, so the goal is not to shame younger folks interested in older folks, but to encourage us all to be real about it.