Other than female intrasexual competition (a big part of it), I think a lot of insane “any age gap is evil” crapola you see around is due to the fact that younger millennials and Gen Z really do have different mental ages than older people and generations at the same chronological age.

I saw two places today asserting that 25-year-old women were just “babies” and implying they could not consent to anything. So very fucking oddball.

Anyway, back to my main point. Just observing the behavior and life knowledge of a lot of Gen Z and younger millennial people, many of them truly do seem to be at 25-30 where my generation was mentally at 9-11 years old. That is not all their fault — part of it is due to pervasive helicopter and snowplow parenting, as well as being stunted by social media and excessive internet reliance.

So, all the “Any age gap is rape*” stuff is related to the fact that a Gen Z 26-year-old is about at the same level of maturity as an 11-year-old in 1987 (a Gen X-er). It makes more sense when you think about it in those terms. And I can actually see where they are coming from because too many Gen Z-ers truly are very far behind the maturity of other generations at the same calendar age.

*Somehow, they believe this even if it’s a platonic friendship.