throwing my anger elsewhere
One of the things I get most pissed off about on Reddit is ageism. I think one of the benefits of polyamory, open relationships, or relationship anarchism is that you can have a variety of different kinds of relationships with other adults. You aren't looking for The One Soulmate who matches your every need, so you don't have to look for somebody who is your age, your religion or politics, your education level, your income level, etc. You don't have to look for somebody who likes all your friends and family, or vice versa, who shares all your hobbies, etc.
You look for people that you have something in common with, and you enjoy that commonality, without worrying about the rest.
So when I see the non-monogamous crowd getting judgmental about age differences in relationships, I get pissed off. I'm sure I've written about this before.
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One of the subreddits I follow is a support group for gay men who are in relationships with wide age differences, and men who want such relationships.
Today a young fella posted about how he resents being sexually attracted to older men, because -- and then he started listing all the things he doesn't like about older men. The list was so long and detailed that it became ridiculous, he'd built a huge stereotype of older men in his head, associating older men with all the things he doesn't like about people. And there were a lot of things he doesn't like about people.
The bit he complained about that pissed me off was him saying he couldn't find any older men who were anti-racist.
I flatly called bullshit on this. Of course there are older men who are anti-racist, what did this kid think, that organizing against racism was something brand new? WTF! There have been anti-racists in the US since before we were a country.
So then he responded to me by calling me rude, for questioning his "lived experience", and then he added another long essay explaining why all older guys have to be racist, because of the times we grew up in, because of our upbringing, and that voting for Obama wasn't enough, blah blah blah.
But this was only one of his points, he had so many things he claimed to hate about older guys. He's simply prejudiced, I blocked him, but he gave me a focal point for my anger this morning that allowed me to throw it far away from the people I have to deal with on a more regular basis ;-)
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Sometimes T complains about "Boomers" -- the people he works with who are a bit older than we are, white men from the Baby Boom generation. He loves to make sweeping generalizations about how horrible the Boomers are. Some of them are just a few years older than we are LOL.
Others like to make sweeping generalizations about the younger generations. It's tough sometimes to remember we're all just people. I know I get to making sweeping generalizations about people with certain political identities ...
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Human societies didn't used to segregate people by age the way we do today, starting with pre-school and sorting kids into same-age cohorts for educational purposes over the next 20+ years. And then having a retirement age, with retirement homes and so forth. We used to live and work in multigenerational groups, farming or hunting & gathering, home crafting. Everybody helped out as they were able, everybody learned as they went along. But industrialization requires more of a segregated life, families are split up into different places -- day care, schools, multiple work sites, nursing homes.
The industrial-age work site requires people who have been educated in similar ways, who behave according to mechanical/electronic time clocks and artificial deadlines. It requires specialists who focus on particular careers and hone specific skills over a period of years, and then we are to exchange all of our specialist labor for cash, and then exchange cash for all of our personal needs. As the Marxists say, we are "alienated" from our labor.
Even the non-monogamous folks have had it drilled into their brains from childhood that we're all to be segregated by age, and that it is inappropriate or predatory for people of different ages to engage in romantic/sexual relationships, or even friendships. And, sure, predation exists, but predation can exist within one's age group also. Your partner can abuse you regardless of how old you are, how old they are. It's a societal prejudice to assume that a 50-year-old dating a 20-year-old is inherently abusive.
Anyway, we're so prejudiced about this stuff that lots of people presume that if a 50-year-old would date a 20-year-old, he'd also rape a kid. There's definitely a lot of child rape happening, and a lot of adult rape happening. But age difference isn't rape, not if you're both over the legal age of consent in your jurisdiction.
You look for people that you have something in common with, and you enjoy that commonality, without worrying about the rest.
So when I see the non-monogamous crowd getting judgmental about age differences in relationships, I get pissed off. I'm sure I've written about this before.
-----
One of the subreddits I follow is a support group for gay men who are in relationships with wide age differences, and men who want such relationships.
Today a young fella posted about how he resents being sexually attracted to older men, because -- and then he started listing all the things he doesn't like about older men. The list was so long and detailed that it became ridiculous, he'd built a huge stereotype of older men in his head, associating older men with all the things he doesn't like about people. And there were a lot of things he doesn't like about people.
The bit he complained about that pissed me off was him saying he couldn't find any older men who were anti-racist.
I flatly called bullshit on this. Of course there are older men who are anti-racist, what did this kid think, that organizing against racism was something brand new? WTF! There have been anti-racists in the US since before we were a country.
So then he responded to me by calling me rude, for questioning his "lived experience", and then he added another long essay explaining why all older guys have to be racist, because of the times we grew up in, because of our upbringing, and that voting for Obama wasn't enough, blah blah blah.
But this was only one of his points, he had so many things he claimed to hate about older guys. He's simply prejudiced, I blocked him, but he gave me a focal point for my anger this morning that allowed me to throw it far away from the people I have to deal with on a more regular basis ;-)
-----
Sometimes T complains about "Boomers" -- the people he works with who are a bit older than we are, white men from the Baby Boom generation. He loves to make sweeping generalizations about how horrible the Boomers are. Some of them are just a few years older than we are LOL.
Others like to make sweeping generalizations about the younger generations. It's tough sometimes to remember we're all just people. I know I get to making sweeping generalizations about people with certain political identities ...
-----
Human societies didn't used to segregate people by age the way we do today, starting with pre-school and sorting kids into same-age cohorts for educational purposes over the next 20+ years. And then having a retirement age, with retirement homes and so forth. We used to live and work in multigenerational groups, farming or hunting & gathering, home crafting. Everybody helped out as they were able, everybody learned as they went along. But industrialization requires more of a segregated life, families are split up into different places -- day care, schools, multiple work sites, nursing homes.
The industrial-age work site requires people who have been educated in similar ways, who behave according to mechanical/electronic time clocks and artificial deadlines. It requires specialists who focus on particular careers and hone specific skills over a period of years, and then we are to exchange all of our specialist labor for cash, and then exchange cash for all of our personal needs. As the Marxists say, we are "alienated" from our labor.
Even the non-monogamous folks have had it drilled into their brains from childhood that we're all to be segregated by age, and that it is inappropriate or predatory for people of different ages to engage in romantic/sexual relationships, or even friendships. And, sure, predation exists, but predation can exist within one's age group also. Your partner can abuse you regardless of how old you are, how old they are. It's a societal prejudice to assume that a 50-year-old dating a 20-year-old is inherently abusive.
Anyway, we're so prejudiced about this stuff that lots of people presume that if a 50-year-old would date a 20-year-old, he'd also rape a kid. There's definitely a lot of child rape happening, and a lot of adult rape happening. But age difference isn't rape, not if you're both over the legal age of consent in your jurisdiction.