It depends on the relative power imbalance at this point. If a 20 year old is out at bars going home with 50 year old dudes, then slay queen. If it's 20 year old secretary with 50 year old boss, then there's a much higher chance that the situation is fucked, though still not 100% I suppose.
I'm always conflicted on the sugar daddy scenario. I mean if a woman is attractive and wants to leverage that into a relationship that makes her financially comfortable, who am I to say no?
Oh, I judge, particularly the older person, but not in some moralistic way. But in a "if at 50 you can have a romantic or sexual relationship, even temporarily, with an 18-year-old, I have some unflattering views of you."
You kind of do. People change a lot after being in a major new phase of their life for a year.
I'm not going to say 17 and 20 is outright unethical. It's possible for that to have been a freshman and junior in high school who had a long term relationship. They're not required to break up.
But a 20 year old meeting a 17 year old is significantly more creepy, and is likely due to the power imbalance.
People change a lot after being in a major new phase of their life for a year.
What is this major new phase you're talking about? graduating high school? I fail to see how that's related to relationships. Also some people graduate earlier or later.
But a 20 year old meeting a 17 year old is significantly more creepy
Is an 18 year old meeting a 17 year old also creepy? Where do you put the limit? Why is a 30 year old meeting an 18 year old suddenly ok?
If I recall correctly, over here once the person reaches the age of consent (16) it's considered legally acceptable if the different is + 4 years, meaning a 20 years old couldn't be accused of being a pedo if they were going out with a consenting 16 years old...
They just need to remember to not be idiots and not to share pictures...
It also doesn't plot well in Wolfram alpha because of the scale break, which is critical here. And it'd be helpful to graph the upper bound too, mostly to show how it widens with age.
I dunno I had a girlfriend who was 34-36 when I was 21-23 and it wasn't weird or anything, still friends many years later even though we have our own families now. She got carded buying alcohol more than me so it's not like it was obvious though.
That's literally how the formula is intended to work, since any given age difference means less the older the two parties are (ie. a 40 year old married to a 50 year old is no big deal, but that same couple at 16 age 26 years old is creepy, and illegally so).
If your partner was 4.5 years outside of the formula range when you met (and assuming when you met is when you started dating...not some stupid gotcha like "we met at church when I was a teenager and they were a young child, and we didn't see each other romantically for another 15 years! Haha!") it's probably a situation where it was indeed eyebrow raising when you started dating.