• @RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    It’s rare, but it happens. They’re consenting adults.

    E: look, I’m not a fan of this age gap, but everyone’s making up rules about what’s acceptable. Either they’re adults or not, 18 is the cutoff, and if no grooming was involved you can dislike it all you want but they’re still adults.

    E2: looks like they met when she was under age. So, no…this doesn’t work right at all.

    • Todd Bonzalez
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      24 days ago

      It’s rare, but it happens. They’re consenting adults.

      I understand your desire to make this point, but a 45 year old man marrying a woman a mere 3 years after she reaches adulthood does, in fact, say a ton about the 45 year old man.

      Is it legal? Sure.

      Is there anything anyone can do about it? No.

      Is it an indicator that this man only sees value in women’s youth, and lacks the maturity to maintain a relationship with a woman his own age? Absolutely.

      Is it worth pointing out that this man is a member of a party that constantly fearmongers about sexual deviancy and “protecting children”, but also fucks women less than half his age? You fucking bet it is.

      At the end of the day, this deranged fucker took the floor to defend a convicted criminal, and his 6-year-old child absolutely bodied him with goofy faces. We can pick him apart for all of his flaws and hypocrisy, because he fucking deserves it.

      • @enbyecho@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        What if the woman was 45 and the man was 21?

        Edit: to not be cryptic, my hope was that you’d answer similarly… obviously. To me the issue is not the age difference in and of itself but how or if the relationship came to be because of the age difference and the issues of power and control that might imply regardless of the gender identity of the older person. Obviously, older men do typically have disproportionate power but not always.

        And it was pointed out here that this guy did meet here when she was still in high school, so most likely very much a case of grooming.

        But just in general I really take exception to the assumption that just because there is an age differential it’s a given that there is a power differential. Even though I agree broadly with what you say, these types of assumptions smack of morality police to me.

        Edit2: Of course, down vote. But why?

    • @ReiRose@lemmy.world
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      1324 days ago

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rose_(Tennessee_politician)

      Rose and his wife Chelsea (née Doss) married in January 2011.[30] At the time, he was 45 and she was 21. He met her when she was 17.[31] They live in Cookeville, Tennessee, with their two sons. [6]

      Doesn’t say when they started dating.

      I will agree that it’s case by case, but if he started grooming her at 17 it’s grooming.

      Grooming doesn’t always relate to age or age gap either. If a man is a teacher or leader at church camp or something, some position of authority it can go beyond the age of consent and still be considered grooming.

    • @rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      24 days ago

      Just because something is legal doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t judge people for doing it. It’s not illegal to be a creep.

    • @spongebue@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      I’m a huge fan of the “half your age plus seven” rule. Even if it’s legal (assuming no grooming prior) it’s still pretty creepy. Especially since that’s the age you marry - presumably you’ve been together for a bit before that too.

    • Billiam
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      724 days ago

      I’ll join in and say you’re right. Policing morally “wrong” but legal acts is a very conservative way of doing things. You can point to dozens of activities that conservatives decry as “immoral” or “sinful” yet are legal and nobody cares what they think, but when it’s two adults who get married with a large age gap suddenly everyone wants to be moral guardians. Two consenting adults can make a legal choice, and anything more than that is nobody’s business.

      That said, in this particular case, this dude met his wife when she was still in high school. He absolutely groomed her.

      • @RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        Yeah, I agree. But someone just provided info that the met when she was as under age. This no longer seems like it passes for “leave them alone” territory.

        • Billiam
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          324 days ago

          That was the very last thing I said:

          That said, in this particular case, this dude met his wife when she was still in high school. He absolutely groomed her.

      • Todd Bonzalez
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        24 days ago

        Yeah, about that…

        John Rose met Chelsea Doss in 2007 when she was still a student at Eagleville High School in Eagleville, Tennessee. He was an authority figure representing the extracurricular organization Future Farmers of America, which Chelsea was a member of.

        She was 16 years old. John was 41 years old. They married less than 4 years later.

        Keep in mind, John was a government official and a business owner at the time, with a net worth in the tens of millions of dollars. This man has significant power & money, and more than double the life experience of the woman that he married. He had authority over this girl when he met her, as a leader in the after-school organization she was a part of.

        “Grooming” is probably a good word to describe how his marriage came to fruition, though at minimum, we can call it a deeply inappropriate imbalance of power.

        Oh, and hes’ an Evangelical Christian who believes that women are a lesser sex that should have fewer domestic rights, and the expectation of obedience and subservience to men, so of course he sought out a child bride…

    • @enbyecho@lemmy.world
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      524 days ago

      but everyone’s making up rules about what’s acceptable.

      The hypocrisy for me is that folks want to dictate what is “morally acceptable” while objecting to other people’s wanting to dictate what is “morally acceptable”. In this case, and it all too common with Republicans generally, he did apparently groom her from a young age. But we can make a judgement based on that fact, not the fact of the age differential.

    • @Psythik@lemmy.world
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      224 days ago

      Just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it morally correct.

      Reminds me of my aunt. Strongly against weed, then it gets legalized and suddenly she smokes more than I do. Pure hypocrisy.