Age Segregation & Teen/Adult Friendships
I’m going to start off with the easiest pill to swallow, which is unfortunately still more than a lot of people seem ready for. If some other part of this post offends you, and you think I’m wrong and predatory, then I understand. I ask you to at least recognize the importance of this page. If you actually care about young people you need to recognize the importance of what I say here, because it’s not about me or you, it’s about them.
If you go to twitter, where the education system’s failure to teach critical thinking and civil discourse is blatantly displayed, it’s not rare to come across statements like “An adult shouldn’t be friends with a [insert any age under 18]” In fact, even 18 year olds will put “MDNI” (minors do not interact) in their bios. Sometimes even for safe-for-work accounts.
If an adult is friendly with youth then they’re open to accusations of being a predator. Especially if the accounts in any way discuss/express sexuality, like the pro-ship and pro-fiction communities, but even more so for the pro-paraphilia community (which does not mean pro-(insert forbidden sex)). It’s very similar to how conservatives have reacted to friendly queer adults supporting queer youth. Any discussion or expression of sexuality in proximity to a young person in itself is seen as predatory and manipulative.
But, even without that sexual element, it’s still considered by many to just be morally wrong for an adult to be friends with a youth. Even if there is no “inappropriate” discussion.
Age segregation is the norm, and the end result actually leaves young people more vulnerable to abuse, mishaps, and the very same “predatory behavior” people claim this measure is supposed to prevent.
The idea that shielding young people from access to adults is blind to reality. We don’t live in a perfect world where every youth has access to sufficiently supportive adults. We live in a world where abuse is exceedingly common, probably especially emotional abuse, which is very under-recognized and very negatively impactful.
>That’s what the professionals are for!
Okay, let’s address each type of professional.
1. Teachers
Sure, there are many bad teachers out there, but let’s assume every teenager has at least one cool teacher. That teacher is going to be spread thin, for one thing. For another, imagine yourself as a teenager again. Let’s say you’re having relationship troubles or maybe sexuality troubles. Maybe it’s embarrassing, or maybe it’s a highly stigmatized issue (like a paraphilia for instance). How comfortable are you going to feel asking a teacher for advice, face to face?
Maybe some teens will have relationships that are that positive and comfortable, but certainly not all will. And for the latter, on topics of sexuality teachers are often either not allowed to discuss these topics or they’re not comfortable doing so, because they too are afraid of being deemed “predatory.”
For paraphilias in particular, it’s highly likely a parent will be contacted. “Great!” You might think, “That’s exactly what a teacher should do!” Except, this once again assumes we live in a perfect world in which all parents are loving, reasonable, and supportive. How many parents will instead punish their child, berate them, take phones (which are crucial for peer support and emergency support) away, or worse? I have seen one person proclaim before that if their child was an attracted to younger children they would beat their child to try and “cure” them. Keep in mind, being a paraphile doesn’t mean someone is at risk of committing sex offences.
Besides that, I personally just believe it’s wrong to disclose something sensitive to a parent without the youth’s permission. They are not a belonging, and parents do not always know best. Trust the young person to know their own circumstances.
2. School counselors
These guys are specifically supposed to offer advice and support! Except… all the same points for teachers still apply.
For a personal example, as a teenager I confided in a school counselor. I was living in a constant state of suicidal ideation, caused in part by my home life and in part by school life. School pressures on top of home life pressures can be immense. I wanted to drop out because I spent every day thinking about dying, hating my life, hating everything. He had nothing helpful to say to me, he essentially just told me to stay in school and deal with it. He didn’t report anything, which I think is fine (maybe you won’t) but he didn’t help. He made me feel worse.
I got far more support from adult friends, who recognized the unfair nature of the school system and respected how I felt.
“Professional” does not always mean “good at the job.”
3. Therapists
Maybe these would have a better chance of being useful and less embarrassing, but I’m sure some things (such as paraphilias) might still be reported to parents (whether that’s safe or not). The issues with therapists are:
- Not free! What about poor kids?
- They serve the customer, which is the parent.
The customer is the parent, and most therapists will prioritize whatever the parent might want. They might even assist abusive parents in heaping pressures onto their child. Operational Defiance Disorder is a great example of how youth-focused psychiatry is geared toward pleasing the parent.
Most kids and teens with ODD come from turbulent home lives. The reason they’re dysregulated or resistant is often because it makes sense in their circumstance. And of course… Young people are not “naturally subordinate” to adults. Especially not teenagers. The pathologizing of simply having one’s own agency is a prime example of how parents are the customer, and “the customer is always right.”
It’s not unheard of for therapists to “snitch” and for the young person to be punished, even if nothing wrong was done other than going against the ideal image their parent wants them to be.
>Well, why do young people need adult friends?
If you think young people need adults in general then this answers itself by everything I’ve addressed above. If young people are vulnerable and need adult guidance, then they need adult friends—especially for when adults they’re entrusted to fail.
But to address it anyway:
Adults have experience to share, simply by nature of having been alive longer. We’re supposed to pass information on to our young. Adults who try to control what their kids learn are adults who are scared of not being able to control them—And that in itself is predatory. Young people are not subordinates to control and own. They are not your sculpture to perfect—they are their own being.
Information is power, and adult support goes a long way.
>Okay… But they would still be opening themselves up to predatory adults.
They already do and are. Sure, some teenagers avoid making adult friends, and they have every right to! But there are also teenagers who seek out adult friendships and there are teens who seek out more than that. This isn’t up to us—it’s already reality. It always will be.
However, their options are too few, and they’re often poor options. We’re talking mostly about teen/adult friendships here, but I want to get the point across that limiting adult/teen friendships does not prevent the kind of relationships people want to prevent.
I sought out adults online for sexual attention as a teenager. I don’t regret any of those relationships, and I don’t believe I was “groomed” because it was me who initiated them and me who ended them. However… they all kind of sucked anyway.
It was clear they were almost entirely interested in me for sex, and I wanted more than just sex. There were times adults tried to pressure me, and I didn’t give in because I’ve always been stubborn, but I also put up with that behavior longer than I should have. I did so because it was the only one-on-one adult attention I was getting where I felt my individual agency was at least partly recognized.
As a teenager, there are a lot of adults telling you that you don’t know anything. Don’t know what you want or feel and that you need to just do whatever they think is best. Like I’ll cover in the section on “risk behaviors” teenagers are much smarter and more reasonable than adults think. But adults often ignores this. Adults who were willing to listen to my “forbidden” thoughts and feelings made me feel seen.
Those were never satisfying relationships on the whole. They mostly sucked at flirting, and sometimes they tried to pressure me into things, like I said. One guy seemed to care, but he was also mentally unstable. What was satisfying was having some adults acknowledge my sexual agency as a person and my frustrations with school. I felt seen—At least partly. Not as something less to be guided, outside my control, but as an actual person.
Maybe all that isn’t convincing, because you want to avoid situations like that for youth.
Well, here’s what I’ve been leading up to:
When I made adult friends online who were not interested in me for sex I stopped talking to those guys. I was being seen by adults the way I wanted, I could talk about topics I didn’t feel comfortable discussing with adults I knew face-to-face, I could discuss my turbulent home life without fear of being put in a foster home, and they always took my thoughts and feelings seriously. I was seen, and I wasn’t being used either. I didn’t have any reason to talk to the guys who were just interested in sex anymore.
That’s another part of this—Online, you can block anyone at any time. Yes, there are teenagers who are more susceptible to manipulation and abuse. Just as there are adults like that. But you can’t block your parents or your therapist if they overstep their bounds.
I’m sure my experience is still happening for teenagers now, because I know some teenagers. Instead of barring them from interaction, I leave the door open. I’ve told young people I know on more than one occasion to block creeps who don’t care about them, and I’m able to offer an alternative, just by being around them.
It’s normal and natural to want recognition from adults, and the adults young people are saddled with are far too often not adequate. Calling those few adults willing to be there for young people predators does nothing but further isolating young people from adults.
>I don’t think I’d be a good friend for a teenager
I think you could be, but it’s your choice whether or not to try.
>I’m scared of being labeled a predator or persecuted
If you’ve arrived at this then you’ve found the core of the problem. That’s the real reason adults don’t befriend young people. Not because it’s actually predatory, but because they’re scared of being called predators. And this comes from two conjoined places: the pedo panic, the great amount of stigma and fear surrounding pedophiles; and the puritan conservative “sex(uality) is harmful to minors” ideology dominant in society.
Age segregation, sexual conservatism, and the pedo panic go hand-in-hand. It’s not the only way stigma towards MAPs is believed to hurt young people either.
Anyway, I can’t say your fear is unwarranted. Most people don’t want to enter the line of fire, and depending on where you live, talking about sex might be off the table. Even if you can’t offer support for sexuality, you can still offer support outside of that. Young people are worth it. Just like your past self was—there’s a good chance you didn’t have the amount of options you deserved. We need to end the cycle of generational neglect toward our young.
If you do decide to keep your “MDNI” on your twitter bio (or otherwise continue to avoid young people) then I ask you just be honest about why. Don’t add to the chorus of “that’s predatory/wrong!” Say “This actually isolates young people and leaves them vulnerable to abuse, but I’m personally not comfortable taking the risk.”