It angers me to know your experience of predation and manipulation is one that has been repeated with many *many* women across this globe. Every young teen girl child of my contemporary guy friends can share uncomfortable experiences with creepily inappropriate men. Sexualiziation of teens is undeniable and needs to be addressed. There's a story here about men needing to hold other men accountable too.

That said, I do think it is important not to conflate correlation with cause: manipulation, grooming, and coercion are innately despicable. Age-gap relationships are not. But asking the question about how power imbalance and age difference play into the dynamic is 100% valid, and I for one appreciate that you are doing so.

Personally I'm ENM and partners in recent years have ranged in age from 28 to 50. I'm still friendly with each of them. We text. On occasion we may grab a meal or see a show together. Some have become strictly platonic while others are intimate. Some are kinky, others vanilla. I've been seeing a wonderful 35 year old woman for months now, who I care for greatly; and we don't even really think about our 15 year age difference any more. We're good together. Yes, it is important to me to be open to self-assessment, to ask (and re-ask) if any of my behavior crosses a line into power abuse. But I think it is a mistake to make the assumption it is explicitly a de facto defining characteristic or inherent goal in every age gap relationship. Or to conflate grooming underage girls with an age-gap relationship between mature adults (and I believe recent science shows us mature adulthood is generally around the mid-20's). I find this to be uncomfortable similar to ideas like "kinky people have mental problems" or "sex work is always trafficking" (which led to the awful FOSTA-SESTA laws here in the US that are negatively impacting the real lives of many sex workers I know). There are far too many examples that contradict this assumption in my personal experience at least.

Thanks for considering my perspective! And please continue writing, despite the anger you (and every author of feminist thought) seem to get in the comments. I think these are important questions to explore.