Normal Adult Men Don’t Date Teenage Girls

I have a nine-year-old. She is a beautiful girl. I’m pretty sure she will be a beautiful teenager, aesthetically and otherwise. I was a beautiful girl, tall for my age, long limbs and long hair, and I attracted the attention of older men from the time I was 10. Much older men. And it made me uncomfortable, and it made me scared. And I grew into a teenager, and I still received attention from older men, the catcalls, the gross suggestions hollered from passing cars when I rode my bike down the street, the hey baby’s and the worse, and sometime around age 16 my parents divorced and sent me into a hormonal flurry of angst and insecurity and anger and sadness.

The older guys were nice.

And I was scared and sad and insecure and I reeked of it. I smelled like Love’s Baby Soft and the occasional sneaked clove cigarette and stolen sips of lukewarm champale chugged behind the bleachers after class. I just wanted people to be nice to me, men to be nice to me, and when you are pretty and angry and lost you date older guys because they have cars and money and your dad moved out and your mom is busy crying so you go with them.

At least I did.

And my mom did her best, but when you have this Tasmanian Devil of a daughter who screams fuck you and pierces her nose and sneaks out of her room and you are just trying to work to put mashed potatoes on the table (because potatoes are cheapthey are still cheap) there isn’t a lot you can do. And you work long hours and cry a lot and your daughter has a bedroom with a window and a balcony and she is a quiet ghost who waits on the corner for a car to pick her up. By some older dude with a full wallet that can buy drugs and booze and cheap jewelry that turns her neck green but at least it is someone.

And the boys her age are loud and boring and don’t even know how to talk to a girl, can’t even read her signals which are shrieking tell me I matter tell me I’m smart tell me I’m pretty. And I was so smart. Leaving high school to move away from home and attend college where my older boyfriend followed right behind me and made very sure I was never more than two steps away and nothing my mother did could ever stop that.

I wasn’t that rare. There are a million other girls who have stories just like mine who were just as pretty and just as sneaky and who were just as sad. Who just wanted the attention of someone, usually someone who made them feel more mature than they actually were. Who didn’t understand that one day they would grow up and look back on that teen girl and want to slap her and hold her and tell her to never, ever, let an older man touch her.

I have a daughter. She is so pretty. And it’s easy for me to say this now because right now she is ice skates and coloring books and yes, still dolls and I will never let an older man, much less a much older man come near her. No matter how badly she wants the attention of one. Because older men, decent normal older men, they may look at these long limbed long haired girls and find them aesthetically pleasing. They may see a group of them outside the mall, pink Victoria’s Secret bags, yoga pants and lips smacking Juicy Fruit gum, they may find themselves looking a bit longer than they should. But they will catch themselves and feel momentarily gross and no matter how many men may like the idea of an adult woman in a school girl uniform, these normal men never fantasize about an actual schoolgirl in one.

There is something wrong about a man who wants to “date” a teenage girl. I’m not talking about a 20-year-old dating a 17-year-old. I’m talking about a 33-year-old dating a 16-year-old. I don’t care how mature, or intelligent, or self-possessed this girl is. Normal men see these girls as just that, girls. Not for them. And this has nothing to do with slut-shaming teens or not allowing them to have their sexual agency –  these girls can have all the beautiful amazing life affirming healthy and fun sex they want, as long as it is with people in their own age group and they are safe, and it is consensual.

Normal older men don’t date teenage girls. They don’t let them in the car. They don’t even wait on the corner.

(Image: getty Images)