In the first place, the culture in Alabama doesn’t put a whole lot of emphasis on the difference between 16, 17, 18, and 19. Now I would agree that a 32-year-old man dating a 17-year-old girl is in questionable taste, but I think that if that happened 30 or 40 years ago, it’s no reason for Moore to drop out. I am a little bothered that he seems to equivocating about it.
It was 40 freaking years ago. My wife was 16 and I was 18 when we began dating. They wouldn’t let us do it now, and we’ve got 40 years married and grandkids everywhere.
These are attacks are from people that engage in every form of criminal act and perversion.
Now I would agree that a 32-year-old man dating a 17-year-old girl is in questionable taste, but I think that if that happened 30 or 40 years ago, it’s no reason for Moore to drop out. I am a little bothered that he seems to equivocating about it.
This is how I feel exactly. Why lie about it? He remembers whether he liked this “17 year old friend” or not. Why not be honest about that? If he didn’t undress a much younger girl, I’m ok with him staying in, but it unnerves me what he said about the 17 year old because it wasn’t the truth.
It was once typical for a man to go out and establish himself in a career, and then find himself a wife of prime childbearing age. Age gaps of 10 or 20 years were not just common, they were expected. This was the practice among the middle and upper classes for centuries in Western culture. Other cultures, it might be noted, had and have somewhat more extreme practices.
It didn't really change until after WWII when many women entered the work force for good, and until a lot of women started attending coed universities. The change wasn't abrupt, it was gradual, and is still ongoing, for better or worse. People finding fault with those historic practices tend to be progressives looking for a way to attack or simply holier-than-thou posers. There is also the biological angle - men can reproduce at a much greater age than women. The traditional, if you will, approach makes perfectly good economic and biological sense, especially as women tend to mature physically and mentally earlier than men.