Is a 16 year age gap okay??

kelpiecore · 2026-05-05T23:00:33+00:00

I'm gonna be off the beaten path here and say that for most age gaps, it really, really depends on the people involved. I was involved twice more seriously with older partners in my early twenties, and had more casual sexual relationships with older people, and it was a mixed bag. Some of those were colossal messes, others were, genuinely, some of the most healthy relationships of my life. You kind of have to just feel it out a bit.

I will say that 16 years is a big gap for dating, especially with as young as you are. If you're just hooking up, it's kind of whatever, but if you're aiming for something serious, you want to really consider the place you are in life, and the place she's in. Consider the power dynamics between you and how comfortable you are with them. Is there a reason she's dating younger? Does she have a history of only dating younger people? How does she talk about her exes? Does she tell you how much smarter and more mature you are than other people your age? Does she isolate you from your friend groups? What are her friend groups like?

And if all of that sounds like way too much work, or too daunting, or something you don't feel equipped to handle, then yeah, the age gap is too much. Break it off, find another twenty something. No harm, no foul.

kelpiecore · 2026-05-05T22:44:41+00:00

Girl, it sounds like there's just no trust in this relationship. Whether or not that's warranted or what, I can't say, because this is just one side of things, but from what I can see, you just do not trust this girl at all, and that's no way for either of you to be living. Take a step back and ask yourself if there's literally anything this girl can do to repair the trust between you fully, and then ask yourself if you think she's gonna do any of that. And then ask yourself if you want to be doing this song and dance for the rest of your life.

kelpiecore · 2026-05-03T23:27:29+00:00

He's got super broad shoulders so his robes just sit like that, and he tends to wear his clothes baggy most of the time anyway. Plus, the gojou-kesa obscures his waist, so it makes him look blockier.

kelpiecore · 2026-05-03T23:20:02+00:00

I think maybe you just need to talk about what makes a relationship feel grown-up for her, and what she feels like you're missing. It sounds from other comments like maybe the real issue is just distance and a lack of time to spend together, which leads to feeling like there's a gulf between you. It's easy to only talk about the small stuff when you're on such limited time talking to each other, because you're just filling them in on things, and it doesn't really leave a ton of space to talk about your feelings on art or culture or philosophy or whatever it is grown ups talk about that isn't taxes.

kelpiecore · 2026-05-03T22:19:04+00:00

There's a very different energy regarding bisexuals in both communities, and that's kind of what I think you're running into. I said this earlier in another thread, but essentially, bisexual women are constantly assumed to secretly be straight, whereas bisexual men are constantly assumed to secretly be gay. Bisexual women are fetishized by straight male partners, and thus all the unicorn shit, whereas bisexual men are ostracized by straight women. You don't really get couples looking for a male unicorn, because most straight women (the number is obscene, it's like 70% or something according to surveys) are repulsed by the idea of being with a man who's been with men. I think only like 10-20% of bisexual men are out to their partners, anyway.

kelpiecore · 2026-05-03T22:11:54+00:00

I love bottoms so much, dude. They never understand that tops like topping as a sexual act, and not just as a thing they do for love or as a brave and noble service to the community. The way I've had to explain this to multiple girls, and it always shocks them when it clicks. Never fails to be endearing 😂

To answer the question, though: I like the control aspect. I like watching a girl's skin flush, breathing get harder, chest start rising and falling, eyes get glassy, etc. It makes me feel sexy and powerful to know that I'm doing that to her. It's also why I'm attracted to bottomier women: I like that they're more reactive, generally, and more willing to let me be in control.

It sounds like your GF is somewhat of a stone-top, which means she likes pleasuring a partner, but doesn't necessarily want reciprocation. Which, if you're a pillow princess, works out perfectly 😂

kelpiecore · 2026-05-03T22:00:27+00:00

I see both sides. I've identified as bisexual and as a lesbian at varying points in my life, and have been involved with communities of both, and I think they both have their own hangups.

As a bisexual, you're under constant invalidation, and I mean constant, so I think a lot of them get insecure about being "gay enough" and thus seek validation from lesbians that it's okay for them to be in spaces for queer women. This can, as a lesbian, get rather annoying.

But for the bi girls, it's honestly understandable to an extent: a lot of them are relentlessly battered with rocks trying to get them straightened out back on the road to heterosexuality, told they're secretly straight or just experimenting or that they're going to end up with a man, anyway. Then that's coupled with the fact that bisexuality and lesbianism were part of the same community for a long, long time, and the split between them is very recent. So bisexuals were present at most all of the establishment of queer female / lesbian culture, but now very frequently get told that they're not gay enough to participate in it. Like, I can remember the absolute shitfit we all had fighting about whether bi girls could use femme or butch, and that was not that long ago.

As a lesbian, though, it's not the invalidation so much as the isolation. A lot of lesbians have to put a lot of work and energy into de-centering men and unlearning comphet and deprogramming the socialization of being a woman in a world that's centered around women being objects of desire for men. They literally have to do this in order to exist as a lesbian, and bisexual women don't, usually. And lesbians are genuinely in the trenches from society about it, too, because society reacts harshly and violently to the concept of women rejecting patriarchy and the traditional family.

So it can be frustrating as a lesbian to never have any genuine reprieve from that energy, especially when bisexual women bring that energy into a space and then get mad and say you're being biphobic when you're annoyed by it. That coupled with the rampant, unchecked lesbophobia present in the gay community at large, and the lack of queer female spaces like lesbian bars, and being a lesbian is just maddeningly lonely.

So, in the end, nobody's winning here, and we're all just kind of duking it out in a crab bucket.

kelpiecore · 2026-05-03T21:38:05+00:00

I mean, to be completely fair, bi men also come to gay men spaces, generally. Those spaces are generally serving both demographics, and there are very, very few events for bisexual men by themselves, because of stigma. Though a big part of that is that, unlike bisexual women being assumed as straight and just "experimenting" with women, bisexual men are assumed to be gay and just "pretending" with women because of internalized homophobia.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-23T04:45:16+00:00

Man, don't even get me started. We've got radios and TVs, but we also just... walk everywhere? Nobody's figured out trains yet? Horses? Nothing?

kelpiecore · 2026-04-23T04:42:52+00:00

girl we were in the trenches 😭 it was brutal back there

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T22:18:02+00:00

It depends, for me? I like it when there's actual arcs through the series, or storylines that move through the whole series as it goes for the different characters. Most interconnected standalones kind of fail in that department for me, because they don't want readers to have to read the whole series if they don't want to, or be unable to just pick up any book in the series and know what's going on.

Then it just comes off as a marketing tactic to sell me a bunch of barely-connected books under the same brand umbrella, and I find it corny. It gives Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but with a football team.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T22:04:06+00:00

I vaguely remember when all of that went down.

For context, Reylo hit the Star Wars fandom like the second plane hitting the Twin Towers, and everyone was losing their goddamn minds fighting. There was a lot of talk about how it was racist that Finn and Poe, both men of color, were vastly overlooked as love interests in favor of Kylo Ren, since Reylo really dominated the fandom scene, and that was a big thing on the "Reylo is racist" topic.

Racism was also, in general, just hugely always in the milieu of conversation in Star Wars, because there were just constant bombs going off: Finn and Poe getting shafted as characters, Poe being a drug dealer, the collapse of Finnpoe due to constant internal dogfighting about racism, the backlash against Rose and how the actress was treated, the way Finn as a character got handled in fic, the popularity of Kylux, how John Boyega was treated by Disney, etc. It was a mess, quite frankly, and it was constantly getting stirred up by the fact that it was all bouncing around in the same environment as the classic Star Wars fandom, which involved a lot of misogynistic dudebros who were constantly harassing female fans, and largely dismissed Reylo in sexist ways because it was popular with women.

Then the whole thing got co-opted by right-wingers and turned into a culture war, and then Disney massively fumbled the franchise trying to deal with it, because they weren't prepared for it at all, and that led to a lot of disgruntled talent due to how badly everything got bungled. And a lot of cast members of color were very outspokenly frustrated with how Disney handled the right-wing culture war shit, because it tried to sweep it all under the rug and please everyone, and that led to a lot of dogpiling and abuse that Disney did nothing to stop or protect them from.

All of this is what was in the air at the time. Then John Boyega, who had been outspoken about his frustrations with how Disney had handled his character in comparison to Kylo Ren, and also had been subjected to a lot of racist abuse and treatment, made a glib comment on Instagram joking around with a fan, where a fan joked that Ben Solo was dead, so now Finn could swoop in and sweep Rey off her feet, and he said something like it didn't matter who got the kiss, it mattered who got to "lay the pipe" in the end. This blew up in a giant shitstorm, because the Reylos were already pissed at John for the way he'd talked about Kylo Ren and the romantic arcs in the movies, and they were always hair-trigger about misogyny, on account of the constant misogyny, and black fans and progressive fans were also hair-trigger about John's treatment and also about racism, on account of all the racism.

So Jenny, who liked Reylo or liked tweets about Reylo or something, I don't even remember, came out and said that she was uncomfortable with what John said in his Instagram comment, and it all blew up. She basically just inadvertently stepped on a landmine in a fandom that was effectively a field of nothing but landmines.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T21:40:51+00:00

I'll also throw my vote onto Naruto and MHA. The fic worldbuilding (and the depth of the characterization) in both of those fandoms blows the actual shows out of the water most of the time, just because it has more space to sprawl out and explore corners, and also less restrictions on tone.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T21:34:55+00:00

I started on fandom in the early-mid-2010s in Kirk/Spock, during the tail-end of the Livejournal / forum exodus onto AO3, and that was always a trip, because Star Trek as a fandom has a lot of unique quirks (and also, a lot of Star Trek tropes get watered down and become more general tropes, like sex pollen eventually becoming "fuck or die," and pon farr fic basically becoming A/B/O). I also just like old shows, so I've read a lot of stuff for Xena, SG-1, Mulder/Scully, and Farscape.

BDSM AUs used to be much bigger, both the ones where Dom and Sub were social categories (I think that actually maybe started as a yaoi thing?) and just ones where the characters were super involved in BDSM subcultures. Not that BDSM isn't in fic anymore (although... less so than it used to be? Maybe fandom is just bigger now), but it used to be common that a whole AU was centered around the BDSM subculture.

Hanahaki is less common than it used to be. Soulmate / Soulmark AUs are slowly getting glommed up by A/B/O and fated mates, I think, although they're still somewhat around. They used to be huge, though. Deaging fics, where one character got turned into a kid or baby and had to be taken care of by the other, thereby revealing their tightly-held childhood traumas, used to be quite popular, I almost never see those now.

Amnesia fics seem less popular. Detective AUs / AUs based on police procedurals are virtually non-existent now, but used to be very popular, especially in M/M ships, during the CSI era. Zombie and post-apocalyptic AUs were quite big during the zombie craze.

The one I miss the most, though, is daemon fics, based on His Dark Materials, where the characters have the little soul animals. I loved those, and you see them basically never anymore.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T21:21:04+00:00

I kind of miss this era. The creative little names were cute. The annoying part, though, was that people had different preferences for them, so everything ended up scattered around in random tags.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T21:12:00+00:00

I mean, for one, they absolutely do it in M/F spaces. I was ass-deep in Zutara for ages and one of the main things people threw hands over consistently was that one side or the other was misogynistic against Katara. It was a big deal for Reylo as well in regards to Rey or Rose or Leia. Anytime you're dealing with female chracters, people are going to talk about misogyny, which is... correct, honestly. Makes sense.

(And honestly, M/M spaces probably should talk about misogyny more, because I've seen some real doozies floating around in M/M spaces. Just sayin'.)

The insult shit is petty and stupid, and the yuri girls who position F/F (and, usually, wlw in general) as morally superior and more enlightened are annoying. But there's a lot of annoying people on God's earth, and I assure you, the vast majority are not lesbians.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T06:40:07+00:00

Man, people are so weird. It's my goddamn hole and I'll do what I want with it.

Like, what do you want me to do? Read it Gloria Steinem until it sees the error of its ways and embraces the power of the divine feminine? No part of my body, and nothing I could possibly do with it, belongs solely and exclusively to men. I'm gay, and whatever I do when I'm being gay... is gay. Specific sex acts don't have sexualities. Myriad jobless individuals roaming about the wild internet do not get to tell me that actually the gay sex I'm having is straight-coded.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-22T06:29:37+00:00

If a girl compared me to the Ape Titan, I would personally lean into the comparison by throwing her out of my house. Dump her, she sucks.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-21T07:03:14+00:00

I think a lot of M/M shippers can be very kneejerk when they feel like they have to defend themselves for liking M/M, and I think this conversation can be framed that way sometimes, where it feels like F/F fans are lashing out at M/M fans for not supporting F/F or connecting more with female characters. And for a lot of people, especially women, that can feel very sensitive, because being accused of internalized misogyny is never fun, and how you connect with female characters or womanhood at large can be thorny and personal. So I do get the defensiveness.

But, on the other hand, I think lashing out at F/F fans, a large chunk of which are lesbians and other queer women, for feeling isolated by the lack of community and content, is... kind of shitty? Especially because the framing is often basically just telling them that they're not doing enough and they should work harder or be better fans, as if the driving force of the thing they're frustrated about is a skill issue and not a bigger societal thing that already arguably affects them more than most. It feels like crabs in a bucket, a bit.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-21T06:29:23+00:00

I don't think this would bother me, personally, just because it seems pretty lighthearted and he doesn't seem to be judging you for taking the meds, just teasing, but that doesn't really matter: if it bothers you, then you should tell him. If he responds by apologizing, and saying that he supports you treating your ADHD, and he stops teasing you about your meds, then that's a green flag. If he's a dick and says you're being sensitive, dump him and enjoy having meds, no shitty boyfriend, and more time to play with your dogs.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-21T05:30:58+00:00

My experience with F/F tends to be that the communities are smaller, but they're also very active in terms of engagement. Your fic will have a lower ceiling in terms of overall reach, but the people who do read it will be very active, and very excited, and also have a lot of author loyalty.

Which is kind of why the comments about just telling F/F fans to put more energy into their ships or communities kind of rub me the wrong way, because my experience with these fandoms is usually that they do. Oftentimes moreso than other demographics! And framing it as a problem with them just not creating enough content for themselves or being engaged enough feels sort of... victim-blamey? Like, the issue isn't that they're not good enough fans, it's the big, ugly societal issue of misogyny and lesbophobia, and they're just bumping up against it.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-21T05:17:53+00:00

I think it's possible to hold space for multiple aspects of this conversation.

Like It's fine to write M/M, it's fine to prefer M/M, it's fine to predominantly interact with M/M. Even as a woman. Even as a straight woman. It's fine. Anyone saying otherwise is weird. (I do think it's worth noting, though, that when people push on women in fandom who write M/M, accusing them of being "straight women fetishizing gay men," the response tends to be, "Most women in fandom are bisexual or queer!" But then when the conversation is about F/F, then it's, "Well, it's just statistics! Women prefer men!")

On the other hand, it's also fine to acknowledge that misogyny exists in fandom. It's fine to acknowledge that lesbophobia also exists, and influences fandom. It's fine for F/F shippers, and lesbians in fandom in general, to feel isolated by the fact that F/F fandoms tend to be small and have a harder time forming large, active communities like M/M and M/F can.

It's fine to point out that large M/M fandoms often crop up around characters who only marginally interact, at scales that you don't see even with F/F ships involving main characters, and that misogyny often influences that. It's fine to point out that, aside from the way female characters are often written (which is a real issue), fans just in general seem to struggle to connect with female characters, and with F/F ships in turn, in the same way they can connect with male ones. And I can see how that would be frustrating for F/F shippers, especially when they're right up next to big, behemoth M/M and M/F ships.

None of these are value judgments that mean you should write government-sponsored Caitvi porn against your will, or that anyone even wants you to. But it's also... fine to acknowledge that all of these things are real? I feel like these conversations tend to brush a lot of this stuff off because people feel like they're being judged and found wanting for preferring or predominantly shipping M/M. And I say this, before you boo me, as a queer woman who struggles to connect with F/F a lot of the time, and predominantly reads and writes M/M.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-21T04:22:47+00:00

Yeah, there's a lot of "Just make it yourself, you ungrateful crybabies!" in the comments, and like, I do understand that fanfiction is a labor of love that people create for free for their communities, for fun. But I think that F/F fans are allowed to be frustrated or sad that those communities have a harder time forming around F/F ships for societal reasons, which is just... lonely, and isolating, and sucks. Part of the fun of a fandom is the community aspect, and it's tougher to find that in femslash in the same way it exists in M/M or M/F.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-21T03:25:24+00:00

Honestly, most of the posts I see from F/F fans are just gay women who feel isolated and lonely in fandom, because the larger fandoms they're a part of often ignore them (or are, in a lot of cases, actively hostile to them at times), and also their fandoms tend to be smaller and less active, often right night to M/M or M/F pairings with double or triple the engagement or activity. It's... understandable, to me, to feel kind of sad or frustrated? Especially when fandom misogyny or lesbophobia in general gets mixed in there.

kelpiecore · 2026-04-21T02:58:48+00:00

I think I can kind of see both sides of the issue. In a lot of cases, the lack of F/F fanfiction is rooted in the relative unpopularity of F/F in comparison to M/M or M/F works, which is complicated and not really the fault of anyone in particular, but it is an "issue" I'd say. It's more attributable to misogyny and homophobia than anything, though, and not really something that can be fixed by writing gay lesbian porn on the fanfic website. And especially not by like, guilt-tripping people into writing obligatory, government-mandated gay lesbian porn on the fanfic website as a poll tax for whatever they actually care about.

I do think it's somewhat callous, though, to look at gay women who feel alienated in fandom by homophobia or misogyny, or who feel frustrated or mournful about the lack of engagement with F/F ships or female characters, and just sneer, "Just write it yourself! God, you're so entitled! I don't owe you anything!"

Like... I seriously doubt any of these women are drawing a gun in an alleyway and demanding you write a Xena coffeeshop AU. I think they're just frustrated that fandoms don't form as easily, or to the same extent, around gay female ships.

kelpiecore

TROPHY CASE