Scarleteen

l turn 16, which is the age of consent in my area, in 6 months and even after that there is no space for me, online or in person. Even for the purpose of education or discussion. I cant find a team of people in my same position to change this because theres no space for us to find each other. I want a group of people to relate to and a partner who shares my kinks but that is impossible unless I wait 2.5 years, which I cant imagine doing. Theres so much stigma around age in the community, even for educational spaces, that I am disallowed from even getting resources. From what I've seen, it's not about the law. If it was, there wouldn't be TOS's that explicitly state, "if the law allows you to be younger, though. This space is 18+". My realization is that people are just uncomfortable with young people in their spaces. And I can feel so much hostility towards me in those. It's so fucked up that a community supposedly built around acceptance and positivity gets away with this direct harm. From all I've seen, and I've checked pretty thoroughly, there is literally nothing I can do and nowhere I can go because the system prevents me from doing anything about it. I just want to be happy and educated before I lose my mind. It says this in my info but I live near the Seattle area if that helps. I dont know what this will accomplish but my therapist recommended I post this here.

Hey there, PrimalDespair. I'm sorry that it sounds like you're experiencing your handle at the moment.

I agree with you: a lot of this is about discomfort on the part of older people. I'd add that that discomfort is often based in outright fear. For a lot of adults, even just being involved in kink communities can feel precarious, including because a lot of people assume the worst about people in them. Unfortunately, interacting with young people is often part of that "worst" where it would be assumed something untoward or outright abusive may be going on. I think it's understandable, given the world we live in where, even when there aren't legal consequences, there can still be some big bad outcomes -- custody issues, losing jobs, social discrimination -- but I also understand how you're feeling, too. It's very isolating, and I'm sorry that you feel that so acutely.

We are certainly happy to do what we can as far as giving you information you need and want and are also happy to just talk as you'd like. You can also find some community here: we have other young people who post on the boards who also would be in larger kink communities were it not for their age.