if this post ends up coherent enough I'm gonna copy-paste it over to this thread too bc i was meaning to add this + my relationship w my sibling as grounds for discussions when i had the spoons lmao then things got slightly urgent, because, well: I'm 20. I play Overwatch with one of my former coworkers, and some irl friends that I've known for a while, ages ranging from 28 (my former coworkers) to 17 (my little siblings boyfriend). Aaaaand then there's S! She's the only one I've met through the game, and she is, we found out after a couple of days, 16. I am generally paranoid when it comes to when and how I interact with people younger than me but I was like oh hey it's fine we're just playing a game haha but now we're chatting even when we're not playing, she's really cool, I'd count her as a friend. We play pretty much every night so by now quite a bit of her after school social life is, well, us. I tried to phrase things properly but my brain is fried and I need to sleep and I do need to post this today but tl;dr: I've tried to limit the amount we talk about sex around her or like point out that hey maybe we could try to not say sexually explicit things around the 16 y old and she is decidedly not happy about this because she counts it as treating her like a child, and her experience of being treated like a child is people stop talking to her after finding out her age, or they start completely disregarding everything she says just because she's young. She's talked at length about how much she hates it. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to either convey that I do respect her as a person and don't think of her as a child while still enforcing that no, I think you're too young for me to be talking about this with you, and I'm also having a hard time figuring out if this is even a sensible situation for me to be so worked up about! Every time I try to reason it out with myself I run screeching into a wall as soon as I reach "Well, 16 isn't that young," and then everything is just Nope. I don't know how reasonable my caution is. I don't know how much of it is tumblr-based paranoia. I don't know how much of it is me having internalized the ~predatory lesbian~ trope to the point that I'm scrutinizing my every interaction with girls, especially younger ones (especially when those younger ones also like girls! God I love feeling guilty about my identity :))) ) and I don't know how to manage this situation! If there even is a situation! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (Slight note that I'm not trying to be like 'omg guys we can't ever mention sex around S shes so tiny' and I'm not trying to ban sex jokes. it just. feels Wrong when explicit jokes reference our actual sex lives? or involve S at all? ugh idk)
It's like, I have adult friends, and I have S and my sibling's boyfriend, and for the two of them I've slightly different rules to myself on how I'm allowed to interact with them (these rules are slightly more flexible w sib's bf because I've known him younger). Like, they can come to me for advice, I can talk to them, I can joke around with them, I can listen to them, I can, occasionally, vent to them. I can not vent to them about big adult things they haven't experienced and can't help with, I can't go to them if I'm in a really bad place, I can't rely on them to provide me with emotional support and I can't make them feel like they're obligated to give me emotional support. Abstract sex jokes are okay, if either of them ever asks providing information or advice about sex is okay, but things like sharing smut fics or discussing kinks is not. I've a self-enforced difference between me and them because it fucking sucks when an adult comes to you with problems or whatever that you can't do anything about. oh hey i think i found the initial root of these feelings. cool. still can't tell if they're sensible feelings or not.
the friend who is the most likely to bring up sex in the first place is talking to me about the situation on facebook (convo starter: 'hey i think S is getting really annoyed by us thinking of her as an underage girl' + urging that we gotta deal with it) and he definitely thinks i'm making a big deal out of literally nothing. eventually he's like 'maybe this problem has more to do with you than with her?' and i'm like oh gosh!!! really!!!! you don't say and he's like gee thanks man if he does that i will literally have a nervous breakdown and/or spend even more time feeling absurdly guilty about even existing while this is going down!!! thanks
I think there's a difference between mentioning sex in front of her and saying sexual things towards her? Like, if people are talking about stuff that ends up showing examples of healthy relationships and boundaries, that's a good thing for her to be able to witness as a learning thing? And not super concerning. If people are saying sexual things towards her that's gross and also skirting legality. So if it's the former, try to chill maybe? Or just express things in ways that relate to you, like, "I am super uncomfortable talking about sex right now," and then either change the subject or nope out and come back later. If you are uncomfortable, that's 100% a boundary you can enforce for yourself.
Yeah, maybe she'd feel better about it if you frame it as "This makes me feel uncomfortable" rather than "This is what I think is best for you."
