With celebrities such as Caroline Flack making the front pages recently as a result of her relationship with teenage heartthrob Harry Styles, HCX wondered whether relationships of this kind are acceptable in today’s society? As our last ‘Taboo’ article said, you can’t help who you fall for – but is this notion sometimes taken too far? Are we in the age of the cougar where age difference is not a problem? Or, are these male or females in fact predators, taking advantage of people who are too young to know any better?
Here at HCX, and world-wide, there is a mass surge of jealousy surrounding the controversial relationship between Caroline Flack and the beautiful Harry Styles. Most Exeter lads seem to swell with some kind of innate male pride in their respect for Harry’s ability to ‘score’ an older woman, whereas the majority of parents instantly question the morals of any woman who begins a relationship with a teenage boy. But are either party really doing anything wrong? Harry was over the consensual age at the time he engaged in the relationship, and was fully aware of his actions, so surely in this case age isn’t an issue. However, we must also remind ourselves that Harry Styles and Caroline Flack were wrapped up in the world of celebrity culture… but what if the situation was transferred into the real world?
Most recently, the relationship between fifteen-year old runaway schoolgirl Megan Stammers and her married, thirty-year old teacher Jeremy Forrest has been widely documented and their affair has attracted a great deal of condemnation. In this case, HCX have yet to meet someone who considers Stammers and Forrest to merely be the misunderstood Romeo and Juliet of 2012. Instead, the reaction has been quite the opposite; there has been a significant surge of uproar surrounding the fact that Forrest was a teacher. This uproar appears justified. As a teacher, you are bound to a duty of care to your students. Surely our teachers are there to nurture our abilities and prepare us for the working world outside of education? Nowhere in the job description does it mention an illicit affair! Forrest has since been charged with child abduction, as not only was Stammers under eighteen, but also under the age of consent. In this case, age does prove to be an issue.
But this debate can be explored even further – how common is it for there to be a significant age gap in a relationship? October 11th marked the International Day of Girl Child. Organised by The United Nations, the day recognises the 10 million child-brides each year, worldwide, who are forced to marry significantly older men. Appallingly, there are still 50 developing countries that practice child marriages. It is astonishing that as members of the public we focus so much of our gossiping energy on judging the consensual relationship between Caroline and Harry when really, we should be thinking about the desperately unfortunate girls as young as eight who are being forced to marry men in their fifties or sixties. In the case of these 10 million child-brides it cannot even be disputed that age is a serious issue – an issue that the United Nations is thankfully beginning to address.
So, there we go; on a day-to-day basis it seems that age can’t really be considered an issue. Love defies everything and pushes all boundaries, and we can’t possibly suggest that people stop following their hearts. But when it comes to these poor child-brides and young Megan Stammers, age really does become an issue – and perhaps the problem is that these elders are not following their hearts… or their minds.