Being Really 700 Years Old doesn't help when you still look seven.
This trope is when an adult character struggles with romantic and/or sexual feelings for an adolescent below the legal age of consent. Social norms portray relationships between adults and teens as inherently abusive and wrong, yet many adult characters find adolescents attractive (or just one in particular), making them Forbidden Fruit. Thus, the opportunity of sex or a relationship with an underage partner presents a moral conundrum and character-defining moment.
In Real Life, Age of Consent laws define when sex or relationships between adults and older teenagers are legal, and the adult can be prosecuted for it when they aren't. Hollywood Law often comes into play with this trope, because most of the world makes some allowance for such relationships even if they're socially frowned upon. Admittedly, there's a world of difference between a 19-year-old dating a 17-year-old, and an old pervert hitting on someone young enough to be their child, hence why "Romeo & Juliet" laws exist when the partners are just a few years apart but on opposite sides of the age of consent. Because California is one of the few places where the younger partner MUST be 18 with no close-in-age exceptions, many Hollywood works incorrectly assume this is the case everywhere.note
Legal aspects aside, the taboo can have a number of impacts on the story and characterization. A character may be attracted to a teenager, but avoid pursuing the relationship due to the taboo (often a way to show that they're a decent person or Chivalrous Pervert). They might pursue the relationship despite the taboo, and receive legal or social consequences for it. Other times, they may simply wait until their crush is of legal age. Some scenarios make the older partner sympathetic or even a victim by having teen initiate the relationship, often by lying about their age. Other scenarios where the older partner willingly pursues teenage partners tend to portray older one as an immature, shallow pervert exploiting their young lover's naivete.
This trope often involves an adult man and an underage girl, but not always. Gender-flipped examples are more likely to be Played for Laughs or for Fanservice, while same-gender examples often fall into Lover and Beloved and tend to be the most scandalized due what so many already believe about gay people.
Often overlaps with Age-Gap Romance and Unequal Pairing. May overlap with Joshikousei and Catholic School Girls Rule, other tropes about fetishizing high school girls. Compare Wife Husbandry and Mal Mariée, a Medieval analogue to this trope with some different connotations. See also Old Man Marrying a Child— the age difference with this trope is less extreme, often 10-15 years, but the squick factor is similar.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Great Teacher Onizuka: Onizuka originally became a teacher because he thought he'd get to hook up with hot high school girls, but when he actually gets the job, he finds that he has a conscience, even knocking himself out one time when a student of his tried to put the moves on him.
- Played with in My Girlfriend Without Wasabi. Both Nozomu and Rino are over the age of consent (he's 19 and she's 21), but the fact that Rino looks and acts like an elementary school student leaves Nozomu feeling very uncomfortable when they start dating.
- In the original Sailor Moon anime, Mamoru was made a few years older than in the manga/Crystal, beginning college while Usagi still started the series 14 years old. The new age gap isn't unheard of, especially in Japan, so it's rarely commentated on, but it does crop up a couple times. It might also be worth noting the implied intimate moments between Usagi and Mamoru in the manga are missing from the original anime.
Comic Books
- Justice League United: When an older super-villain hits on Supergirl, she hits him, shouting "I'm sixteen, you creep!"
Fan Works
- Codex Equus: Moon Ray Vaughoof (now Prince Canticum Lunae Cahaya) was pretty disturbed when he saw himself getting engaged to a teenage version of his wife, Velvet Heart
in one alternative timeline. He was so upset over the possibility of unwittingly committing pedophilia that he asks Velvet Heart about her age, and starts manifesting bits of his true eldritch nature while explaining his vision to her. According to one of the Codex writers, she was grossed out upon learning of the thirty-something musician Stevie Ray Vaughan's Age-Gap Romance with the seventeen-year-old model Janna Lapidus (despite acknowledging they genuinely loved each other), and wrote a drabble about it in response.
Prince Canticum Lunae Cahaya: Velvet, Ah've- Ah've looked into the forever, and Ah saw mahself in one timeline meetin' ya on the steps and us gettin' engaged, same as we did. But... You... you were younger! Seventeen!
Saint Velvet Heart: I-I don't understand-
Prince Canticum Lunae Cahaya: Ah was in mah thirties when Ah met ya! Ya know what that means?! aH cOuLd'Ve GoTtEn MaRrIeD tO a PiEcE oF jAiLbAiT fRoM nEw SeAlAnD! - In Flag Flying High, Harry is still considered a minor in the cultivation world. Played for Drama at first since it pushed Mo Xuanyu to kill himself in atonement for lusting after the teen, and Lan Sizhui later hesitates to confess his emerging crush on the other youth because of the age gap.
- In Pixelator Picks, Theo keeps his relationship with Mirelle, a teenager, a secret from Ladybug for fear she will send him to jail for it.
- Mai in The Power of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!) is nervous to try anything with Joey after learning he's still in high school, because despite being in international waters where she couldn't be charged with anything she still doesn't want to date a minor. She only relaxes after learning he's eighteen.
- The Sun Also Surprises: Celestia nearly bails when she learns Gosling is a teenager. Cadance points out that he's old enough to be in the Guard, he's very mature and sensible for his age, and when the age difference can already be measured in millennia, a half-decade doesn't matter very much.
- Thank You: While she's on patrol, some guy hits on Momo. He quickly backs down when she tells him her age.
Films — Live-Action
- Above the Shadows: Holly blackmails Shayne's next rival Tommy with the knowledge that his fling is 16.
- The Age of Consent: A young college student goes to bed with a waitress at the local diner, only to be greeted the next morning by her father, who shouts that she is underage and demands the young student marry her or go to jail.
- Age of Consent: This film (no relation to the above) is about a romance between the 60-something Bradley and his teenage model Cora. At one point, Ma Ryan screeches that Cora is underage and that she will sic the police on Bradley.
- The Birds, the Bees and the Italians The men in the group are all pretty shocked when they find out that Alda, who they've all been sleeping with, is only 15. They all have to go to court.
- Blame (2017): Mr. Woods is attracted to Abigail, his teenage student. He kisses her, but then soon comes to his senses and gently tells Abigail that nothing else can come of it despite clear mutual attraction from her.
- Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: As part of his plan to redeem Kazakhstan, Borat decides to give his 15-year-old daughter Tutar to Mike Pence, and failing that, Rudy Giuliani. Borat isn't familiar with the underage taboo, and apparently, a woman being unmarried at 15 is rare in Kazakhstan. Posing as a journalist, Tutar arranges an interview with Giuliani to seduce him. After they've moved to a bedroom, Borat, having had a change of heart, intervenes exclaiming, "She 15. She too old for you."
- Cast a Deadly Spell: Amos Hackshaw's daughter Olivia is a Hormone-Addled Teenager who is constantly attempting to seduce older men despite being underage, much to Hackshaw's rage. Not because he cares for his daughter's safety, but because he only conceived her to use as a Virgin Sacrifice in a ritual to summon the Great Old Ones. Unfortunately for Hackshaw, she manages to seduce a local police officer without him knowing, and thus when he attempts the ritual it backfires and the Eldritch Abomination he would have summoned eats him instead.
- Detachment: Substitute high-school teacher Henry Barthes ends up in a complex relationship with two teenage girls — Erica, a homeless prostitute who solicits him on the bus one night; and Meredith, one of his students who has a troubled home-life. In a twist, Henry becomes a surrogate father for Erica; while his compassion causes Meredith to fall in love with him. When Meredith confesses, he turns her down... but is caught comforting her by Sarah Madison, a fellow teacher and his erstwhile love-interest, who assumes he's sleeping with Meredith and reports him to the school-board, causing Meredith to commit suicide. Realizing how much trouble he could get in if people misunderstand his relationship with Erica, Henry then turns her over to social services — though the film's ending implies he's going to formally adopt her.
- For Your Eyes Only: Bibi Dahl shows up in James Bond's hotel room naked and Ready for Lovemaking, but for once Bond declines the offer due to her being underaged.
James: You're wonderful, Bibi...but I don't think your uncle Harry will approve.Bibi: Him? He still thinks I'm a virgin.James: Yes, err...you get your clothes on, and I'll buy you an ice cream.
- Blood Surf: Double Subverted. One of the Surfer Dude characters is mutually attracted to the teenage daughter of their local guides. When they run off for a Two-Person Pool Party, he asks her how old she is. She jokes that she'll turn 15 the following month, then assures him that she's 19. After they have sex, she admits that she lied and is really 17. The guy is clearly unhappy about this, as this might get him into trouble.
- Jennifer's Body: The cop Jennifer lost her virginity to worriedly stops her kissing him while they're in public, as she's underage.
- In the Lifetime movie Stalked At 17 contains an extreme example of these relationships being abusive. Chad, a twenty-two-year-old college student, becomes obsessed with his sixteen/seventeen-year-old girlfriend, Angela, when she reveals that she's pregnant. When Angela's parents find out about her pregnancy and the father of their grandchild, they try to create some distance. This doesn't set well for Chad as he starts to stalk them and tries getting in contact with them. His Yandere levels go through the roof when he tries attacking Angela's father for getting a restraining order against him. He even turns to his mother, who was recently released from prison, for help on kidnapping Angela and their newborn son so that they can be a family together.
- Loving Annabelle: Annabelle is seventeen, yet Ms. Bradley (after resisting for most of the film) has sex with her. At the end, when it's learned they slept together, she's arrested.
- In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Pussycat offers to give Cliff fellatio, leading him to ask her age and if she has any identification. She claims that she's 18 but doesn't have ID with her, leading Cliff to presume that she's underage and stating that he's not willing to risk jail for "road head".
- Mitch, the main lead of Old School, sleeps with a girl as part of getting over his ex. Turns out she's his boss's daughter. And she's a high school student. A senior, which means it might not have been a crime.
- In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy got into this whole jail to mental hospital to lobotomy and ultimately to death situation because he committed statutory rape on a fifteen-year-old girl.
- Pride (2014) is set before age of consent for same sex couples was lowered to be the same as for heterosexual couples, so the topic of Bromley being under 21 is brought up a few times, although he is not shown to pursue sexual relationships with anyone.
- Princess: When their landlord threatened to kick them out, the still below age of consent Christina seduced him while her boyfriend filmed them with August's camera to blackmail him.
- Downplayed in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Everyone makes a big deal out of 24-year-old Scott "dating a highschooler", 17-year-old Knives, though she's above the age of consent, and shames him for it, but he doesn't face any serious consequences. Scott is portrayed as a whiny, immature jerk, so it fits his characterization. In both the original comic books and the video game, Kim (same age as Scott) also ends up kissing her.
- Raging Bull: Vickie is just 15 when Jake (who's 20 at the time) starts seeing her. Much later on, Jake's downfall in Miami happens when he canoodles a bit with a young lady at his club who says she's 21, and introduces her to some male customers. Turns out she was actually 14 and using a fake ID, so the vice squad busts him and he gets incarcerated.
- Série noire: The woman Franck sells a bathrobe to at the beginning offers to pay him with an "intimate moment" in the company of her 16 year old niece Mona... Franck follows Mona in her room, then she completely undresses right in front of him. Probably feeling a jailbait due to her age (and being married at this point), Franck quickly has her dress up again and lectures her.
- In Trainspotting, the adult Mark goes to bed with a cute girl, only to find out in the morning that she's 15 and lives with her parents. He tries to break it off, but she threatens to report him to the police if he doesn't keep seeing her.
- Transformers: Age of Extinction: When Cade objects to Shane and Tessa's relationship (the latter is 17), Shane produces a card on his person and (incorrectly) cites the Romeo and Juliet laws of Texas that allow him and Tessa to legally date. Hollywood Provincialism comes into play because in Texas, the age of consent is 17, so the point is moot.
Literature
- In a story from Haunted, "old" Mr Whittier is actually a progeria-suffering thirteen-year-old who makes money by seducing wealthy women and then blackmailing them with the threat of turning them in for statutory rape.
- Referenced frequently in John Ringo's Black Tide Rising. Faith is the baddest zombie killer imaginable, and (in true John Ringo and Joss Whedon style) she is also a cute 13 year old girl. At one point they clear an island of zombies and have a beach party, because everyone really needs it. Multiple Marines notice Faith in a bikini and a pair of .45 caliber in tactical thigh holsters, and comment "I'm going to the special hell". After her 14th birthday, others mention "Age of consent in Arkansas is 14!" (it's actually 16).
Live-Action TV
- The Affair: Noah's 16-year-old daughter Whitney had sex with Cole's 30-year-old brother Scott during the summer and became pregnant as a result. Her parents threaten to press charges for statutory rape and Noah attacks Scott when he runs into him. This makes him the primary suspect when Scott's murder is being investigated.
- American Odyssey: A 21-year old guy worries he's guilty of statutory rape for sleeping with a 17-year old girl. However, in New York the age of consent is 17, so he needn't be, though apparently he's unaware.
- Arrow. When seventeen year-old Thea Queen makes a drunken pass at Tommy Merlyn he turns her down because she's like a sister to him, then pointedly adds, "my baby sister!" Thea gets miffed that she's being treated as Just a Kid, but it's just as well Tommy turns her down because she really is his sister.
- Decisiones Extremas: In the telenovela''s episode "Falsa inocencia", after DJ Jarx is accused of rape by Paty, her uncle Jorge exploits the fact she's a minor to further run the DJ's career into the ground. This is after he had her pass as an adult to stage said rape in the first place.
- Euphoria: Maddy has sex with Tyler in order to get back at her boyfriend, which ends up with disastrous consequences for him as she's only seventeen. This might be covered by a Romeo and Juliet law (which permits consensual sexual contact between a minor and a person who is only a few years older), but he might be unaware of that, and it could have social consequences anyway.
- In the mini-series The Last Don, a Hollywood producer rips off a member of the Don's family. Rather than act directly against the producer, the Don arranges a new groupie for him, then his subsequent arrest when she turns out to be underage.
- MADtv (1995): Invoked in their Britney Spears parody "Lick My Baby Back Behind," which spoofs the suggestive lyrics of her debut single "Hit Me Baby One More Time" (released when she was 17) by making it explicitly about a teenage girl sleeping with an older man.
- Orphan Black: It's implied that Siobhan was still underage when she hooked up with her late husband, which pissed off Siobhan's mother so much that she killed him.
- Discussed in Safe (2018), where Tom disapproves about his 16-year-old daughter having an "older" boyfriend. When his friend Pete asks him to clarify, Tom first says "He's about our age", then corrects himself "Twenty", and then finally admits the age is nineteen. Pete snarks: "Nineteen? Christ, a pervert." The boyfriend is killed shortly afterwards (by a different person for entirely different reasons), so the age-difference-related conflict never goes further.
- In Stranger, Dong-jae claims that Moo-sung's MO was to deliberately match up his VIP clients with underage High Class Call Girls, so he'd better be able to blackmail them later. Ga-young, it seems, was one of his underage hookers.
- The Summer I Turned Pretty: Steven warns off Jumper, a young man who starts hitting on Belly, by informing him that she's fifteen, thus underage. Jumper retreats at once.
- Tiger King: Joe Exotic recruited his husbands "fresh out of high school", but some of the other big cat people went even further. Both Doc Antle and the late Don Lewis have had relationships with multiple underage girls, which is illegal. Antle's third wife Radha even admits that Antle felt attracted to her since she was eleven years old.
- The Walking Dead (2010): In Season 3, Carol catches friendly-yet-shady prisoner Axel hitting on seventeen-year old Beth. Without any hesitation, she gets him away from her and tells him, in no uncertain terms, to keep his pervy mitts off Beth.
Music
- "29" by Demi Lovato explores this from the perspective of someone who was in a relationship with a 29-year-old while they were 17 and discusses the trauma resulting from being groomed this way.
- Gary Puckett & The Union Gap: In "Young Girl", he discovers the girl he's fallen for is underage, and he is less than happy about it. The song has him shoo her away because, despite her age, he still finds her attractive. The song doesn't reveal just what the age gap is, but the "young girl" was able to fake her age through "perfume and makeup."
- "Does Your Mother Know (That You're Out)" by ABBA is about a guy in a dance club who realizes that the girl flirting with him is (probably) underage. He's still willing to flirt and talk with her, though, but he's careful not to let things get too far.
- Jimmy Buffett gets right down to brass tacks: "Hittin' on the honeys right out of high school, Yeah, fifteen may get you twenty, but that's all right, 'Cause they're rockin' and a rollin' on a Livingston Saturday Night".
- Jim Croce's "Five Short Minutes" is about a man agreeing to a girl's advances and ending up in prison for it, implying that it's because the girl is underage.
Well, then a judge and a jury sat me in a room
They said that robbin' the cradle is worse than robbin' the tomb.
Then I said "Oh, ooee!" Sure was a tragic tale.
(Wasn't worth it, wasn't worth it)
Because five short minutes of lovin'
Done brought me twenty long years in jail. - "Fucking Young" by Tyler, the Creator is a song about a non-sexual relationship with an underage girl. He is tempted to have sex with her but he's scared that he'll end up in prison for it.
- Domino's "Do You Qualify" urges his older male listeners not to think with their dicks, and make sure their lover is of age; ending the song with a cautionary tale about one man who didn't.
...You know what comes next, took her to the snooty
Treated her like a salad, tossed up the booty
Bill played it wrong, and he got lazy
No protection, guess what, oopsy daisy!
Now baby's pregnant,
Cuz Bill neglected
To be protected,
Now he's arrested. - "Christine Sixteen" by KISS is a love song about a sixteen-year-old girl (underage in the majority of the United States).
- "Jailbait" by Ted Nugent is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: A song about being in love with a thirteen-year old.
Video Games
- In BitLife, it's possible to find someone to date under the age of consent (in your country) when you're over the age. Dating them will definitely lead you to jail.
- Idol Manager: While it's possible to date idols, the button to flirt with them won't appear in the socialization interface before their eighteenth birthday. Note that the idols will always keep the same portrait from their audition, upon which they can be as young as twelve years old, to their graduation, which tends to be at some point in their twenties.
Webcomics
- In Gangster Mama, Jasmine, a 16-year-old girl, is pregnant with Bowswer's child. She uses the threat of sending him to jail for statuatory rape to blackmail him into marrying her and paying child support.
- In a very early Least I Could Do strip, Rayne once unknowingly slept with a high school girl he picked up at a bar. When the mother found out she tried to press charges but the judge ended up dismissing the case on the grounds that her daughter had used a fake ID to enter a bar so Rayne could not reasonably be expected to know she was underage.
Web Original
- A Running Gag in The Hard Times is that Pop Punk frontmen all exclusively date underage girls. This is played for Black Comedy, and the frontmen in question are portrayed as immature creeps who are still stuck in high school. One article, "All Warped Tour Stages Moved 100 Feet from Audience to Comply with Sex Offender Laws", jokes that so many Pop Punk frontmen have been convicted of sex offenses that they are not allowed to get too close to the audience at Warped Tour, a music festival known both for its young audience and density of Pop Punk acts.
- In one issue of Mats Jonsson, the protagonist is having a relationship with a girl who pretends to be 21. When it's revealed that she's studying at high school rather than the university, she changes it to nineteen. When she later confesses that she's actually sixteen and begs forgiveness for her dishonesty, he breaks all contact with her and spends the rest of the episode angsting over having been messing around with someone so young. The story takes place in Sweden, where the age of consent is fifteen — so his angst is purely emotional, without any ephebophilia issues.
Web Videos
- Parodied to hell and back in the Cilvanis video When Your Friend Watches Sus Anime, in which the main character's friend casually admits to watching The Time I As A 40 Year Old Fell In Love With A 12 Year Old. Leading the protagonist to call Chris Hansen, Jesus himself, and even THE POWER RANGERS as his friend digs himself deeper with every sentence.
Western Animation
- Even Archer has his limits.
Malory: For god's sake, Sterling, she's turning seventeen!
Archer: Oh, ew, sorry.
Lana: Even for you, Archer.
Archer: Come on, she doesn't look like she's turning seventeen.
Lana: No, she looks like she's turning eighteen.
Archer: Exactly! Plus, the Europeans use the metric system, so... - BoJack Horseman: When BoJack, a middle-aged man, goes to New Mexico and spends time with Charlotte and her family, her 17-year-old (legal in NM and most other states aside from California, which Penny mentions when coming onto him) daughter Penny ends up falling for him. He does the right thing and rejects her advances, but after Charlotte rejects him he's too depressed to continue resisting and allows Penny to have her way with him, only for Charlotte to catch them as they're undressing. This destroys his relationship with Charlotte and later comes back to haunt him, and is treated by the show as one of BoJack's many moral failings.
