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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/CloneHigh https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/totally21.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:I AM NOT 21!]]
->''"I did not know that she was 13, man. I didn't know. Uh, she told me that she was, eh, 21, and I said I'm 18, at least? But, eh, no way, y'know."''
-->-- '''Superfly''', ''[[Creator/MondoMedia Joecartoon]]'', "Stoneflies"
This character, or group of characters, is most definitely not underage. Nope, they are at least 18. That's what the narrative keeps pointing out, or what some character keeps claiming.
This can be used to add a sexual subtext to an otherwise non-sexual situation, since works with sexual content often use this trope as a disclaimer.
When done in-universe it's usually framed as a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial of one kind or another, though keep in mind that it's actually ''true'' just as often as not. The trope is sometimes connected to tropes such as JailbaitTaboo and TheJailbaitWait for the character, or tropes such as MoralGuardians and GettingCrapPastTheRadar for the work itself.
Note that in many countries and states, the age of consent for ''having'' sex is fifteen or sixteen while the age when it becomes legal to be ''portrayed'' as having sex is eighteen. Regardless of laws, many individuals draw a very sharp moral line at eighteen for all things sexual. Also note that while often directly or indirectly sexualized, the trope does not need to have any sexual context or subtext - the driving plot point can also be issues such as the right to vote or to get your driver's license.
Then there's the "barely legal" genre of porn, where the stars are between the ages of 18 and 21 and look even younger.
Compare OlderThanTheyLook and ReallySevenHundredYearsOld as well as YoungerThanTheyLook, ReallySeventeenYearsOld, and AgeInsecurity. See also MinorWithFakeID
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Pinoko in ''Manga/BlackJack'' plays with this. She insists that she is eighteen and Black Jack's wife, despite looking and acting like his six-year-old daughter (which is what he considers her). Technically, she's not wrong (about being eighteen); she was 'born' eighteen years ago as a self-aware [[BodyHorror collection of organs inside a tumor]] attached to her twin sister. Black Jack removed the organs and placed them in an artificial body that looks like a six-year-old girl.
* Variation in ''Manga/GrandBlue'': the anime ages all of the college freshman characters up to 20, the legal drinking age in Japan, to make their massive alcohol consumption legal.
* ''Manga/HaventYouHeardImSakamoto'': In one chapter, Acchan and his cronies blackmail Sakamoto into renting them a porn DVD. Sakamoto has a good poker face and [[RefugeInAudacity rents out a dozen movies instead of just one]], ''for only a day'' (implying he was going to watch them all within 24 hours), successfully bluffing the clerks.
* As a huge chunk of the {{Hentai}} production features teenage protagonists in high school, Western translated versions tend to add a disclaimer that "all characters portrayed are 18 or older", some even pretending the story takes place in "university" − which doesn’t fool anyone but keeps legal trouble away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/CherryComics'' regularly goes out of its way to point out that Cherry and her [[AnythingThatMoves equally promiscuous]] school friends have "just turned 18."
* The TorturePorn comic house ''Fansadox'' includes multiple disclaimers in its web and comics claiming that all characters are "at least 18 years old". If said comic "stars" TheIngenue and shows her in high school, the narration and dialogue will tell you several times that she just turned eighteen. For some reason, this make it perfectly okay to rape, torture and often murder her.
* In one issue of ''[[http://matsjonssonbloggen.blogspot.com/ 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 legal issues.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Fan Works]]
* Played with in the season 1 finale of ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfTime''. Beth Lestrade is seventeen as "Dynamics of a Point" begins, but due to [[Series/DoctorWho wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff]], she's truly eighteen in "Every Good Fairytale" when she ''does'' marry Literature/SherlockHolmes. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness In the original transcript]], she described herself as a seventeen-year-old during the honeymoon, and Sherlock pointed out that she was a fully mature adult as far as anyone was concerned. This was later altered when Beth's writer realized some convenient but no less real implications of Beth being a TemporalParadox.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/BarbieInThePinkShoes'': While they make a point about Kristyn being only 17, it's because she's trying not to be Theatre/{{Giselle}}. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Albrecht and Hilarion don't realize that she considers herself too young for marriage, and instead consider her too old for marriage.]]
* In a rare ''under''-18 example, ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' makes a point of establishing Ariel as 16. Since King Triton (eventually) consents to her marriage to Prince Eric, this would (just barely) be legal throughout much of the world in the modern age; in vaguely-old-timey Denmark (or wherever; it's not clear if the setting is the same as Creator/HansChristianAndersen's [[Literature/TheLittleMermaid original story]]) it's presumably perfectly normal.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', [[OlderThanTheyLook Rapunzel could easily be mistaken for being much younger than she is]], but [[TheHerosBirthday her eighteenth birthday is a plot point]], presumably to avoid the issue of her finding her true love as a teenager.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
* In ''Film/BrainDonors'', at one point the trio is awakened suddenly, and the first thing out of Roland T. Flakfizer's mouth is "She looked eighteen, officer, I swear!"
* Valentina in ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'' specifies that she's about to turn sixteen, then immediately mentions that that's the age of consent in UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}.
* ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'': When Mary tells George she is 18, the implications weigh heavily on him:
-->'''George:''' ''Eighteen!'' Why, it was only last year you were seventeen!
* This is part of the reason why R. P. [=MacMurphy=] in ''Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' is locked in a mental institution; he had sex with an underage girl he says he thought was eighteen.
* ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'': Multiple:
** Subverted with Amy and Sean:
--->'''Amy:''' (''after discovering Sean, whom she just slept with, doesn't go to college'') Seriously, you're not like 15 years old or anything, are you?\\
'''Sean:''' (''chuckling'') No, I'm 22. ({{Beat}}) *You're* not like 15 years old-\\
'''Amy:''' No.
** Played straight when the cops bust a party Sean is throwing. One of the girls at the party pretends she's 19, but when pressed, admits she's really 17.
* It is explicitly mentioned in ''Film/SuckerPunch'' in regards to Baby Doll. She's 20 according to the script.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Literature]]
* Ever since the infamous "Pedophile's Guide" incident in late 2010, Amazon.com has been rather squeamish about selling any erotic literature featuring underage sex and/or incest. This led to a number of erotic authors' stories [[http://teleread.com/amazon-removes-incest-related-erotica-titles-from-store-kindle-archive/ being yanked from distribution with no warning and little to no explanation]]. Since then, many erotic authors such as Selena Kitt have reworked a lot of their stories to specify that everyone in them is ''totally'' eighteen or over and ''totally'' NotBloodRelated. Almost invariably, any stories about--for instance--"daddy's little girl" will have the girl saying something to her daddy about how she can decide things for herself since she's eighteen now, and will mention in passing or work into the plot some reason why [[DisappearedDad her biological father is gone]] and this guy is actually her ''step''-daddy. [[WebVideo/HonestTrailers So it's OK for them to pork.]]
* In the ''Slave World'' kingdom of England, you have to be at least eighteen before you can become a slave or own a slave. The first part is merely mentioned (especially in connection with those few slaves who are exactly eighteen - most are significantly older). Non-noble characters younger than eighteen simply doesn't exist in the story. The rule against underage slaveowners eventually does becomes a plot point, however. A prelude to this is given in the second book. It is mentioned that some teenage nobles are frustrated and annoyed over not being allowed to own slaves yet, and a few sixteen years old nobles fondle the protagonist while she happens to be [[BoundAndGagged helpless]]. Around the same time, a young adult noblewoman is scolded for being immature and reckless, not taking proper care of her slaves. In the last few books, a young prince joins the cast as the LoveInterest of an enslaved journalist. He is sixteen, she is in her thirties, but because of the social power dynamic, he's the one with all the power. The queen eventually punish him for covertly taking a slave before he's old enough... by sending him off to France... Where sixteen years old nobles are allowed to own slaves... [[{{Unishment}} And yes, he gets to bring the former journalist with him.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Discussed in ''Series/{{Californication}}'' when Hank Moody discovers the attractive socialite that seduced him at a book store (while reading his book no less) is actually [[spoiler: 16... and the daughter of his ex-girlfriend's current partner.]] The mistake is a major plot point for the rest of the series as the girl in question keeps the threat of blackmail pointed at Hank.
* On ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Monica shaves a few years off her age (dropping her into the early 20's) then finds that the man she just made love to was a high school senior, not a college senior as he told her. When he defends himself from her anger by saying she lied too, her response is "Well, my lie didn't [[ArtisticLicenseLaw make one of us a felon in 48 states!]]"
* InUniverse, Joey once attempted to pass as a 19 year old for an audition. [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes The results]] are best summed up by Chandler:
->"Yes Joey, on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being ''the dumbest a person can look'', [[BrokeTheRatingScale you are definitely 19!]]"
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' sometimes treats the fact that a certain character is over 18 as [[ThereShouldBeALaw an annoying technicality]] that makes it harder to arrest people for having sex with them:
** In one episode, the sex is consensual acts between two adults who love each other and are both fully mature in every mental, emotional and legal way. It's just that one of them happens to have a medical condition that makes her [[OlderThanTheyLook look like she's ten]]. The detectives consider her chronological, mental and emotional maturity to be an annoying technicality, one that they try to find ways around so they'll be able to lock up her current lover and any lover she may get in the future. Instead of taking the actual person into account, they put all their focus on how grossed out they personally were over imagining anyone being turned on by her. So they basically wanted to follow this adult woman around for the rest of her life to harass her and anyone she might fall in love with, simply because of her looks.
** In another episode, a girl is raped at gunpoint. She looks very young, and throughout the episode she is is consistently portrayed as a teenager who is not yet fully adult - neither intellectually nor emotionally. This is not held against her; instead, it simply underscores how vulnerable she is. However, she happens to be 19, so the prosecution must prove that she didn't consent. And of course, the defense has BlatantLies about the gun as one of their top priorities.
** Invoked in-universe in an episode where they find out their teenage witness for a case is actually an almost 30-year-old woman who's been successfully posing as a high schooler for over a decade. Throughout the episode, the detectives and ADA try to get her to admit the truth, especially when facing possible statutory rape charges, but she's still in denial of her actual age. [[spoiler:She eventually does when confronted with her first foster mother]].
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' has a sketch where two underage teens (host Creator/ShiaLaBeouf and Creator/AndySamberg) try to pass themselves off as adults to buy beer. When the clerk (Creator/KenanThompson) insists on identification, they first give him excuses to explain why they've misplaced their licenses, before resorting to another friend (Creator/BillHader) showing up as a fake police officer to congratulate the clerk on complying with the law. Eventually, after their plan to get the beer without showing [=IDs=] gets more and more convoluted, [[spoiler:they just bribe the guy to look the other way.]]
* ''Series/That70sShow'': Meta-example. When she first auditioned for the part of Jacky, Mila Kunis was fourteen. When the producers asked how old she was, she answered "I'll be eighteen on my birthday," and they failed to ask ''which'' birthday. Thankfully, the job didn't require her to do anything that would be illegal for a minor, so she dodged most of the problems that come up in this situation.
* In ''Series/VeronicaMars'', Keith Mars shows Sheriff Don Lamb a photo of Lamb making out with Madison Sinclair, a classmate of Veronica, in order to get information out of him. Lamb tells Keith "she's 18 - that's legal", but capitulates when Keith challenges him to wait and see if that explanation is good enough for his constituents when it comes to his re-election as sheriff, and shows another copy of the photo with "18 - that's legal" printed on it.
* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman (who initially claimed be 25, but later confessed her true age), so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after Georgie reveals he is only seventeen, and this was after they had sex several times. The age of consent in Texas is seventeen, but the age difference between the two is still quite large.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Music]]
* Music/{{Madness}}'s "House of Fun" is a comic song about a teenage boy trying [[TrojanGauntlet to buy condoms]] on his sixteenth birthday,[[note]]The UK age of sexual consent[[/note]] with the age repeatedly mentioned.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Video Games]]
* A common thing to happen in fan made porn parody video games. Despite changing absolutely nothing of a female character's appearance, the game itself will flat out state the characters in the game are 18 years or older. Some will even complain how underdeveloped they are despite being 18.
* The game ''[[http://www.pown.it/4498 Bear Gunner]]'' is technically about hunting bears. However, the protagonist is an 8-year-old girl armed with a machine gun, and the bears she's gunning down are all the pedobear logotype and busy chasing little girls (including you). When you kill one, he will sometimes moan some dying words, such as "Argh!", "I see a bright light", "why me?", "I'm just a guy in a suit" or "I swear she was eighteen".
* In ''VideoGame/EvilZone'', Alty Al Lazel, Erel Plowse, Midori Himeno and Setsuna Saizuki were all between 14 and 18 years old in the Japanese version, but the localization boosted their ages to 21. Linedwell Reinrix's age also went from 20 to 22 for some reason. [[AllThereInTheManual The translated manual]] nevertheless [[InconsistentDub lists the characters with their original ages.]]
* Parodied in the English localization of ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'', where at the end of elementary-school girl Kotoko Utsugi's mini-boss with Genocide Jack (in which [[ClothingDamage she gets stripped down to her underwear]]), she will loudly (and unconvincingly) claim that she's actually 18 and therefore [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall that boss battle was perfectly okay to put in a video game]]. Especially unconvincing since she belongs to a group of kids out to [[EnfantTerrible commit adult genocide]] and create [[TeenageWasteland a kids-only paradise]]. If she ''was'' actually 18, admitting to it would be signing her own death warrant. [[spoiler:Her [[CastingCouch horrific]] [[RapeAsBackstory backstory]] certainly doesn't make things any better either]].
* In the first few ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' games, several characters didn't have their ages listed in the American releases because they were underage but still delivered just as much (if not more) {{Fanservice}} as the adult women. ''DOA 4'' had a TimeSkip that put the entire cast at 18 or older, meaning suddenly it was okay to print their ages in the American versions. Plenty of fans suspected that this trope would be in effect in ''DOA 5'' with Marie Rose thanks to her ElegantGothicLolita design and her having the least [[BuxomIsBetter developed]] figure out of the franchise's women, but she actually is 18 years old.
* A slight variation occurs in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', as no ''specific'' ages are given. However, characters still insist that Elise and Midori are really adults in spite of both of them looking quite young (Leo's infamous "technically an adult" line for Elise, and Midori herself in a conversation with her mother). Therefore, it's totally okay for them to get married and have children.
* In ''[[VideoGame/MaxPayne Max Payne 3]]'' following a shootout in a strip bar/brothel, an American tourist hiding from the mayhem tells Max that he likes this place because it has the cheapest hot women he's ever seen, including some who insisted on being eighteen years old. In a later level, as Max shoots his way out of jail, he sees the same tourists who keeps insisting that they told him they were eighteen.
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the spring festival Noble Garden includes an achievement where you are supposed to put bunny ears on one female character of each race, and it has to be a character that is at least level 18. Some complaints about this achievement made it into the newspapers - some female player who felt like it was sexual harassment - other achievements about putting hats or whatever on other characters was not a problem, but the "level 18" requirement made this one sexualized in her eyes. The actual reason it was added was to prevent players from trivializing the achievement by making level 1 alts, as some had done with an earlier event (that it was 18 specifically was probably just RuleOfFunny).
* ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator'' comes with a disclaimer that all characters are 18 or older, regardless of the creator's statements that the protagonist -- a second-year Japanese high-school student -- is 17. Since characters can be nude (albeit with CensorSteam) and taking {{panty shot}}s is a game mechanic, the developer felt the need to stay on the safe side.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Many translated adult visual novels will add this disclaimer to it for legal reasons, as while drawn pornography featuring minors is legal in Japan, it is outlawed in most of the Western world. Whether this disclaimer has any actual effect has yet to be seen.
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' creator Dan Salvato claimed in [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/389567762143379458/400781271883841547/1508196969537.png a Discord post]] that all the high-school aged characters in the game are 18, even though the only sexual content in the game is [[SkirtsAndLadders the protagonist accidentally seeing up Natsuki's skirt when she's climbing]][[note]]nothing explicit is shown to the player[[/note]] and Yuri mentioning [[ADateWithRosiePalms touching herself]]. It's outright stated in-game in the UpdatedRerelease.
* All Western-released materials of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' come with a disclaimer that all of the characters are 18 or older, despite Shirou, Rin, and Sakura being 17 and 16 respectively in the Japanese version. Averted with Saber and [[spoiler:Illya]] however, as despite looking under 18 [[OlderThanTheyLook they actually are adults who stopped aging]] (ignoring that Saber is ReallySevenHundredYearsOld due to being plucked from [[spoiler:medieval Britain]] by the Holy Grail).
* Parodied in ''VideoGame/NamcoHigh'', whose legal page has very faint text at the bottom, reading "18 18 all characters 18 everyone 18" despite the fact that ''Namco High'' is entirely free of adult situations.
* Despite being ostensibly set in a high school, the main cast of ''VisualNovel/MonsterProm'' is somewhere in their 20s or older, with the youngest character being 19 at the least. Normally, this might be attributed to monsters aging slower than regular humans, but then Liam specifically mentions age shipping discourse brought up in ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' fandom,[[note]]Namely, that after Marco spent decades having an adventure in another dimension, being in his original body again possibly makes him mentally older than anyone he knows[[/note]] then notes they don't have to go through that discourse since they're above legal age. And given the high amounts of horniness and sex that happens in the game, this in-universe disclaimer might have been in the developers' best interests.
* ''VisualNovel/PrincessEvangile'''s western releases have a disclaimer before the main menu stating that all characters depicted are above 18. This is despite several of the characters being in second year high school and below, with one even being in 3rd year middle school.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/ApricotCookies'', as she's showering, Apricot [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall mentions]] she's 16, but [[AgeLift 18 outside Japan]].
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', when Raven tells Grace he doesn't want to drag her, a minor, into a dangerous situation, Grace [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2011-12-02 corrects him]]:
-->'''Grace:''' I'm eighteen! I'm a ''major!''\\
'''Raven:''' As though ''that'' makes you an adult.\\
'''Grace:''' Legally it ''does''. You can do all ''sorts'' of stuff with me!
* ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'': The main reason why TheRival's wizard is a wanted criminal; apparently, 18 years old in Halfling years is NOWHERE near adulthood or even puberty.
* One ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' strip involves Oedipus being seduced by multiple versions of his mother Jocasta at the same time, resulting in a confusing incestuous orgy. The alt text notes that all versions of Jocasta are at least 18 in their respective timelines. [[JailbaitTaboo Seriously.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Web Original]]
* A certain pornographic website, frequently advertised on Creator/ComedyCentral, announces that its actors are 18 right in the URL.
* In the ''[[WebVideo/HonestTrailers Honest Trailer]]'' for the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' movies, the narrator immediately backtracks after referring to Hermione as Harry's "superior-in-every-way hot lady friend" by adding "[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial And when I say hot, I mean]] only in the ''last'' three movies ''after'' [the actress playing her] turned eighteen! Heh heh... pervs!"
* On Website/{{Literotica}} it's considered wise policy to specify that any characters engaging in sex are over 18.
* This is mocked by Zack Parson of Website/SomethingAwful when he did his Hentai game reviews, some of those games claiming someone who in his eyes is obviously a minor is in fact 18.
* In one issue of ''WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad'', Cheerleader, hoping to impress some college-age guys, insists she and So-and-So are in college. So-and-So, however, undermines this by simultaneously admitting to being in eighth grade. Cheerleader tries to backpedal by claiming that So-and-So is her younger sister by five years, but the boys don't buy it (and then she's hit by a [[DiabolusExMachina SAILING MISHAP]]!)
* Similarly, due to a crackdown on Website/{{Tumblr}} blogs containing cartoon pornography depicting underage fictional character(s), many artists have begun writing a disclaimer that "all characters depicted are at least 18 years old or otherwise above the age of consent", regardless of whether or not the characters actually do look 18+.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'', the underage clone of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln recruits the underage clone of Genghis Khan to buy beer for a party, telling him all he has to do is tell the clerk he's 21.
-->'''First Clerk:''' You over 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' ''(stares blankly)''
-->''(outside another store, Abe coaches him)''
-->'''Abe:''' Okay. He used a very tricky line of questioning. Let's practice again. Are you over twenty-one?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' Yes.
--> ''(inside the store)''
-->'''Second Clerk:''' Are you over 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' No.
--> ''(inside another store, Genghis Khan has a large sign affixed to him that reads "I AM 21")''
--> '''Third Clerk:''' So, I guess you're 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' I am 21.
--> ''(the clerk gives him the keg of beer and he walks off, then immediately runs back in.)''
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' I AM NOT 21!
* Rocko of ''WesternAnimation/{{Undergrads}}'' uses a "fake ID" that he most likely made himself, which is just a scrap of cardboard with his picture stapled to it and the words "I am 21 so drinking is yes" handwritten on. [[PaperThinDisguise It still works just fine]].
* The clumsy cultural translation censorship angle of the trope is parodied in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Soos and the Real Girl" where Soos buys a dating sim where the only girl, Giffany introduces herself as a student of High School University.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E1SimpsonsRoastingOnAnOpenFire Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]", Bart gets a tattoo this way. The tattoo artist most likely didn't care.
-->'''Tattoo artist:''' Wait, how old are ya?\\
'''Bart:''' 21, sir.\\
'''Tattoo artist:''' Get in the chair.
[[/folder]]
----
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%%
[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/CloneHigh https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/totally21.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:I AM NOT 21!]]
->''"I did not know that she was 13, man. I didn't know. Uh, she told me that she was, eh, 21, and I said I'm 18, at least? But, eh, no way, y'know."''
-->-- '''Superfly''', ''[[Creator/MondoMedia Joecartoon]]'', "Stoneflies"
This character, or group of characters, is most definitely not underage. Nope, they are at least 18. That's what the narrative keeps pointing out, or what some character keeps claiming.
This can be used to add a sexual subtext to an otherwise non-sexual situation, since works with sexual content often use this trope as a disclaimer.
When done in-universe it's usually framed as a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial of one kind or another, though keep in mind that it's actually ''true'' just as often as not. The trope is sometimes connected to tropes such as JailbaitTaboo and TheJailbaitWait for the character, or tropes such as MoralGuardians and GettingCrapPastTheRadar for the work itself.
Note that in many countries and states, the age of consent for ''having'' sex is fifteen or sixteen while the age when it becomes legal to be ''portrayed'' as having sex is eighteen. Regardless of laws, many individuals draw a very sharp moral line at eighteen for all things sexual. Also note that while often directly or indirectly sexualized, the trope does not need to have any sexual context or subtext - the driving plot point can also be issues such as the right to vote or to get your driver's license.
Then there's the "barely legal" genre of porn, where the stars are between the ages of 18 and 21 and look even younger.
Compare OlderThanTheyLook and ReallySevenHundredYearsOld as well as YoungerThanTheyLook, ReallySeventeenYearsOld, and AgeInsecurity. See also MinorWithFakeID
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Pinoko in ''Manga/BlackJack'' plays with this. She insists that she is eighteen and Black Jack's wife, despite looking and acting like his six-year-old daughter (which is what he considers her). Technically, she's not wrong (about being eighteen); she was 'born' eighteen years ago as a self-aware [[BodyHorror collection of organs inside a tumor]] attached to her twin sister. Black Jack removed the organs and placed them in an artificial body that looks like a six-year-old girl.
* Variation in ''Manga/GrandBlue'': the anime ages all of the college freshman characters up to 20, the legal drinking age in Japan, to make their massive alcohol consumption legal.
* ''Manga/HaventYouHeardImSakamoto'': In one chapter, Acchan and his cronies blackmail Sakamoto into renting them a porn DVD. Sakamoto has a good poker face and [[RefugeInAudacity rents out a dozen movies instead of just one]], ''for only a day'' (implying he was going to watch them all within 24 hours), successfully bluffing the clerks.
* As a huge chunk of the {{Hentai}} production features teenage protagonists in high school, Western translated versions tend to add a disclaimer that "all characters portrayed are 18 or older", some even pretending the story takes place in "university" − which doesn’t fool anyone but keeps legal trouble away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/CherryComics'' regularly goes out of its way to point out that Cherry and her [[AnythingThatMoves equally promiscuous]] school friends have "just turned 18."
* The TorturePorn comic house ''Fansadox'' includes multiple disclaimers in its web and comics claiming that all characters are "at least 18 years old". If said comic "stars" TheIngenue and shows her in high school, the narration and dialogue will tell you several times that she just turned eighteen. For some reason, this make it perfectly okay to rape, torture and often murder her.
* In one issue of ''[[http://matsjonssonbloggen.blogspot.com/ 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 legal issues.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Fan Works]]
* Played with in the season 1 finale of ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfTime''. Beth Lestrade is seventeen as "Dynamics of a Point" begins, but due to [[Series/DoctorWho wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff]], she's truly eighteen in "Every Good Fairytale" when she ''does'' marry Literature/SherlockHolmes. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness In the original transcript]], she described herself as a seventeen-year-old during the honeymoon, and Sherlock pointed out that she was a fully mature adult as far as anyone was concerned. This was later altered when Beth's writer realized some convenient but no less real implications of Beth being a TemporalParadox.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/BarbieInThePinkShoes'': While they make a point about Kristyn being only 17, it's because she's trying not to be Theatre/{{Giselle}}. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Albrecht and Hilarion don't realize that she considers herself too young for marriage, and instead consider her too old for marriage.]]
* In a rare ''under''-18 example, ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' makes a point of establishing Ariel as 16. Since King Triton (eventually) consents to her marriage to Prince Eric, this would (just barely) be legal throughout much of the world in the modern age; in vaguely-old-timey Denmark (or wherever; it's not clear if the setting is the same as Creator/HansChristianAndersen's [[Literature/TheLittleMermaid original story]]) it's presumably perfectly normal.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', [[OlderThanTheyLook Rapunzel could easily be mistaken for being much younger than she is]], but [[TheHerosBirthday her eighteenth birthday is a plot point]], presumably to avoid the issue of her finding her true love as a teenager.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
* In ''Film/BrainDonors'', at one point the trio is awakened suddenly, and the first thing out of Roland T. Flakfizer's mouth is "She looked eighteen, officer, I swear!"
* Valentina in ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'' specifies that she's about to turn sixteen, then immediately mentions that that's the age of consent in UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}.
* ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'': When Mary tells George she is 18, the implications weigh heavily on him:
-->'''George:''' ''Eighteen!'' Why, it was only last year you were seventeen!
* This is part of the reason why R. P. [=MacMurphy=] in ''Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' is locked in a mental institution; he had sex with an underage girl he says he thought was eighteen.
* ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'': Multiple:
** Subverted with Amy and Sean:
--->'''Amy:''' (''after discovering Sean, whom she just slept with, doesn't go to college'') Seriously, you're not like 15 years old or anything, are you?\\
'''Sean:''' (''chuckling'') No, I'm 22. ({{Beat}}) *You're* not like 15 years old-\\
'''Amy:''' No.
** Played straight when the cops bust a party Sean is throwing. One of the girls at the party pretends she's 19, but when pressed, admits she's really 17.
* It is explicitly mentioned in ''Film/SuckerPunch'' in regards to Baby Doll. She's 20 according to the script.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Literature]]
* Ever since the infamous "Pedophile's Guide" incident in late 2010, Amazon.com has been rather squeamish about selling any erotic literature featuring underage sex and/or incest. This led to a number of erotic authors' stories [[http://teleread.com/amazon-removes-incest-related-erotica-titles-from-store-kindle-archive/ being yanked from distribution with no warning and little to no explanation]]. Since then, many erotic authors such as Selena Kitt have reworked a lot of their stories to specify that everyone in them is ''totally'' eighteen or over and ''totally'' NotBloodRelated. Almost invariably, any stories about--for instance--"daddy's little girl" will have the girl saying something to her daddy about how she can decide things for herself since she's eighteen now, and will mention in passing or work into the plot some reason why [[DisappearedDad her biological father is gone]] and this guy is actually her ''step''-daddy. [[WebVideo/HonestTrailers So it's OK for them to pork.]]
* In the ''Slave World'' kingdom of England, you have to be at least eighteen before you can become a slave or own a slave. The first part is merely mentioned (especially in connection with those few slaves who are exactly eighteen - most are significantly older). Non-noble characters younger than eighteen simply doesn't exist in the story. The rule against underage slaveowners eventually does becomes a plot point, however. A prelude to this is given in the second book. It is mentioned that some teenage nobles are frustrated and annoyed over not being allowed to own slaves yet, and a few sixteen years old nobles fondle the protagonist while she happens to be [[BoundAndGagged helpless]]. Around the same time, a young adult noblewoman is scolded for being immature and reckless, not taking proper care of her slaves. In the last few books, a young prince joins the cast as the LoveInterest of an enslaved journalist. He is sixteen, she is in her thirties, but because of the social power dynamic, he's the one with all the power. The queen eventually punish him for covertly taking a slave before he's old enough... by sending him off to France... Where sixteen years old nobles are allowed to own slaves... [[{{Unishment}} And yes, he gets to bring the former journalist with him.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Discussed in ''Series/{{Californication}}'' when Hank Moody discovers the attractive socialite that seduced him at a book store (while reading his book no less) is actually [[spoiler: 16... and the daughter of his ex-girlfriend's current partner.]] The mistake is a major plot point for the rest of the series as the girl in question keeps the threat of blackmail pointed at Hank.
* On ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Monica shaves a few years off her age (dropping her into the early 20's) then finds that the man she just made love to was a high school senior, not a college senior as he told her. When he defends himself from her anger by saying she lied too, her response is "Well, my lie didn't [[ArtisticLicenseLaw make one of us a felon in 48 states!]]"
* InUniverse, Joey once attempted to pass as a 19 year old for an audition. [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes The results]] are best summed up by Chandler:
->"Yes Joey, on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being ''the dumbest a person can look'', [[BrokeTheRatingScale you are definitely 19!]]"
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' sometimes treats the fact that a certain character is over 18 as [[ThereShouldBeALaw an annoying technicality]] that makes it harder to arrest people for having sex with them:
** In one episode, the sex is consensual acts between two adults who love each other and are both fully mature in every mental, emotional and legal way. It's just that one of them happens to have a medical condition that makes her [[OlderThanTheyLook look like she's ten]]. The detectives consider her chronological, mental and emotional maturity to be an annoying technicality, one that they try to find ways around so they'll be able to lock up her current lover and any lover she may get in the future. Instead of taking the actual person into account, they put all their focus on how grossed out they personally were over imagining anyone being turned on by her. So they basically wanted to follow this adult woman around for the rest of her life to harass her and anyone she might fall in love with, simply because of her looks.
** In another episode, a girl is raped at gunpoint. She looks very young, and throughout the episode she is is consistently portrayed as a teenager who is not yet fully adult - neither intellectually nor emotionally. This is not held against her; instead, it simply underscores how vulnerable she is. However, she happens to be 19, so the prosecution must prove that she didn't consent. And of course, the defense has BlatantLies about the gun as one of their top priorities.
** Invoked in-universe in an episode where they find out their teenage witness for a case is actually an almost 30-year-old woman who's been successfully posing as a high schooler for over a decade. Throughout the episode, the detectives and ADA try to get her to admit the truth, especially when facing possible statutory rape charges, but she's still in denial of her actual age. [[spoiler:She eventually does when confronted with her first foster mother]].
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' has a sketch where two underage teens (host Creator/ShiaLaBeouf and Creator/AndySamberg) try to pass themselves off as adults to buy beer. When the clerk (Creator/KenanThompson) insists on identification, they first give him excuses to explain why they've misplaced their licenses, before resorting to another friend (Creator/BillHader) showing up as a fake police officer to congratulate the clerk on complying with the law. Eventually, after their plan to get the beer without showing [=IDs=] gets more and more convoluted, [[spoiler:they just bribe the guy to look the other way.]]
* ''Series/That70sShow'': Meta-example. When she first auditioned for the part of Jacky, Mila Kunis was fourteen. When the producers asked how old she was, she answered "I'll be eighteen on my birthday," and they failed to ask ''which'' birthday. Thankfully, the job didn't require her to do anything that would be illegal for a minor, so she dodged most of the problems that come up in this situation.
* In ''Series/VeronicaMars'', Keith Mars shows Sheriff Don Lamb a photo of Lamb making out with Madison Sinclair, a classmate of Veronica, in order to get information out of him. Lamb tells Keith "she's 18 - that's legal", but capitulates when Keith challenges him to wait and see if that explanation is good enough for his constituents when it comes to his re-election as sheriff, and shows another copy of the photo with "18 - that's legal" printed on it.
* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman (who initially claimed be 25, but later confessed her true age), so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after Georgie reveals he is only seventeen, and this was after they had sex several times. The age of consent in Texas is seventeen, but the age difference between the two is still quite large.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Music]]
* Music/{{Madness}}'s "House of Fun" is a comic song about a teenage boy trying [[TrojanGauntlet to buy condoms]] on his sixteenth birthday,[[note]]The UK age of sexual consent[[/note]] with the age repeatedly mentioned.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Video Games]]
* A common thing to happen in fan made porn parody video games. Despite changing absolutely nothing of a female character's appearance, the game itself will flat out state the characters in the game are 18 years or older. Some will even complain how underdeveloped they are despite being 18.
* The game ''[[http://www.pown.it/4498 Bear Gunner]]'' is technically about hunting bears. However, the protagonist is an 8-year-old girl armed with a machine gun, and the bears she's gunning down are all the pedobear logotype and busy chasing little girls (including you). When you kill one, he will sometimes moan some dying words, such as "Argh!", "I see a bright light", "why me?", "I'm just a guy in a suit" or "I swear she was eighteen".
* In ''VideoGame/EvilZone'', Alty Al Lazel, Erel Plowse, Midori Himeno and Setsuna Saizuki were all between 14 and 18 years old in the Japanese version, but the localization boosted their ages to 21. Linedwell Reinrix's age also went from 20 to 22 for some reason. [[AllThereInTheManual The translated manual]] nevertheless [[InconsistentDub lists the characters with their original ages.]]
* Parodied in the English localization of ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'', where at the end of elementary-school girl Kotoko Utsugi's mini-boss with Genocide Jack (in which [[ClothingDamage she gets stripped down to her underwear]]), she will loudly (and unconvincingly) claim that she's actually 18 and therefore [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall that boss battle was perfectly okay to put in a video game]]. Especially unconvincing since she belongs to a group of kids out to [[EnfantTerrible commit adult genocide]] and create [[TeenageWasteland a kids-only paradise]]. If she ''was'' actually 18, admitting to it would be signing her own death warrant. [[spoiler:Her [[CastingCouch horrific]] [[RapeAsBackstory backstory]] certainly doesn't make things any better either]].
* In the first few ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' games, several characters didn't have their ages listed in the American releases because they were underage but still delivered just as much (if not more) {{Fanservice}} as the adult women. ''DOA 4'' had a TimeSkip that put the entire cast at 18 or older, meaning suddenly it was okay to print their ages in the American versions. Plenty of fans suspected that this trope would be in effect in ''DOA 5'' with Marie Rose thanks to her ElegantGothicLolita design and her having the least [[BuxomIsBetter developed]] figure out of the franchise's women, but she actually is 18 years old.
* A slight variation occurs in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', as no ''specific'' ages are given. However, characters still insist that Elise and Midori are really adults in spite of both of them looking quite young (Leo's infamous "technically an adult" line for Elise, and Midori herself in a conversation with her mother). Therefore, it's totally okay for them to get married and have children.
* In ''[[VideoGame/MaxPayne Max Payne 3]]'' following a shootout in a strip bar/brothel, an American tourist hiding from the mayhem tells Max that he likes this place because it has the cheapest hot women he's ever seen, including some who insisted on being eighteen years old. In a later level, as Max shoots his way out of jail, he sees the same tourists who keeps insisting that they told him they were eighteen.
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the spring festival Noble Garden includes an achievement where you are supposed to put bunny ears on one female character of each race, and it has to be a character that is at least level 18. Some complaints about this achievement made it into the newspapers - some female player who felt like it was sexual harassment - other achievements about putting hats or whatever on other characters was not a problem, but the "level 18" requirement made this one sexualized in her eyes. The actual reason it was added was to prevent players from trivializing the achievement by making level 1 alts, as some had done with an earlier event (that it was 18 specifically was probably just RuleOfFunny).
* ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator'' comes with a disclaimer that all characters are 18 or older, regardless of the creator's statements that the protagonist -- a second-year Japanese high-school student -- is 17. Since characters can be nude (albeit with CensorSteam) and taking {{panty shot}}s is a game mechanic, the developer felt the need to stay on the safe side.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Many translated adult visual novels will add this disclaimer to it for legal reasons, as while drawn pornography featuring minors is legal in Japan, it is outlawed in most of the Western world. Whether this disclaimer has any actual effect has yet to be seen.
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' creator Dan Salvato claimed in [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/389567762143379458/400781271883841547/1508196969537.png a Discord post]] that all the high-school aged characters in the game are 18, even though the only sexual content in the game is [[SkirtsAndLadders the protagonist accidentally seeing up Natsuki's skirt when she's climbing]][[note]]nothing explicit is shown to the player[[/note]] and Yuri mentioning [[ADateWithRosiePalms touching herself]]. It's outright stated in-game in the UpdatedRerelease.
* All Western-released materials of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' come with a disclaimer that all of the characters are 18 or older, despite Shirou, Rin, and Sakura being 17 and 16 respectively in the Japanese version. Averted with Saber and [[spoiler:Illya]] however, as despite looking under 18 [[OlderThanTheyLook they actually are adults who stopped aging]] (ignoring that Saber is ReallySevenHundredYearsOld due to being plucked from [[spoiler:medieval Britain]] by the Holy Grail).
* Parodied in ''VideoGame/NamcoHigh'', whose legal page has very faint text at the bottom, reading "18 18 all characters 18 everyone 18" despite the fact that ''Namco High'' is entirely free of adult situations.
* Despite being ostensibly set in a high school, the main cast of ''VisualNovel/MonsterProm'' is somewhere in their 20s or older, with the youngest character being 19 at the least. Normally, this might be attributed to monsters aging slower than regular humans, but then Liam specifically mentions age shipping discourse brought up in ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' fandom,[[note]]Namely, that after Marco spent decades having an adventure in another dimension, being in his original body again possibly makes him mentally older than anyone he knows[[/note]] then notes they don't have to go through that discourse since they're above legal age. And given the high amounts of horniness and sex that happens in the game, this in-universe disclaimer might have been in the developers' best interests.
* ''VisualNovel/PrincessEvangile'''s western releases have a disclaimer before the main menu stating that all characters depicted are above 18. This is despite several of the characters being in second year high school and below, with one even being in 3rd year middle school.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/ApricotCookies'', as she's showering, Apricot [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall mentions]] she's 16, but [[AgeLift 18 outside Japan]].
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', when Raven tells Grace he doesn't want to drag her, a minor, into a dangerous situation, Grace [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2011-12-02 corrects him]]:
-->'''Grace:''' I'm eighteen! I'm a ''major!''\\
'''Raven:''' As though ''that'' makes you an adult.\\
'''Grace:''' Legally it ''does''. You can do all ''sorts'' of stuff with me!
* ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'': The main reason why TheRival's wizard is a wanted criminal; apparently, 18 years old in Halfling years is NOWHERE near adulthood or even puberty.
* One ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' strip involves Oedipus being seduced by multiple versions of his mother Jocasta at the same time, resulting in a confusing incestuous orgy. The alt text notes that all versions of Jocasta are at least 18 in their respective timelines. [[JailbaitTaboo Seriously.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Web Original]]
* A certain pornographic website, frequently advertised on Creator/ComedyCentral, announces that its actors are 18 right in the URL.
* In the ''[[WebVideo/HonestTrailers Honest Trailer]]'' for the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' movies, the narrator immediately backtracks after referring to Hermione as Harry's "superior-in-every-way hot lady friend" by adding "[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial And when I say hot, I mean]] only in the ''last'' three movies ''after'' [the actress playing her] turned eighteen! Heh heh... pervs!"
* On Website/{{Literotica}} it's considered wise policy to specify that any characters engaging in sex are over 18.
* This is mocked by Zack Parson of Website/SomethingAwful when he did his Hentai game reviews, some of those games claiming someone who in his eyes is obviously a minor is in fact 18.
* In one issue of ''WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad'', Cheerleader, hoping to impress some college-age guys, insists she and So-and-So are in college. So-and-So, however, undermines this by simultaneously admitting to being in eighth grade. Cheerleader tries to backpedal by claiming that So-and-So is her younger sister by five years, but the boys don't buy it (and then she's hit by a [[DiabolusExMachina SAILING MISHAP]]!)
* Similarly, due to a crackdown on Website/{{Tumblr}} blogs containing cartoon pornography depicting underage fictional character(s), many artists have begun writing a disclaimer that "all characters depicted are at least 18 years old or otherwise above the age of consent", regardless of whether or not the characters actually do look 18+.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'', the underage clone of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln recruits the underage clone of Genghis Khan to buy beer for a party, telling him all he has to do is tell the clerk he's 21.
-->'''First Clerk:''' You over 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' ''(stares blankly)''
-->''(outside another store, Abe coaches him)''
-->'''Abe:''' Okay. He used a very tricky line of questioning. Let's practice again. Are you over twenty-one?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' Yes.
--> ''(inside the store)''
-->'''Second Clerk:''' Are you over 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' No.
--> ''(inside another store, Genghis Khan has a large sign affixed to him that reads "I AM 21")''
--> '''Third Clerk:''' So, I guess you're 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' I am 21.
--> ''(the clerk gives him the keg of beer and he walks off, then immediately runs back in.)''
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' I AM NOT 21!
* Rocko of ''WesternAnimation/{{Undergrads}}'' uses a "fake ID" that he most likely made himself, which is just a scrap of cardboard with his picture stapled to it and the words "I am 21 so drinking is yes" handwritten on. [[PaperThinDisguise It still works just fine]].
* The clumsy cultural translation censorship angle of the trope is parodied in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Soos and the Real Girl" where Soos buys a dating sim where the only girl, Giffany introduces herself as a student of High School University.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E1SimpsonsRoastingOnAnOpenFire Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]", Bart gets a tattoo this way. The tattoo artist most likely didn't care.
-->'''Tattoo artist:''' Wait, how old are ya?\\
'''Bart:''' 21, sir.\\
'''Tattoo artist:''' Get in the chair.
[[/folder]]
----
to:
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%%
[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/CloneHigh https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/totally21.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:I AM NOT 21!]]
->''"I did not know that she was 13, man. I didn't know. Uh, she told me that she was, eh, 21, and I said I'm 18, at least? But, eh, no way, y'know."''
-->-- '''Superfly''', ''[[Creator/MondoMedia Joecartoon]]'', "Stoneflies"
This character, or group of characters, is most definitely not underage. Nope, they are at least 18. That's what the narrative keeps pointing out, or what some character keeps claiming.
This can be used to add a sexual subtext to an otherwise non-sexual situation, since works with sexual content often use this trope as a disclaimer.
When done in-universe it's usually framed as a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial of one kind or another, though keep in mind that it's actually ''true'' just as often as not. The trope is sometimes connected to tropes such as JailbaitTaboo and TheJailbaitWait for the character, or tropes such as MoralGuardians and GettingCrapPastTheRadar for the work itself.
Note that in many countries and states, the age of consent for ''having'' sex is fifteen or sixteen while the age when it becomes legal to be ''portrayed'' as having sex is eighteen. Regardless of laws, many individuals draw a very sharp moral line at eighteen for all things sexual. Also note that while often directly or indirectly sexualized, the trope does not need to have any sexual context or subtext - the driving plot point can also be issues such as the right to vote or to get your driver's license.
Then there's the "barely legal" genre of porn, where the stars are between the ages of 18 and 21 and look even younger.
Compare OlderThanTheyLook and ReallySevenHundredYearsOld as well as YoungerThanTheyLook, ReallySeventeenYearsOld, and AgeInsecurity. See also MinorWithFakeID
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Pinoko in ''Manga/BlackJack'' plays with this. She insists that she is eighteen and Black Jack's wife, despite looking and acting like his six-year-old daughter (which is what he considers her). Technically, she's not wrong (about being eighteen); she was 'born' eighteen years ago as a self-aware [[BodyHorror collection of organs inside a tumor]] attached to her twin sister. Black Jack removed the organs and placed them in an artificial body that looks like a six-year-old girl.
* Variation in ''Manga/GrandBlue'': the anime ages all of the college freshman characters up to 20, the legal drinking age in Japan, to make their massive alcohol consumption legal.
* ''Manga/HaventYouHeardImSakamoto'': In one chapter, Acchan and his cronies blackmail Sakamoto into renting them a porn DVD. Sakamoto has a good poker face and [[RefugeInAudacity rents out a dozen movies instead of just one]], ''for only a day'' (implying he was going to watch them all within 24 hours), successfully bluffing the clerks.
* As a huge chunk of the {{Hentai}} production features teenage protagonists in high school, Western translated versions tend to add a disclaimer that "all characters portrayed are 18 or older", some even pretending the story takes place in "university" − which doesn’t fool anyone but keeps legal trouble away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/CherryComics'' regularly goes out of its way to point out that Cherry and her [[AnythingThatMoves equally promiscuous]] school friends have "just turned 18."
* The TorturePorn comic house ''Fansadox'' includes multiple disclaimers in its web and comics claiming that all characters are "at least 18 years old". If said comic "stars" TheIngenue and shows her in high school, the narration and dialogue will tell you several times that she just turned eighteen. For some reason, this make it perfectly okay to rape, torture and often murder her.
* In one issue of ''[[http://matsjonssonbloggen.blogspot.com/ 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 legal issues.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Fan Works]]
* Played with in the season 1 finale of ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfTime''. Beth Lestrade is seventeen as "Dynamics of a Point" begins, but due to [[Series/DoctorWho wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff]], she's truly eighteen in "Every Good Fairytale" when she ''does'' marry Literature/SherlockHolmes. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness In the original transcript]], she described herself as a seventeen-year-old during the honeymoon, and Sherlock pointed out that she was a fully mature adult as far as anyone was concerned. This was later altered when Beth's writer realized some convenient but no less real implications of Beth being a TemporalParadox.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/BarbieInThePinkShoes'': While they make a point about Kristyn being only 17, it's because she's trying not to be Theatre/{{Giselle}}. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Albrecht and Hilarion don't realize that she considers herself too young for marriage, and instead consider her too old for marriage.]]
* In a rare ''under''-18 example, ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' makes a point of establishing Ariel as 16. Since King Triton (eventually) consents to her marriage to Prince Eric, this would (just barely) be legal throughout much of the world in the modern age; in vaguely-old-timey Denmark (or wherever; it's not clear if the setting is the same as Creator/HansChristianAndersen's [[Literature/TheLittleMermaid original story]]) it's presumably perfectly normal.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', [[OlderThanTheyLook Rapunzel could easily be mistaken for being much younger than she is]], but [[TheHerosBirthday her eighteenth birthday is a plot point]], presumably to avoid the issue of her finding her true love as a teenager.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
* In ''Film/BrainDonors'', at one point the trio is awakened suddenly, and the first thing out of Roland T. Flakfizer's mouth is "She looked eighteen, officer, I swear!"
* Valentina in ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'' specifies that she's about to turn sixteen, then immediately mentions that that's the age of consent in UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}.
* ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'': When Mary tells George she is 18, the implications weigh heavily on him:
-->'''George:''' ''Eighteen!'' Why, it was only last year you were seventeen!
* This is part of the reason why R. P. [=MacMurphy=] in ''Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' is locked in a mental institution; he had sex with an underage girl he says he thought was eighteen.
* ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'': Multiple:
** Subverted with Amy and Sean:
--->'''Amy:''' (''after discovering Sean, whom she just slept with, doesn't go to college'') Seriously, you're not like 15 years old or anything, are you?\\
'''Sean:''' (''chuckling'') No, I'm 22. ({{Beat}}) *You're* not like 15 years old-\\
'''Amy:''' No.
** Played straight when the cops bust a party Sean is throwing. One of the girls at the party pretends she's 19, but when pressed, admits she's really 17.
* It is explicitly mentioned in ''Film/SuckerPunch'' in regards to Baby Doll. She's 20 according to the script.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Literature]]
* Ever since the infamous "Pedophile's Guide" incident in late 2010, Amazon.com has been rather squeamish about selling any erotic literature featuring underage sex and/or incest. This led to a number of erotic authors' stories [[http://teleread.com/amazon-removes-incest-related-erotica-titles-from-store-kindle-archive/ being yanked from distribution with no warning and little to no explanation]]. Since then, many erotic authors such as Selena Kitt have reworked a lot of their stories to specify that everyone in them is ''totally'' eighteen or over and ''totally'' NotBloodRelated. Almost invariably, any stories about--for instance--"daddy's little girl" will have the girl saying something to her daddy about how she can decide things for herself since she's eighteen now, and will mention in passing or work into the plot some reason why [[DisappearedDad her biological father is gone]] and this guy is actually her ''step''-daddy. [[WebVideo/HonestTrailers So it's OK for them to pork.]]
* In the ''Slave World'' kingdom of England, you have to be at least eighteen before you can become a slave or own a slave. The first part is merely mentioned (especially in connection with those few slaves who are exactly eighteen - most are significantly older). Non-noble characters younger than eighteen simply doesn't exist in the story. The rule against underage slaveowners eventually does becomes a plot point, however. A prelude to this is given in the second book. It is mentioned that some teenage nobles are frustrated and annoyed over not being allowed to own slaves yet, and a few sixteen years old nobles fondle the protagonist while she happens to be [[BoundAndGagged helpless]]. Around the same time, a young adult noblewoman is scolded for being immature and reckless, not taking proper care of her slaves. In the last few books, a young prince joins the cast as the LoveInterest of an enslaved journalist. He is sixteen, she is in her thirties, but because of the social power dynamic, he's the one with all the power. The queen eventually punish him for covertly taking a slave before he's old enough... by sending him off to France... Where sixteen years old nobles are allowed to own slaves... [[{{Unishment}} And yes, he gets to bring the former journalist with him.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Discussed in ''Series/{{Californication}}'' when Hank Moody discovers the attractive socialite that seduced him at a book store (while reading his book no less) is actually [[spoiler: 16... and the daughter of his ex-girlfriend's current partner.]] The mistake is a major plot point for the rest of the series as the girl in question keeps the threat of blackmail pointed at Hank.
* On ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Monica shaves a few years off her age (dropping her into the early 20's) then finds that the man she just made love to was a high school senior, not a college senior as he told her. When he defends himself from her anger by saying she lied too, her response is "Well, my lie didn't [[ArtisticLicenseLaw make one of us a felon in 48 states!]]"
* InUniverse, Joey once attempted to pass as a 19 year old for an audition. [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes The results]] are best summed up by Chandler:
->"Yes Joey, on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being ''the dumbest a person can look'', [[BrokeTheRatingScale you are definitely 19!]]"
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' sometimes treats the fact that a certain character is over 18 as [[ThereShouldBeALaw an annoying technicality]] that makes it harder to arrest people for having sex with them:
** In one episode, the sex is consensual acts between two adults who love each other and are both fully mature in every mental, emotional and legal way. It's just that one of them happens to have a medical condition that makes her [[OlderThanTheyLook look like she's ten]]. The detectives consider her chronological, mental and emotional maturity to be an annoying technicality, one that they try to find ways around so they'll be able to lock up her current lover and any lover she may get in the future. Instead of taking the actual person into account, they put all their focus on how grossed out they personally were over imagining anyone being turned on by her. So they basically wanted to follow this adult woman around for the rest of her life to harass her and anyone she might fall in love with, simply because of her looks.
** In another episode, a girl is raped at gunpoint. She looks very young, and throughout the episode she is is consistently portrayed as a teenager who is not yet fully adult - neither intellectually nor emotionally. This is not held against her; instead, it simply underscores how vulnerable she is. However, she happens to be 19, so the prosecution must prove that she didn't consent. And of course, the defense has BlatantLies about the gun as one of their top priorities.
** Invoked in-universe in an episode where they find out their teenage witness for a case is actually an almost 30-year-old woman who's been successfully posing as a high schooler for over a decade. Throughout the episode, the detectives and ADA try to get her to admit the truth, especially when facing possible statutory rape charges, but she's still in denial of her actual age. [[spoiler:She eventually does when confronted with her first foster mother]].
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' has a sketch where two underage teens (host Creator/ShiaLaBeouf and Creator/AndySamberg) try to pass themselves off as adults to buy beer. When the clerk (Creator/KenanThompson) insists on identification, they first give him excuses to explain why they've misplaced their licenses, before resorting to another friend (Creator/BillHader) showing up as a fake police officer to congratulate the clerk on complying with the law. Eventually, after their plan to get the beer without showing [=IDs=] gets more and more convoluted, [[spoiler:they just bribe the guy to look the other way.]]
* ''Series/That70sShow'': Meta-example. When she first auditioned for the part of Jacky, Mila Kunis was fourteen. When the producers asked how old she was, she answered "I'll be eighteen on my birthday," and they failed to ask ''which'' birthday. Thankfully, the job didn't require her to do anything that would be illegal for a minor, so she dodged most of the problems that come up in this situation.
* In ''Series/VeronicaMars'', Keith Mars shows Sheriff Don Lamb a photo of Lamb making out with Madison Sinclair, a classmate of Veronica, in order to get information out of him. Lamb tells Keith "she's 18 - that's legal", but capitulates when Keith challenges him to wait and see if that explanation is good enough for his constituents when it comes to his re-election as sheriff, and shows another copy of the photo with "18 - that's legal" printed on it.
* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman (who initially claimed be 25, but later confessed her true age), so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after Georgie reveals he is only seventeen, and this was after they had sex several times. The age of consent in Texas is seventeen, but the age difference between the two is still quite large.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Music]]
* Music/{{Madness}}'s "House of Fun" is a comic song about a teenage boy trying [[TrojanGauntlet to buy condoms]] on his sixteenth birthday,[[note]]The UK age of sexual consent[[/note]] with the age repeatedly mentioned.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Video Games]]
* A common thing to happen in fan made porn parody video games. Despite changing absolutely nothing of a female character's appearance, the game itself will flat out state the characters in the game are 18 years or older. Some will even complain how underdeveloped they are despite being 18.
* The game ''[[http://www.pown.it/4498 Bear Gunner]]'' is technically about hunting bears. However, the protagonist is an 8-year-old girl armed with a machine gun, and the bears she's gunning down are all the pedobear logotype and busy chasing little girls (including you). When you kill one, he will sometimes moan some dying words, such as "Argh!", "I see a bright light", "why me?", "I'm just a guy in a suit" or "I swear she was eighteen".
* In ''VideoGame/EvilZone'', Alty Al Lazel, Erel Plowse, Midori Himeno and Setsuna Saizuki were all between 14 and 18 years old in the Japanese version, but the localization boosted their ages to 21. Linedwell Reinrix's age also went from 20 to 22 for some reason. [[AllThereInTheManual The translated manual]] nevertheless [[InconsistentDub lists the characters with their original ages.]]
* Parodied in the English localization of ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'', where at the end of elementary-school girl Kotoko Utsugi's mini-boss with Genocide Jack (in which [[ClothingDamage she gets stripped down to her underwear]]), she will loudly (and unconvincingly) claim that she's actually 18 and therefore [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall that boss battle was perfectly okay to put in a video game]]. Especially unconvincing since she belongs to a group of kids out to [[EnfantTerrible commit adult genocide]] and create [[TeenageWasteland a kids-only paradise]]. If she ''was'' actually 18, admitting to it would be signing her own death warrant. [[spoiler:Her [[CastingCouch horrific]] [[RapeAsBackstory backstory]] certainly doesn't make things any better either]].
* In the first few ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' games, several characters didn't have their ages listed in the American releases because they were underage but still delivered just as much (if not more) {{Fanservice}} as the adult women. ''DOA 4'' had a TimeSkip that put the entire cast at 18 or older, meaning suddenly it was okay to print their ages in the American versions. Plenty of fans suspected that this trope would be in effect in ''DOA 5'' with Marie Rose thanks to her ElegantGothicLolita design and her having the least [[BuxomIsBetter developed]] figure out of the franchise's women, but she actually is 18 years old.
* A slight variation occurs in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', as no ''specific'' ages are given. However, characters still insist that Elise and Midori are really adults in spite of both of them looking quite young (Leo's infamous "technically an adult" line for Elise, and Midori herself in a conversation with her mother). Therefore, it's totally okay for them to get married and have children.
* In ''[[VideoGame/MaxPayne Max Payne 3]]'' following a shootout in a strip bar/brothel, an American tourist hiding from the mayhem tells Max that he likes this place because it has the cheapest hot women he's ever seen, including some who insisted on being eighteen years old. In a later level, as Max shoots his way out of jail, he sees the same tourists who keeps insisting that they told him they were eighteen.
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the spring festival Noble Garden includes an achievement where you are supposed to put bunny ears on one female character of each race, and it has to be a character that is at least level 18. Some complaints about this achievement made it into the newspapers - some female player who felt like it was sexual harassment - other achievements about putting hats or whatever on other characters was not a problem, but the "level 18" requirement made this one sexualized in her eyes. The actual reason it was added was to prevent players from trivializing the achievement by making level 1 alts, as some had done with an earlier event (that it was 18 specifically was probably just RuleOfFunny).
* ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator'' comes with a disclaimer that all characters are 18 or older, regardless of the creator's statements that the protagonist -- a second-year Japanese high-school student -- is 17. Since characters can be nude (albeit with CensorSteam) and taking {{panty shot}}s is a game mechanic, the developer felt the need to stay on the safe side.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Many translated adult visual novels will add this disclaimer to it for legal reasons, as while drawn pornography featuring minors is legal in Japan, it is outlawed in most of the Western world. Whether this disclaimer has any actual effect has yet to be seen.
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' creator Dan Salvato claimed in [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/389567762143379458/400781271883841547/1508196969537.png a Discord post]] that all the high-school aged characters in the game are 18, even though the only sexual content in the game is [[SkirtsAndLadders the protagonist accidentally seeing up Natsuki's skirt when she's climbing]][[note]]nothing explicit is shown to the player[[/note]] and Yuri mentioning [[ADateWithRosiePalms touching herself]]. It's outright stated in-game in the UpdatedRerelease.
* All Western-released materials of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' come with a disclaimer that all of the characters are 18 or older, despite Shirou, Rin, and Sakura being 17 and 16 respectively in the Japanese version. Averted with Saber and [[spoiler:Illya]] however, as despite looking under 18 [[OlderThanTheyLook they actually are adults who stopped aging]] (ignoring that Saber is ReallySevenHundredYearsOld due to being plucked from [[spoiler:medieval Britain]] by the Holy Grail).
* Parodied in ''VideoGame/NamcoHigh'', whose legal page has very faint text at the bottom, reading "18 18 all characters 18 everyone 18" despite the fact that ''Namco High'' is entirely free of adult situations.
* Despite being ostensibly set in a high school, the main cast of ''VisualNovel/MonsterProm'' is somewhere in their 20s or older, with the youngest character being 19 at the least. Normally, this might be attributed to monsters aging slower than regular humans, but then Liam specifically mentions age shipping discourse brought up in ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' fandom,[[note]]Namely, that after Marco spent decades having an adventure in another dimension, being in his original body again possibly makes him mentally older than anyone he knows[[/note]] then notes they don't have to go through that discourse since they're above legal age. And given the high amounts of horniness and sex that happens in the game, this in-universe disclaimer might have been in the developers' best interests.
* ''VisualNovel/PrincessEvangile'''s western releases have a disclaimer before the main menu stating that all characters depicted are above 18. This is despite several of the characters being in second year high school and below, with one even being in 3rd year middle school.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/ApricotCookies'', as she's showering, Apricot [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall mentions]] she's 16, but [[AgeLift 18 outside Japan]].
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', when Raven tells Grace he doesn't want to drag her, a minor, into a dangerous situation, Grace [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2011-12-02 corrects him]]:
-->'''Grace:''' I'm eighteen! I'm a ''major!''\\
'''Raven:''' As though ''that'' makes you an adult.\\
'''Grace:''' Legally it ''does''. You can do all ''sorts'' of stuff with me!
* ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'': The main reason why TheRival's wizard is a wanted criminal; apparently, 18 years old in Halfling years is NOWHERE near adulthood or even puberty.
* One ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' strip involves Oedipus being seduced by multiple versions of his mother Jocasta at the same time, resulting in a confusing incestuous orgy. The alt text notes that all versions of Jocasta are at least 18 in their respective timelines. [[JailbaitTaboo Seriously.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Web Original]]
* A certain pornographic website, frequently advertised on Creator/ComedyCentral, announces that its actors are 18 right in the URL.
* In the ''[[WebVideo/HonestTrailers Honest Trailer]]'' for the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' movies, the narrator immediately backtracks after referring to Hermione as Harry's "superior-in-every-way hot lady friend" by adding "[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial And when I say hot, I mean]] only in the ''last'' three movies ''after'' [the actress playing her] turned eighteen! Heh heh... pervs!"
* On Website/{{Literotica}} it's considered wise policy to specify that any characters engaging in sex are over 18.
* This is mocked by Zack Parson of Website/SomethingAwful when he did his Hentai game reviews, some of those games claiming someone who in his eyes is obviously a minor is in fact 18.
* In one issue of ''WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad'', Cheerleader, hoping to impress some college-age guys, insists she and So-and-So are in college. So-and-So, however, undermines this by simultaneously admitting to being in eighth grade. Cheerleader tries to backpedal by claiming that So-and-So is her younger sister by five years, but the boys don't buy it (and then she's hit by a [[DiabolusExMachina SAILING MISHAP]]!)
* Similarly, due to a crackdown on Website/{{Tumblr}} blogs containing cartoon pornography depicting underage fictional character(s), many artists have begun writing a disclaimer that "all characters depicted are at least 18 years old or otherwise above the age of consent", regardless of whether or not the characters actually do look 18+.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'', the underage clone of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln recruits the underage clone of Genghis Khan to buy beer for a party, telling him all he has to do is tell the clerk he's 21.
-->'''First Clerk:''' You over 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' ''(stares blankly)''
-->''(outside another store, Abe coaches him)''
-->'''Abe:''' Okay. He used a very tricky line of questioning. Let's practice again. Are you over twenty-one?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' Yes.
--> ''(inside the store)''
-->'''Second Clerk:''' Are you over 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' No.
--> ''(inside another store, Genghis Khan has a large sign affixed to him that reads "I AM 21")''
--> '''Third Clerk:''' So, I guess you're 21?
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' I am 21.
--> ''(the clerk gives him the keg of beer and he walks off, then immediately runs back in.)''
-->'''Genghis Khan:''' I AM NOT 21!
* Rocko of ''WesternAnimation/{{Undergrads}}'' uses a "fake ID" that he most likely made himself, which is just a scrap of cardboard with his picture stapled to it and the words "I am 21 so drinking is yes" handwritten on. [[PaperThinDisguise It still works just fine]].
* The clumsy cultural translation censorship angle of the trope is parodied in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Soos and the Real Girl" where Soos buys a dating sim where the only girl, Giffany introduces herself as a student of High School University.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E1SimpsonsRoastingOnAnOpenFire Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]", Bart gets a tattoo this way. The tattoo artist most likely didn't care.
-->'''Tattoo artist:''' Wait, how old are ya?\\
'''Bart:''' 21, sir.\\
'''Tattoo artist:''' Get in the chair.
[[/folder]]
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* One ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' strip involves Oedipus being seduced by multiple versions of his mother Jocasta at the same time, resulting in a confusing incestuous orgy. The alt text notes that all versions of Jocasta are at least 18 in their respective timelines. [[JailbaitTaboo Seriously.]]
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When done in-universe it's usually framed as a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial of one kind or another, though keep in mind that it's actually ''true'' just as often as not. The trope is sometimes connected to tropes such as JailbaitTaboo and JailbaitWait for the character, or tropes such as MoralGuardians and GettingCrapPastTheRadar for the work itself.
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When done in-universe it's usually framed as a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial of one kind or another, though keep in mind that it's actually ''true'' just as often as not. The trope is sometimes connected to tropes such as JailbaitTaboo and JailbaitWait TheJailbaitWait for the character, or tropes such as MoralGuardians and GettingCrapPastTheRadar for the work itself.
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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/CloneHigh https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/totally21.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:I AM NOT 21!]]
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[[caption-width-right:350:I AM NOT 21!]]
->''"I did not know that she was 13, man. I didn't know. Uh, she told me that she was, eh, 21, and I said I'm 18, at least? But, eh, no way, y'know."''
-->-- '''Superfly''', ''[[Creator/MondoMedia Joecartoon]]'', "Stoneflies"
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* The clumsy cultural translation censorship angle of the trope is parodied in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode ''Soos and the Real Girl'' where Soos buys a dating sim where the only girl, Giffany introduces herself as a student of High School University.
to:
* The clumsy cultural translation censorship angle of the trope is parodied in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode ''Soos "Soos and the Real Girl'' Girl" where Soos buys a dating sim where the only girl, Giffany introduces herself as a student of High School University.
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examples are not general
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[[folder:Real Life]]
* Those who have very recently turned eighteen (or their country, state, or province's age of majority) will often be very eager to point it out as well as take advantage of the new privileges and rights they have. It's justified because since their becoming of the age of majority, people around them will most likely see them as "{{just a kid}}" and therefore they have to do some work to actually remake their images into those of adults. Meanwhile, any establishment that has an age requirement for its patrons tends to make it a policy to card anyone who doesn't look 30, just to be sure.
[[/folder]]
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I'm just removing this stuff. Since its weirdly fighting with what the show itself says
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* ''Anime/YashahimePrincessHalfDemon'': [[spoiler:In season 2 of ''Yashahime'', Jaken thinks that Rin was 18 when the twins were born, but not only does that not line up with her childishness and young age in ''Inuyasha'' (and the first episode of season 1 of ''Yashahime'') where she was smaller than both canonically 11-year-old Kohaku and physically 10-year-old Kanna, her character design in Yashahime, or the other characters' ages, it also contradicts Riku's explanation in episode 15 of season 1 that 18 years had passed (from Kagome coming through the well for the last time and defeating Root Head with Inuyasha to the present of ''Yashahime'') which gives more credence to Rin being younger. The Spirit of the Tree of Ages tells Setsuna that Rin's age had been halted at 18, but her aging was halted when Jaken put the pupa of a Dream Butterfly on Setsuna's neck to steal her dreams and sleep to give to Rin when Setsuna was 4 years old which, along with Riku's timeline, would put Rin at 14 when the twins were born.]]
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* ''Anime/YashahimePrincessHalfDemon'': [[spoiler:In season 2 of ''Yashahime'', Jaken thinks that Rin was 18 when the twins were born, but not only does that not line up with her childishness and young age in ''Inuyasha'' (and the first episode of season 1 of ''Yashahime'') where she was smaller than both canonically 11-year-old Kohaku and physically 10-year-old Kanna, her character design in Yashahime, or the other characters' ages, it also contradicts Riku's explanation in episode 15 of season 1 that 18 years had passed (from Kagome coming through the well for the last time and defeating Root Head with Inuyasha to the present of ''Yashahime'') which gives more credence to Rin being younger. The Spirit of the Tree of Ages tells Setsuna that Rin's age had been halted at 18, but her aging was halted when Jaken put the pupa of a Dream Butterfly on Setsuna's neck to steal her dreams and sleep to give to Rin when Setsuna was 4 years old which, along with Riku's timeline, would put Rin at 14 when the twins were born.]]
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* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman (who initially claimed , so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after Georgie reveals he is only seventeen, and this was after they had sex several times. The age of consent in Texas is seventeen, but the age difference between the two is still quite large.
to:
* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman (who initially claimed , be 25, but later confessed her true age), so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after Georgie reveals he is only seventeen, and this was after they had sex several times. The age of consent in Texas is seventeen, but the age difference between the two is still quite large.
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The age of consent in Texas is 17.
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* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman, so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after they first have sex, when Georgie reveals he is only seventeen.[[note]]Presumably Texas is one of those American states where the age of consent is eighteen, which might explain her horrified reaction?[[/note]]
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* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman, woman (who initially claimed , so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after they first have sex, when Georgie reveals he is only seventeen.[[note]]Presumably Texas is one of those American states where the seventeen, and this was after they had sex several times. The age of consent in Texas is eighteen, which might explain her horrified reaction?[[/note]]seventeen, but the age difference between the two is still quite large.
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* Pinoko in ''Manga/BlackJack'' plays with this. She insists that she is eighteen and Black Jack's wife, despite looking and acting like his six-year-old daughter (which is what he considers her). Technically, she's not wrong (about being eighteen); she was 'born' eighteen years ago as a self-aware [[BodyHorror collection of organs inside a tumor]] attached to her twin sister. Black Jack removed the organs and placed them in an artificial body that looks like a six-year-old girl.
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* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E1SimpsonsRoastingOnAnOpenFire Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]", Bart gets a tattoo this way. The tattoo artist most likely didn't care.
-->'''Tattoo artist:''' Wait, how old are ya?\\
'''Bart:''' 21, sir.\\
'''Tattoo artist:''' Get in the chair.
-->'''Tattoo artist:''' Wait, how old are ya?\\
'''Bart:''' 21, sir.\\
'''Tattoo artist:''' Get in the chair.
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In Texas, is seventeen underage for sex?
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* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman, so he tells her that he's 21.
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* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In Season 5, Georgie (age 17) wants to date a 29-year-old woman, so he tells her that he's 21. She goes completely apeshit after they first have sex, when Georgie reveals he is only seventeen.[[note]]Presumably Texas is one of those American states where the age of consent is eighteen, which might explain her horrified reaction?[[/note]]
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* In WesternAnimation/CloneHigh, the underage clone of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln recruits the underage clone of Genghis Khan to buy beer for a party, telling him all he has to do is tell the clerk he's 21.
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* In WesternAnimation/CloneHigh, ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'', the underage clone of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln recruits the underage clone of Genghis Khan to buy beer for a party, telling him all he has to do is tell the clerk he's 21.
