The other day, someone posted something on Facebook about a 14-year-old girl who was abducted by the then-38-year-old security guard at the school she was at and kept her held hostage for a decade, doing unspeaking things to her. It was sick and enraging—especially as a mother who is tired of seeing the conservative contingent in this country try to roll back the legal age in which a man can pursue a person. It’s a sickness and is one that can be explained. We are all well-versed by the abuse (putting it lightly) described in the Epstein files. But why?
One person responded to my comment pondering if women are considered “ugly” when they get older or if it’s just the current climate. My take based on observation is this—emotionally immature (read: narcissistic) people (most commonly men) prefer girls and younger women because they’re easier to control and have yet to learn to set boundaries. Our system is designed to condition women to be subservient to men in particular and to put themselves last among members of their households and members of society. That’s why so many women burn out—we get sick and damn tired of being socialized to mature in our teenage years, often taking care of siblings and the emotional needs of the adults in our homes while not having our needs met—other than the physical ones. By the time our own emotional needs become any kind of priority, we are exhausted, and this kind of bone-deep exhaustion breeds resentment.
Problematically, this stems from entitlement culture. The patriarchal system is hierarchical putting men at the top and women and children beneath them. This is supported through religious programming as well, which means that it’s fear-driven. Women don’t buck the order for fear of punishment from God. The Boomer women in particular suffered this conditioning as they were the transition generation—the first wave of feminists in the 1970s—who were finally able to go to work. This was interestingly requisite as in 1970 Nixon took us off the gold standard and started outsourcing to China. The thrust of capitalism to have more and the externalization of wealth and power in the 1950s (aka—keep up with the Jones’ further fueled our society’s sick obsession with materialism). Thus by the time my generation came of age, not only was the dream they sold us a load of crap—work hard, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, etc., but it was unsustainable.
Most of my cohorts and I have worked more than one job since we entered the workforce—sometimes more. That’s insane. I digress. While the women of our mothers’ generations were conditioned with the BS that “kids need a dad” and “stay for the kids” and “stand by your man”, women of my generation were leaving for the kids, recognizing that emotionally abusive father figures were worse for their kids’ development than those who were emotionally mature enough to put their children’s needs on par with their own.
Of course women get tired and resentful when they have to ask their husbands to get off the couch and assist with basic household tasks. Of course we don’t want to have sex. Of course we are setting boundaries, and to men who were conditioned to stop developing emotionally in adolescence and whose needs were capitulated to by enmeshing mothers who made them surrogate husbands because of the lack of connection and fulfillment with the (often abusive in some capacity) husband in their own lives, they also became entitled. Basically—three-year-olds trapped in adult bodies.
This is evidenced in their actions. They say love, but what they love is how they are made to feel by the women and children in their lives. They grow resentful at accountability, and their reactive abuse is proof of that. So, like children, they call older women “ugly”.
They find younger women and even children (gross) more enticing because they are easier to control and manipulate. They start grooming them early by growing close to them, by pretending to be their “best buddies”, so that they’re trusting and easier to control. They sexualize these girls and young women, and eventually—some of them can wait and play the long game, they pounce, coming onto them and turning them into young brides and mothers who lack the educational experience or professional experience to be empowered to leave. They like them because they don’t know what boundaries are, and if a person only knows one way of being, how easy is it to keep them that way?
The brainwashing comes through the media they consume, through religious cults, and simply through repeated exposure to emotional abuse and manipulation. Even I in my last serious relationship lost my sense of self and started to believe—at least at first—that I was the cause of issues. I walked on eggshells around an emotionally reactive and abusive man’s temper. If he wasn’t happy, he punished me by walking out, screaming, blaming me, etc. But I was never controllable, however, I had no sense of boundaries, and I was putting my own emotional needs dead last.
Problematically, these things are often happening in the abuser’s subconscious. Like the children they still are emotionally—and mind, this is not an insult—this is conditioning, but it can be fixed—they externalize everything and adopt the role of victim, which is why they absolutely refuse to take accountability. But again—this is why it’s preferable to go after younger women or women who are in vulnerable positions emotionally. It’s much easier to manipulate someone who is already operating at a low vibrational level. This is also why my former partner had no problem going after me romantically even though I was broken. My husband had just died, and my attention made him feel good. My feelings or emotional needs were never a variable in that equation.
Another factor is that if you read the erotica from the 1950s—and this is what gets us into men pursuing young girls and sexualizing them—it’s all about a teenage girl coming of age and exploring her sexuality with members of her family and what should be trusted authority figures in her community. Some of it is incredibly degrading. I was exposed to this by a friend who was renovating the upstairs of a local bar where they found this kind of “literature” under the stairs. So, consider that the Boomers were reading this and interpreting as normal. This was the rhetoric for how to groom, condition, and manipulate younger women.
Again—conditioned narcissism, entitlement, and lack of personal growth are underpinning this issue. We aren’t ugly, and we aren’t bitches. We just know that our “no” is a complete sentence. Many of these people are told that the “no” is a challenge. Respectfully, the fuck it is. No means no. Wearing someone down through constant pursuit is disrespect and abuse, and when the “no” sticks or the person is blocked, they explode and become reactive, accusatory, and self-pitying.
So, what can we do about it?
We can start by teaching our children to set boundaries, to respect themselves, and showing them how to prioritize their needs. I teach my daughters responsibility. I have them take care of themselves at age-appropriate levels. I am not going to model putting myself last. I have made it clear that the last relationship I was in was a textbook example of exactly what never to tolerate, and I have told them explicitly that my former partner is a dangerous person never to be trusted for any reason.
Because many single women are targeted by predatory men—I can’t tell you how many people I know who were abused by a friend of their mother’s or their mother’s romantic partner, I refuse to date, and I have such a keen sense for toxicity at this point that I can recognize emotional immaturity from a mile away.
I realize writing about this in this regard will offend people who will continue to choose not to develop and improve, so they can actually be considered desirable to age-appropriate women. Those are the people who will sadly be left behind as society does continue to evolve. But we solve the problem first by educating young people, so they are not attracted to people who are predisposed to put their burdens on them.
The other thing we need to do is to show young people what their options are. Marriage and children are only one such option. And mind, I am opposed to legal marriage altogether because it’s been proven that it’s essentially a “land transfer” transaction between families. In the past, everything was passed down on the maternal line and women were the ones who held property, but it shifted with the establishment of the patriarchy. It’s relevant to ask why these men have to pursue younger and younger women who are easier to manipulate and to trap with babies and a marital contract. The social emphasis on marriage, the Disney movies my generation grew up on, the proliferation of romantic comedy (massively unrealistic) created an obsession around being chosen when in reality we should be learning to choose ourselves—men and women should, I mean.
We have to deprogram ourselves, but we also need to do the work to set boundaries. I know it can be hard to do that because some people will take your boundaries personally, and they will get reactive, but the reason they do that is because they are either entitled or they don’t know how to set boundaries themselves, or it’s a combination of both, but bet that nobody is entitled to your time or attention if you don’t want to give it. Your energy is a precious form of power, so protect it. Do not let people put things on you that are not yours.
As a mother, I consider my role in modeling what my children need. My finally decentralizing men and romance and the hope of finding that kind of connection, I’m able to model real independence and boundaries and personal values for myself and my children, and I’m able to protect them from potential groomers and predators. Nobody should be so “friendly” with my children that they feel comfortable being alone with them—ever.
This is all changing. Awareness is the first step in ensuring that happens, but the understanding is that we have a culture of entitled and emotionally immature individuals who objectify women and children and who groom and sexualize them to fulfill personal desires and needs.
When I was working on my own emotionally immature tendencies, I had to be willing to look at and understand the parts of myself that needed to be healed. For example, when I was deeply vulnerable after Sean died, I was being immature and selfish—which is emotionally immature—by only focusing on how the attention made me feel. Had I been in a more mature position, I’d have immediately recognized that my emotional needs and feelings were not in any way a priority of that individual, and I wouldn’t have been drawn in. Had I not been feeling entitled—I felt I deserved a happy ending after the gauntlet that was Sean’s illness and passing—I would have realized that life happens, and sometimes, it sucks, and sometimes you just have to do really hard things, but you’re not owed a reward. That was a victim mindset, if I really think about it.
When I read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Emotional Incest Syndrome in the winter of 2024, I fully understood how the way generations have been parented has paved the way for this issue to continue.
We can further facilitate change by having productive conversations with one another. Some adults are receptive to having their patterns addressed, but not all are. The reality is that those are the individuals who will fail to evolve and who do not deserve our energy.
This is also why we need to raise young people to truly consider what they want, not what society has conditioned them to want. We have to teach them how to be independent and self-reliant, so that the appeal of an older man taking care of them is undesirable—just wanting someone to take care of you is its own kind of emotional immaturity, and some people never outgrow that either. We have to educate them and help support their intellectual and emotional growth. It’s doable to hit the brakes on systemic patriarchy and this increasingly toxic trend of predatory grooming behavior, and I believe it starts with awareness as to how it was established and how it has evolved.
We need true equality—not a hierarchy. We need to be informed and supported in personal growth. We need to start teaching children from adolescence to set boundaries—like if your child doesn’t want to hug someone, they don’t have to. We have to start teaching appropriate and inappropriate touching. We have to pay real attention to our children so that they don’t go into the world opening up to strangers. We also have to monitor who we allow around our children, and we also have to explain how trafficking really works.
It’s typically when someone starts by acting friendly and interested. They build a rapport. They offer help. They are often disarming, not aggressive, and those are the ones you have to watch out for. Also watch out for people with good reputations, who appear in helpful or pious roles in society. And look out for people who seem to show too much interest in your or your kids. If someone is trying to date you but also showing an overt interest in your kids, pay attention. It doesn’t mean that they’re friendly or “would make a great dad”. It could mean something far more sinister.
And that’s why I set the boundary around dating—especially while my kids are young. I have discernment, and I can play a longer game than anyone else can. But I want to live in a world where a middle-age security guard doesn’t have that kind of access to a child…to where he has the maturity not to sexualize her or to want her for his personal needs. Because if he was in any way an emotionally mature real man, he would consider her needs, interest, and development ahead of his own desire, and if he was a real man, he wouldn’t be attracted to her. If he was a real man, he wouldn’t feel entitled enough to want to pursue someone who is far below the age of consent.
We can do better, and that starts by no longer giving energy to these “nice guys” who continue to refuse to evolve with the species. I know that sounds mean, and it’s no shade against fellow humans, but it is a call to action relative to the individual’s personal responsibility to develop and to do better.
As a mother and a woman who has to stand in authority in both the masculine and feminine, I have no problem being “ugly” to people who realize that my boundaries are a fortress at this point. I love, value, and respect myself as I do my children, and I will protect them at all costs while teaching them how to hold their sovereignty in a culture that is struggling and failing to diminish their right to choose and their right to stand shoulder to shoulder as equals with every other person on the damn planet.