Angel dating 16 year olds.

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Allycat

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I was just wondering, what if Angel instead of Nina, would have started dating a 16 year old high school girl in Angel season 5... Would it have been accepted?
 
I think that by the time Angel season 5 came around the audience and the characters were much more mature so it wouldn't have been acceptable for Angel to date a 16 year old.

In Buffy when she was 16 and dating Angel, alot of the viewers were around the same age (because it was aimed at a younger audience) so it didn't seem as terrible for some reason. Also, I never really did look at Buffy as a regular 16 year old. She was always more mature for some reason, perhaps because she was a slayer and forced to grow up faster than most girls her age.
 
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\/Fred\/
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*Kitten*
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Cordelia
great points!
I suppose to avoid being hypocrits we would pretend to be ok with it, if we were ok with buffy/angel but in reality i don't think i'd have been happy with it
 
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*Kitten*
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Age difference

Kimm said:
I think that by the time Angel season 5 came around the audience and the characters were much more mature so it wouldn't have been acceptable for Angel to date a 16 year old.
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I agree. Angel's character developed more fully on his own show, so by the time S5 rolled around, he was perceived as much older a person than he was on Buffy, even tho he was actually only what? Seven or eight years older?

Kimm said:
In Buffy when she was 16 and dating Angel, alot of the viewers were around the same age (because it was aimed at a younger audience) so it didn't seem as terrible for some reason. Also, I never really did look at Buffy as a regular 16 year old. She was always more mature for some reason, perhaps because she was a slayer and forced to grow up faster than most girls her age.
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Again, I have to agree, Buffy was always way more mature than a normal 16 year old. She didn't start out that way, but had to grow up fast and consider things from a world perspective rather than just her own little piece of reality after becoming the Slayer.
 
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Mulder22
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Winifred
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Summers Blood
Yeah plus when he first started in Buffy he looked a lot closer to her age.
Kimm said:
I think that by the time Angel season 5 came around the audience and the characters were much more mature so it wouldn't have been acceptable for Angel to date a 16 year old.

In Buffy when she was 16 and dating Angel, alot of the viewers were around the same age (because it was aimed at a younger audience) so it didn't seem as terrible for some reason. Also, I never really did look at Buffy as a regular 16 year old. She was always more mature for some reason, perhaps because she was a slayer and forced to grow up faster than most girls her age.
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Buffy only gave the impression of being more mature, because she slayed vampires and other demons. But she wasn't. Buffy was a long way from being mature, during those early years.
 
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Kimm
I think being in love with someone and still killing them because you know it's the right thing to do shows a lot of maturity on her part....among other things...
Xin Rong
Xin Rong
I agree with lady lavina
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Winifred
Good Point!
LadyLavinia said:
Buffy only gave the impression of being more mature, because she slayed vampires and other demons. But she wasn't. Buffy was a long way from being mature, during those early years.
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I agree completely one of the reasons a friend of mine liked the show so much is because of how her age she acted, see's Buffy as a 16 year old when she is one. The thing is she ships Bangel and sees Angel as mature always. I tell her I *can't* see it that way because if I did that would make it creepy somehow. (I really don't like Bangel anyway but not seeing it that way makes it bearable)

Angel wasn't mature with Buffy, during their relationship they were at the same age emotionally. If Angel suddenly started dating a highschool student (in s5) I think EVERYONE would have had issues with it His people and the audience, although I'd pay to see Nina go "You left me for, her?" (or you left me for anyone, really haha!)
 
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FahrbotDrusilla said:
Angel wasn't mature with Buffy, during their relationship they were at the same age emotionally. If Angel suddenly started dating a highschool student (in s5) I think EVERYONE would have had issues with it His people and the audience, although I'd pay to see Nina go "You left me for, her?" (or you left me for anyone, really haha!)
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Exactly. Angel was completely different on Buffy than on his own show. Could you picture Angel taking orders from Giles towards the end of his series. It was crazy how he was just a Scoobie on Buffy. On his show he had a chance to grow way more as a person. That is why it would be too wierd to see him dating a 16 year old in season 5.
 
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he did take orders from wesley though. and never really took orders from giles.
Yeah but he didn't take orders very well and occasionally just ignored them, following wesleys leadership was just something he did to get back his friends, i dont he ever actually saw wes as leader, because he persistently tried taking charge and resisted wesleys instructions
 
See, this is where the US/UK divide comes in.

Here in the UK you are legally able to have heterosexual sex from the age of 16 onwards and so the whole thing about Buffy and Angel sleeeping together on her 17th birthday was a little bit "Huh, so what!" for me and, i would imagine, most other UK viewers, as nothing was particularly wrong with it.

Truthfully given the fact that Angel is a vampire and over two centuries old i can't see that it really makes a difference if the girl he sleeps with is 17, 21 or 50, the age difference is still going to be massive anyway. As long as they both were happy to go ahead with it that night, which they clearly were, then i have absolutely no problem with what happened. same goes for if Angel had fallen for a 16 year old during season 5.

However ... i do tend to think that Buffy was a very unique girl and exceptionally mature for her age. I seriously doubt that Angel would have any sexual interest in the average girl of that age. The circumstances of their relationship were such that her age was neither here nor there. He loved her for who she was, no matter what.
 
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Kimm
Exactly!!!
The Watcher said:
See, this is where the US/UK divide comes in.

Here in the UK you are legally able to have heterosexual sex from the age of 16 onwards and so the whole thing about Buffy and Angel sleeeping together on her 17th birthday was a little bit "Huh, so what!" for me and, i would imagine, most other UK viewers, as nothing was particularly wrong with it.
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Yeah, a few states in the US (including mine) have 16 as the legal age on consent also. So I wasn't that shocked either, about the illegal-ness of it or anything.
 
The Watcher said:
See, this is where the US/UK divide comes in.

Here in the UK you are legally able to have heterosexual sex from the age of 16 onwards and so the whole thing about Buffy and Angel sleeeping together on her 17th birthday was a little bit "Huh, so what!" for me and, i would imagine, most other UK viewers, as nothing was particularly wrong with it.
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I NEVER thought it was illegal, but still it's CREEPY. (and he "fell in love with her" when she was 14 or 15 I mean... icky!)
 
Well, it's not illegal here in the Netherlands either... but I think any 30 year old who has sex with 16 or 17 year old girls is a big fat pervert nonetheless.

'Course, there can be individual situations, but they'd better have a damn good reason.
 
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Allycat said:
Well, it's not illegal here in the Netherlands either... but I think any 30 year old who has sex with 16 or 17 year old girls is a big fat pervert nonetheless.

'Course, there can be individual situations, but they'd better have a damn good reason.
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See, i think it's far too much of a sweeping assumption to suggest that any guy in his 30's is perverted for wanting to be with someone in their teens. Sure there are perverts out there that get off on sex with young girls but then again there are perverts out there that get off on doing all sorts of things. Young girls, old women, animals, furniture, household appliances ... i'll stop there! 😀

My point being that an attraction to a teen girl is not, in itself, perverted. I was dating a 17 year old when i was 24 and i certainly don't consider myself to be a sexual deviant. Okay, 24 is not 30 but if i'm honest, had i met that same 17 year old girl today i would still find her attractive and fun to be around in all the same ways. We clicked as a couple and our ages never came into it.

A more famous example would be Jessica Alba and Micheal Weatherly who i believe were 18 and 32 respectively when they met. They liked each other, it worked, it happened. It happens all the time.

Again, don't get me wrong, i recognise that there are some seriously deranged people out there who prey on the young but i don't think it's fair to assume that the majority of people who get involved in relationships with a large age gap are perverts.
 
We're entering thin ice now, but I know of this 16 year old that likes me, she has for 4 years almost... and even though I have feelings for her too, I choose not to act upon it because of the age discrepancy. So, I don't think a 24yo should date a 17yo either :$ Sorry, nothing personal!

Anyhow... the problem is, that even though it can be a consentual relationship the age discrepancy may put the older one in a power position which they can consciously or unsconsciouly exploit or even abuse.
 
Allycat said:
Anyhow... the problem is, that even though it can be a consentual relationship the age discrepancy may put the older one in a power position which they can consciously or unsconsciouly exploit or even abuse.
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Trust me, in our case the only one with any power in the relationship was her. She could wrap me around her little finger! 😉

I do understand what you mean but the way i see it you can be in a relationship with somebody exactly the same age as yourself and still choose to dominate or abuse the other person if that is the kind of person you are. Just being of equal age does not mean that you will both have an equally strong personality. In the same way a 17 year old girl could easily have the same strength of character as a 30 year old guy. It depends on the couple in question.

Just boiling it down to "she is 17, he is 30, so therefore it is wrong" oversimplifies the situation in my mind and doesn't take into account that every single relationship, as well as every single individual, is different.
 
Very true indeed... however generally (😉) we generalise something because it's true. Consider that as we grow older, we usually grow stronger in character, so a young/old relationship is more likely to have the older person have a (much) stronger character. Course this is not always true, in some cases people will be *****whipped 🙂p)... but I think that if you make up the balance, in most cases the older one will be "stronger."

Anyhow, relating this back to Angel... Buffy of course had a strong character, but if he had started dating another Slayer with again a strong character... who was 16 years of age in Season 5... would you have accepted it?
 
I think the important thing to remember is that it's make believe. Many of the things that were acceptable in Buffy would not be acceptable in the real world. We generally don't look at things on Buffy in the same way we would look at them in the real world and I don't think we are meant to.

Buffy put Faith in a coma....but we completely forgive her for that....if someone I know put someone else in a coma (and tried to kill them) I would think they were a crazed lunatic....you see what I'm getting at?

It's all fiction....there is no such thing as vampires, people's eyes don't turn black when they're mad, and generally speaking dating 16 year olds is unacceptable.....but in Buffy almost anything seems to go.
 
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Winifred
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It's weird that some people look only at the numbers to say it's wrong. Age doesn't indicate whether someone is a nice person, a smart person, a sincere person, a serial killer, likes cheese, plays football, or anything else. As long as Buffy and Angel were both consenting and in love age doesn't factor into it for me. That goes for real life too.
 
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The Arcane
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Kimm said:
Buffy put Faith in a coma....but we completely forgive her for that....if someone I know put someone else in a coma (and tried to kill them) I would think they were a crazed lunatic....you see what I'm getting at?
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.:raises hand:. Another subject entirely, but I don't agree. Felt like my two cents on that completely-off-topic subject had to be included.

On the age thing...love is love, no matter what age it is. That's something that can't be summed up with numbers, you know?

I'm dealing with this right now, because my boyfriend is sixteen, and I'm eighteen. Granted, we're not having sex, but regardless, the legal age of consent in my state is seventeen. So that fact that I'm just WITH him is grounds for me to be questioned.


If Angel fell in love with a younger girl, more power to him. I would think it's weird for the simple fact that it would be COMPLETELY out of his character by the time S5 rolled around. It would be weird because it wouldn't be something Angel would DO in S5.

I've said my piece, so I depart. Later.
 
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