"Sexual encounters carry the possibility of emotional hurt at any age, but on average the chances of this and the severity go down markedly the older a person (especially a female) is."

LOL.

First we criminalize the activity that might provide enough statistics to speak meaningfully. This ensures that the only people who will provide the stats are either recklessly unaware with the sociogenic harm or unconcerned with their partners wellbeing. Then we draw conclusions from a marginal activity which has been left only to criminals.

I recall seeing similar statements made about homosexual encounters under similar circumstances.

However....... care to support this with more than hunch and anecdote?

As to "severity" being reduced by age? Care to support this strange statement? I can find stats on other common "betrayals" like divorce causing severe lifelong damage not unlike losing a loved one. Why do you so cavalierly dismiss the potentially equal or possible greater severity of an adult betrayal? ( After all, we do not need to be psychic or time-travelers to see the damage. )

Again you compare the speculative and potentially nonexistent with the real. The fact that something IS nonexistent in the present doesn't prevent you from comparing it against the real and dismissing the real. This might pass muster for you. But in RL such standards never produce valid results.

And as to severity being increased by gender, can you support these sexist notions of female fragility with citations? I can find ample evidence that males are MORE emotionally fragile and prone to suffer greater adverse reactions. But you again repeat the myth that women are more fragile. Care to cite?

The main difference between the genders is that women talk-through pain. And they often talk it through to some sort of resolution. Men distract themselves from pain and allow time to heal. But when these two strategies fail, women tend to act-out as a cry for help. Men commit suicide often without leaving a note. These disparate strategies lead to the false belief that because women speak more about something that it exists more for them; even when the evidence adds up to the conclusion that the damage is greater for the gender that speaks less about it.

You seem to be grasping at straws here and posting conclusions which counter all the evidence we CAN gather about the effects of betrayal and suffering due to gender and age. Pardon me if I'm not persuaded by you when your assertions in a similar vein depend on evidence which CANNOT be gathered.

Dante