Plus, your conclusion of "must disallow across the board because common downsides" does not work in matters of private relationships.

It can't be "always bad because it's bad in more cases than it is good" because that is a self-disproving statement. And trying to say that it should always be considered very bad even when not bad is - again - just an insane stance to take because of the "collateral" of hurting BOTH CHILD AND ADULT when that social policy damages their lives in a case where it would otherwise be fine. I.e., the adult is trustworthy and responsible, emotionally considerate, respectful, the attraction is mutual, the love is genuine and brings about true joy for both, it's a monogamous person-to-person thing as opposed to superficial and objectifying, there is no sexual disease, and harrassment and rape are nowhere to be found, and everything's altogether quite wholesome and healthy within the relationship. There are also probably other deeper benefits that having a great relationship like that can bring, but I won't get into them now. Basically, if you're fundamentally a good person, it's unlikely that any close relationship which you might want to have with another would manifest in a way that's harmful/unhealthy. Although fundamentally every single relationship must be judged individually based on all those factors as well as any others and not instantly judged as abusive without even a second glance purely on this arbitrary basis that one person is below a certain age.

That's INSANE and DRACONIAN, and it's all based on what has been in essence a moral panic in response to the actions of A TINY FEW along with a ton of misconceptions about MAPs and a bunch of broken circular logic similar to and including the example I pointed out... Not to even the misconceptions people commonly have about children and their sexuality and the often appalling lack of freedom and respect children are given (most especially girls).

Unfortunately, people are afraid of what they don't understand and the stigma around this topic which limits the understanding of it and all related topics is so powerful that it's far more convenient to go with bullshit than challenge your own fallacies (to say the least) - no matter how wrong this is or how many people it hurts.

The truth is (rather than assumed more bad than good more often than not therefore always bad / the apparent Billi way of looking):

Bad when bad. Good when good.

And we really ought to pay waaaaaaaaaay more attention to what kids say and feel, how they actually behave as opposed to how we want that they would behave for the sake of our preferred emotional interpretation of childhood as a concept which - at the very least from the point of view of the sexually awakened child already communicating in sexual language - is FAR more demeaning than having someone communicate a romantic interest in you in a more or less respectful way even with the understanding of the implied sexual interest.

Basically, if the counter is consensual (and some kids can indeed consent - again, it's an individual thing and developmental milestones are reached at differing times, not just always on the average), then it's not arguably morally wrong within the context of that specific case, and so the argument about a general wrongness amounts to stereotyping the narrative in order to perpetuate the fear and trigger an (intellectually meaningless) agreement that way.

The feelings of those specifically involved should dictate how any relation is viewed - not some general mob consensus which is ALWAYS going to be largely a product of prejudice because who can know. It's all context, and punishing when the context is good goes too far because it really hurts happy couples for no reason.

Seriously.

Surely intervention and criminal punishment is only appropriate if there is something demonstrably wrong. Of course, nobody wants STDs or harrassment or actual rape and abuse for that matter... But those are issues unrelated to age that definitely need to be be addressed by society's institutions and impressions and all of those things are ALREADY ILLEGAL (including - um, I believe - withholding the fact that you have an STD). I agree those things are even worse when a kid is involved, but the answer is harsher sentences, not an AGE LINE. A blanket ban on all relationships between people at different life stages (according to a completely arbitrary way of measuring no less) literally affects only those situations that were not illegal already for other (actually legitimate) reasons - or in other words, only affects the good-context ones which are because they ought.

~ R b l