Talk:Age disparity in sexual relationships

Mention of heterosexual

@77.103.122.213: and others: It's easily interpreted as a bait and switch if we say we're talking about (all) couples but then discuss (only) heterosexual couples. Furthermore, it's throwing shade at marginalized groups to switch from (all) couples to (only) heterosexual couples without even mentioning that we've made that switch. It can make the already marginalized people think that the intent is to deliberately pretend that they don't exist. For the sake of the marginalized people, please stay far away from making "all" and "heterosexual" seem synonymous. Thank you —Quantling (talk | contribs) 17:19, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

But these aren't sentences talking about "all couples" then we're clarifying heterosexual, it's sentences talking about heterosexual couples then for some reason we state again that it's heterosexual couples. Cross-culturally, research has consistently supported the trend in which males prefer to mate with younger females, and females with older males, in heterosexual relationships.

See, it's already stated we're talking about heterosexual relationships in so many words, it doesn't need further clarifying so it's just redundant. The article wasn't written this way, nor is it in the sources I checked, one editor a few months ago just came in sticking the word in everywhere. 77.103.122.213 (talk) 12:54, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The sentence would not make sense if we said that "Cross-culturally, research has consistently supported the trend in which homosexual males prefer to mate with younger females, and homosexual females with older males.", right? So it does not encompass all males or all females despite being "cross-cultural" and "consistent", two very encompassing words. Without "in heterosexual couples", the sentence silently assumes away homosexuality. Would it be better with the prepositional phrase at the start, as in "In heterosexual relationships, research has cross-culturally and consistently supported the trend in which males prefer to mate with younger females, and females with older males."? —Quantling (talk | contribs) 20:07, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

If we're talking about males mating with females then it's already stating it's about heterosexuals, so stating it again is slightly bizzare. If there was any confusion for the reader about what we're talking about then clarifying it would be necessary, but I don't think anybody reading it would be confused. Also I don't think the sentence without "heterosexual" in it comes across as meaning that literally every man on Earth prefers younger women and every woman on Earth prefers older men, as it's simply referred to as a trend. I should also note that the abstract this is sourced from, as with the others sources I checked, doesn't have the word "heterosexual" in it, I assume because it would be redundant. 77.103.122.213 (talk) 22:25, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

My argument is not about the readers' confusion. Without mention of heterosexuality, the sentence "Cross-culturally, research has consistently supported the trend in which males prefer to mate with younger females, and females with older males" is throwing shade at gay and lesbian individuals by seemingly pretending that they don't exist. (I am not saying that that is your intent; only that many readers will see it that way.) I think our discussion here would benefit from the participation of additional editors, because we somehow aren't hearing each other.  :-( —Quantling (talk | contribs) 14:07, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Do we need to write around that? If we write about a trend of young people being more technologically adept than their parents do we need to clarify that this doesn't apply to the Amish? Yes let's end discussion here until others come along. 77.103.122.213 (talk) 15:04, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, if the Amish are regularly belittled then staying far away from pretending they don't exist would be a valuable goal. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 11:39, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps we can add heterosexual to the lead, where it wouldn't be redundant and informs the reader of the rest of the article? As far as I can tell there's nothing here about homosexual relationship age gaps so it would fit. 77.103.122.213 (talk) 18:17, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

It could be valuable to change text in the lede. But I do worry that if that change appears to be "only in the fine print" and then the remainder of the article boldly uses "couple" as if it always means "heterosexual couple" then that might still be ... throwing shade at marginalized people. I guess the devil is in the details here.

In case it is relevant, ... a proposal to change the name of the article to "Age disparity in heterosexual relationships" failed. Perhaps the strongest argument was that the article should instead be improved by including non-heterosexual relationships, and then the broader title would be correct. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 11:45, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking the first line of the lead, so avoiding being fine print. We have that chart showing age differences between husband and wife, so it's already screaming in bold capital letters that we're talking about heterosexual couples, and it's generally like that in the rest of the article too. So I don't see where the article uses couple to always mean heterosexual, it's just that's what the article's talking about. How about we just go by what the sources use? I haven't looked at them all, just the sources to studies, and all of them, at least in the abstract, didn't use heterosexual. Since this article wasn't written with the word heterosexual inserted everywhere, I think it's fair to start from a place of assuming it wasn't in the non-study sources either, and to add it back you'd need to check them. 77.103.122.213 (talk) 14:13, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think there's a compromise along the lines that you are discussing, so I am optimist about that. But to clarify on a detail: I don't think that sources, study or non-study, that silently pretend that there are no LGBTQ+ individuals are something that we want to emulate. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 14:48, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Okay I've added it in the first line of the lead and removed from the body for now, though if there's any sources that use the word heterosexual then feel free to add to the article where it applies. As for silently pretending, I guess the sources just regard "heterosexual" as already stated in so many words if they're talking about sexual relationships between men and women. 77.103.122.213 (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for those edits, though I still have concerns. I didn't read through, but is it the case that the article doesn't contain any information other than for heterosexual relationships? If it does contain information about age disparity in LGBTQ+ relationships then the lead sentence is now misleading, yes?

Even if there isn't LGBTQ+ material now, are we in effect discouraging the adding of it later with that lead sentence? Or would we modify that sentence at that time and undo all your other edits too? —Quantling (talk | contribs) 13:14, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Other than a reference at the end of the page to a slang word, there doesn't seem to be anything about gay age gaps. If it were added in the future, I think it would be best to have its own section in the article rather than trying to incorporate it into each section. Otherwise it would probably be too thinly spread out, and most of the sections don't seem like they'd be applicable anyway. Similarly, I don't see how gay age gaps could be incorporated into the current lead as it doesn't seem to be applicable to most of it. So I think the lead would stay the same but at the end there'd be a sentence or two about gay age gaps. 77.103.122.213 (talk) 20:46, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The way I'd summarize this: we're mentioning that this article covers exclusively relationships by men and women in the first sentence so that we don't have to repeatedly mention it elsewhere. If this article is ever bettered by covering LGBTQ+ relationships then we'll have to change that, perhaps majorly. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 13:34, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I see that my now-reverted edit to remove four words in the lede comes after much discussion, so I'll hold off on additional significant edits until this thread reaches a consensus (I just added a hatnote now but it doesn't pertain to the question of the lede); for now I'll just note that in my browsing I reached this article from following the link in the caption of the main image at shipping discourse, which portrays a fictional WLW couple. Arlo James Barnes 19:21, 9 October 2024 (UTC)