You know, your Akio posts made me think—we watch this show as adults, so an adult man who only hangs out with teenagers is pathetic to us both as an extension of the statutory shit and sort of beyond it, enough that we feel a need to lean on those qualities of his we can call pathetic, but I guess that’s missing the point of how being taken seriously by an adult is part of the fantasy.
Akio being someone you want only makes it worse to know that he is cruel, because even true love is like this, apparently. Even the archetype of Love has nothing to offer you but poison and joyless assault in his convertible. There is no better option. Smash the world’s etc
I'm definitely bringing my personal convictions into this because I don't think adults having sex with middle schoolers is pathetic or loser behavior or cringe or whatever. I just think it's wrong. The popular framing might maybe be useful for persuading teenagers that their adult partners aren't actually hot shit, but idk, it often just feels like an extension of (and equally useless as) virgin-shaming. And I worry that it ties into the other thing—because yes, strongly agree, being taken seriously by an adult is part of the fantasy here—the subtle distinction between "Only hanging out with teenagers is a red flag that someone might be looking for vulnerable and inexperienced people to exploit" and "Only hanging out with teenagers makes you a loser" is that the latter portrays teenagers themselves as inherently uncool via the transitive property—the same marginalizing attitude that leaves some teens so desperate for validation that they're vulnerable to grooming.
All of this is very vibes-based because to my knowledge no one has investigated the research question "How does popular rhetoric around adult–teen relationships influence rates of sexual abuse" (my guess is: probably not much). Regardless, I don't share the impulse, and I'm hesitant to cultivate it.
When I watched Utena for the first time, in high school, I got completely blindsided by Akio. Didn't believe the evidence right in front of my eyes until way late in the series, all because the show maintained a sliver of plausible deniability and refused to frame Akio as a mustache-twirling villain. This is also the experience of some people I know who first watched the show as adults.
