Hey, who wants to disk horse through the lens of consent??
The concept of consent has had a hell of a glow-up in recent years, which is a double-edged sword. It's good because consent is good, but in some TikToky areas of the internet, the concept has been weaponized and fetishized (and I AM using that term correctly) and distorted into a caricature of itself to the point that people think a sex scene in a film is violating your consent or that you need a stranger's consent to exist in a public space, or an author is violating a fictional character's consent by writing them into terrible situations (these are all takes I have seen with my own two eyeballs).
This has led to an absolute OBSESSION with age gaps. Like, not even bad ones. We're not talking about a 45 year old dating a 19 year old here. We're talking people tentatively posting and asking if it's too problematic to write a relationship between a 23 year old and a 25 year old. ANY age gap more than fucking six months is seen as an insane power dynamic perversion and a total violation of anyone (usually the younger party's) ability to consent to...well, anything.
This is the secondary motivation, imho, behind anti-Tommy sentiment (the first being, of course, that he is not Eddie). A ten year (ish, who tf knows) age gap between two men both over thirty is inconsequential in the real world. As it should be. But to some quarters, anything Tommy does, ANYTHING, is seen through the lens of an unbalanced power dynamic or a predatory motivation (conveniently forgetting that Buck pursued him of course) AND a deeply toxic attitude that nobody over 40 should have sexual lives at all.
It’s absolutely ridiculous how jumpy people have gotten about moderate age differences between adults. Soon enough it’ll be inherently predatory to write a couple that wasn’t born in the same hour on the same day at the same hospital to families of the same socioeconomic class. 💀
And it’s especially difficult because it grew out of genuinely important conversations about consent and power imbalances that were about confronting harmful entrenched attitudes, and like it genuinely is funny to, say, make fun of Leo DiCaprio for never dating women over 25. But it’s turning into a kind of “weaponized wokeness” that’s really just purity culture in disguise. It’s like the Olympics for extreme virtue signaling. Who can medal in making a batshit insane argument dressed up in morality the best?
It infantilizes fully grown adults AND is blatantly ageist to pretty much anyone over 40. These kids are in for a rude awakening when the years indeed don’t stop coming, and one day they wake middle aged and somehow still capable of having interests and desires despite having told themselves for years people that age just eat bland chip and file taxes.
They were always going to hate Tommy no matter what, but it’s kind of really disheartening to see the blatant homophobia jump out, dressed up in Goody Tumblr’s church clothes, when the show very deliberately presented him as a genuinely good guy who has a lot of attributes Buck is attracted to, who they took pains to write and act as non-predatory as possible. Tommy just shot his shot when it became obvious that Buck was flirting with him, and the ball has really been in Buck’s court ever since. Buck’s a grown man in his thirties, he knows what he’s about. Buck pursued Tommy. Buck is still leading their interactions, Tommy is simply matching his energy. There’s no consent issue or power imbalance here.
These overprotected helicopter kids desperately need to grow up, or stop engaging with grown up media and stick to the Disney Channel. If 911 is too adult for them, may I suggest Paw Patrol?
