Diana West’s The Death of the Grown Up: How America’s Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization is pure genius, not just because it’s a devastating critique of devolving modern culture but because it basically promotes itself.
The news is replete with examples of childish behavior encouraged by societies that re-enforce stunted emotional growth. Like this one from the Spiegel in which a 77 year old man is suing a 19 year old girl he wined and dined because she wouldn’t have sex with him:
It’s no secret that Germany has a problem with ageism. Workers here who lose their jobs after the age of 50 are virtually assured of spending the rest of their lives on the dole. A recent plan to up the retirement age to 67 was lampooned because most Germans of that age are no longer employed anyway.
But aging German playboy Rolf Eden seems to have developed a somewhat warped view of what age discrimination actually is. According to Bild Zeitung on Thursday, the 77-year-old Eden has filed suit against a 19-year-old Berlin woman for the following reason: Despite a night on the town with Eden, which ended back at his place, she refused to have sex with him, saying the he was too old for her.
“That was shattering. No woman has ever said that to me before,” Eden told the tabloid. “I was crushed.” He has filed charges with the prosecutors’ office, he said. “After all, there are laws against discrimination.”
A woman not wanting to allow a man old enough to be her great grandfather to mount her and maybe die atop her is, in his mind, discrimination? Is he saying that it’s his right to have sex with 19 year old women?
But more importantly, why is Germany allowing this frivolous lawsuit which in essence is a man not suing “for sex” as the Spiegel titles it, but suing for the right to demand sex from women he’s kind to. In America there’s a word for this: Rape.
I’m 36 and if I wasn’t a happily married man my personal cut of for sex partners would be 25 or so. A ten year difference is about all a real relationship can maintain. I’ve worked with teens and can tell you people younger than 25 more often view me as the kindly uncle or perhaps a mentor/father figure.
Which is how it should be and at my age I’m happy to be that to someone. As an adult, I don’t stalk teens and young adults for sex, but hope that I can be a good influence and positive presence on the few I come into contact with.
Rolf Eden sees 19 year old girls as part of some sort of government mandated entitlement to dirty old men. Rolf took a girl to dinner who was probably either doing what she thought was a good deed, or looking for a grandfatherly figure in her life, but he was blinded by his own childish fantasy of being an eternal ladies man to see that this girl just wanted a little good conversation and to hear some stories of how he survived the Nazi regime.
He refuses to grow up and accept a non-sexual role in the lives of young women, and he’ll tie up the German court system to keep living out his fantasy. Or as a way to get attention. Either way, it’s extremely childish.
h/t Bookworm Room