Ethical Question

[georgelee5786]

not ethical

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

Can the undead be burned first? ? ?

 

[GlassRose]

Age doesn't matter, it's maturity that counts. That said, it's very unlikely that a human 16 year old will be a valid pairing unless the undead was permanently stuck at a similar or lower level of maturity.

Age does matter, as it is (at least in part) causal to maturity, and, places a cap on the max possible 'maturity'.

 

[QuercusMalus]

would you consider the idea of a 200-year-old person stalking a 16-year-old girl romantic?

Reread what you just wrote.

 

[AstreiaNyx]

Reread what you just wrote.

What I wrote is based on the two examples provided, not the story directions I was planning to go with. It just dawned on me that in media, people seem okay with this sort of thing, considering how popular these stories are, which leads to this question here. My concerns were more about the age gap of my characters (300 vs 30), but there was no stalking involved.

 

[Sabruness]

"Twilight"... ... can be romantic

 

[RepresentingDesire]

Romance between an undead and a young adult.

Had ethical questions been raised about it? Sure, "Twilight" and "Buffy" can be romantic, whatever, but would you consider the idea of a 200-year-old person stalking a 16-year-old girl romantic?

Or age doesn’t matter as long as the undead is hot?

This is for um…research.

I have a better question, does it matter if it's ethical as long as the love is real?

 

[Enkiari]

While I hardly think it is ethical, there isn't a problem in writing a story like this. Well, at least in my opinion.
There are plenty of romance stories which are extremely ethically dubious and would not work in reality.
And that is the thing. It is a story. You can explore things that are not real. Forbidden love is a thing people write.
You could write the story for a young female audience, and they would eat it up if it's presented correctly.
Should you keep real-world social norms in mind? Yes. They will help with the 'forbidden' part of the story. It will make emphasis on why it is not a good idea, and you can make it work anyway.

Cheers,
Pondering Enkiari

 

[Conqueror_Quack]

No matter how mature for their age they may seem, their brain is still going through heavy development and they don't have the necessary judgmental capacity nor life experience to make the decision to put themselves in the hands of someone who will have so much power over them.

Ah sorry, i was writing it with the intention that "does a 16 year old have physical, mental and emotional maturity?" but a typo changed the meaning .

 

[Cortavar]

Screw undead romance.

That's necrophilia on one side and pedophilia on the other.

I guess it's an inevitable tendency to romanticize all of the scary stuff, making them hot/cute in the process. A monster's fear factor mostly depends on its inhumanity, when you withdraw that, you've got another kind of humanoid, and no longer a monster.

Orcs? They've gone from being the former shells of elves, tortured by evil into madness and obedience, to the "noble savages" of fantasy, to "just another kind of human, only green and perhaps tusky, but not too much".

Vampires? Where has the bloodlust gone? Where is the curse of undeath and eternal hunger? With the convenient excuse of "oh, yeah, I'm drinking animal/synthetic blood now, maybe twice a year, and it works just fine!", they're little more than nocturnal elves.

You can write a good story with a monster character, but the more you make them human, the less you are actually telling a story about a monster, and the more your character becomes yet another version of human. Monster stories are hard, at least if you intend to keep your monster a monster.

I've even seen great old ones plushies. Yes, your squid-headed soft friend is very cute. No, you have no right to claim they're an abomination from when time and space didn't even exist that will bend your mind in non-einsteinian ways. Proof? You're still as mostly sane as you were five minutes ago.

That's why mixing romance with undeath is really hard to make right. You're adding a lot of humanity into a monster by giving them empathy, affection, love and all those nice fuzzy feelings. And the more you add, the further your monster strays from monster territory and closes the gap to humanity: in the end, you're not writing a love story between a monster and a person, but between two people.

You're almost doomed to fail, but you're welcome to try, and even if you fail, there's a huge audience for hot or cute monsters!

 

[HungrySheep]

Vampeerz was pretty okay.

 

[BearlyAlive]

It's pretty much unethical, it's creepy and it's kinda pedo, especially if your MC is a rotten piece of meat.

If you write an otome-type of story with the girl as your MC all those above-mentioned alarm bells suddenly turn into charming points for some reason, at least for those kinds of readers. Bonus points if zombo's the commanding imprison-her-in-his-cellar-so-nobody-can-even-know-of-her kind of person. This seems to be the most prominent type of love interest for those audiences...

The only way I personally can see undead MC wooing teen work ethically is by either her being the reincarnation of his wife/something along those lines or some obligation to her/her family/bloodline that then turns into affection. And then a time skip so she's legal! (That's important!)
The second variant can also work in a story where she's the MC, tho. Those stories depend more on how you portray both of them instead of outright saying "Undead stalks little girl for romance".

 

[ZukoMee]

Lol I've seen that. Still works for other species I bet, and maybe some elven cultures don't let those under 100 drink because they don't yet have 'wisdom', I bet the young elves hate and rebel against that though.

However, legal drinking age in a medieval setting doesn't make much sense, since it was the primary drink, as it was safer to drink, the process of brewing killing harmful bacteria. In fact, there are countries that still allow kids to drink alcohol so long as the percentage is low enough, they have kid beers and stuff.

A small age gap (like, a year, maybe a few as one gets closer to the mark) is negligible, but for anything much larger than that, yeah, that's exactly my point. Now, that is somewhat just my opinion, some people abide by the, I believe it was the -7 *2 rule? Which is in my opinion kinda arbitrary. I can't say definitively how large of an age gap is too much, it also varies depending on the individuals involved, but I will say that 100 years is definitely too much of an age gap at that point.

I don't know for mariage, but the law with the legal age for consent sexual relationship differ from each country, but a lot have it around 18.

It's fantasy setting the age gap doesn't matter, people can live thousand year, when you reach 2000 year and she will reach 1816 years, the age gap will be like 18 and 20 year old.

If it's in real life, then yes there some moraly way of thinking, while people can do what they want since they are legally able to make their own decision, the other can said whatever they want.

I don't like the idea of having a 16 year old girl with a 30 years old man in real life, but in a fantasy setting that doesn't matter at all since I'm accustomed in my country to the fact that 16 year are legally able to make their own choice with their partner.

I've known a 18 year old girl and 30 year old dude to start dating, and they married a year and some months later. Now they have 4 kids and have been married for 14 and a half years.

I've known a 14 year old boy to start dating a 17 year old girl, and they married when they were 16 and 19. Been married for 12 years with 2 kids and she's trying for a 3rd.

I've also known a 20 year old girl to marry a 39 year old dude, (no idea how long they were dating before marriage), and they currently been married for 9 years and somehow have 4 kids and she is currently several months pregnant with her 5th and she's scaring the hell out of her husband because she insists she only has half of the basketball team she wants.

Once someone hits 18, age gaps mean nothing. Personal opinions mean nothing. In 30 states, 16 is legal age of consent.

In 7 states, the legal age of consent is 17.

The only states that have 18 as the legal age of consent, is Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon, Utah(shocker), Arizona, California(another shocker), Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida.

Lol, Washington D.C., has age of consent at 16!! That's hilarious.

 

[GlassRose]

I've known a 18 year old girl and 30 year old dude to start dating, and they married a year and some months later. Now they have 4 kids and have been married for 14 and a half years.

I've known a 14 year old girl to start dating a 17 year old boy, and they married when they were 16 and 19. Been married for 12 years with 2 kids and she's trying for a 3rd.

I've also known a 20 year old girl to marry a 39 year old dude, (no idea how long they were dating before marriage), and they currently been married for 9 years and somehow have 4 kids and she is currently several months pregnant with her 5th and she's scaring the hell out of her husband because she insists she only has half of the basketball team she wants.

Once someone hits 18, age gaps mean nothing. Personal opinions mean nothing. In 30 states, 16 is legal age of consent.

In 7 states, the legal age of consent is 17.

The only states that have 18 as the legal age of consent, is Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon, Utah(shocker), Arizona, California(another shocker), Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida.

Lol, Washington D.C., has age of consent at 16!! That's hilarious.

Just because something is a certain way, doesn't mean it should be. And for every positive example you've listed, there are numerous where the younger individual got manipulated and taken advantage of, trapped in a bad situation with no way out that they could find. Just because something can work out doesn't mean that that is what is most likely to happen, and the elevated risk is too great.

 

[ZukoMee]

Just because something is a certain way, doesn't mean it should be. And for every positive example you've listed, there are numerous where the younger individual got manipulated and taken advantage of, trapped in a bad situation with no way out that they could find. Just because something can work out doesn't mean that that is what is most likely to happen, and the elevated risk is too great.

Who are you to decide what should be?

And for every negative example you would hypothetically list, there are numerous examples of positive outcomes, (as I have shown, and I'm just one person). This is just you and your opinions and biases deciding they are more accurate than not. But.....you can't do that. There is no level of authority you have to stand on here.

 

[GlassRose]

Who are you to decide what should be?

And for every negative example you would hypothetically list, there are numerous examples of positive outcomes. This is your opinions and biases deciding they are more accurate than not, but with nothing to shoulder them upon. There is no level of authority you have to stand on here.

Look in the mirror when you say that mate.

At least my argument is grounded in logic and statistics, instead of pure anecdote.

Risk and reward aren't balanced. When you risk something, losing it hurts more than how good you feel when receiving an equal reward. Morally, it's better to ease the pain of someone who is suffer than to elevate the joy of someone who is fine. The sheer danger from an unbalanced relationship caused by a significant age gap when one of the members is particularly vulnerable to manipulation far outweighs the few 'good endings'. Those good endings could be achieved just as easily by someone going down a far less risky road.

 

[ZukoMee]

Look in the mirror when you say that mate.

Um, I never said I was correct. I just said you can't decide your way is correct and that it should be that way. I never specified that my way was proper. I just gave examples of my personal experience as to why you can't swipe a wide brush over a subject and be done with it.

I think you need a second mirror mate. Check your angles perhaps?

At least my argument is grounded in logic and statistics, instead of pure anecdote.

Your Logic is only accurate when deciding how many of these kinds of relationships have ended poorly. IT doesn't account for how many didn't.

It doesn't even say how many out of a set number, ended badly (for ex. 10 out of 30 or something)...so there are no worthwhile percentages to have an accurate gauge from. So...your logic means what?

At least my argument is grounded in logic and statistics, instead of pure anecdote.

Risk and reward aren't balanced. When you risk something, losing it hurts more than how good you feel when receiving an equal reward.

I'm statistically more likely to be robbed by a black dude in the U.S., so by using your own logic, I should avoid engaging with black people if I have the choice. It lowers my chances of being in such an unpleasant situation. Okay. Makes sense.

Risk and reward amiright?

Those good endings could be achieved just as easily by someone going down a far less risky road.

Yeah, I should stick with only my White and Asian friends. Fair point

 

[GlassRose]

Um, I never said I was correct. I just said you can't decide your way is correct and that it should be that way. I never specified that my way was proper. I just gave examples of my personal experience as to why you can't swipe a wide brush over a subject and be done with it.

I think you need a second mirror mate. Check your angles perhaps?

I've elaborated a bit my logic. And I'm typically not one to make a wide claim without building in some level of wiggle room where relevant context can lay. But some matters do have more definitive answers.

What I can say, and am saying, is that there is an elevated risk to those types of relationships, and that they are inherently more dangerous, and that risk cannot be justified, because:
A. One could just as easily find the same positive endings without taking the risk
and
B. the one involved has not yet developed enough to be able to assess that risk and make that choice clearly. The human brain doesn't fully develop until age 25. Legal adult age is irrelevant.

 

[ZukoMee]

I've elaborated a bit my logic. And I'm typically not one to make a wide claim without building in some level of wiggle room where relevant context can lay. But some matters do have more definitive answers.

What I can say, and am saying, is that there is an elevated risk to those types of relationships, and that they are inherently more dangerous, and that risk cannot be justified, because the one involved has not yet developed enough to be able to assess that risk and make that choice clearly. The human brain doesn't fully develop until age 25. Legal adult age is irrelevant.

Yep, and I responded to your elaborations with edits.

Using race is an unpleasant counterpoint, but it fits in that I can show how using statistics and so-called Logic isn't as clean cut as people like to pretend because then it opens up all kinds of other questions that people shy away from wanting to discuss.

Btw, I really hate it when people say "I used logic." It makes me want to poke holes and give counter-examples/scenarios as to why it's not so simple and show how "logic" doesn't always simplify everything.

 

[GlassRose]

I'm statistically more likely to be robbed by a black dude in the U.S., so by using your own logic, I should avoid engaging with black people if I have the choice. Okay. Makes sense.

Risk and reward amiright?

Somewhat fair extrapolation, but it's not perfect. The problem is, you (presumably) have the ability to analyze the individual situation and determine whether that specific person is a danger or not. Young individuals are less adept at being able to do this, due to their incomplete development. They are much more likely to fall to manipulation. The people targeting them, trying to take advantage of them, put on personas, start subtly, it's not immediately obvious what they're doing. Meanwhile, if a dude is trying to rob you, you're gonna know he's trying to rob you. The situation is far less comparable than it seems at first glance. Now, the guy could start out acting friendly, and then try to rob you, and I don't really have an answer to what you should do there. But it's still not a 1 to 1 transferable scenario.