When Age Gaps Are Too Big To Be Creepy

And the mondo-take of the week: RFK Jr. is grooming an innocent 31-year-old reporter

Age gap discourse is the forever-pandemic of Twitter. Nobody can seem to function normally in the face of a solid 25-year age gap. Take, for example, the endless discourse around Leonardo DiCaprio. On the one hand, you have women saying he only chooses young, glamorous models because “women his own age won’t put up with him” (Yes, I’m sure Leo is chasing down 50-year-old women who repeatedly leave him on read and merely settles for the lukewarm embrace of a 22-year-old Victoria’s Secret Angel.) Meanwhile, you’ve got the manosphere insisting that 20-plus year age gaps are the norm, or the ideal for most women, frantically moving the goalposts to “only when he’s rich, famous, and attractive” when the zoomer women show up to tell them that if a twenty-six-year-old DMs them, he should be imprisoned. People absolutely cannot be normal about it.

For those of you not online this week, let me fill you in on why this topic is coming up: RFK Jr, the 70-year-old former presidential candidate famous for decapitating a whale, dumping a dead bear in Central Park, and (allegedly) roasting and eating a dog, has had an “emotional affair” with 31-year-old reporter Olivia Nuzzi (who, I should, add, was engaged to Ryan Lizza, 50, famously fired from The New Yorker for sexual misconduct. It’s unclear if they broke up over the RFK scandal or before it.) The fact that the affair is “emotional” in nature brings up more questions than it answers, such as, how does RFK sext?

This scandal made me think of the (possibly fake?) story from last week about Trump’s supposed affair with “Yassified Jigsaw” (I wish I came up with that myself) Laura Loomer, who is also 31 to Trump’s 78:

It’s important to note that Trump has denied the affair (he actually hasn’t responded to it directly but nebulously referred to Laura as a “free spirit” and talked down their relationship by saying she was a “supporter, like a lot of people are supporters” before promptly banning her from his private plane.) Even if they were never having an affair, Loomer is a liability for other reasons, such as her tweets that are so racist that she earned the coveted “denounced by Marjorie Taylor Greene” badge, the veritable black belt of racism awards:

But anyway, the RFK Jr. story made way for an absolutely nuclear take from Nomiki Konst:

Konst asserted that we’re all focused on the wrong thing. Someone is being groomed here: the barely-sentient 30-something female reporter, who is at the behest of the powerful elderly man covered in flies.

Konst eventually reached the point that my fellow liberals must all be careful to avoid: accusing everyone who disagreed of being a Russian agent. She also pointed out that even if someone is of legal age, a relationship can still be predatory. And surely, that’s true! After all, when Bill Clinton (then 49) had an affair with Monica Lewinsky (22), the age gap was only one of many factors that contributed to the inherent power imbalance in that relationship (he was also, you know, the President.)

Somehow, it feels different with RFK Jr. Yes, he isn’t the President (thanks to the millions of dead dogs who illegally voted in the primary), but it almost feels like if he were fifty-five and not seventy, the story would feel a bit different as far as the Twitter consensus goes. There’s a sweet spot for age gaps that rile up the “grooming” accusations, and for some reason, RFK and Trump have aged out of it.

This take got me thinking (Carrie Bradshaw voice): What if age gaps can be so big that they’re no longer creepy and they’re just kind of silly? Or, if they are still creepy, what if it’s creepy in a completely different way?