Hello. I am new here on the forums. I decided to make an account so I could make this post, but I wasn’t too sure which sub I should post under so I decided on this one. If what I am about to talk about belongs in another sub feel free to move this.
So I am writing this post at a 21 year old gay man who lives in a country where the legal age of consent is different depending on the specific jurisdiction you live. Where I am, the legal age of consent is 16 years old. Therefore, I want to stress that what I am about to share is not in any sort of violation of the law. Regardless of all of that it is something I am still thinking about and obsessively worrying about whether I made a huge mistake. I honestly have been feeling like I don’t really deserve to live over this particular situation and that I must be a very terrible person.
About a year ago, three months after I turned 20 I was involved in a romantic and sexual relationship with a 17 year old. Looking back on it, and after reading a lot of posts by people on different forums and websites saying that this is gross and disgusting I have pretty much decided that all of those people are right and I am a sick piece of $#%^ who should just die. I am scared that while I was in the relationship that I could have caused that significant other damage or harmed them in some way which at the time I might not have been aware of. Also, a few months after this, I was involved with another 17 year old. We were not in a relationship nor did we have sex but we were pretty flirtatious with each other and would kiss and be touchy. I can definitely say that I do not have a sole attraction to people who are younger than me or who are teenagers. These are the youngest people I have ever had any sort of sexual or flirtatious contact with in my life. Looking back on all of it I feel truly disgusted because I feel as though what I did was potentially damaging to those people and I’m scared I might have taken advantage of them. I also want to make it clear that In both cases everything was consensual. Legally, both of these people can consent. However I do not want to sit here and try to potentially victim blame or divert any sort of wrong doing.
I am not too sure what you guys think of this, but I honestly am seriously beating myself up over it and cannot stop thinking about it and how I deserve to die.