Age ain't nothing but a number?

Where only first names appear, names have been changed to protect the identities of the sources.

"I had a lot of my first drug experiences with Jason," says former Blair student Amelia, 17, of her 25-year-old boyfriend. "I tried E for the first time; I tried acid for the first time; I tried meth for the first time." Jason, with his car, his money and his freedom, became her pipeline into the world of drug addiction and abuse.

Though eight-year age differences within relationships may be uncommon at Blair, the number of adolescent girls dating considerably older men is significant. An informal survey of 100 female Blazers taken in the SAC on Apr 29 and Apr 30 reveals that 40 percent of girls have dated men over three years their senior, and 12 percent have dated men over 5 years older than them. Some of them may enjoy the maturity and independence older men are able to provide, but others have encountered the damaging physical and emotional repercussions of dating above their age group.

"He got obsessed"

Michelle, a junior, began dating a 21-year-old when she was only 13. "Sex wasn't a big issue," she shrugs. "I waited a long time before I had intercourse with him, and he was okay with that." Since that time, Michelle has lost track of the number of older men she has dated, estimating it at between five and ten. And with one of these boyfriends, she wasn't as fortunate as before.

"He got obsessed," says Michelle. At the time, she was 14, and he was 21. Her boyfriend became unreasonably jealous. Suspecting Michelle of cheating on him, he physically confronted her. "He came down to my laundromat. He put his hands on my shoulders and started shaking me," she remembers. "I started crying."

"I think there's a lot of potential for abuse in any relationship where there's a large power differential," says Kate Plasier, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at George Washington University. Plasier says that psychiatrists typically view adolescent relationships with a three-to four-year age difference as evidence of a "power differential" and classify a four-year age gap as an abusive relationship.

Not only was Michelle's boyfriend physically abusive, he exerted pressure on her to have sex, sometimes verbally, sometimes by grabbing her sexually. "Sometimes I just wouldn't want to, and he would, so . . ." She waves her hand aimlessly and trails off. "He wouldn't get off."

Sexual abuse in relationships similar to Michelle's is not rare. According to the Planned Parenthood website, young women who first engage in intercourse with men seven or more years older than them are more than twice as likely as women dating men their own age to identify first intercourse as unwanted.

Michelle believes that the age difference between her and her boyfriend was a factor in his behavior. However, she stresses that none of her other older boyfriends have been controlling and that she does not believe that her experiences with older men are among the worst. "I know some girls whose guys are older than them that don't even let them go to school," she says. "They like having control over someone."

"I was trying to do what's cool"

Amelia attended Blair for two and a half years before transferring in the middle of her junior year to her home school. She was unable to cope with her heavy load of schoolwork, stressful homelife and 25-year-old drug-addicted boyfriend, Jason.

Though Amelia began serious experimentation with hard drugs after she met Jason, it was her first boyfriend, Tristan, who introduced her to marijuana and alcohol. "I learned all of my dirty habits from him," she says. "I was trying to do what's cool." At the beginning of their relationship, which lasted two years, she was 12 and he was 16.

Drugs and alcohol are often introduced to girls by older men they are dating, according to Plasier and Blair health teacher Susan Soulé. Soulé says that drug and alcohol abuse is common in these relationships because the man may be able to purchase these substances and provide a "steady supply" to the girl.

Jason's former roommate, a drug dealer, provided Amelia and Jason with this "steady supply." Amelia often skipped school to care for her boyfriend when he overdosed on speed, Vicadin or sleeping pills. Eventually, Jason was evicted from his apartment, and he is now living with Amelia.

Earlier this year, Jason inherited several thousand dollars, money that he spent on the couple's addiction. "On his birthday, we decided to shoot [meth], and that was in February." She pauses. "And now it's April, and all of that $5,000 has been gone for two weeks."

Plasier says both parties involved in relationships like Amelia's are often distanced from their peers. Attracted to the fast lifestyle of her boyfriend, Amelia says she became detached from school. Instead of going to high school functions, she would attend parties with Jason, where "people were suffocating themselves with plastic bags" or "having sex in the open and taking pictures," she says. School dances seemed dull and childish in comparison.

"I've had so much fun with him"

Unlike Michelle, Jasmine, a 16-year-old sophomore, has never been abused by a boyfriend. And unlike Amelia, she was not drawn into heavy drugs while dating her older boyfriends. She describes her experience in dating older men as positive and preferable in many respects to dating those her own age.

"There's a certain level of respect you don't get with younger people," says Jasmine. Jasmine has found that her older boyfriends tend to be more sensitive, refraining from making comments or jokes that she finds offensive, and also more attuned to her emotions.

When she was 14, Jasmine began dating a 21-year-old. Their relationship lasted ten months, ending only when he went off to medical school. "That was probably the best relationship I've ever been in," she gushes. "He was really smart, funny, just amazing. I've had so much fun with him."

Wary of statutory rape, he refused to take their relationship to an intimate sexual level, a decision Jasmine says she respects. However, Jasmine willingly became sexually involved with the next man she dated, a 22-year-old. "I always thought, ‘Hey, that would be really cool, to say I was the victim of statutory rape, just to prove how stupid the law is,'" she says. "There's a difference between the kind of guys they created the statutory rape laws for and the kind of guys I date."

However, Plasier is unsure that such a young girl can truly consent to intercourse with an older man. "I don't know that a 14-year-old can make that kind of judgment," she says.