‘They’re Just a Child’: Uncovering the Boundaries of a Normative Relationship through Dialogue on Media Depictions of Age-Dissimilar Couples

Abstract

When selecting my interviewees, I did not strictly define what constituted an age-dissimilar relationship, as it seemed to me that this was determined by more than just partners’ chronological ages. In this chapter, I investigate how relationships were culturally and socially defined, by exploring focus group participants’ understandings of the boundaries between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ age-dissimilar relationships. I do this by drawing on the dialogue that took place during two focus groups. Participants in these groups discussed several media depictions of age-dissimilar couples.