Who would have ever expected X-Men 97 to not only remember Rogneto existed in the early 90s but also provide us a great partial summary of their history and relationship dynamics!
But unfortunately it brought back those same ill-informed anti-Rogneto talking points that are based on strategic use of misinformation and lies.
There's a lot of bad faith arguments and false equivalencies about the age gap and the dynamics of the relationship in general.
Age gap relationships are not inherently evil. They, also, are not always related to unbalanced power dynamics.
An unbalanced power dynamic is someone who's wealth/social status/knowledge/connections aka "power" is considered higher than another person. We all have versions of this in everyday life: family, work, school, and within recreational groups like sports.
Weaponizing unbalanced power dynamics is to control someone with that very power difference. This can manifest in different ways such as disrupting family/friend relationships, financial stability/security, professional/academic achievements, etc that get in the way of controlling their targets.
Grooming also comes into play with power dynamics but it's not mutually exclusive.
Traditionally, grooming is influencing/changing another person's behavior, sense of self worth, and personality to fit the groomers ideal without any regard to the person in question. Like power dynamics, grooming is most associated with age gaps but again the two are not mutually exclusive.
A few basic examples would be:
-Choosing someone emotionally and/or mentally vulnerable to make them reliant on the groomer for love, affection, affirmation, money, self-worth. It's similar to Cult recruitment.
-Isolating that person from meaningful relationships with friends and family or not allowing those relationships to happen without the groomer being there to monitor it and lessen the value of it.
-Creating a sense of false intimacy that makes the victim associate emotional and physical love with what the groomer trains them to feel. Breaking down the victim's own concept of love and sex. Devaluing the victim to make them feel they can never be loved as much as they are now by the groomer.
Of course unbalanced power dynamics and grooming are multi-layered and complex social issues with a various examples that go far beyond the basic things we know as the general public. But we still know enough to know better to use them for Internet arguments and ship wars.
Or we should know better. Clearly, not everyone does. Either due to personal ignorance and a failing of their abilities of comprehension or worse, a purposeful misuse of information to create a false sense of personal moral superiority than is the shielded by activism.
These arguments are in incredibly bad taste because it takes real world social issues and makes them into janky fandom talking points for ship wars. I implore you to read the studies and accounts by those who were affected before you start sprouting nonsense on Al Gore's Internet.
Then go touch grass. PLEASE.
