If you haven’t seen it, there’s a show on TLC called ‘I Am Shauna Rae’, featuring a 23-year-old woman with a medical condition that makes her look approximately 8 – 10 years old. She has the mental capacity of a normal 23 year old, only her appearance is affected.
Now here’s the dilemma – Shauna is dating ‘regular-bodied’ Dan Swygart, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from the UK. Here they are meeting Shauna’s parents, who seem to be OK with it:
So while Shauna’s parents seem more concerned with the long-term prospects of their relationships, others on the internet are wondering whether a grown man attracted to Shauna Rae would necessarily have some kind of child fetish. After all, she’s a woman that looks (and sounds) like a child. If a man finds her attractive, does that mean he finds 8 year olds attractive?
Well, Dan’s had enough of people calling a ‘creep’, a ‘nonce’, and all the rest of it in the comments section of YouTube, and has said the following:
“Me and Shauna are still just really good friends getting to know each other, but I think it’s absolutely disgusting, the attitude of some people.
She’s been through so much in her life – she survived cancer as a child, she’s always been felt different and been treated different by society.
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But how dare you take away her right, her human right, to have a connection, a friendship, a relationship with someone else? Who are you to say that she can’t have that?
I am absolutely disgusted about some people’s attitudes towards her and my friendship with her. I cannot believe some people who deny her the right to have a friendship or a connection with someone else.
She is a human being, she’s a cancer survivor, she’s got a disability, she has dwarfism. Who are you to take away her right to have a friendship and connection with someone? How dare you? How dare you?”
Fair play to the guy? At the end of the day she is an adult and while I’m sure some men who are into her would have darker motives, Dan actually seems like a decent guy who wants to give Shauna a shot at having a normal adult life. Would it be the most shocking thing in the world if police uncovered 10,000 images of child pxrn on Dan Swygart’s harddrive? Probably not. At the end of the day though, Shauna is a grown 23-year-old woman dating a 26-year-old man. Would be pretty out of order to limit her dating pool to other people with her condition, wouldn’t it?
Best of luck to the happy couple and the ongoing flak they’re sure to receive. Wasn’t that long ago people were giving 34-year-old James Argent grief for dating an 18-year-old.
