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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38188
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38188
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'd leave it. As far as a 25 year old male "adopting" a 13 year old girl; my suspension of disbelief is already broken. Without a blood relation, I'd be amazed if any court allowed that, or closet pedophiles would be adopting them daily.

You'd have a better chance with same-gender professor that IS a blood relation, like an aunt or older cousin. The courts are sympathetic to keeping blood relations together, and the "pedophile danger" is far lower for two females than for any other combination.

As for slut-shaming: What's wrong with an immature character, just beginning to think about sex, that engages in slut shaming, or has all kinds of immature misconceptions about sex, what is moral and what is not? (particularly in the age of Internet porn). I see nothing wrong with that dynamic, or her having the notion (gathered from porn) that girls are expected to be promiscuous, or forward, and deciding she can "belong to the club" by being promiscuous and forward.

One of the dynamics you can play on with two MC that are supposed to get together is **complementary** characters. Give both of them strengths and weaknesses, so together they really are stronger than they are independently. And like friends, you can give them similar interests in entertainment and activities, so they bond over shared experiences.

I wouldn't worry about slut-shaming, you probably want that to be a lesson she learns somewhere in the book, what is and is not "slutty", and in general to avoid self-denigration and self-devaluation over sexual feelings. But to start, she's 13, she's got ten or twelve years before we can expect her to be thinking like a fully functional adult (same for guys, btw).

Original score: 0