Exactly.
As I wrote on another thread, Harlan is immature (mostly emotionally). This is why he acts the way a young girl can find attractive, cool, acceptable. The very first scene where they meet and he quits a job just for going to the beach would make somebody older (even in young 20's) at list a bit cautious. But girls in Tobe's age are attracted to rebels, that feed their own rebellion, and they can identify their teenage problems with the boy's. Harlan, not too old (Norton was playing a character much younger than his own age) to look ridiculous (if he was obviously over 30 girls would laugh him away as the dirty old man), and without real life experiences, also can find an emotional-age-peer in Tobe.
But this is America and people are so obsessed with some standards (in this case, biological age) that are been repeatedly inserted in their minds, that it can disable them (like the opening poster) from seeing anything deeper. As they have been taught about the age of 18 when child by a touch of magical sword or fairy dust becomes an adult, so an innocent baby girl (of 17) in a day becomes a desirable woman ready to become a porn star, then they miss to see that it is Tobe who seduces Harlan, who induces his (immature) leaving the job, who induces their intercourse, who makes him take drugs. And it is Harlan who is the inexperienced one and follows, even obeys her doing things he had never done before.
However, Harlan is not retarded and he understands that he is older and that his age is in our society connected to some obligations and responsibilities. He doesn't live according to them, because of his (immature) personality and because of Tobe's influence, but sometimes (mostly when talking to Wade) he uses phrases that he knows Wade would expect to hear from a person Harlan's age. And the real problems start when he tries to include this responsibility in his real actions, so he decides that (as an adult) it is his duty to take care of Tobe and Lonnie, because they don't have a proper care at Wade's home. Having no life experiences, and immature and simple person as he is, his plan is equally simple, and even Tobe understands that it can't work. Even more, it is the moment when she realizes the age gap: he is suddenly acting as a husband (and she surely doesn't need one) and a father (and she already has one, she would probably say one too much), so as there is nothing that she wants or needs Tobe goes a step back - but it is the crucial moment where romance turns into tragedy.
If Harlan was more mature and more experienced, he would have understood Tobe and her needs, the needs of a teenage school girl. He could have a choice to avoid her, to play a small role in her life and vanish, to withdraw when the situation went out of control, or to be patient and simply be there as a part of her own maturation till the age when their difference wouldn't be so important. (The last option will probably be unacceptable for moral crusaders I've mentioned in 2nd paragraph, and they will find my post blasphemous, illegal, pervert etc, but there have been many real-life romances that proved it to be possible.)
And one big objection to the authors: there was no need to include the police investigation which found Harlan to be a former prisoner. This was probably said just for certain audience who simply has to hate somebody in the movie, and if Harlan (a "kidnapper" and a "predator" "seducing" the "innocent" girl) still wasn't a guy bad enough, then he had to be a person with criminal history. But try to imagine this same Harlan as a burglar? We have seen him steeling a horse (just to have good time with a girl - not a welcome thing to be done, but definitely more immature than criminal), and we have seen him intruding in somebody's house... and what he was doing there - writing a letter to his father who has abandoned him when he was 12 (probably influencing a lot on his later immaturity and instability)! Is it something that you'd expect a real, professional, convicted burglar to do?
Aside from a fact that a cowboy so in love with this life style comes to live in California among all places in America, this is (for me) the biggest plot hole in the movie.
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