I am home from a very happy visit with my family in Northern California. Despite nursing a mild cold, I did get in some good trail running, got plenty of sleep, plenty of time with my family. I also got to be among the 72,000 in attendance as my beloved Golden Bears won an impressive victory over the Oregon Ducks last night. It was my first time in Memorial Stadium since 1986, and it was a joy to be back.
I am pleased to find that such an interesting and civil discussion took place beneath this post. I always worry when I’m not around to edit or delete offensive comments, but it seems to have gone quite well.
Before wrapping up my Sunday quietly, I want to address two comments by Fiona below last week’s post on Mark Foley and working with teens.
First Fiona asked:
Do you ever worry about being sexually attracted to your students or youth group kids? Don’t you ever think you might be tempted to cross the line? You write as if you are immune to temptation. Just because you don’t act on it doesn’t mean you don’t feel it!!
Then in a follow-up:
Do male youth leaders like him (Hugo) behave because they don’t have sexual desire, or do they have sexual desire but just control it? It makes a difference to me as an 18 year-old, and it was something my friend who was in his youth group always wondered.
A couple of other commenters weighed in, but I want to address this immediately.
I know that I tend to write a great deal about the importance of male self-control. My emphasis on self-discipline, I realize, suggests that I spend a great deal of time "wrestling with temptation." I’ve often made statements along the lines of "Virtue is not the absence of desire, but restriction in the presence of desire."
I realize that this is a problematic line to take as a youth leader. I make it clear that I am trustworthy and safe, but I don’t explain whether it is a struggle to be so. While Kip (another commenter) advises I don’t answer the questions Fiona asks, I think it is vital to do so.
No, I have never experienced sexual attraction to the kids in my youth group. It is with considerable confidence (and a sigh of relief) that I can make that statement! Never, ever, have I experienced physiological or emotional arousal as the result of an interaction with a teen who was under my charge. I don’t know what to attribute this to, but I suspect both chronological maturity and spiritual conviction play a part in this. At nearly forty, I can say that quite happily it has been years and years since I have experienced strong attraction to someone that young.
One thing I’ve been blessed with: a consistent track record of being attracted to women my own age. When I was 16, I thought about my fellow teens. In my college years, I was attracted to other students. Unlike some of my peers, when I was in college I had little interest in older women (honestly, I found them intimidating beyond words!) I certainly lost interest in high school-aged girls not long after leaving Carmel High.
I’ve been getting a lot of email lately (again) about my posts on older men, younger women. (Here, here, here.) I’ve got some points I’ll probably address in another post on the subject soon. But I realize that my experience as a teacher and a youth leader is not the only factor that makes me so inherently mistrustful of age-disparate relationships. There’s another factor at work, and that is my own conviction, rooted in my experience, that emotional maturity always means being most strongly attracted to those in one’s own age group.
When I was in college, I remember having a discussion with a male friend of mine. "Sean" and I were talking about my friend’s father, who had recently left his mother for a younger woman. Sean was understandably disconsolate. But one thing he said haunted me for a long time. I’ll paraphrase:
Dad left mom for someone only a couple of years older than us. (We were 20 or so at this time). I don’t find women my mom’s age sexy at all. It seems my dad doesn’t either. What if I get married, get to be my dad’s age, and find out I’m still attracted to girls in their early twenties? What if my sex drive doesn’t mature along with the rest of me?
Boy, do I remember when Sean asked that question in bold! I had no answer for him, beyond a feeble "Man, that would suck." But it frightened me. All around me I saw evidence of men in their forties and fifties who were strongly attracted to young women in their teens and early twenties. It wasn’t just a media phenomenon; in my early years of taking women’s studies classes, I heard countless anecdotes from my female classmates about harassment at the hands of much older men. It made me angry, it made me cynical, but it also terrified me. Sean was right about me too: when I was 20, I didn’t find women twice my age to be at all sexually attractive. What if I felt the same way when I too was 40? For whatever reason, that fear nagged and nagged at me.
But I was blessed. And I found that my libido evolved along with the rest of me. As I aged, my interest in my peers remained the same. Gradually, girls in their teens lost their appeal. Women in their 30s, and then older, began to become far more interesting. By the time I was in my early 30s, this maturation in my own psyche was quite clear to me, even as I was going through a series of unsuccessful relationships. My behavior was neither feminist nor gentlemanly, but even at my worst, it was always age-appropriate. Today, I can say that my wife’s beauty awes me. She’s beautiful in her fourth decade of her life, but I have every expectation that I will find her every bit as lovely in her eighth decade on this planet.
Once I began working with teenagers regularly at All Saints (some seven years ago), I found that my emotional response to "my kids" was, not surprisingly, often intensely paternal. I’ve wanted to be a father for a few years now, and the teenagers with whom I work today are easily old enough to be my biological children. And while I adore these teens in the specific, I find that those protective, paternal feelings exist for all boys and girls of similar age. While I can certainly acknowledge the aesthetic beauty/handsomeness of certain teens, juvenile loveliness strikes no chord in me. This is not merely due to my very happy marriage, but also due to this strong internal sense that sexual desire is rightly directed towards one’s approximate peers.
When I was in my early teens, one of my first celebrity "crushes" was on Kristy McNichol. (Famous for "Little Darlings", but also for a favorite TV show few of you remember, "Family.") Then in high school and college it was on Jennifer Jason Leigh. Now, if I were to admit to one at all, it would be (as I’ve posted before) on Mariska Hargitay. All three are just slightly older than I am. And while I admire Scarlett Johannsson as an actress, hearing her dubbed "the sexiest woman alive" made me laugh out loud with disbelief — not because she isn’t lovely, but because she seems so damned young to me.
I do not mean to suggest that someone who is 39 (as I am) shouldn’t be attracted to someone who is 29 or 49. But those ages seem to me — and this may be my own peculiarity — the outer limits of acceptability. Anything beyond ten years either direction seems, well, odd. Please understand that I acknowledge that age-disparate relationships can work, as long as the younger partner is genuinely emotionally mature. A relationship between a 35 year-old and a 15 year-old is immoral, criminal, and indefensible; a relationship between a 55 year-old and a 35 year-old is none of those things.
Still, I admit that I am perplexed by those who find such disparities to be erotically or emotionally exciting. For me, the truth is simple: since I hit puberty, I have never experienced sexual attraction to someone old enough to be my mother or young enough to be my daughter. And I acknowledge that one reason why I am often so hard on men who do experience that attraction to much younger women is because I can’t empathize with it, not even for a moment. I try and "get it", and I just can’t. It makes me instinctively angry, both on behalf of the girls who are all too often horrified by inappropriate sexual attention and on behalf of those "older" women who are forced to worry obsessively about losing their sex appeal as a consequence.
I began this post intending to make an emphatic response to the awkward but important question that Fiona posed. I realize I’ve gone off on quite a tangent, and for that I apologize. But as I started to write, I thought about what Sean had asked all those years ago. I don’t know whether or not his life has turned out as mine has. For his sake, and the sake of the women who love him, I hope it has.
It is possible that my experience that the objects of my desire age as I age is just a quirk of my personality. It certainly hasn’t been the result of any conscious effort on my part (and my regular readers know I am quick to sing the praises of conscious effort!). But I can’t help but think that "my way" is the fundamentally healthier way. It just seems to me that a great deal of heartache and exploitation could be avoided if we could all just match our libidos to our approximate peer group! Or am I wrong?
I don’t think you’re wrong at all and I think that your post was both very well stated and accurate…and this coming from someone in a marriage that brushes your “outer limits”
I’m 9 years younger than my husband and we were married when I was 20 and he was 29.
I think there’s something to be said for self control and rejecting natural urges as well. Some poeople might argue with your points, suggesting that sometimes there is a natural attraction of a man to a much younger woman or vv. I think I would suggest that as Christians (or even just as decent human beings) we are not always to yield to our natural urges/to what “comes naturally”. There are other things to take into consideration and digging deep to ask “why am I sexually aroused by someone young enough to be my child” is an important question to ask when those feelings rise up.
As an aside, I really appreciated your post on the Amish and blogged about it – just in case you didn’t notice the HT
Thanks, Makeesha. I did indeed note the link coming from your place, and I thank you for that as well.
You’re absolutely right as well that those men who are not as fortunate as I, who do struggle with sexual attraction to significantly younger women, must not hide behind the excuse of evolutionary biology. They don’t get to rest their case on the gods of desire, to paraphrase Coetzee’s famous line on this exact subject.
excellent quote. By the way, I wasn’t trying to lure you over to my blog or anything, that comment sounded shamefully self promoting. I just thought you deserved the respect of knowing what other people are saying about your words…in case you don’t “track” those things. Anyway, I’ll stop now before my foot gets shoved further into my mouth hehe.
“men who are not as fortunate as I, who do struggle with sexual attraction to significantly younger women, must not hide behind the excuse of evolutionary biology.”
Another classic example of feminist “thought:”
*Homosexual desires are above reproach, despite their non-procreative nature
*40 year old man who feels an urge to procreate with Miss Universe or Scarlett Johannsson has committed the unpardonable sin. The fact that such desires are the utter essence of reproductive fitness is an “excuse” and an invalid one at that.
Men’s most natural desire, and one most cricical to the survival of the species, is shameful. But women and gays should “celebrate their sexuality” (except, in the case of women, when it involves a man).
For crying out loud, when’s the next group castration?
I like some of what you post, and am glad that your paternal feelings toward your charges help you to not sexualize them, but this is just absurd. The topic was about ATTRACTION, which might be purely physical, not intent or action.
despite their non-procreative nature
Heh. I assume K condemns blowjobs, which are non-procreative.
Interestingly, for those who worship evo-bio, male bonobos do not have a preference for pubescent females; they prefer older females.
Hmmm, I wonder if this changes as we get older. Is it an emotional maturity issue (in which case I can think of plenty of 35-55 couples that would work; whereas I can think of almost no 20-40 compatible pairings), or is it something more complicated? Maybe it is precisely the language that you used that points to our concerns — if I as a 37 year old woman am attracted to a man 20 years my senior, how much of that is because of him, how much is playing out father issues? I am not at all sure that I know the answer.
Uh, K, I would be just as reproachful of a man my age who was attracted to teen boys as to one attracted to teen girls. Radically asymmetrical sexual attraction is something I find troubling, regardless of the sexual orientation of those involved.
Attraction is something over which I am convinced we have some control, as well as over our intent. But note, I am clear that my “history of desire” is not necessarily the result of my personal virtue. I’m just quite glad that I’ve always been drawn to chronological peers.
Ah come on, Hugo. Scarlett Johannsson is sexy and gorgeous! And I say that as a straight girl. I don’t get the whole Angelina obsession though (I laugh at the fact that she’s the “second” most beautiful woman). Frankly, I think she’s scary.
Anyway, I hate to pose such a picky question, but I seem to recall you blogging about being attracted to one of your students who was writing a scholar’s option paper. Her body was distracting, as she dressed in very revealing clothes. Granted, you overcame temptation and focused on helping her with her paper. But you were tempted to look. Then again, I don’t think you mentioned how old she was, so perhaps this question is irrelevant to the subject at hand.
Mermade, you mean this post, I think: http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2006/08/reprint_incredi.html
It wasn’t a sexual response to Jill. It was a response to a woman who was quite literally falling out of her clothes every time she came to my office. Male or female, straight or gay, we’re all going to have to work to keep our eyes focused when someone is exposing so much more skin than normally gets exposed. That’s work for all of us — but work we need to do. Distraction and genuine desire are, for me, two very different things.
I loved Lost in Translation. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Best movie of ’04, hands down. I love Johansson. And if I were 22, I am sure I would think she was incredibly sexy.
Scarlett Johannsson is sexy and gorgeous!
Sure, but that’s not quite the same thing as “…and I have the hots for her and would sleep with her if I could, because men/women my own age or older are wrinkly old bags.”
Thanks, Mythago, exactly. I mean, women can think another woman is “sexy” without wanting to have sex with her. Trust me, plenty of straight men can do the same.
I’m somewhat proud for offending our host, feminists, homosexuals, and men who enjoy blowjobs in such a short post
To the specific concerns:
Men care greatly about the gender of the blowjob-giver. So they want non-procreative acts in the context of a relationship that appears to be have procreative possibilities.
I don’t “worship at the temple†of evo-bio, but men’s attraction to fertile-looking women seems so fundamental that even creationists would agree with it. Gotta watch out for those bonbos.
Hugo, I know that you weren’t discussing homo/hetero issues. You seem to be missing the point: homosexuals were accused of having “wrong attraction,†and successfully defend themselves against the charge with “I was born that way.†You are stigmatizing men for what may be a necessary trait and twisting the kinfe by ending with “It doesn’t matter if you were born that way!” But obviously the age of the “teenager” is hugely important: 19 is not at all 14.
And note that I’m talking about attraction and not behavior.
I stand corrected. Excellent points, Myth and Hugo.
I suspect, Mermade, you’re sitting rather than standing.
K, my heterosexuality is not mutable. The age of the objects of that desire have proved to be so. Big diff.
Group castration! ha ha, that was funny.
Myself; I separate sexual attraction from sexual desire. I find lots of women sexually attractive, young women included (ahem, as in young _adult_ women), but I don’t desire them. Because I’m not in love with them. I love my wife.
Sex without love, I did that in atheist youth. It’s not as much fun as advertised — far from it. It wasn’t what I wanted then (although I didn’t realise it) and it didn’t lead to what I wanted, which was love (I didn’t realise that, either). It’s certainly not what I want nor desire now.
Ugh, the very thought of it, what a turn-off…
Hugo,
In contrast to your experience, some people’s preferred age range stays relatively fixed, while many people have switched orientations during their lives.
But enough of my bickering. I was mainly responding to the most out there part of your post. I actually agree with you that we can groom and guide our desires a bit, though we may disagree on how much and in what ways.
I think the age factor in attraction depends greatly on the age at which you meet the person and the context, though. A given age difference for me can be “I just met this really awesome young woman†or “Wow, my little Sarah who I babysat is really growing up; she’s a sophomore in college now and has her own apartment.†Not to mention the wildly varying maturity and experience levels of young people.
I think this may be a little related to the wild oats thread. Some people who are too isolated from the opposite sex well may miss psychological/psychosexual developmental milestones. There may be a subconscious aspect of it (memories of experiences) and a conscious aspect (“OK, I had my time with women of this age, and it’s time to move onâ€).
I do think it is very wrong for a man to “trade in†an aging wife for a younger person. But it’s strange for me to see how it’s acceptable for a man to be interested in Scarlett Johannsson (who has a stated preference for older men) but somehow “troubling†for his big brother to feel the same way.
So much of this depends on the age of the people involved…I can understand your lack of attraction for youth group kids, given that they are so young.
Funny: I remember being 11 years old, and just hitting the outside edge of puberty. I was powerfully drawn to a little nerdlet (I always liked the nerds), who wore corduroys and braces. Anyway, one night while I was considering how adorable he was, I briefly considered how disgusting Remington Steele was. My best friend’s mom was into that show, and I knew that her crush was powerful. Comparable states, as it were.
Suddenly, I panicked. Was I going to grow up to be a pervert? Was my brain going to change enough to like icky Remington Steele? (No. Still not my type.) Was I going to be trapped FOREVER in loving 11 year old boys with braces? I figured that I might need to consider a nunnery. (I wasn’t particularly clear on the point of nunneries; I saw them more like voluntary social removal for the functional but ill or abused or unable. With wicked costumes, of course.)
I had several sleepless nights considering my impairment, until I finally went to my mother with my concerns. She was very gentle explaining to me that was fine, and normal. But I could tell she was having a hard time not laughing; and that made it all okay.
Obviously we’re all different and thus what we have here is a string of anecdotes, so let me offer mine.
Throughout my life (yes myth, a considerable one at this point – how old are you?) I’ve been attracted to women (and even a few men) who have been younger, older and the same age. I’ve been sexually involved with women similarly. The greatest age difference was when I was 32 and she was 48; yes, it didn’t work out too well and based on my personal experience I agree with the +/- 10 years guideline (yes, she was trading in her older BF for a younger model, so such things do indeed go both ways). However, to me attraction is not so much based on physical attributes as it is the personality of the potential partner (although despite objections by Hugo and others, the reality is that biology most certainly plays a strong role in attraction). I find myself attracted to people whose personality seems to be one that would accomdate a long-term relationship/partnership, and in that sense it gels well with the biological as well as sociological models. In other words, I think that for many of us who are mature enough to figure out at least some of the basic facts of life, our primary attraction is to people who are ‘nice,’ who have compatable personalities and thus would make good partners vis-a-vis successfully raising a family. It’s always been this way with me, and probably so for a good many other men, so Hugo, once again I think you’re on shaky ground trying to generalize your life experiences to the population of men as a whole.
On the other hand, biological forces relating to ‘survival of the species’ surely contribute to the ‘older man seeks younger women’ and ‘younger woman seeks older man’ phenomenon, but as you say, presumably because we’re civilized humans we can keep that in check. But why should we put a lot of energy into trying? Perhaps physical or other attraction (i.e., young woman, wealthy older man) is what brings people together for the first encounter, and then if two people find that they are emotionally compatible – and mature enough to really be able to tell – they form a relationship. And so, who are we to say that it’s somehow wrong or something to be avoid if they do? I know, I know, you are strongly against older men exploiting younger women, but the reverse – younger women exploiting older men – is just as common. Now I know this post, and indeed this entire blog, is all about holding men responsible and apparently avoiding discussing women’s contributions and responsibilities in the topic du jour, but are you willing to claim that women play no role and have no responsibility in the phenomenon we’re addressing? My experience suggests that women play an equal role in all of this. After all, relationships – casual or otherwise – are a two-way street.
Sorry for the rambling, but it’s early and this is a complext topic.
I think maybe I must be missing some hidden controversy. I just took Hugo’s words at face value and with the purposed intent. To mix in there stuff other issues and sexual attraction vs. sexual desire vs. lust vs. whatever other semantic you want to insert…it just seems petty. But again, maybe I’m too simple minded for the discussion at hand. Either way, I don’t get what’s getting people’s panties in a bunch.
I find that my preferred age rises along with my own age, but also broadens; I can now find people up to maybe twenty years older or younger than me attractive in a way (sort of like mythago’s distinction between looking at Scarlett Johanssen and thinking she’s sexy and gorgeous vs. looking at her and thinking I have the hots for her and would dump my husband to sleep with her). My husband teases me that I look at attractive young women more than he does. But the biggest age gap over which I’ve experienced any serious attraction was, when I was in my mid-twenties, for a guy maybe twelve years older than me.
When I was in high school, nobody more than three years different from me in age seemed the least bit sexy.
I’m a straight girl and I would sleep with Scarlett Johanson. That out of the way, Hugo, thank you for a great answer to my question! I am glad you didn’t take it the wrong way! I know that the teenager kids you work with love you and respect you and most of them probably never give this issue a second thought. I know one person who was curious and now I have a great answer to give her.
I wish all older men were like you. I bet all the older women wish the same thing!! lol
>I find that my preferred age rises along with my own age, but also broadens;
Agreed, and furthermore I’m finding that as I get older, the importance of physical appearance is falling well behind the importance of wittiness and intellect. Back in my 20s, they were on more or less equal footing.
And I’ve certainly heard the “older men are attracted to fertile-looking (ie, young) women” argument, but I’ve never bought that being 20 was a prerequisite of appearing to be fertile. Wouldn’t the existence of one or two babies be a better indicator?
Glad you had a good trip Hugo!
I have a tendency to reveal way too much here in Hugo-land – a vice about I’m to indulge in very seriously.
As I have grown spiritually and emotionally healthier over the last seven years, I have experienced a transformation of my attractions. In some fundamental ways, the type of man I’m attracted to hasn’t changed – his age, however, has changed. In my twenties, I tended to date men who were 20 to 30 years older. In the past few years, that has changed – I now date men within a few years of my own age. I attribute this to several changes – a growing comfort with my own skin, improved self esteem, greater self awareness and greater personal health. At the risk of sounding terrible, in my 20s, I lacked the confidence to approach men my own age so I approached older men who would more greatly appreciate the attention of a younger man and who would see my youth and over look my faults.
I was in a relationship for over six years with a man almost 10 years my senior. The end of that relationship came about as a result of me becoming healthier. With its end, I realized that the “older man thing” had lost its reason. I realized that I could be on my own terms with someone and I didn’t need to unlevel the playing field to my advantage.
The wide age gap was – I feel – very often about power dynamics in the relationship. The maturity gap often allows the older person to feel in control, the younger person to feel nurtured and cared for. But, the younger person also holds the power in terms of sexual behaviors and sexuality in the relationship – the threat that the younger attractive partner could simply is the check on the older partner’s exercise of power. An older person who uses money and age as a way of attracting persons is no healthier than a younger person who uses his/her sexuality to manipulate others.
Interestingly, now that I’m in my late thirties, I see the dynamic from the other side – as younger men see me as a possible stable older man to nurture them. (Boy do they have a surprise coming!) But the need that drives them is very real – a deep emotional hunger for self worth growing from any source, even if that source is their sexual appeal.
I think Hugo’s spot on – that while the age of the partners is not exactly central to a relationship, that sexually healthy people don’t necessarily pursue relationships with persons with whom they have an extremely wide age gap. That is not to say that I believe authentic loving relationships are impossible for persons of widely divergent ages, but that as a general rule, most relationships in which the persons have a wide age gap are not terribly healthy.
I’m a straight girl and I would sleep with Scarlett Johanson.
That’s an oxymoron.
yes myth, a considerable one at this point – how old are you?
Old enough to remember ‘libbers’.
The evo-bio arguments don’t really explain sexual attraction–if men were keyed to hop on any woman past puberty, big breasts on a skinny body would be a turn-off, not a turn-on, and you guys would all prefer A-cups. (The kind of gravity-defying fake boob now in fashion is something you only get in nature on a lactating mother–not a just-fertile teenager.)
And surely you’re not in favor of older women exploiting younger men. The “you got lucky” myth is very harmful to male victims of sexual abuse.
Thank you for adding that, Mythago. I find it noteworthy that I have never had an email from a young man writing about “older women, younger men.” But I am quite certain I wouldn’t reinforce the “lucky bastard” discourse that denies the possibility of underage boys being exploited by older women.
I don’t have any comment on the central issue at hand, nor about evo-bio as an approach in general, but I do want to note that the bonobos point is a total red herring. All evo-bio acknowledges that different species have very different mating strategies and patterns — most of the books I’ve read on the topic (all popular science; it’s not my field) in fact talk a lot about the contrasting mating patterns of humans from the various other primates. (If I recall correctly, humans have a pattern more typical of birds than of most primates.) So the fact that bonobos do something is not at all an argument against something being part of human nature. (Again, I don’t have a view on the latter point one way or another; I just think the bonobos point is off.)
Hello, Hugo. My husband and I have quite a considerable age disparity. I like to think I was “genuinely emotionally mature” when we started dating… after all, I had the maturity to pick the right man to marry, and keep our marriage strong for 10+ years.
I read your post several times, and I am still frankly puzzled as to why a relationship like mine would make you “instinctively angry.” You say it’s because you don’t “get it”. Well, I don’t necessarily “get” why women are attracted to other women, but that doesn’t make me angry at lesbians, and it doesn’t stop me from having respect for their relationships and commitment to one another! If we’re talking about fully functioning adults, what precisely is the problem?
You are of course free to believe, as you tell us, that a relationship between two adults with a substantial age disparity is inherently unhealthy. But you are wrong. Wrong because happy couples like my husband and I do exist, and wrong because it’s ALWAYS wrong to make such sweeping negative generalizations about adult romantic relationships.
I’m about your age, and I dated quite a bit (men of all ages) before meeting my husband. In my experience, emotional compatibility matters so much more than age compatibility. Yes, they usually go together– but not always.
Helena, read what I said. I don’t judge 35 with 55 the way I judge 35 and 15. Or, to keep it legal, 39 and 19 seems to me to be inescapably indefensible; 59 and 39 not so. The issue is the emotional and experiential equality of the two.
Huh? Hugo, I did read what you said. I think you need to re-read what you posted. Here’s the excerpt to which I am referring (sorry in advance if I screw up the italics):
I do not mean to suggest that someone who is 39 (as I am) shouldn’t be attracted to someone who is 29 or 49. But those ages seem to me — and this may be my own peculiarity — the outer limits of acceptability. Anything beyond ten years either direction seems, well, odd. Please understand that I acknowledge that age-disparate relationships can work, as long as the younger partner is genuinely emotionally mature. A relationship between a 35 year-old and a 15 year-old is immoral, criminal, and indefensible; a relationship between a 55 year-old and a 35 year-old is none of those things.
Still, I admit that I am perplexed by those who find such disparities to be erotically or emotionally exciting. For me, the truth is simple: since I hit puberty, I have never experienced sexual attraction to someone old enough to be my mother or young enough to be my daughter. And I acknowledge that one reason why I am often so hard on men who do experience that attraction to much younger women is because I can’t empathize with it, not even for a moment. I try and “get it”, and I just can’t. It makes me instinctively angry, both on behalf of the girls who are all too often horrified by inappropriate sexual attention and on behalf of those “older” women who are forced to worry obsessively about losing their sex appeal as a consequence.
You qualify your “acceptance” of emotionally mature age disparate relationships in the second paragraph. You tell us first that these relationships perplex you, and finally that they make you “instinctively angry”, mostly because you don’t understand the attraction.
So what am I missing?
I think you’re missing the intent. When I read your italicised quoting it’s very clear to me that Hugo means exactly what he has said he means.
Stephen, the point of the bonobo example is not that because bonobos do X, we instinctively do X. Older men who want to justify their attraction to teenagers often throw out evo-bio chaff about how sex with young women is evolutionarily advantageous and durn it, we just can’t help but subscribe to Barely Legal, it’s in our genes. (Cynthia Heimel has a great riff on this in “The Hobag Manifesto”.)
italics off
Mythago, I’m saying that that argument may well be wrong, but that the bonobos example doesn’t prove it so. Evidence about Bonobos sexual habits in the wild don’t say anything either way about what is or is not in human genes.
x
Love conquers all.
That’s an oxymoron.
I’m reminded of Woof’s line in the musical Hair: “Well, I wouldn’t kick Mick Jagger out of my bed, but uh, I’m not a homosexual, no.”
You qualify your “acceptance” of emotionally mature age disparate relationships in the second paragraph. You tell us first that these relationships perplex you, and finally that they make you “instinctively angry”, mostly because you don’t understand the attraction.
I read the “perplexed” and “instinctively angry” as applying to men who are only attracted to women much younger than them, not to everyone in a mature age disparate relationship. I suppose I can see how the paragraph could be ambiguous, though.
that’s how I read it as well
And that’s how I intended it!
Stephen, again: it’s a good example if your point of view is that evolution trumps all. Looking to the behavior of our closest relatives isn’t proof of our early roots, but it is suggestive–and if bonobos survive fine with a particular behavior pattern, that suggests the behavior isn’t necessary for reproductive survival. In other words, so much for the “I can’t help wanting to sleep with somebody the same as as my granddaughter” argument.
Mythago — I suppose we’re approaching if not past the point of diminishing returns. But to say that another species does or does not do something is not evidence of whether some behavior is or is not necessary for us: the whole point is that species have different ecological niches, which includes different necessary behaviors. It makes just as much sense to say that Bonobos don’t speak, and therefore language isn’t necessary to human survival — or doesn’t have a genetic component. Obviously some other species can survive with different behaviors. The question is what are humans “designed” to do — and how much flex is there in the specs? (And, again, I have no view on that question.)
The biggest difference is that you may find something beautiful but you don’t need or want it for your own. I am not much older than all the students I am surrounded by (as a student myself) however the idea of finding these people as sex objects is something I can’t bring myself to do.
1. Even in my thirties, an erection can happen randomly. It doesn’t need to be connected to sexy thoughts. A couple days ago I woke up pointing to the sky. I used the restroom and all was calm.
2. I am EXTREMELY cautious about saying that something is immoral when I have no clear scriptural basis for it. I just can’t find an age limit in the Bible. I can’t find a clear scripture on polygamy either. At Wheaton I would point out the polygamy thing and it would greatly annoy the professors. Scripture is not shy about sexual topics; it is very clear on homosexuality. Since we are to work out our own salvation “with fear and trembling” I do know what would be wrong for me. Being in my thirties, I doubt there are many women under 25 or so who would be a good match for my forceful personality.
3. Hugo does a nice job of pointing out that we are not forced to act on our desires. We may feel something and yet not act on it.
Thank you Hugo, for writing this series of posts. I think the prevalence of older men persuing younger women is a symptom of a machisma culture. Your previous post on the relationship between male mentors and female students hit home for me.
As a young female, I often have to be a little on guard with new male acquantances in order to not give any impression of sexual attraction. And it pains me as I begin to realize that with the older men that I used to feel were safer in this regard, often are no different. I’ve had it happen multiple times for me to go to an older male for advice or knowledge, and have them hint at a relationship. Since I am in a male-dominated field, it makes it much more difficult to form the safe, professional relationships I want and need for my career.
I am not necessarily against older male-younger female relationships, but combined with the male power in our society, and the view of females as sex-objects, it piles on to the complications females have to suck up.
There’s another factor at work, and that is my own conviction, rooted in my experience, that emotional maturity always means being most strongly attracted to those in one’s own age group.
“Always,” Hugo? I’m sorry, but that’s not even close to tenable as a thesis. Do I really have to point out that people mature differently? It’s not necessarily immature to identify with people older, or younger, than yourself. Do we really have to have the discussion about the difference between sexual attraction and emotional relationships with sexual components?
Bucky,
That’s really sad.
I was reading a Christian writer some time back who made that point. In a society where sexual relationhips are exclusively within faithful marriages (OK, our society never made it to that point – but we got close from time to time), platonic friendships develop and deepen much more easily.
He took this a step further, that with so much promiscuous gay sex around, it also affected the intimacy of male friendship.
I wasn’t sure about that last point, but it’s dead right that when casual sex is regarded as a normal frequent occurance it does something bad to normal human relationships…
I wasn’t sure about that last point, but it’s dead right that when casual sex is regarded as a normal frequent occurance it does something bad to normal human relationships…
Or it does something good. Back in the 1800′s and early 1900′s, men and women had extremely deep, passionate friendships with members of the same sex. These relationships were so affectionate and the participants were so flowery in their language, it’s easy for those of us in the modern day to assume homosexuality, as opposed to homosociality.
But (of course there’s a but) these friends could not extend beyond the sexual divide. No man could have a female for a best friend, let alone any sort of friend at all, unless she was related to him. And even then, that friendship was likely to be curtailed in the doctrine of “separate spheres.” The same was vice versa for women and men friends. There was an additional problem in the Victorian era, where once a man was married, he was expected to be sober and disciplined, and society conspired to keep him away from any unmarried male friends.
Kip, I’m not going to disagree with the conclusions you and the Christian scholar came to, but every coin has two sides, and in losiing some things, you can gain others.
But to say that another species does or does not do something is not evidence of whether some behavior is or is not necessary for us: the whole point is that species have different ecological niches, which includes different necessary behaviors.
Exactly! Which is why saying “older men chasing younger women must have an evolutionary advantage” is incorrect; it’s possible that in some situations, for our species, that may be advantageous, but to suggest it as a Universal Evolutionary Advantage ™ is mistaken.
The ‘Age of Enlightenment’ was an abominably licentious time (worse in some respects than our own), so I suspect that coloured the thinking of the Victorians, who I’ll grant you perhaps made the forgivably minor error of being a little strict in their sexual restrictions, and harsh in their moral judgements.
Bearing in mind also, the Victorian ‘prude’ was an ideal, not a statistical average.
To see the effect of Christian thinking and behaviour on inter-sex relationships, you need to look at more than just one period — and each in its context. Over the whole history of Christendom, the net effect of Christ’s inspiration has been emphatically and gloriously positive.
I’ve been reading for a few months but just found this post. First comment.
Hugo you write (in bold, no less!):
“For me, the truth is simple: since I hit puberty, I have never experienced sexual attraction to someone old enough to be my mother or young enough to be my daughter.”
As a 20 year old woman, I find this both to be completely unlikely, downright implausible even, and at the same time I want it very much to believe that it is true.
I really enjoy reading your blog, but at times I find myself wondering if your own extremely unusual life story and your ecletic views mean that you are simply very different from most men. I’ve been hit on by men your age and older since I was 13. I am an attractive girl. This sounds incredibly conceited, but experience suggests to me that most straight guys would sleep with me if I gave them the chance. That goes for guys my age and for older men your age and more.
Forgive my cynicism. Is there anything more you can say on this subject that might help me believe you are serious about what you say here? And give me hope that there are others like you?
CF, I am afraid I don’t know how to do any more than I have already done here. I will say that I am convinced that I am not unique…
‘k, let me ask another question since you never really answered the last one:
It seems like you aren’t attracted to anyone other than your peers. Isn’t that like only being attracted to blondes or Asians? Isn’t it unfair of you to judge men your age who are attracted to much younger women, since it seems more a matter of taste on your part. Putting it another way, it’s mostly a matter of your own good luck that you aren’t attracted to younger women.
What about those men who aren’t so lucky?