This post is from 2009, but in the heated aftermath to my recent piece at the Good Men Project, I thought I’d reprint this piece on why it is that I think that older men/younger women relationships are so much more problematic than other age-disparate love affairs.
I’ve written quite a bit about the older man/younger woman dynamic on this blog. (See archives on that topic and on the somewhat related topic of student crushes.) I’ve generally taken a dim view of age-disparate heterosexual relationships in which the male partner is substantially older than the female one, and in which the woman is still quite young (say, under 25 or so). Put simply, the potential problems in older men/younger women relationships seem to diminish based less upon the actual number of years in between the partners and more upon the age of the gal involved. I’m more concerned about an eighteen year-old woman and a thirty year-old man than I am about a thirty year-old woman and a fifty-five year-old man, even though the latter relationship has twice the number of years in between the partners. Read through the archives for more explanation of my position.
I’ve written virtually nothing about age-disparate relationships between same-sex partners, of course, and very little about the increasingly celebrated older woman/younger man pairing. A superficial concern with consistency would suggest that my feelings about all older/younger relationships ought to be the same, regardless of the sex or the sexual orientation of the partners involved. But I think a compelling case can be made that older women/younger men relationships are much less problematic than their reverse, and that the same is true of same-sex age-disparate couplings.
We don’t fall in love, or fall into bed, in a vacuum. Our desires are heavily shaped by the culture, as is our sense of how power is negotiated in sexual relationships. Patriarchal rules about gender roles show a surprising and depressing resilience; ask many young feminists of both sexes who, despite their deep ideological commitment to egalitarianism, struggle to resist social pressure to conform to traditional ideas about what a man and a woman should do in heterosexual relationships.
The older man/younger woman dynamic reinforces patriarchal conventions; the older woman/younger man dynamic subverts them. This doesn’t mean that traditional roles can’t emerge in older women/younger men relationships. I did write once about the notion of older woman as teacher and initiator, and the exasperation many women feel at being asked to “mother” men. Several folks pointed out that plenty of women are forced to take on mothering roles to male partners their own age or older. That tendency towards a kind of uxorious helplessness that afflicts so many men in their romantic relationships with wives and girlfriends can emerge, it seems, at any age and with any woman. The key is that far fewer women than men generally want to take on the “teaching” role. Women may eroticize youth and vigor in younger men, but they rarely are turned on by displays of ignorance or uncertainty; high-brow Western literature and low-brow pornography are filled with countless examples of men being aroused by much younger women who either “play dumb” — or are the genuine article.
Please understand, I’m not saying that every older woman/younger man relationship is inherently progressive while every older man/younger woman coupling is oppressive and reactionary. A great many young women do exercise great agency in relationships with older men. But there’s no escaping the reality that the potential for abuse and exploitation is likely to be much higher in an age-disparate relationship where it is the man who is the elder of the lovers. We must note, too, that we live in a world where men are seen as growing both more “visible” and more powerful as they age — while women, past a certain age, are either desexualized or mocked. “Cougar” was not coined as a compliment; “silver fox” was.
Same-sex relationships can replicate unhealthy dynamics from the dominant culture. But by their very nature, same-sex relationships “subvert the dominant paradigm” in a very healthy and important way. A romantic relationship between two men and two women reminds us that biology alone isn’t destiny, and that while a certain degree of complementarity is surely present in any enduring relationship, that complementarity doesn’t require radically different genitalia. The age-disparate relationship, while certainly quite common in gay and lesbian communities, doesn’t reinforce an unhealthy norm. Even a wealthy older man with a beautiful young (but broke) “boy toy” is a fundamentally distinct phenomenon from that of a wealthy older man with his hot young girlfriend. The latter relationship reminds us all of women’s relative powerlessness — and of older women’s disposability — in a unique and infinitely more damaging way.
Critics on this blog frequently accuse me of double standards, and of being harder on men. By noting that, all things considered, older men/younger women relationships are more problematic than any combination of partners of a different age, I open myself up to that familiar charge. Yet it’s simply absurd to pretend that we have, even now, achieved full equality for gays and lesbians; it is equally untrue that women, despite the tremendous advances of the past half-century, don’t still get the short end of the stick in virtually ever area of human activity. No matter how well-intentioned the parties involved, every older man/younger woman sexual connection sends a clear and visible signal to the outside world that the patriarchal norms are left untouched; every older woman/younger man bond sends the exact opposite signal. This doesn’t mean a good feminist can’t be involved with an older man, or a pro-feminist man with a younger woman. But it does mean that they will have to work twice as hard as anyone else to keep unhealthy cultural discourses out of their relationship.
I disagree with this completely. I know several men whose first relationships were with much older women (20+ years of difference.) They are all extremely traumatized by those relationships even now, many years later (In one case, 39 years later). An older person has experience that a younger person doesn’t. It is extremely easy for somebody with many relationships behind her to manipulate an innocent partner into complete submission. I have absolutely no doubt that if I were to get into a relationship with a 20-year-old guy, I could get him under my thumb in a matter of days, not even weeks. The sexual, emotional and personal confidence of an older person can never be matched by a much younger individual, no matter how precocious they might be.
I have seen the sad consequences of such horrible relationships and the only thing they signal to me is abuse and manipulation. While I was single, I was approached very often by admirers who were a lot younger. I knew, however, that there was no chance of any kind of emotional, intellectual or sexual equality between us. I knew that I was dangerous to them because I’d only end up traumatizing them. So I never even remotely felt tempted.
This tradition of older women as sexual initiators of younger men is as patriarchal as anything I can imagine. Sons of aristocrats and wealthy bourgeois were routinely taken to much older “women of the world” for their first sexual experiences.
There is nothing liberating in inequality, no matter which side of a gender equation that inequality comes from.
I usually agree with pretty much everything you say, Hugo, and I think you do a great job of breaking down gender roles in society. In this instance, though, I think you do people a disservice. There is nothing inherently ‘bad’, ‘damaging’ or ‘unhealthy’ about any relationship, regardless of the ages or genders of the persons involved. If society is more likely to map traditional patriarchal gender roles onto an age-disparate relationship involving an older man and a younger woman, then surely it is society that ought to change its attitudes to men and women, not the individuals who need to change their relationships. I’m not saying that problematic age-disparate relationships don’t exist, or that we don’t need to examine the damaging structures that exist therein, but saying that those relationships are always bad because of society’s problematic beliefs seems similar to saying that a lesbian relationship with a butch-femme dynamic is problematic because people will think that lesbians simply reenact heterosexual relationships, with one ‘man’ and one ‘woman’. The problem is not necessarily within the relationship, but with the society which judges all relationships according to its own damaged perceptions of the world.
Sometimes I feel bad about perpetuating damaging myths, such as within a BDSM context, or in a genderqueer way. For example, politically I don’t believe that having a penis or not having breasts is an indication of manhood. Personally, however, those things are important for my own presentation of masculinity. That may be politically very unhelpful, and be perpetuating myths of masculinity and femininity that in other contexts I would fight against. However, if those things make me happy, then why should I deny myself them in order to fit into what I would call a less problematic rendering of gender? Denying what would make me happy, whether that is appearing flat chested or engaging in a relationship with a much older man, would be (cliche alert) cutting off my nose to spite my face.
Clarissa, I agree with your main idea. Just 2 questions:
Sons of aristocrats and wealthy bourgeois were routinely taken to much older “women of the world” for their first sexual experiences.
Were they traumatized by it in your opinion?
I also see a huge difference between this and what Hugo talks about: weren’t those “women of the world” viewed as whores? Hugo talks about relationships, not 1 night stands, with women being at least equal partners, not sexual toys for young men.
What age difference is too big? 10 years? 15 years? Or do you and Hugo talk mainly about ~20 years and bigger?
I was once approached by a guy 14 years older than me and refused. Would it be healthier than somebody 14 years younger? I don’t see why.
The last question is about experience. What if the older partner is unexperienced too? What if the younger one is in fact more experienced?
el: I’m talking about really significant age differences between men and women. Of course, if the older person spent their life under a rock and never got out and as a result became extremely immature, then they might be closer in the level of their development to the younger partner. That, however, can happen irrespective of the genders of the partners.
“Were they traumatized by it in your opinion?”
-I’m sure these experiences made it next to impossible for them to conduct non-patriarchal relationships with women. Hugo’s idea that women should educate younger partners is profoundly patriarchal. The patriarchy believes that female sexuality needs to have a purpose. Female pleasure is not considered to be a valuable goal in itself. There needs to be something to “redeem” the fact that women have sex. In this specific case, Hugo suggests that women should justify the fact they have sex by making the activity useful to men.
Hugo suggests that women should justify the fact they have sex by making the activity useful to men.
Come on, Clarissa. I said nothing of the sort (read my whole paragraph about how we expect, wrongly, women to be babysitters). Where have I suggested this?
I believe that you suggested this by supporting the false belief that there is anything positive in relationships between much older women and much younger men.
That’s a hell of a leap, Clarissa. I disagree strongly that that was my implication; nothing could be further from my belief. But as with issues about the perception of weight in society, you and I often see things completely differently!
That’s an interesting question in and of itself, and I think it underlies a cultural narrative that helps to perpetuate a particular view.
Independent of whether young women actually are traumatized by their relationship with an older man, there is an expectation that they should be. When the sexes are reversed, the cultural narrative is that the young men shouldn’t be traumatized having just “scored.”
I do believe cultural attitudes about how we should feel heavily influence how we do feel. If culture is a meaningful word at all, it means that our behaviors and attitudes are informed and shaped by those we see modeled for us. And when what we see is that young women are “victims” and young men “studs” it is easy to see the effects of the narrative and become blind to other ill effects that don’t fit that narrative.
I think this is why the position Hugo takes strikes me as odd. Consider this quote:
That’s one way to look at it, but I would argue only if using a very narrow lens. I think it subverts one narrative – that younger women are trophies for older, successful men – while simultaneously reinforcing another narrative – that the younger man is less harmed in the role reversal because, hey, he’s still scoring. I suggest that this view point not only reinforces the traditional views, but denies agency to young women in age-imbalanced relationships while granting agency to young men. I’m not saying that Hugo is advocating this position (in fact I bet he believes quite the opposite) but rather is strangely ignoring that it exists.
The only way in which I see the young man not also being (potentially) harmed by a relationship with an older woman is when I adopt the prevailing cultural view that those relationships are inherently less harmful. This article fails to make a case for why those relationships are less harmful outside of saying that they just are, and it makes Hugo look as if he agrees with that narrative.
So how can we differentiate between the harm that is actually done or not done from the harm that our cultural narrative tells us was done or not done based on the genders of the participants? And if gender is the primary criteria by which we can determine whether or not harm was done, how is that helpful?
So how can we differentiate between the harm that is actually done or not done from the harm that our cultural narrative tells us was done or not done based on the genders of the participants?
We can start by talking with men and women who were in relationships with older partners. A first-hand account is better than a culturally-influenced presumption.
Like Clarissa, I know several men whose relationships with older women traumatized them. Only one of them acknowledged the negative effects immediately. The rest recognized the harm done to them years after the relationship ended. It took them so long to acknowledge that because of what you mentioned above: the cultural narrative is that the young men should not be traumatized having just “scored”.
There may be other reasons behind Hugo’s view, particularly given his support for older women having sex with boys. However, his view does coincide with the broader cultural notion that women are incapable of harming men. It is odd to see that view getting reinforced rather than challenged.
I do believe cultural attitudes about how we should feel heavily influence how we do feel.
I think those attitudes influence more how we say feel, than how we actually feel. People try to convince themselves that they feel the way our culture wants them to even if they actually do not.
Like Clarissa, I know several men whose relationships with older women traumatized them. Only one of them acknowledged the negative effects immediately. The rest recognized the harm done to them years after the relationship ended
Can you explain what the harm was, please, and whether the relationships were serious?
Clarissa talked about manipulating “an innocent partner into complete submission”. If it wasn’t serious, what the women manipulated them into, having sex? I honestly don’t understand. Isn’t submission the prescriptive model of male-female relationships? I don’t think it’s a good, harmless for women model, but in many relationships even between 2 teenagers the boy has the upper hand, often teen girls are at least slightly pressured into sex. Are they all harmed for years afterwards too? Pressure and manipulation, “kissing and telling”, breaking trust aren’t restricted to age disparate relationships. So, are most women harmed since teens by men and teen boys?
This argument:
“The older man/younger woman dynamic reinforces patriarchal conventions; the older woman/younger man dynamic subverts them.”
Seems to be unsuppoted.
Previously Hugo has written about gender conventions (March 2009,reprinted February 2011):
“We set men up to dominate and we set women up to manipulate.”
There is no reason to believe that older woman/younger man relationships are not simply rife with manipulation of the younger man on the part of a skilled older woman, and thus an extension, rather than a subversion, of patriarchal conventions.
This would explain Clarissa’s observations (as long as at least one from my own life) that younger men who enter into relationships with older women can often be embittered or otherwise emotionally harmed by said relationships, even years later.
Unless there is evidence that women in older woman/younger man relationships do not manipulate their partners, there is no reason to accept a generalization such relationships subvert anything traditional. For subversion to occur, we would have to expect non-manipulation based dominance on the part of the woman, or some kind of gender equality paradise: we have no evidence for the former, and observations of harmed men argue against the latter.
For whatever it’s worth…. I’ve been a domestic violence victim advocate for a little over 9 years now. I’ve seen plenty of police reports cross my desk in which you have a teenage female victim and a male perpetrator ten or so years her senior. Frequently the couple has at least one child, sometimes of an age that makes it clear the relationship became sexual when the woman was (at most) 14-15. To the best of my recollection, I have *never* seen a domestic violence report with such a young perpetrator/victim in which the gender roles were reversed.
I also used to be married to a man 14 years my senior. We met when I was 29. Because I already had a good sense of myself, he never managed to dominate the relationship. But he *did* try. He’s not now and never was a bad person; he was raised with different relationship expectations than I was. He simply made assumptions I would never agree with, and didn’t always respond well when these were pointed out.
Perhaps raising kids with more gender-egalitarian expectations (which I do think is happening, though not in all families, of course) will make Hugo’s point moot. But I don’t think we’re there yet.
“I’m more concerned about an eighteen year-old woman and a thirty year-old man than I am about a thirty year-old woman and a fifty-five year-old man, even though the latter relationship has twice the number of years in between the partners.”
And if the people in those relationships told you that while they thank you for your concern, there really is nothing for you to be concerned about because they are all quite happy with the situation, would you have the good grace to wish them happiness, or would you continue to treat their personal lives as fodder for your preconceived notions of how things ought to be?
“To the best of my recollection, I have *never* seen a domestic violence report with such a young perpetrator/victim in which the gender roles were reversed.”
Maybe because a young man would be laughed out of the police station, and by his friends, and probably by the abuser herself (who knows this dynamic exists since we *breath* this dynamic (you can’t ignore it)). That would make a man unlikely to report domestic violence at all, let alone by an older woman.
Also, we ignore psychological violence (for both men and women), because it doesn’t leave marks. And then we conclude that men are less hurt by psychological violence…because the dominant narrative says so (never mind asking actual men, you know, those that suicide 4x more).
My boyfriend is 12 years older than me, I’m 28. And no problem.
I’m still young enough to view the issue from a different angle. Throughout my grade school and college years, I distinctly remember my female peers always pining after older men, always disparaging their male peers as being too immature and unworthy of their affection. I always felt like younger women purposefully made themselves available to older, well established men, much to the chagrin of their same-age peers. I think it’s one of those things where once the cat’s out of the bag, it’s hard to get it back in. After a few decades of watching women selectively choose higher status males, there isn’t that much left for men to pick from in their own age bracket.
Another way of looking at the problem is to examine the expectations placed on men that younger men simply cannot meet. It’s very difficult for anyone under 30 to buy a house, yet many women still expect to have children by the time they’re 25 or 26 and they demand a partner who can provide the necessary stability for a family. And when men are automatically presumed to be the providers, it’s not just other suitors who men are competing against – it’s the girl’s fathers. Having fathers who still buy them expensive clothes and jewelry makes them feel entitled to more than one of their peers can muster. Most people, men and women alike, want to maintain their lifestyle and they won’t normally place themselves in situations where they have to give things up. Add to all of this the way our consumerist culture demands that men spend thousands of dollars on conflict diamonds to secure a mate instead of being able to offer a family heirloom or a simple promise.
I would say that these are real problems that should be explored instead of shaming old men. Society should work to remove some of the barriers to younger men and not just ignore them. Age discrepancy in relationships is just an indicator of greater inequities in our society, but not a problem onto itself. The people in the relationships are by and large happy… leave them alone.
But that’s why I’m even more against the type of relationships where older men *do* exploit these broader societal circumstances. Whether it be a superior officer in the military or a professor at a university, when men use a captive audience of younger, inexperienced women for sex, then it doesn’t matter if they’re 50 years older or 5 years older. It’s wrong, it perpetuates the problem, and it needs to be stopped and dealt with in a swift and severe manner.
> Maybe because a young man would be laughed out of the police station,
> and by his friends, and probably by the abuser herself (who knows
> this dynamic exists)
In fact it’s often worse than that – a male victim of DV who calls the police knows that there is a reasonable chance that _he_ will be the one who is arrested. This is in part thanks to the misandrist dogma which has been part of police and judge training (such as the “dominant aggressor” arrest model, or the infamous Duluth Wheel). Like Hugo’s view on age-different relationships above, these paradigms also ignore the individuals’ circumstances in preference for some abstract social context.
Applying Hugo’s “nothing happens in a vacuum” idea to domestic violence – if a man hits a woman should he be doubly punished for enforcing “patriarchal norms”? But if a woman hits or even kills a man, should we instead celebrate her “empowerment and agency” and hold her less accountable?
Oh wait, that is what is already happening.
Dungone has it right, and well expressed – if the power differential is an institutional one that takes some freedoms away from one member of the relationship, THEN there’s a problem.
I have a dear friend who dated a man in his mid-30′s during her late teens. She and I dated briefly later. I saw their relationship. From what I could see, they had an authentic connection and genuinely cared for each other. It ended, as most relationships do, and she moved on. Today she is still a wonderful, whole person, now with a happy family of her own. I haven’t checked in with her to see if the years have changed her impression of that relationship, but I anticipate it would not be much different than looking back on a relationship in which the ages were closer.
I find it dismaying that the assumption is that the older man likes the younger woman only because she’s a cute piece of a## and perhaps gullible and can be dominated, or something.
Personally, I am attracted to attractive women. Women are attractive for many reasons, not just physical ones, though even those keep pretty well. I have dated women older than myself and younger, sometimes much younger. Never much older, but I’d be glad to. The opportunity just presents itself less often, because the best older women are more often married.
Every woman is different, and some differences are typically functions of age. Being with someone who is at a different place in their life than you are can be a great experience, whether because they’re much older or much younger. Yes, it’s important to consider what may be unhealthy dynamics, but let’s not forget that there can be very healthy ones, too, whenever two people genuinely care for each other.