Bingo. Thanks for a very thoughtful response.

As for the “slightly inaccurate narrative of public marriages,” there is the public self and private self—and therein inaccurate narratives abound. It is not uncommon in relationships (marriages) for people to treat their spouses as extensions of themselves or how they want other people to perceive them (their image). Politicians are good at manipulating images and hire professional image makers to manage these perceptions. There may always be a grain of truth to the stories people tell. People come together for all kinds of reasons and stay and leave for the same.

When it comes to truth telling (a problematic concept), in my experiential experience—people are quite good at hiding the truth from themselves—rationalizing their motives, ignoring what they don’t like about themselves, can’t accept and refuse to own and these flaws and deficiencies of their character provide the details for the inaccurate narratives they tell themselves and others. Marriages and relationships more often than not fail for what people choose to ignore, hide, disown and can’t accept about themselves and others.

As for John Spragge’s commentaries…Hugo, I do not believe that your observations are intrusive judgments. I believe they are valid and it is quite clear to me that your observations come from a caring place towards others, regardless of whether or not someone wants to label you as someone constrained by “Euro-American” cultural baggage.” I tend to find commentaries like that as sounding more like a dismissive judgment about you. And you do know that people’s reactions are more about themselves than what they are about you. Therefore, I disagree with John’s comments that your observations somehow are “saddling feminism with this choice to make judgments and to advise or dictate to others the intimate details of their lives.”

Moreover, if someone is truly concerned about the relationship that they have not only with themselves, but with others (I’m speaking of caring, loving, and appropriate relationships rather than destructive ones), then I believe they have an obligation to monitor their motivations, thoughts and emotions—this takes self-honesty and introspection—a behavior choice that some people are unwilling to engage in. Truth seeking and self-honesty is not for the faint of heart.

Hugo, I see your introspective writings as more of a willingness on your part to share your knowledge and to open up emotions (what motivates us) rather than constrict and constrain them.

As a young attractive woman, now 31 I have often found myself to be in the postion to exchange my attention, and presence with older men.

Perhaps men in positions of power, money, or a certain type of valuable knowledge also seek out their “entitlement”( the young beauty) without thinking about it. Just as a young beautiful woman may begin to make herself available to these older men without thinking about it.

I rely on God as well in my relationships to help me discern what is real and what is fantasy. Dating outside your generation can be tricky if not treacherous.

All marriages in the public eye tell a slightly inaccurate narrative. We tell people “we just knew” (when we struggled with doubt) or “it was love at first sight” (when it was lust, or curiosity, or maybe neither and the whole thing grew up over a long period of time). And maybe they are telling the truth.

If I had been giving either of them dating advice a few years back, I would have expressed my concerns about the age gap. Now that they are building a common life, anything less than complete support for their decision is uncharitable and unwarranted. At some point (to refer to Mythago’s remark above) “water under the dam” is reason enough to stop the criticism, at least in a case like this. The criticism is now rightly directed at the sexist coverage you, Debra, refer to.

I have issues with Dennis Kucinich in that I think that as admirable as some of his stances look on paper, and as much as he may have been proven right by history in his biggest and most controversial decision as mayor of Cleveland (his refusal to privatize the municipal power plant), I don’t think he would make a great president, because I don’t think he’s good at all at diplomacy and working persuasively with others to achieve his ends. Instead, he sets himself up from the start, unashamedly, as virulently opposed to everyone who disagree with his goals, and then tends to act like either a bulldozer or a windmill-tilter. But aside from that…

Yes, I have what some here may recognize as issues against the older man-younger woman thing to begin with. At least here, we’re dealing with a woman who has some experience of life, some keen intelligence and some knowledge of the world, rather than a naive girl fresh out of college looking for someone to worship and adore.

Even so, though, there’s just so much about the current Kucinich marriage that rings weird. This whole business about how they just “knew” they were meant for each other, that it was love at first sight, that they instantly sensed that they had found their kindred spirit in life from the moment they met in a blissful union of souls…it all just seems to be so much to swallow. I hate to sound like the cynic, but it’s just hard for me to believe.

That aside, however, I must confess that I find the coverage of their relationship within the context of profiles of him and stories about his candidacy, and the attitudes of many average Democrats considering him as a candidate, to be annoyingly driven by…well…the fact that to all appearances, in terms of his marriage, Dennis Kucinich is “living the masculine dream,” and many male journalists and many male Democrats seem to be moved to admire him and think of him more positively as a Presidential candidate because of it. In other words, because he is the age he is and is not conventionally attractive, yet has managed to “snag” this woman who is by all common judgment physically gorgeous (at times her intellect is mentioned as well but not nearly as much) and also a great deal younger than he, there is a kind of assumption that there is something “special” and “magic” and “exceptional” about this man. It could be summed up in: “If a woman THAT young and THAT hot thinks he’s the most wonderful guy on the planet, then the most wonderful guy on the planet is what he must be.”

When you think about it, it’s a form of persuasion no more sophisticated than the stereotypical movie star appearing in an ad for soap or soda pop–and those who are falling for it would swear up and down that they would never fall for that kind of blatant nonsense. Yet in a sense they are willing to “buy” Dennis Kucinich because his young, gorgeous wife did so as eagerly and quickly as she did. And their comments are frequently as much about what a wonderful First Lady she would make as they are about what a great President he would make.

There’s more than a little bit of envy mixed up in it, too. Recently I read a profile in Esquire magazine in which the writer nearly drooled at the prospect of seeing the stud in Elizabeth’s tongue, which she had refused to show him when he asked. Later, while she’s speaking, he catches a flash of it, and writes of the experience as if he’s just witnessed the Second Coming. He also spends at least a paragraph speculating as to whether the Kuciniches have tantric sex, and what it must be like (they probably do, and how wonderful it must be, he concludes, sounding like a wistful puppy with his nose pressed to the glass).

Even the photos in the article back up the theme; several are sequential shots of the couple riding side-by-side carousel horses, hands entwined and engaging in showy, passionate kisses. One is reminded (or at least I was) of teenagers “going steady” for the first time and their constant need to show off the depth of their love in public.

It’ll sound awful to say, but I’ll say it: This gets old after a while, and I don’t know what on earth it does to prove that Dennis is better qualified to run the country than anyone else. Especially when you read over and over and over again about Elizabeth and the one theme that comes up, over and over again, above and beyond her education, her ambitions, the thoughts of her head, is “She’s SO beautiful…”

There is something about it that seems to me to be…wrong. I thought that progressive minds had come further than this, all this judgment of a woman based on her stunning personal appearance and of a man based on the fact that he was able to instantly win the love of said stunning woman. But, sadly, I suspect that you can take the most progressive heterosexual man on the planet, put a gorgeous female in front of him, and just count the seconds until he is reduced to the level of a blithering idiot. And it will never take long.

How do you know that Dennis “has no interest in women his own age”? I was interested in men my own age. I had previously been involved only with men my own age, but the man who is now my husband persuaded me that age was not a meaningful distinction in our case. I wouldn’t say that I “had no interest in men my own age,” only that, in this case, I married someone who happened not to be my own age.

1) Well, it’s water under the dam. No point in worrying about it now.
2) I really, really like the guy.

The issue isn’t what to say to Kucinich at a family dinner; obviously in that situation there’s no point in expressing disapproval and it would be rude to do so. The problem is that you’ve said an awful lot of things about older men who choose younger women, and you’re refusing to apply those to Kucinich because you don’t like the implications.