Archive for the 'Older Men & Younger Women' Category

“Teaching May Be Hazardous to Your Marriage”: Social scientists and the myth of male weakness

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 30, 2008
in Academia, Divorce, Older Men & Younger Women, Teaching and Youth
. 36 Comments

Reader and blogger Treifalicious sends me a link to this PDF file of a 1999 study on college professors and divorce. Published in the journal of Evolution and Human Behavior, it’s melodramatically entitled Teaching may be hazardous to your marriage.

The abstract:

Kenrick et al.’s experiments demonstrate that men who view photographs of physically attractive women or Playboy centerfolds subsequently find their current mates less physically attractive and become less satisfied with their current relationships. What then would be the
cumulative effect of being exposed to young, attractive women on a daily basis? Would there be any real consequences to the men’s dissatisfaction with their relationships? Secondary school teachers and college professors come in contact with more young women at the peak of their reproductive value than others do. The analysis of a large, representative data set from the United States indicates that, while men in general are less likely to be divorced than women, and secondary school teachers and college professors in general are less likely to be divorced than others, simultaneously being male and being a secondary school teacher or college professor statistically increases the likelihood of being divorced We contend that the contrast effect that Kenrick et al. find in their experiments is cumulative and has real
consequences.

It’s an almost laughable study, save for the fact that it’s, well, so bloody infuriating. Here’s the initial premise:

Few occupations and professions afford greater opportunities to come in contact with
women in their teenage years than teachers in secondary and postsecondary schools. These
teachers experience the cumulative effect of exposure to young, attractive women who are at
their peak reproductive value more acutely than people in most other occupations.

I suppose that’s true enough, though I can’t say I think much of the term “peak reproductive value.” No offense intended to teenage moms out there, but in my experience, those who choose to make babies in their thirties often (not always) have more “valuable” resources (time, patience, finances) than those in their “peak” reproductive years.

But then the study’s authors lose me completely. They note that those who teach are slightly more likely to stay unmarried after they divorce, though the difference with the general population is barely significant. But then this whopper:

We believe that there are two possible interpretations for this finding. First,
subsequent to divorce, male teachers and professors may remain unmarried because they prefer
to pursue a series of affairs with female students without marrying them. Second, they may remain unmarried because, due to the cumulative contrast effect, any adult woman they might meet and date after their divorce would still pale in comparison to the young attractive women with whom they come in daily contact.

“Pale in comparison”? Continue reading ‘“Teaching May Be Hazardous to Your Marriage”: Social scientists and the myth of male weakness’

Asking out Dr. “desperately hot”: a note on students pursuing former professors

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 12, 2008
in Older Men & Younger Women, Student crushes and Teaching
. 10 Comments

One of my former students has now transferred on to a large university elsewhere in the state. A 22 year-old junior, she took a class this past quarter with what she describes as a “desperately hot” 30 year-old assistant professor. He’s in his first year teaching the best of all possible subjects (history), and according to my former student, he’s said to be “single and straight and very available.”

My former student has read my various postings on student crushes and on older men, younger women relationships. She shot me a message on Facebook this week, asking me whether I thought it would be appropriate for her to ask out “Dr. Desperately Hot” now that the term is over. She’s quite clear that this isn’t just an intellectual crush — she’s interested on, as she puts it “every level.”

Assuming she’s not likely to be his student again, I wrote her a short note telling her, in essence, “Go for it.” An eight year age-gap is not insignificant, but it’s not an insurmountable one. (I admit I would have responded differently had her Dr. DH been 40 instead of 30.) I’m familiar with the campus on which she studies and he teaches; the university policy in place, like that at Pasadena City College, prohibits professors from dating their current students, but says nothing about dating former students who continue to be enrolled in other instructors’ classes.

I got a follow-up note:

Cool. So, another question: how do I ask him out??? Do I suggest coffee, trying to make it seem like I just might want a friendship? Or do I just flirt with him (more than I have been!!) to see if he takes the inititaive?

I pointed out to her that students frequently invite me to coffee. The nice thing about coffee is that it can have multiple meanings; it can be a wonderfully casual “first date”, or it can be an extension of normal office hours, complete with refreshment. I’m a great believer in having coffee with students, knowing that the chance to chat with a professor one-on-one in an informal environment was one I always treasured when I was an undergraduate. It’s a situation that can be, and indeed should generally be entirely non-sexual, uncharged and unfraught with romantic implications. But it’s relatively easy for even a young adult to inject some gentle flirtation into a coffee date — and my former student can try that with Dr. DH and see how he responds.

I warned her, half teasingly, that she might be very disappointed. Many of us who are masterful and charismatic in the classroom are stunningly not so when we are out of “our element”. While there’s nothing inherently unethical about a 22 year-old dating her 30 year–old former professor, the chances are pretty damn high that she’s got him on some sort of a pedestal. Up until this point, theirs has been a one-sided relationship; he lectures to a large classroom, she sits and gazes at him. She projects more on to him than he has to her, even if he has “noticed” her in a way that goes beyond the purely professional. The chances of disillusionment on her part are near 100%, though I’ve seen more than one relationship survive that process.

Because we’re friends, I felt comfortable challenging my former student to check her motives. Some students pursue professors for the same reason some young women seek out older men; they look for a yardstick by which to measure their own attractiveness. Dating (or, depending on the milieu, merely having sex with) a popular professor who is widely acknowledged to be “desperately hot” might be simply a way to boost the ego, or to boost status in the eyes of peers who share an attraction to this desirable instructor. Even if he is older and presumably wiser, it’s at best unkind and at worst deceptively manipulative to pursue a relationship of any duration merely for the sake of bragging about it (even if that bragging is confined to one or two very close friends.)

I’ve said a time or nine that older men, younger women relationships are problematic — but not always strictly inadvisable — for many reasons. I’ve pointed out too that most student crushes on professors are less about the desirability of the instructor and more about how that professor makes the student feel about himself (or herself), about ideas, about possibilities for life and the world. But all of this doesn’t mean I don’t think a mature young student can’t ask out a relatively young, eminently single, hot assistant professor. Something interesting will happen no matter what the final outcome.

“Affirm and redirect”: how “Smart People” gets older men, younger women exactly right

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 22, 2008
in Movies and Older Men & Younger Women
. 1 Comment

The first post I ever wrote on “older men, younger women” was inspired by a movie, Love Song For Bobby Long. The most hits I’ve had on any post so far in 2008 was also movie-inspired: Age is Never Just a Number.

Right before we left on Spring Break, my wife and I went to see Smart People. It was a bit of a disappointment, largely because the two leads (Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker) seemed miscast in their roles as a college professor and physician. The two supporting cast members, Juno’s Ellen Page and the sublime Thomas Haden Church, did their best to redeem the film. Church plays “Chuck”, a middle-aged ne’er-do-well who moves in with a widower prof (Quaid) and his overachieving daughter, Vanessa (Page).

Ellen Page is as pitch-perfect as ever as Vanessa, a socially awkward over-achieving young Republican who mothers her father and studies frantically for the SAT. Her monumentally self-absorbed father largely ignores her evident unhappiness — but uncle Chuck doesn’t. Chuck is troubled by his niece’s robotic, joyless behavior, and he starts a concerted campaign to get Vanessa to have fun. He gets her stoned one night, and then another night takes her to a bar. As they leave the bar, a tipsy Vanessa grabs her uncle and kisses him passionately. Chuck pushes her away immediately, horrified that she has misunderstood his interest in her. Much of the rest of the film (and indeed, the best scenes in this mediocre picture are all between Page and Church) is concerned with the way in which Vanessa and Chuck work through their awkwardness engendered by that kiss, and the way in which Vanessa comes to understand what it was and is she means to her uncle. Continue reading ‘“Affirm and redirect”: how “Smart People” gets older men, younger women exactly right’

Another in the Older Men, Younger Women series: sex, power, and redemptive aggression

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 17, 2008
in Older Men & Younger Women
. 20 Comments

I still get letters about the Older Men, Younger Women topic. A very long one came in last week from a 27 year-old woman, “Elizabeth.” Excerpts:

I wanted to write to ask about my desires to be with older men. I am now 27, and I realize you were more concerned about women in their teens to early twenties, but this desire is nothing new. I have always been attracted to men much older than me (with regards to my age- ie a 5 year difference isn’t a big deal at 27, but when I was 17 and was talking to a 22 year old it was significant). I am wondering if this is a pattern that is a result of being the victim of sexual abuse/molestation? When I was 14 my first sexual experience EVER was with a man who was related thru marriage- an uncle married to one of my mother’s sisters. I would imagine he was in his thirtees at the time, but strangely enough I don’t think I ever felt like I had major issues over the matter. There was nothing obvious. No lingering feelings of guilt, no nightmares. I never think about it, which is why I wonder if my desire to be with older men is my brain’s subliminal way of “fixing” the matter- I have heard of a couple of defense mechanism victims of sexual abuse or rape will employ. One is “identify with aggressor” which I think I may have done for a period during my life.

Elizabeth shares a colorful history of sexual relationships with older men. Her “pattern”, if there is one, is to be in relationships with older men who don’t habitually pursue younger women. As she puts it, she “relished the attention and basked in the glow” that came from men who were, it seems, surprised by her evident interest in them. Elizabeth is now starting “something new” with a man of 53, almost twice her age. He’s interested, but a little stunned by her forthrightness and aggressiveness; she writes that “I enjoy my new man’s flustered reactions.” Continue reading ‘Another in the Older Men, Younger Women series: sex, power, and redemptive aggression’

“The rights of desire”: a professor-student romance makes the local news

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 25, 2008
in Marriage, Older Men & Younger Women, Sexual ethics and transformation, Student crushes and Teaching
. 13 Comments

This story popped up on my radar screen today: Professor, ex-student tie the knot.

Muata Kamdibe and Crystal Domingues aren’t looking for anyone’s stamp of approval - not from their resistant families, curious colleagues, or a gossip-prone public.

For two months, the couple managed to keep their romance a secret from everyone, knowing the kinds of whispers and judgments their 18-year age difference would spawn - as well as the fact that Kamdibe, 36, a Rio Hondo College professor, first met Domingues, 18, when she was a student in his class last fall.

But it all publicly tumbled out two weeks ago, when Domingues was reported missing by her family, then tracked down by a private detective Feb. 7 to Kamdibe’s home in Irvine.

Well, that’s one way to start off with the in-laws. Continue reading ‘“The rights of desire”: a professor-student romance makes the local news’

Age is never just a number: on “Juno” and covert older men/younger women boundary violation

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 14, 2008
in Favorite Posts 2008, Movies and Older Men & Younger Women
. 61 Comments

My wife and I finally got around to seeing Juno this past Saturday night. It was as delightful as promised. Other bloggers have already dealt with the issues of sexual agency and teen pregnancy raised by the film, and the question of whether the picture carries a subtle “pro-life” message has been widely debated. I’m not going to add to the fine commentary already out there. But I was struck by one aspect of the film that dealt with an oft-posted on topic here, older men/younger women relationships.

Warning: mild plot spoiler below the fold. Continue reading ‘Age is never just a number: on “Juno” and covert older men/younger women boundary violation’

Older men, younger women again: a note on the Kucinich marriage

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 9, 2007
in Marriage, Older Men & Younger Women and Politics
. 17 Comments

Look! A post on something other than reverse snobbery or bondage for Christians! Rejoice!

My old friend Bill reads this blog, and has noted my penchant for taking fairly strong stances on certain subjects, like the sinfulness of wearing fur and the generally problematic nature of older-men, younger-women relationships.

Bill recently went to a fundraising event where he briefly met Dennis Kucinich and his wife, Elizabeth Harper. Dennis turned 61 yesterday; his wife Elizabeth is, as many folks know, more than three decades his junior. (Dennis’ campaign page is here, and his wife’s page is here.).

Bill, knowing of both my general disapproval of significant age-gap relationships and my deep fondness for the only fellow vegan in congress, writes:

I see lots of deserved kvelling about Mr. Kucinich but nary a word about his being married to a woman thirty years younger than he is. Plenty of paragraphs devoted to that subject in general but nothing about those two. Heck, I don’t think I saw even one word about Mrs. Kucinich at all. So what’s the deal? Does Kucinich get a free pass from you because of his outstanding professional record? Or are you so taken with them as a couple that the age difference doesn’t look so bad on them? Or do you secretly think it all depends on the two people in question?

Like a lot of folks, I raised an eyebrow when I heard about the Kucinich marriage two years ago. 31 years is not an insignificant age gap, after all. At the same time, as I’ve made clear in my many posts on this subject, it’s not wise to subject all age-disparate relationships to rigid hard and fast rules, save when the younger partner involved is under 21. Continue reading ‘Older men, younger women again: a note on the Kucinich marriage’

Summer Reprint: Letting go of the Rescuer: a response to Charles on men, “damsels in distress” and pro-feminism

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 16, 2007
in Feminism, Men and Masculinity, Older Men & Younger Women, Relationships and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 12 Comments

I’m still on summer semi-hiatus, and will be back to regular posting by August 22.

The following was originally published October 18, 2005.

Gosh, I’m now averaging two letters a week from folks who have found this blog by searching for information about “older men, younger women” on the ‘net. Usually, I get letters from young women who are attracted to older men, or older men defending their interest in younger women, but yesterday’s letter from “Charles” was different. Here’s some of it:

The experience I am going through is a difficult one. I was very closely
involved with a (now) 23 year old for four years. We broke up this past
spring, largely because she was going to attend graduate school in another
country for several years and had not been faithful to me in the past. No
trust meant no relationship anymore, despite my great affection toward her
and bond with her. We still remain friends and I look out for her best interests,
which is why I was so distraught to hear that a 35 year old had
asked her out at a bar and she said yes.

I agree with you that, despite exceptions to the rule, younger women
dating older men is not very healthy. She is a beautiful girl who has no
trouble finding dates, so its not like this is the only opportunity she
has. She doesn’t seem to find it to be a big deal and kind of flippantly
says that guys are five years less mature than their age and girls are
five years more mature, so the ages (in her mind) kind of equal out. But
I have to disagree with that. His formative, adult experiences are much
more developed than hers. If you use the age of 18 as a baseline for
‘adulthood,’ than he’s been an adult about four times longer than she has.

She also has had many of the problems that many young women interested in
older men seem to have, as you alluded to. Her father was almost
completely dysfunctional as a human being and was not a substantive part
of her childhood. She was raped at 13 to lose her virginity and she has
had a breathtaking number of sexual partners in an equally breathtaking
variety of ways, all of whom (with the exceptions of a few close
boyfriends) she didn’t like.

Should I not feel concerned for her? Should I not feel angry toward her?,
because I do. I do not have a problem with her dating and I want her to
be happy, but I am convinced this is not the way to achieve that
happiness.

Charles writes an interesting and heartfelt note, and it’s the sort of thing I’ve heard from other young men on this subject.

First off, there’s nothing wrong with being angry at someone who has cheated on you. Anger, particularly when it is expressed in healthy rather than destructive ways, is a normal response to injury. Once that anger festers into enduring resentment, however, it’s a good deal more problematic.

I’ve known quite a few men who share with Charles what can only be described as a powerful desire to “rescue” damsels in distress. The tell-tale signs of a man with a “knight in shining armor” complex are clear: he “looks out for her best interests”, and he expresses deep — and perhaps justified — anxiety about her early experiences and their impact on her subsequent sexual choices. I’m sure Charles is a very nice young man, and I wish him well. But ultimately, I think he’s having a difficult time separating genuine love and concern from a desire to control! Continue reading ‘Summer Reprint: Letting go of the Rescuer: a response to Charles on men, “damsels in distress” and pro-feminism’

Jack and Jill again: a response to Father Figure about mentoring and attraction

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 28, 2007
in Emotional and Sexual Boundaries, Favorite posts 2007, Mentoring, Older Men & Younger Women, Teaching, Youth and Youth ministry
. 3 Comments

It’s genuinely flattering that I get several e-mails a week from people who have read my posts and are asking me for input on issues ranging from chinchilla care to student crushes to youth ministry to older men/younger women relationships. I want to make it clear to those who do write me, however, that I assume all unsolicited email is “bloggable”. I am not able to offer replies or advice outside of the format of this blog. I will, of course, change names and details in order to protect the writer’s anonymity. That seems a fair policy.

Got an email last week from a fellow who calls himself Father Figure. Father Figure is married, and though he doesn’t specify his age, seems to be forty-something (I take great delight in calling myself a forty-something these days). He writes:

You seem to be very perceptive on the area of
crushes developing on mentor/father figures.

How does the mentor/father
figure disengage from such a relationship as he sees
himself being attracted to the young woman [half his
age!] who’s paying so much attention to him?

The last three years have been among the worst of
my life, mainly from being unable to forget about the
attention that this young woman gave to me for a few
months, but also from incredible guilt for the way
that I totally broke off contact with her. Even now I
tend to feel that if I see a mutual friend, I should
casually inquire about her, not so much because I want
to know, but out of concern that if the conversation
gets relayed back to her, it will hurt her that I
didn’t even ask about her. Her own father died or
left the home when she was a young girl, and it seems
that in some ways she related to me as a sort of
“safe” father-type figure. The problem was that I
fell for her, and so I found the only way to deal with
my feelings was to stop contact. But my breaking off
contact [when we had been fairly close friends] must
have come across to her as rejection of her as a
person. Hence, my profound feeling of guilt.

It’s a painful situation for Father Figure, and clearly equally painful (if not more so) for the young woman whom he has pushed out of his life.

My first thought is that those of us who do enjoy mentoring young people have an obligation to set strong boundaries with ourselves. I meet with and mentor a small group of young people; some are former students and some are former “youth groupers.” I mentor both men and women. One of my chief jobs as a mentor is to never, ever forget that my relationship with my mentees is one of mutual respect, but not one of mutual support. I am there for them in a way that they cannot and should not be there for me. In my relationships with my mentees, I make very little mention of my private life (less, in most cases, than I do on this blog). When I do talk about myself, it is usually only in order to share an anecdote from my past that may prove helpful to the mentee.

The mentor/mentee boundary is not as rigid as that between therapist and patient. No one is on a couch, and there’s no strict psychological protocol to observe. But I always remember that this young man or this young woman with whom I am sitting in my office or drinking coffee under a tree here on campus is there as an opportunity for me to be of service. My mentees are not potential “best friends forever”. That doesn’t mean I don’t like them, and heck, it doesn’t preclude me from starting to care very deeply for some of them. I love working with young people; it gives me a great sense of purpose and satisfaction to do so. But my students are not my dearest friends, and I don’t confide in my mentees as they confide in me. That’s not about power, that’s about respect for boundaries.

I wrote a long time ago about the story of Michael Gee, an adjunct professor and journalist who was fired from his teaching position after posting to a website his feeling that one of his female students was “incredibly hot.” As part of that post, I wrote about how we as teachers and mentors can respond to students whose bodies might be distracting to us. I wrote about an old student of mine named “Jack”, whose cigarette stench and body odor made our office hours together difficult; I wrote about “Jill”, whose unusually revealing clothing posed a different challenge. Jack and Jill were wonderful students, solid “A” students, both interested in having me mentor them. Jack’s smell was burdensome; Jill’s state of near-perpetual underdressedness posed a similar problem. With both students, my job was the same: to not allow their bodies to become my focus. I made a conscious effort to be there for Jack in all of his malodorousness, and to keep my eyes on Jill’s face. I’m not an instructor in grooming, fashion, or deportment; if I am only able to be present for those who are bathed and reasonably covered up, then I am a piss-poor mentor and teacher and ought not to be in this job. I learned a lot from Jack and Jill.

Perhaps it’s because I’m happily married, perhaps it’s because I’ve worked so hard to establish excellent boundaries, perhaps it’s because I’m in my forties now — but for whatever reason, I don’t any longer have the trouble “Father Figure” has had with this woman he mentored. That’s the result of some hard work on my part, and also the result of being willing to ask for grace to come into my life and guide my mentoring relationships.

With the Jacks and Jills of this world, there’s a prayer I use. It was one I learned many years ago, and it has served me in good stead. I use the same prayer with the potentially attractive as with the potentially hostile:

“God, show me this person not as I see them but as you see them. Help me to be for them what I am called by you to be. Remove from me my fears and my selfish desires, and show me how to love them as you love them”.

Yeah, we have a problem with singulars and plurals here, but you get the point. I really do use that prayer, though much less often than I used to. God has been faithful to me, and I can say that when I have prayed that prayer sincerely, it has always been answered. I have never had to break off a relationship with a mentee because I was worried about my own growing feelings of attraction towards him or her.

Does that make me better than “Father Figure”, who did choose to break off his mentoring relationship with a younger woman to whom he was increasingly drawn? No, not really. It was far better for him to abrogate their relationship than to act on his feelings. But while seducing her would have been a profound betrayal of his commitment to her (and, of course, to his marriage), breaking off their contact (which had become important to her) without telling her why is a serious form of abandonment. There’s a general rule in working with much younger people, even when they are in their twenties: if you as a mentor cut off contact or withdraw from them, they will almost always assume that it was something they did. They will very rarely conclude that the problem was with the mentor; they will assume that they did something to drive him or her away. They may feel ashamed or guilty without quite knowing what they’ve done. It’s a serious wound, and I’ve seen it inflicted many a time.

Father Figure inquires as to what he should do. In the best case scenario, he would be able to resume his mentoring relationship with this young woman, taking responsibility for keeping his own feelings and desires strictly in check (and asking for spiritual help in order to do so.) Given that the young woman is an adult, his next best option — but not the best — is to be candid with her about his reasons for terminating their time together. He’ll have to be very emphatic that the responsibility is his and his alone, and that she did nothing wrong. It’ll be hurtful, but she’ll at least have (oh, overused word) the beginnings of some closure. The worst thing to do would be to continue to be distant and unvailable without giving a reason why.

I am absolutely certain that I will not cross a line with my students and youth groupers, either in act or in fantasy. I am confident that my intent will remain clear and my goals pure. Is this hubris? No, because I don’t rest this certainty on my own will alone. I’m a mortal human being, and I know all too well how quickly my own unchecked desires can run riot. My confidence lies in my faith in a faithful God, a God who will not give me any challenge I cannot handle if I ask for His help. I also have faith in my peers who hold me accountable, who ask me questions about my motives, who watch me. If I seem to be crossing a line, they’ll gently inquire and remind me of where it is that my priorities lie, what my obligations are.

If I can only mentor the unattractive, the well-groomed, the polite and unchallenging, I’m not doing my job. (Of course, the reverse is true: if I seek out only the beautiful and the brilliant to work with, something else is amiss!) If I were to find my own feelings getting in the way of my work with a mentee, I am confident that I would be given the strength to overcome those feelings. And by overcoming, I don’t just mean the strength to not act upon them. I mean the strength to eradicate them altogether. My wife is the human being in whose company I am happiest. If I were to be more excited about spending time with a friend or a mentee than with my wife, that would be a colossal red flag. And I am prayerfully, quietly confident that God would give me the strength to redirect my desires and my thoughts themselves if I asked Him to. But if for some reason that sustenance didn’t come, then I would have to terminate the mentoring relationship.

A long response to “Debra” about older men, younger women

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 25, 2007
in Older Men & Younger Women
. 124 Comments

As I’ve mentioned several times, I get more email about my “older men, younger women” posts than all the other things I blog about put together. (Student crushes is a distant second, and chinchillas are third).

I got a long letter a couple of weeks ago from a woman in her late forties named “Debra” (not her real name). She tells a by-now very familiar story:

Now, here’s my situation. Within the past couple of years I’ve become
aware of a man a couple of years older than me. From what I can see,
this man is very much like me in many ways–in fact, so much so that
he could be my male twin.

I’m attracted to him. From a distance, I find him intelligent, thoughtful, humorous, honest,
emotionally open, openminded, and kind. And, up until last year, he
was like me in one other important way: he had no relationship. He was
an intelligent, witty man in his later forties, yet he had never been
married and made frequent complaints in public about how all of his attempts
at relationships with women (and he made it clear without using a
sledgehammer that yes, he was attracted to the opposite sex) had ended
in disaster.

Then, last year, suddenly something changed. Out of the blue, Mr. Sad
Sack began seeing a woman. A woman who lived on the opposite coast
from him. Two and a half months
after they began dating, she packed up all her belongings and crossed
the country to move in with him. As of now, they have been together
for a year, and have lived together for ten and a half months

Why do I come to you to ask you what you think of all this? Simply
this: He is 47; she is 22.

This is a long post, so more below the fold. Continue reading ‘A long response to “Debra” about older men, younger women’

A few random notes, and another in the “older men/younger women” series

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 15, 2007
in Age and Older Men & Younger Women
. 52 Comments

On this holiday MLK Monday, I note that 2007 marks 39 years since the great civil rights leader was slain. He was 39 when he was killed, so the space since his passing now matches the span of his all-too-short life. In the last few months, I note, I have “passed” Dr. King; as of last autumn, I am now older than he was when he was slain.

A glorious but very chilly run this morning. Lots of frozen patches on the mountain, and no access to water in my usual spots — the pipes had frozen!

My wife and I were up in Santa Barbara last night; saw my sister, who writes about and participates in the local arts scene, dancing in this production. I freely admit to not “getting” most modern dance, though out of family loyalty, I am willing to be a loyal patron. When I was growing up, the term “middle-brow” was used to condemn those who preferred their art safe and unchallenging. But after decades around what is supposed to be avant-garde, I confess that I am a cultural philistine when it comes to music and dance. I don’t get most modern dance, and I don’t get John Cage. (I’m a bit more adventurous with visual art; I do have a passion for Rothko and Kandinsky.) Still, we had a good time.

And congrats to the Pasadena City College Lancers women’s basketball team, the only undefeated team in California.

Anyhoo…

One of my good buddies from the boxing gym had a date this weekend. He’s a year or two my junior, and he went out to dinner with an 18 year-old gal whom he met when she waited on his table at a local restaurant. He knows my views on older men dating younger women (see the various posts in that category on the sidebar), and I have not hesitated to take him to task (with good humor) for this. Ours is a relationship that can withstand some serious disagreements.

My friend said something I hear a lot from my peers who want to date women half their age: “You know, she seems very mature for her age. She’s not like other eighteen year-olds.” I hear this constantly from those who want to defend the practice of going out with much younger women; while they are often happy to concede that most women still in late adolescence ought to be off-limits, they invariably suggest that the one in whom they happen to be interested is an exception to the rule. “She’s an old soul”; “She’s very wise”; “Guys her own age don’t interest her.”

I’m not about to suggest that some young women aren’t more “grown-up” than their peers. As many, many young women who have commented on my previous posts have lamented, they find the guys in their own peer group to be immature, unchallenging, unattractive. They often report feeling alienated from peers of both sexes, claiming to have felt “more comfortable around adults” for years. In other words, they feel themselves to be exceptions to otherwise sensible rules. Their longing for someone older, whom they imagine will share their interests and offer them more opportunities to grow and learn, is understandable. What is less understandable is that so many older men rely on the young woman’s self-described exceptionalism to justify a sexual or romantic relationship with her.

Newsflash, folks: most bright, sensitive adolescents go through periods where they feel profoundly at odds with the majority of their peers. They are unmoved by the concerns of boys and girls their own age; what fascinates other kids bores these more thoughtful ones. They see their peers as vapid and shallow (they are occasionally right), and they imagine (alas, often wrongly) that older folks (often older men in particular) are more interesting, more sensitive, better-equipped for relationship. I’ve worked with enough teenagers to have met dozens and dozens of young men and women who are ardently convinced that they are exceptional, perhaps even unique. And though they are usually smarter than the average bear, their sense of their own inner maturity is frequently exaggerated. And a wise older person, be he a teacher or a prospective partner, can’t take these protestations of emotional sophistication at face value!

Of course, my buddy has his own corollary to all of this. A bit younger than I am, on the cusp of his late thirties, he is adamant that he is “younger” than his chronological age. He enjoys clubbing as much as he did a decade ago, for example. He sees his peer group (I’m a prime example he says) as increasingly made up of the “settled”. Though he talks of wanting to get married and have kids “someday”, he’s still in no hurry — and he’s eager to avoid dating women for whom enduring commitment is part of their near-term plans. His sense of himself as still young, playful, and promising leads him to his own sense of exceptionalism. Just as the gal he took out on Saturday night isn’t “typical”, he too sees himself as having little in common with his own chronological age. While other men our age don’t keep up on the latest music or the hippest clubs, for example, he’s on top of these things; it makes “sense”, he claims, for him to spend his time with much younger women.

I’ve given him my standard stump speech about the fact that women our age will challenge him to grow, while starry-eyed gals barely out of adolescence will be more likely to believe his bull. Like most men I challenge on this one, he protests indignantly that he’s up for any challenge, and that a “really exceptional eighteen year-old” can push him just as hard as a woman twice that age. I’m quite confident he genuinely believes what he’s saying. But the fact that he’s being sincere doesn’t mean he isn’t deceiving himself. And his self-deception keeps him from facing the fact that chronological age imposes obligations on us all: the call to transform and grow is not optional, it is not given merely to the few.

One of the things that bothers me so much about those who defend older-men/younger women relationships is that these folks insist on seeing themselves as unusual exceptions to some fairly hard and fast rules about the trajectory of our lives. A man in his late thirties flattering himself with the conceit that he’s still a youngster, or a frustrated, curious, young woman in her late teens who feels like a wise old soul, both are confident that they are unique, or nearly so. Their sense of being different means that conventional wisdom — which, for reasons I’ve gone over again and again, warns against older men dating women in their late teens and early twenties — ought not apply to them.

It’s a free country for those who are of age, of course, and my friend is allowed to date a girl born the year Ronald Reagan left the presidency if he chooses. I’m going to be his buddy either way; I don’t make my affection conditional on the politics or lifestyle choices of my family or friends. But I’ve heard protests like his — and those of the gal he’s dating — more than once. And from what I’ve seen over and over, what spending time together will eventually teach them both is that they are each less exceptional than they had imagined. Whether they come to that realization with or without concomitant heartache remains to be seen. But while she who cannot remember the first Gulf War has reason to be foolish, he who is old enough to remember the Iran Hostage Crisis has no such excuse.

Older Men, Younger Women #5: self-deception and agency

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 7, 2006
in Older Men & Younger Women and Sexuality
. 37 Comments

Yet another post in the older men, younger women vein.  Previous musings are found in this post, this post, this post, and this post.

I got a long email last week from a woman I’ll call "Mara".  A lengthy excerpt:

When you are a teenage girl, no matter how much you yourself think or know about sex, and no matter what he says or how many creepy vibes an outside observer would get from your interactions, you really do not believe that your dad, or any significantly older guy, is not "safe."  Even their sexual attraction to you, when you are aware of it, doesn’t change that feeling of safety.  You can know your dad enjoys seeing you in your bathing suit and you still feel safe.  (This can make you feel extra like an idiot later when you look back on it, if it turned out not to be the case.)

I think it’s incredibly important for adult men to realize this because, after all, the same behavior from an adult woman would be expressing an intention.  (I don’t generally have intense sexual discussions, hand-holding, bathing-suit exhibitions, etc., with men I don’t want to go to bed with now.)  From a teenage girl, it is (usually or always, I think, in the case of a healthy girl) not an expression of intention, and, as you said yourself, it’s so important that the men do remain safe.  (I have had men in my life play this role of being safe, and I’m very grateful for it - not just the safety, but the depth of the safe interaction.)
But what do you do about women of legal age who want to date older guys?  It’s true, as you said in a follow-up, that there aren’t a ton of mature, interesting 18-year-old men around, and an 18-year-old woman may really desire those qualities.
But I feel pretty strongly that the attraction to older men is one that isn’t healthy, no matter what excuse is given for it.  When the "mature" 18-year-old starts to date the great 30-year-old man she has found, odds are he’s not mature either, but instead of recognizing this, as she would in a guy her own age, she’ll see him as mature and think he is wise and listen to his opinions and laugh at his jokes and adopt his taste in music and fall for all kinds of bullshit she wouldn’t go for in a peer.  (I speak from personal experience here.)  It isn’t many people who are really blind to age differences, and the balance of power is bound to affect the relationship.

Why does this happen to women more than men?  Obviously because, whether for cultural or biological reasons, women in our culture seek men who are stronger, bigger, etc.  (I call this all "larger" in my mind.)  Being older makes you larger. 

Is it always wrong for men to have relationships with much younger women?  It’s hard for me to say.  If it feels good and nobody is harmed, who am I to say it’s wrong?  But I guess what I wish for is a kind of ethic or even just an aesthetic preference that says, I don’t want to be in a relationship with a power imbalance.

Bold emphases are mine.  It’s a great set of points Mara makes, and I’m very grateful to her.

Because my posts (particularly my first one) continue to get regular comments even months and years after they were originally put up, it’s clear that there’s still so much more to be said on this topic.  And Mara reminds me of another vital point that needs to be made: a relationship that seems exciting and fulfilling as a teen may seem exploitative and  harmful in hindsight.

In the wonderful collection New Versions of Victims: Feminists Struggle with the Concept, psychologist Lynn Phillips (who also wrote the magisterial Flirting with Danger) has the essential study on just this topic.  She interviewed a series of teenage girls in relationships with substantially older men.  She also interviewed a group of "older" women who, in their teens, had been in sexual relationships with older guys.

The results were astonishing: the overwhelming majority of teenage girls described the relationships they were in as "mutual", "exciting", "fulfilling."  They insisted that despite the age gap with their partners (which ranged from as little as 6 years to over 20), they were "in control" and were "getting what (they) wanted."  To put it in academic jargon, they were adamant about their own agency; they saw their ability to attract older men and to handle a sexual relationship as evidence of their own special maturity.  Almost all of the girls Phillips interviews tended to have a sense of themselves as different from their peers — most had few age-appropriate friends.  They generally professed to relate better to older people,  and usually had little that was positive to say about their peers.

But their older female counterparts had a very different view.  By the time they were a few years removed from these age-disparate relationships of late adolescence and very early adulthood, most of these women saw these affairs with older men as fundamentally unhealthy, even damaging.  Like Mara, their perceptions of what was healthy shifted dramatically as they aged and gained life experience.   The younger women uniformly refused to label themselves as victims; they preferred to flatter themselves with a narrative of their own agency.  The older women were considerably less concerned with maintaining that pretense!  Only in retrospect were they able to acknowledge the hurt that they had endured, and begin to come to terms with the possibility that they had been used and exploited.

I’m not in the least bit afraid of the accusation of paternalism.  I am convinced that Mara and Phillips are both right: even past the age of legal consent (16 in most states and the UK), older men cannot assume that a young woman’s "yes" is authentically in her best interest. Her "yes" may be sincere, even enthusiastic — but it is also likely an enthusiasm born out of a complex mix of libido, a longing for attention, and an intense desire to "feel like an adult."  Older men (be they 30 40, 50) in relationships with those in or immediately out of adolescence have a responsibility to do more than negotiate verbal consent to a sexual relationship.  They must consider the overwhelming anecdotal (and peer-reviewed academic) evidence that suggests that what seemed exciting and fulfilling at 19 may seem hurtful and exploitative at 29.   

As older men, our obligation to be safe, loving, and utterly non-sexual in our relationships with younger women doesn’t change when or if a young woman is attracted to us.  It is not our job to "initiate" or "teach", though we sometimes flatter ourselves by dressing up our predatory motives in the language of initiation or mentoring.   For our own sakes, who among us would want to be confronted by a former lover with whom we imagined we had a loving, equal relationship, only to be told that in her full adulthood she had realized that she had been exploited and hurt? 

To older men, I say this: a younger woman’s "yes", no matter how enthusiastic, is not a license.  To younger women, I say this: though it reeks with paternalistic condescension, I believe that what most of you think is good and healthy at 17, 18, 19 will look very different to you at 27, 37, 47.   I’m asking older men to consider the long-term consequences not only for themselves, but for the much younger women whom they choose to pursue

Closing the doors: men, aging, younger women, and ego

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 26, 2006
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Older Men & Younger Women and Sexuality
. 161 Comments

I posted last Thursday about my friend Sean and his experience with a Starbucks barista less than half his age.  As you’ll recall, Sean had thought the young woman was flirting with him; it turned out that she was "checking him out" in hopes of introducing him to her mother.  Sean was bemused and crestfallen, but has promised to call the mom (whose number he was given.)  I’ll give an update when I get it.

A number of folks asked again what a man Sean’s age (my age, just on the cusp of 40) would see in a young woman of 19.  The socio-biology crowd usually trots out the fertility argument: older men are attracted to younger women because they can more easily conceive our children.  I have very little time for evolutionary biology as an explanation for human behavior, but then again, I’m trained in the humanities and the social sciences!   

In any case, let me offer a different explanation: the fragility of the aging male ego.  Sean and I — and a number of my other male friends — are in our (very) late thirties and early forties.   And though some of us are straight, and others of us are gay, and some of us are married, and some of us are fathers, and some of us are doing what we love and others hate what they do — all of us are acutely conscious of getting older.  The signs of our aging show up in countless ways.  They show up in the lines on our faces; the grey on our heads, beards, chests; the thickening of our middles.  The signs show up in other ways, too: our parents are becoming more frail.  We are starting to worry more about mom and dad than they worry about us.  For many of my peer group — as for me — our parents are dying.  I can think of half-a-dozen friends who have lost their dads in the past couple of years, just as I did in June.

We fight our aging in a number of ways.  In my case, now that I am seven months from 40, I’ve revamped my diet (I’m achingly close to being a true vegan). I work out a great deal, and have dropped fifteen pounds since my dad’s funeral in early July.  I also make sure to eat my veggies, and I check my skin assiduously for growths and bumps and moles.  (Running shirtless in  Southern California risks turning Hugo into a melanoma farm.)  I won’t bother with worrying about wrinkles or grey hairs, however.  My pride dictates to me that diet and exercise are the "right" ways to fight aging; cosmetics and (heavens forfend) plastic surgery are the "wrong" ways.   Forget the Botox, pick up the boxing gloves.

But it would be disingenuous to insist that my buddies and I are all fighting against death.  Yes, we want to be healthy; yes, we want to live long enough to see our grandchildren graduate high school — even if we don’t reproduce until our fifth decade.  We want to outlive our fathers.   Yet there’s more to all of this effort than keeping ourselves healthy, and it ties in with what was going on with Sean and his barista last week.  We not only want to be fit and youthful, we want to hold on to the world of "limitless possibility" that so many of us associate with our teens and twenties.

So many older men hit on younger women for reasons that have little to do with sex and everything to do with a profound desire to reassure ourselves that we’ve still got "it."  "It" isn’t just physical attractiveness; "It" is the whole masculine package of youth, vitality, charm, sex appeal, and, above all else, possibility. When a 19 year-old flirts with a 39 year-old (as Sean thought the barista was flirting with him), it feels like the world is reassuring the fella that there’s still time, there are still new opportunities, still a chance to be young.  What was so painful to Sean –even as he laughed about it — was that while he imagined the barista saw him in the category of "potential boyfriend", she saw him as "potential step-dad."  Where he wanted to present himself as filled with erotic potential, she apparently saw him as "safe" and "nice" and "perfect for my mom."  He was using  Starbucks gal as a gauge to measure whether he still had "It", and she gave him a very clear answer: No.

I am absolutely convinced that many of my peers (and men older than myself) chase younger women for precisely this reason.  It’s not that women our own age are less attractive, it’s that they lack the culturally-based power to reassure our fragile, aging egos that we are still "younger than our fathers", still hot and hip and filled with potential.  Inspiring romantic or erotic desire in women young enough to be our daughters becomes the most potent of all anti-aging remedies, particularly when we can display our much younger mates to our peers.   By comparison, the famous little red sports car reveals only the size of our pocketbook; attracting a girl barely out of her teens reveals the enduring power of our youthful appeal.  And for those men who are desperately afraid of losing out on possibilities, afraid of closing doors, afraid of the humble acceptance that things have changed forever — then there is nothing, nothing more compelling than significantly younger women.

Women our own age know us.  Really well.  A man my age finds that "lines" don’t work as well on women around 40 as they do on women around 20.  Experience is not the best teacher, but she’s not a bad one either; most single women in our peer group have heard it all before, six times over.  And when we string together sentences filled with eloquent bullshit, our female peers will smell it and call us on it.   While some younger women can also see through our sad little facades, the less experienced she is, the better our chances of deceiving her.  And when we deceive her, we get the chance to see ourselves through her eyes, as we would like to be seen: heroic, decisive, strong, sexy.  Women our own age are less likely to buy what we’re selling without a thorough test drive.  (Yeah, the metaphors are flyin’, but you get the point.)

As I near 40, I find myself constantly quoting the lines from the Donald Justice poem:

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

One of the most important doors to close is the door marked "everlasting youth."  Part of growing up is learning to accept that our choices are finite, that our youth is temporary, that the sexual desirability we may have had (or wished we had had) at 25 is gone, or at the least, significantly changed.  Another door we  must learn to close is the one marked with the unwieldy phrase: "constantly in need of validation and reassurance."  This doesn’t mean we won’t always need affirmation from others, but the kinds of affirmation we need will change.  Whether we have "It" can’t matter anymore; whether we are loving, kind, safe, generous, and reliable will.  The world doesn’t need us to be sexy in middle age.  The world doesn’t need us to be "on the prowl".  The world needs us to close softly the doors to our past, to embrace our aging and changing bodies, to embrace our families (in whatever form those families come) and to embrace the great adventure that only promises to get better and more glorious. But it will only get better if we close those doors. 

And part of closing those doors is loving younger women as our daughters, not as gullible potential partners who offer us the chance to believe in our own immortality just a little longer.

The self-flattering fantasies of the aging man: a buddy gets his bubble burst

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 19, 2006
in Age, Men and Masculinity, Older Men & Younger Women and Sexuality
. 46 Comments

A very rare fifth post on this Thursday, and perhaps my last until Monday — it looks like a busy weekend.   Our first retreat with this year’s All Saints confirmation class runs Saturday through Sunday, and that will keep me very occupied.  At what point will I tire of spending the night on a floor in a sleeping bag, listening to the sounds of snoring boys?  When will I tire of trying to be a vegan while we pump the kids full of hot dogs and pizza?  At the least, I think I need to buy an air mattress and pack some snacks; after all these years, my back muscles are getting a little less resilient.

On the subject of men and aging, a friend of mine told me a wonderful story yesterday.  With his permission, I repeat it.  My buddy "Sean" is 39, just as I am, and single.  He goes to a Starbucks a few miles from here almost every day, and in recent weeks had been smitten with a very attractive, outgoing young barista there.  She’s a Citrus College student and is about 19.   For his (our) age, Sean is a handsome fellow; we originally met at the gym.

In any event, Sean and his young barista had been getting friendlier and friendlier, and Sean had been thinking of asking her out.  (He didn’t tell me this beforehand, knowing my strong feelings about older men/younger women relationships.)  In any event, on Tuesday afternoon, the pretty barista asked Sean a question after taking his order. 

Barista: "Uh, can I ask you a personal question?"  (Sean told me he was "stoked" when he heard this, thinking she might be getting ready to make the first move.)

Sean: "Sure."

Barista:  "Are you single?"

Sean (now sure the gal is interested, and getting very excited): "Yes, sure am!"

Barista: "Well, I know this is weird, but you seem really great and I really want to introduce you to my mother.  She’s really awesome, and I think you two would be perfect together."

Sean confessed this to me, and was more rueful and chagrined than devastated.  I gave him a very hard time, of course, laced with compassion and humor.   Until Tuesday, it hadn’t been driven home to him how younger women (mostly) see guys our age.  But he’s starting to get that we are not as we were, and that’s not only not a bad thing, it’s pretty awesome.  Sean says the barista gave him her mother’s number, and he’s considering calling.  (She’s prepared her mom for the possible call.)  I hope he does at least give it a chance, and I’m hoping that this little episode has ended his fantasy of eternal youth once and for all!

In any event, I’ve heard similar stories before (why do I think this scenario was in some sitcom, once?), but never from someone so close to me.  And since like many 39 year-olds I’ve been ruminating a lot on getting older lately (and writing a lot about age-disparate relationships), this anecdote came along at just the right time.

Older Men, Younger Women #4: a response to Louise

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 9, 2006
in Older Men & Younger Women and Sexuality
. 25 Comments

Carnival of the Feminists #24 is up at F-Words. 

As I wrote in yesterday’s post, I’ve had several e-mails lately from women who find themselves profoundly attracted to older men.  As always, folks google the topic "older men, younger women" and find this post, this post, this post.  I’m going to do a fourth and fifth post on the topic.  This is the fourth.

The first email came from Louise, who wrote:

Logically, everything you said makes absolute perfect sense.  Logically, yes I can recognize that I am (even at 27) a young women "eager for attention and validation from older men” and that it is not him that I really want… "what they (I) really want is to be noticed, to be seen, to be validated as good and worthy and an interesting individual.”  And this man that I’m writing about is indeed much of what you talked about: an older man who respects and cares about me, who isn’t my father or brother but who isn’t a prospective lover, either; in essence “safe” as you put it; never did he make any sort of sexual pass at me or indicate in any way he such a thought ever crossed his mind. 

I admire him for his professional accomplishments, for being respected not only for his expertise but also for his character, for his stress- and time-management skills, for his close-knit family life, for his intelligence, for his discipline, amicable nature, I could go on and on.   I seek his advice often, respect his opinion, and take his praise and encouragement to heart.  He is one of those people I look to for guidance on a number of issues, but also enjoy as a person as well (we talk about current events, trade books, music, etc.)

My dilemma is this: why is it that after everything I’ve told you, and defying all logic, I still have a “school-girl crush” on him?  Why is the line between admiration for “appropriate” reasons and sexual/romantic feelings and fantasies so blurred?  Why do women idealize and idolize older men in this way? Even those that give them no reason to?

Bold emphasis is mine.  That section I’ve highlighted is the crux of the question, as far as I can see.   I’ve spoken elsewhere about the real meaning of crushes on teachers.  But "Louise" is not writing about a teacher, at least not in the formal sense.  What she’s writing about is a profoundly influential cultural narrative: that of the older man who will act as a guide and a mentor as well as a lover.  It’s part of an old, troubling discourse that teaches young women to eroticize knowledge, wisdom, and authority in others rather than developing it within themselves.  In books and movies and popular folklore, young women are often taught that a sexual and romantic relationship with an older man will be a wonderful transaction: she will offer her youth, her sexual desirability, and her love; he will offer wisdom, insight, and guidance as she navigates the tricky waters into adulthood.   It would be hard to deny that that exchange is immensely appealing for some!  Louise describes the line between mentoring and erotic attraction as "blurred", and she’s right to do so.  We live in a culture where an extraordinary variety of forces seek to blur that line!

(In ancient Athens, this "exchange" was a celebrated one. Of course, it was an exchange between two males, where an older man offered wisdom and power and knowledge to a youth who gave his body and his sexual desirability in return.  But the Athenians were wrong about many things, particularly on the subject of women!)

Ultimately, I acknowledge that some age-disparate relationships can be healthy and loving.  As anyone who has been married a long time knows, the terms of the relationship can change.  What was once a relationship characterized by an asymmetric power exchange can, in the best cases, become far more rich and egalitarian over time.  I honor that possibility.

But the fact that some of these "exchanges" "turn out well" doesn’t mitigate the essential problem.  And the essential problem is that the eroticizing of a power imbalance is, I believe, fundamentally unhealthy.  It teaches the lesson that for young women, their sexuality becomes a vehicle not only for their own pleasure but also for accessing those things they feel that they lack in themselves: stability, safety, wisdom.  While sexual experience can be a great teacher, it comes with a high price.  And the price is that it reinforces the notion that for women, it is necessary to offer one’s sexuality in order to get the most desirable of prizes, be they status, wealth, intellectual fulfillment or a deeper understanding of the world.

I say this not to judge the younger women who engage in these age-disparate, transactional love affairs.  My compassion for the older men is less, not because they are men but because they are older.  Eroticizing the teaching experience — in or out of the classroom — is not us at our best!  But there’s no denying that, as Louise and so many others have pointed out, knowing all of this in one’s head doesn’t always mean that the heart and the body will follow.  As Millay said

Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn

In the end, Louise, I believe that particularly when we are young, we are often drawn to others who clearly manifest what we want in ourselves. You list the things you admire about this man, and they seem to be the things you long for as well. Perhaps a man like him could give you these things, perhaps not.  But the harder way, the better way, the ultimately more fulfilling way is to learn from this crush that you want him less than the things he represents and embodies.  And once you are clear on what those things are, go out and get ‘em.  On your own. Easier said than done, I know.