Archive for the 'Older Men & Younger Women' Category

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 07, 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 09, 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.

Does the libido mature? A musing on desire and ageing in response to Fiona

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 08, 2006
in Older Men & Younger Women, Relationships, Sexuality, Youth and Youth ministry
. 51 Comments

I am home from a very happy visit with my family in Northern California.  Despite nursing a mild cold, I did get in some good trail running, got plenty of sleep, plenty of time with my family.  I also got to be among the 72,000 in attendance as my beloved Golden Bears won an impressive victory over the Oregon Ducks last night.   It was my first time in Memorial Stadium since 1986, and it was a joy to be back.

I am pleased to find that such an interesting and civil discussion took place beneath this post.  I always worry when I’m not around to edit or delete offensive comments, but it seems to have gone quite well.

Before wrapping up my Sunday quietly, I want to address two comments by Fiona below last week’s post on Mark Foley and working with teens.

First Fiona asked:

Do you ever worry about being sexually attracted to your students or youth group kids? Don’t you ever think you might be tempted to cross the line? You write as if you are immune to temptation. Just because you don’t act on it doesn’t mean you don’t feel it!!

Then in a follow-up:

Do male youth leaders like him (Hugo) behave because they don’t have sexual desire, or do they have sexual desire but just control it? It makes a difference to me as an 18 year-old, and it was something my friend who was in his youth group always wondered.

A couple of other commenters weighed in, but I want to address this immediately.

I know that I tend to write a great deal about the importance of male self-control.  My emphasis on self-discipline, I realize, suggests that I spend a great deal of time "wrestling with temptation."  I’ve often made statements along the lines of "Virtue is not the absence of desire, but restriction in the presence of desire." 

I realize that this is a problematic line to take as a youth leader.  I make it clear that I am trustworthy and safe, but I don’t explain whether it is a struggle to be so.  While Kip (another commenter) advises I don’t answer the questions Fiona asks, I think it is vital to do so.

No, I have never experienced sexual attraction to the kids in my youth group.  It is with considerable confidence (and a sigh of relief) that I can make that statement! Never, ever, have I experienced physiological or emotional arousal as the result of an interaction with a teen who was under my charge.   I don’t know what to attribute this to, but I suspect both chronological maturity and spiritual conviction play a part in this.   At nearly forty, I can say that quite happily it has been years and years since I have experienced strong attraction to someone that young.

One thing I’ve been blessed with: a consistent track record of being attracted to women my own age.  When I was 16, I thought about my fellow teens.  In my college years, I was attracted to other students.   Unlike some of my peers, when I was in college I had little interest in older women (honestly, I found them intimidating beyond words!)  I certainly lost interest in high school-aged girls not long after leaving Carmel High.

I’ve been getting a lot of email lately (again) about my posts on older men, younger women.  (Here, here, here.) I’ve got some points I’ll probably address in another post on the subject soon.  But I realize that my experience as a teacher and a youth leader is not the only factor that makes me so inherently mistrustful of age-disparate relationships.  There’s another factor at work, and that is my own conviction, rooted in my experience, that emotional maturity always means being most strongly attracted to those in one’s own age group.

When I was in college, I remember having a discussion with a male friend of mine.  "Sean" and I were talking about my friend’s father, who had recently left his mother for a younger woman. Sean was understandably disconsolate.  But one thing he said haunted me for a long time.  I’ll paraphrase:

Dad left mom for someone only a couple of years older than us. (We were 20 or so at this time).  I don’t find women my mom’s age sexy at all.  It seems my dad doesn’t either.  What if I get married, get to be my dad’s age, and find out I’m still attracted to girls in their early twenties?  What if my sex drive doesn’t mature along with the rest of me?

Boy, do I remember when Sean asked that question in bold!  I had no answer for him, beyond a feeble "Man, that would suck."  But it frightened me.  All around me I saw evidence of men in their forties and fifties who were strongly attracted to young women in their teens and early twenties.  It wasn’t just a media phenomenon; in my early years of taking women’s studies classes, I heard countless anecdotes from my female classmates about harassment at the hands of much older men.  It made me angry, it made me cynical, but it also terrified me.  Sean was right about me too: when I was 20, I didn’t find women twice my age to be at all sexually attractive.  What if I felt the same way when I too was 40?   For whatever reason, that fear nagged and nagged at me.

But I was blessed.  And I found that my libido evolved along with the rest of me.  As I aged, my interest in my peers remained the same.  Gradually, girls in their teens lost their appeal.  Women in their 30s, and then older, began to become far more interesting.  By the time I was in my early 30s, this maturation in my own psyche was quite clear to me, even as I was going through a series of unsuccessful relationships.  My behavior was neither feminist nor gentlemanly, but even at my worst, it was always age-appropriate.   Today, I can say that my wife’s beauty awes me.  She’s beautiful in her fourth decade of her life, but I have every expectation that I will find her every bit as lovely in her eighth decade on this planet.

Once I began working with teenagers regularly at All Saints (some seven years ago), I found that my emotional response to "my kids" was, not surprisingly, often intensely paternal.  I’ve wanted to be a father for a few years now, and the teenagers with whom I work today are easily old enough to be my biological children.  And while I adore these teens in the specific, I find that those protective, paternal feelings exist for all boys and girls of similar age.  While I can certainly acknowledge the aesthetic beauty/handsomeness of certain teens, juvenile loveliness strikes no chord in me.  This is not merely due to my very happy marriage, but also due to this strong internal sense that sexual desire is rightly directed towards one’s approximate peers.

When I was in my early teens, one of my first celebrity "crushes" was on Kristy McNichol. (Famous for "Little Darlings", but also for a favorite TV show few of you remember, "Family.") Then in high school and college it was on Jennifer Jason Leigh.  Now, if I were to admit to one at all, it would be (as I’ve posted before) on Mariska Hargitay.  All three are just slightly older than I am.   And while I admire Scarlett Johannsson as an actress, hearing her dubbed "the sexiest woman alive" made me laugh out loud with disbelief — not because she isn’t lovely, but because she seems so damned young to me.

I do not mean to suggest that someone who is 39 (as I am) shouldn’t be attracted to someone who is 29 or 49.  But those ages seem to me — and this may be my own peculiarity — the outer limits of acceptability.   Anything beyond ten years either direction seems, well, odd.  Please understand that I acknowledge that age-disparate relationships can work, as long as the younger partner is genuinely emotionally mature.  A relationship between a 35 year-old and a 15 year-old is immoral, criminal, and indefensible; a relationship between a 55 year-old and a 35 year-old is none of those things. 

Still, I admit that I am perplexed by those who find such disparities to be erotically or emotionally exciting.  For me, the truth is simple: since I hit puberty, I have never experienced sexual attraction to someone old enough to be my mother or young enough to be my daughter.  And I acknowledge that one reason why I am often so hard on men who do experience that attraction to much younger women is because I can’t empathize with it, not even for a moment.   I try and "get it", and I just can’t.  It makes me instinctively angry, both on behalf of the girls who are all too often horrified by inappropriate sexual attention and on behalf of those "older" women who are forced to worry obsessively about losing their sex appeal as a consequence.

I began this post intending to make an emphatic response to the awkward but important question that Fiona posed.  I realize I’ve gone off on quite a tangent, and for that I apologize.  But as I started to write, I thought about what Sean had asked all those years ago.  I don’t know whether or not his life has turned out as mine has.   For his sake, and the sake of the women who love him, I hope it has. 

It is possible that my experience that the objects of my desire age as I age is just a quirk of my personality.  It certainly hasn’t been the result of any conscious effort on my part (and my regular readers know I am quick to sing the praises of conscious effort!).  But I can’t help but think that "my way" is the fundamentally healthier way.  It just seems to me that a great deal of heartache and exploitation could be avoided if we could all just match our libidos to our approximate peer group!  Or am I wrong?

Reprint: Daughters and Fathers, Girls and Men

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 16, 2006
in Affection, Family, Men's Movement, Older Men & Younger Women, Sexuality and Youth
. 3 Comments

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28.  Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

I’m not in the habit of quoting from advice columns.  Still, I do read them regularly, and Carolyn Hax of "Tell Me About It" is perhaps my favorite these days.  I was struck by this one that appeared in today’s Times, but which I can only find online here:

Dear Carolyn: I’m a 15-year-old girl and have a twin brother. I really love my Dad, but he has little interest in doing things with me. He spends lots of time with my brother every weekend, taking him to ballgames and playing golf and tennis with him, and they go on camping trips in the summer, but he never invites me. I recently got up the courage to tell him that I would sometimes like to be included, but he said that a father and son need bonding time, and that I should be spending more "mother/daughter" time with my mother.

I’m really more interested in doing the kinds of things my Dad and brother do together, and my mother is not interested in them. And we do spend plenty of "mother/daughter" time anyway. He is a good father, and I don’t think he understands how much this hurts. My brother has all kinds of souvenirs in our room from the things they have done together, which are a constant reminder to me. How can I make my Dad understand that spending time together is just as important to me as it is to my brother? — Left Out

Hax doesn’t say it, so I will:  this man needs to get in touch with the wonderful Dads and Daughters.  Pronto.

In my dual roles as gender-studies professor and youth leader, I’m a great advocate of adult men (fathers and others) spending time with boys.   Here is where I am in complete agreement with the Men’s Rights Advocates; indeed, a belief in the importance of good fathers and strong adult male mentors in boys’ lives is one of the few points that can unite the entire men’s movement.  "Left Out" has a father who seems to have embraced that part of his job, her dad even uses the phrase "bonding time" to describe what he and his son are doing together.   The assumption, which "Left Out" rejects, is that this kind of bonding is most important between parents and their children of the same sex.

To some extent, this attitude carries over into youth group work.  I’ve often worried that I’m being unfair in the amount of time and availability I have for the guys at All Saints compared to their female peers.  For example, I’m willing to give my cell phone number out to any boy who asks for it.  (And I’ve had to stress, many a time, that they are NOT to call after 9:00PM, a point some have a hard time grasping!) I’ve got a couple of guys with whom I meet (alone) semi-regularly for lunch or coffee.  Except in emergencies, I don’t give that number out to girls, nor do I meet with them alone.  Some of this is in keeping with church policy, some of this a result of boundaries that I have in place because they just seem to "make sense."

As I’ve written before, we live in a culture that, with some justification, distrusts adult men who want to spend time with adolescent girls.  (I suppose in the wake of recent scandals, we are beginning to distrust men who want to spend time with any child, regardless of sex.)  As a youth leader, it’s easy for me to justify spending more time with the boys because, I sometimes assume, they are more in need of a male role model than their female counterparts.  I know I’m sometimes guilty of the very kind of gender essentialism that "Left Out" rejects when she writes:  I’m really more interested in doing the kinds of things my Dad and brother do together..

Spending time with youth can’t be a zero-sum game — we can’t assume that just because boys desperately need male role models that young girls don’t.   Somehow, we in youth work have to find a way to balance the need for public accountability and safety with the very important goal of having safe, strong, loving men play active roles in the lives of girls.

Obviously, youth leaders and fathers have different roles in the lives of young people.   No matter how devoted we in youth work are, we are no substitute for good and loving parents.  But just like fathers and mothers, we have an obligation to nurture and care for all of our kids, not just those who share our sex.  In a world where adult men are regularly viewed as predatory or odd for wanting to work with young folks of any gender, the justification for keeping the "men with the boys" and the "women with the girls" may be difficult to sustain.  I’m not saying that we ought to treat boys and girls identically.  Male youth leaders should, obviously,  still sleep in the boys’ cabin, not with the girls. (Though in a church that has more than one gay male youth leader, that policy has made at least one parent I know rather uncomfortable!)  But we cannot allow our fears to outweigh our responsibility to care for all of our children, and we must be careful to avoid a gender essentialism that minimizes the importance of fathers and other adult men in the lives of young women.

Originally published April 21, 2005

A surge of interest in older men, younger women, and an announcement about going on hiatus

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 04, 2006
in Older Men & Younger Women and Sexuality
. 8 Comments

For some reason, there’s been an absolute explosion since last Saturday in the number of hits to this blog looking for info on "older men and younger women."  These remain my most popular posts ever by far — I’m averaging 15-20 hits every hour of every day this week from sites like Google Australia and Yahoo in France, all eager to read more on this subject.  I note that I now have the #1 and #2 ranked sites on Google USA for that search query!  Searchers may not like what they find, but once again, here are my three posts on the topic:   

Some reflections on older men, younger women and integrity

More on older men and younger women, a long response to "Kate"

One last post on older men, younger women: a reply to "Emily"

Any theories as to why this topic — always a popular one — has suddenly become even more popular with so many folks?

And this blog is now going on a hiatus for the next three weeks.  The fall semester starts on August 28, and regular blogging will resume on that day.  Until then, starting Monday, I’ll be putting up some old posts (from 2004 and 2005) as "reprints."  I’ll do those a couple of times per week.

I am going to spend this time off relaxing and doing some other kinds of writing.  I will be near my computer at least part of the time, but I may be a bit slower than usual about returning emails.

To all my new and regular readers, thanks so much!

UPDATE:  Darn, I am down to 2nd and 3rd on Google.  How did that ranking change so fast?

“Ranking the girls”: a note on teaching and an ugly side of homosociality

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 03, 2006
in Older Men & Younger Women, Pasadena City College, Sexuality and Teaching
. 68 Comments

Not a lot of time for posting today, I am busy grading and resting.

Yesterday on campus, I ran into a colleague I hadn’t seen in several years.  "Max" and I were hired around the same time as adjuncts in the early 1990s; I eventually was lucky enough to get a full-time job.  Max (who taught sociology and psychology) was not.  He taught at PCC for a number of  years, and then gave up his dreams of teaching and went into the business world.  He told me yesterday, as we greeted each other, that he’s back to "adjuncting" again — his business success has allowed him to return to his original passion of college teaching, even if only part-time. He’s maybe a decade and a half older than I am, somewhere (I think) in his mid-fifties.

I never saw Max teach.  But I vividly remember a discussion we had close to ten years ago (’late ‘96 or early ‘97), not long before he left the college.   He was in the faculty lounge one morning, going over his class roster.  He stood up excitedly when I walked in: "Hey Hugo, look at what I’m doing!"  I came over, and saw that he had placed numbers next to the names of many of his students.  My heart sank; I thought Max was going to share with me some new and complex grading theory that would be very tedious to have to listen to. 

But it wasn’t about grading: "Hugo, I’ve ranked all the girls in all my classes!"

I was stunned, staring at the sheet.  He’d ranked them two ways.  One, "ordinally", from 1 (the "hottest" in his estimation) up to about #20 (there were that many women in the class).  Then, he’d put a second number (in a different color pen) next to the first number.  This reflected, he explained, where the girls stood on the classic 1-10 "objective" scale.  His #1 in the class, therefore, ranked as an 8.75. 

I was so bewildered, all I could think to ask was "Max, how long did this take you?" 

Max told me he did this with every class each semester.  It took him a few weeks to make decisions, he explained.  "I can’t make a final decision on where they rank until I see them in different outfits; it’s usually not until the midterm week that I am sure of what numbers they deserve. But hey, Hugo, you should try it — it’s objective and subjective grading at the same time!"  And with that, I got a slap on the back and off he went.

I really agonized for a while about confronting Max about this.  The temptation to "let it go" was overwhelming.  I was 29, still untenured (though already full-time).  I was certainly still quite tentative in my commitment to challenging older men.  But after running Max’s story by a friend of mine who was an active feminist (and not on campus), I summoned up the courage to confront him.  Of course, it didn’t go well.

I invited Max into my office, and I told him how uncomfortable I was with what he had showed me.  I used words like "sexist" and "unprofessional".  Max became very indignant.  "This is bullshit, Hugo.  I’m only doing on paper what every man does in his head.  I’m honest about it — but you, you’re a fucking self-righteous fraud!"  And he stomped off.  Later, he came up and apologized for his language , but not for his "ranking system."  And having said my peace, I let it drop.  When I saw Max yesterday, I instantly flashed back to our fight over his "rankings".  Honestly, I’m surprised I hadn’t remembered it earlier to blog about it before.

This story ties in nicely with the theme of yesterday’s post about feminist men and assertiveness.  It also dovetails with the vital issue of accountability in fantasy as well as in action.  (I wrote a long post about sexual fantasy and integrity in March.)  And in that context, I remember that Max had been right about one thing: many men do in their minds what he was doing on paper — "ranking" their students, colleagues, and acquaintances on their sexual desirability.  He may have been more brazen than many, but he was hardly unique.

As a teenager, I learned that "ranking" girls was one of the chief pastimes of my peers when we were in a single-sex group.  And I’ll be the first to admit that in those years, I happily participated.  We had long debates about whether "Cindy" or "Lisa" was the hottest girl in Mr. Fletcher’s biology class.  And of course, even at that age, I figured out the desperately obvious: the real pleasure in sharing these rankings lay in the fact that they acted like glue to cement male friendships.  I was shy and insecure and eager to make friends with guys, and at that age, more than willing to use sexual objectification as a tool to bring me closer to them. Homosociality in action indeed!

It was telling to me that Max was so eager to share his ranking system. It wasn’t enough for him to establish "control and power" over the women in his classes by secretly evaluating them on their looks without their knowledge.  Whatever pleasure that brought him was insufficient — he needed to share his efforts with another man.  I suspect that he hoped I would react with pleasure.  He knew that he and I shared some of the same female students, and that perhaps we could spend a few happy minutes together discussing and rating their physical attributes.  And to be candid, for a split second, the idea did seem appealing to me.  I’m grateful indeed that for me, the charm of his "system" vanished so fast!

Obviously, I don’t rank my students this way, even in my mind.  It’s unethical, it’s anti-feminist, it’s immoral, you-name-it.  As a married Christian feminist twice the age of my students, to do so would be antithetical to everything I profess.  But I still run into men (including some of my current colleagues) who from time to time are eager to "bond" over a shared discussion of the relative and objective attractiveness of their students, co-workers, or simply women passing by.  Sometimes, the temptation to "get along and go along" still kicks in for me, though I resist it.  The lure is not in the power over women, or the excitement of evaluating women who would no doubt not give the likes of us a second glance.  The lure — the terrible, destructive lure — is that in sharing fantasies and "rankings" men can become closer, recreating as adults the "boys only" clubs of their childhoods.

Max is back on campus. (And his real name, obviously, ain’t "Max.")  And I’m wondering whether to bring up the ranking system again, or leave it be.  He’s not violating an official college ordinance, after all.  Maybe what he’s doing is harmless.  But from the perspective of his students, the idea of him continuing on with his "system" bothers me still.  I’m not yet sure what, if anything, I’m going to do.

A long post on John Derbyshire, adolescent sexuality, and “salad days” — UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 02, 2005
in Older Men & Younger Women, Relationships and Sexuality
. 51 Comments

I’m really on a Dar Williams kick this morning.

Both Amanda and Lauren* take issue with the stunning comments of National Review columnist John Derbyshire on the subject of women, age, and sexual attractiveness:

Did I buy, or browse, a copy of the November 17 GQ, in order to get a look at Jennifer Aniston’s bristols?** No, I didn’t. While I have no doubt that Ms. Aniston is a paragon of charm, wit, and intelligence, she is also 36 years old. Even with the strenuous body-hardening exercise routines now compulsory for movie stars, at age 36 the forces of nature have won out over the view-worthiness of the unsupported female bust.

It is, in fact, a sad truth about human life that beyond our salad days, very few of us are interesting to look at in the buff. Added to that sadness is the very unfair truth that a woman’s salad days are shorter than a man’s — really, in this precise context, only from about 15 to 20.

Yikes.  First off, I wish I were the first (one of Amanda’s commenters, Lubbock Troll beats me to it) to point out that Derbyshire misuses the notion  of "salad days."  While today, folks associate the phrase with youth and vitality, the original line is from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: "My salad days,/When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,/To say as I said then".   Salad, for Shakespeare, meant "unripe", "immature", literally and figuratively "green".  It is not a phrase designed to recall a happy youth at the pinnacle of beauty, but a reminder that (thank God), the young and the "green" mature and grow riper and wiser.

But it’s my baby brother who’s the Shakespeare scholar.

Lauren* and Amanda and their commenters skewer Derbyshire from a variety of angles, and almost all of the criticisms are richly deserved.  There is much that he says in those two short paragraphs that is objectionable.  First off, since it’s clear he means "salad days" in the modern sense as referring to the peak of a young woman’s attractiveness, it’s vital that we acknowledge that he does speak for all too many contemporary men who do fetishize teenage girls.   I’m told that the most popular term on internet porn search engines is "teen", and that "schoolgirl" isn’t far behind.  The popularity of the "Barely Legal" niche of erotica is undeniable — Larry Flynt sells a very successful porn mag with that title.  And of course, as with porn, so with the broader culture that has little problem depicting teenage girls as particularly desirable.

I’m not going to dispute that many men — including those of Derbyshire’s age (he’s in his forties) — are sexually attracted to adolescent girls.  What I will dispute is that that is purely a function of biology.  From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes little sense.  Most of the pornography in the "barely legal" genre seems to emphasize that "their girls" are barely developed.  It’s not as if these young women have the wide hips that symbolize fertility!  Furthermore, as plenty of other commenters have pointed out, our cultural obsession with adolescent girls comes along with a fetishization of hairlessness.  More and more young women, inspired by porn, are "going Brazilian" (removing all pubic hair, sometimes permanently).   Folks, hairlessness has zero connection to reproductivity; indeed, it symbolized lack of maturity, girlishness, childhood. 

The contemporary male fascination with the pubescent and the hairless is not defensible on evolutionary grounds.  It’s all too obviously, as I’ve pointed out in my many prior posts about older men and younger women, about power.   Men who are threatened by adult women with adult needs, adult desires, and adult voices will invariably direct their sexual energy towards the young, the vulnerable, the "green", the safe.  The obsession with the still-developing adolescent (remember, Derbyshire includes fifteen year-olds) is about what Barbara Ehrenreich calls the male "flight from responsibility."  What is appealing about the young and the virginal is not firm flesh, it’s a fragile and still-unformed sense of self that an older man imagines he can mold.   The virginal and the young are "unspoiled", not yet "bitter" from bad experiences with men.  Older men also eroticize youth because they long to be the first — and thus safe from unflattering comparisons to a woman’s previous lovers.  The obsession with virginity and youth is inextricably linked not only to fear of adult women and the challenges they offer, but also to a profound insecurity.

Reading Derbyshire, I wonder how many actual teenage girls he really knows.  Between teaching confirmation classes and leading Wednesday night youth groups these past six years, I’ve spent a heck of a lot of time with a heck of a lot of high school girls.  Every week, I’m surrounded by 14, 15, 16, and 17 year-olds.  These girls are real people — not the caricatures of adolescence portrayed on MTV and in the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogues.  Most of "my girls" are not poised.  They are in varying stages of adolescence, but all are still, in a very real sense, "green".  Don’t get me wrong: I love these girls with all of my heart, just as I love their brothers.  I’m not yet a biological father — in a very real sense, these are my kids.   

As I spend time with these girls, I’m mystified as to how any adult man could respond to them sexually.  It’s not that I’m repressing some forbidden desire!  Nor is it because I am now happily married to a wife to whom I’m powerfully drawn.  I worked with teens when I was single, and when I was going through a painful divorce.  At no time did I find myself responding sexually — not even for one half-second — to a single one of my teens.  I’ve built a legacy of credibility on this blog by sharing a lot about myself, so I think I can say this and be believed.  And frankly, I’m confident that the other male youth leaders with whom I’ve worked are also absolutely "safe" in this regard. When I look at "my girls", I see teens — not children any longer, but not adults yet.  And I cannot eroticize the young, the developing, and the vulnerable.  I know these kids far too well for that.   In my experience, when you spend quality time with teenagers, listening to them and interacting with them and supporting them and praying for them, it’s impossible to respond to them sexually.   Honestly, a whole lot of men might benefit from spending MORE time (not less) around teenagers.  It might help them separate their powerful and natural desire to protect and nurture from their sexual desires.  It’s easier to objectify what you don’t know and don’t love!

So Derbyshire’s commentary makes me sad. As an adult man, I disagree with him on a personal level about women, age, and desirability.   As a feminist, I’m frustrated by the great number of men who do agree with Derbyshire.  I don’t see their sexual attraction to teen girls as based on biology, but on fear.  Fear of adult women, fear of egalitarian relationships, fear of personal transformation.  Only those who are confident enough to challenge us can help us grow; when we men eroticize the young, the tentative, and the innocent we are really eroticizing our own reluctance to transform!  And that’s heartbreaking.  So many people lose in this scenario!  Adult ("older") women are seen as "past their expiration date" and suffer from a sense of lost sexual desirability.  Teenage girls (who are still "green" in the real sense of "salad days") are sexualized and exploited by older men, forced to become mistrustful of most adult males and forced to deal with their own sexuality far too early.  And men?  Men miss the opportunity to match their libidos and their hearts.  They miss the chance to grow that only relationship with an equal can offer.

All that said, there’s one thing about Lauren*s post that upset me.  Commenters at both sites draw attention to Derbyshire’s looks (Lauren* even posts a picture). Several folks make fun of the fact that, well, John Derbyshire is not a conventionally handsome man.  The implication is that his comments about women’s looks are particularly inappropriate, presumably because the unattractive have even less right to make sexist and degrading remarks.  But the problem lies in the reverse implication: if Derbyshire were strikingly good-looking, would that mitigate the offensiveness of his words?  Do handsome older men have a special right to objectify teens that their homelier peers do not?  A forty-something man responding sexually to a fifteen year-old (while dismissing the charms of a thirty-six year old woman) is always offensive, whether that man looks like Brad Pitt or John Derbyshire.   

Look, I understand the desire to make fun of one’s opponents.  I understand the temptation to point out the stunning gall of an unattractive older man finding Jennifer Aniston insufficiently desirable because of her age.  But really folks, we can do better than that!  I’ve never been a "fight fire with fire" kind of pro-feminist.  I’m not above a little snarkiness, but I think that posting the Derbyshire picture sets a dangerous precedent.  It reminds me too much of how misogynists often posted pics of Andrea Dworkin and connected her presumed homeliness to her radical feminism.  I didn’t like that.  And I don’t like it done to John Derbyshire.

*Apologetic Update:  In my first version of this post, I attributed the Feministe post to Jill, not Lauren.  Such a confusion is an excellent way to annoy everyone and embarrass oneself, so mea culpas all ’round and noodle lashings for the scribe.

Second Update:  In truth, as I read the comments of those defending the use of the photo of Derbyshire, part of me is reactive because, frankly, I worry about the same thing being done to me.  Like lots of bloggers, I have plenty of pictures of myself up and about on the blog — some more flattering than others.  Several MRA blogs still use that darned see-saw picture of me.  I realize I could avoid this by not having any public photos available on the blog, but I do think pictures help us  to "flesh out" the person whose work we’re reading.  But it hurt when it was done to me.  And even more honestly, though this will sound self-serving, it also bothers me when some folks on the professor rating sites have said that my looks factor into my generally laudatory teacher ratings.  So for all these reasons, I’m oddly protective of Derbyshire — on this issue alone…

One last post on older men, younger women: a reply to “Emily”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 28, 2005
in Older Men & Younger Women, Relationships and Sexuality
. 13 Comments

I do pay attention to what search terms folks use to find this site.  Over the past six months, one theme has continued to bring dozens and dozens of folks here every single day:  "older men, younger women."   Perhaps these searchers hope to find pornographic images, but I suspect that most of them are looking for more information and discussion.

Here are my two main posts on the subject:

Older Men, Younger Women, and Integrity

More on Older Men, Younger Women, a long response to Kate

As with "Kate", I fairly regularly get e-mails asking for advice.  This one arrived today:

Hi i noticed u helped out "Kate" well i have a similar problem but not quite the same, i posted a comment on the bottom of "Kate’s" problem but here it is again exactly how i wrote it on comments page:

hey i had an un-fortunate relationship with a man of 52 when i was only 15 (UK by the way) it turn into a sexual relationship before i hit 16, all of this happened without my parents knowing, but then they found out and it went to court as a pedophile case, it was then drummed into me how much of a b*****d this man was so i ended up hating him for having sex with me before it was legal. despite all this i thought i was in love with him at the time that’s why i did it. i know now that it was just infatuation. but my problem now is ever since this happened i have found myself attracted to the much older man (being 40’s early 50’s) i don’t know why and it may be just lust but can someone please give me some advice, I’m 17 now by the way, i don’t think I’m abnormal but i just would like to hear someone elses opinion.

i don’t even know if i was meant to send it to you but the website wasn’t very clear so i just saw an e-mail address an thought I’d send it.
thank you for your time
"Emily"

First off, let me be very clear that I am a college history and gender studies professor, not a licensed psychologist.  I think most folks are clear on this, and I’m sure "Emily" is too, but it bears repeating.  At the same time, I don’t want to blow off what I assume is a sincere appeal for help, so I’ll reply in this public forum.

Second off:  It’s almost universally accepted that our early experiences help shape our adolescent and adult desires.  It’s not at all uncommon for victims of sexual abuse (which in a legal and moral and spiritual sense, Emily surely is) to report having enjoyed certain aspects of the abuse.  Mutual pleasure, as I’ve argued before, doesn’t mitigate the harm done to the victim of the abuse.  Indeed, it may even compound the problem, as a survivor of molestation who experienced some enjoyment during the abuse may be more likely to assign herself responsibility for what happened to her.

In Emily’s case, she finds herself attracted to men who meet the profile of her abuser.  This is also perfectly understandable.    If she wants reassurance that she is "normal" and "okay", I see no reason not to give her that.  Given her experiences, her emotional and physical desires make sense, and she certainly ought not to experience shame or guilt as a consequence.  But desires are not a justification for action!  I believe that 17 is old enough for legal consent in the UK, but it doesn’t mean that Emily is equipped to handle another sexual or romantic relationship with a man two or three decades her senior.   Emily may imagine that at 17 (as opposed to 15) she is more mature, more experienced, and better prepared for such a relationship.  She may even (and I say "may") fantasize that she can heal the damage done by her previous lover if she can have a successful relationship with a man of similar age to her abuser.  She wouldn’t be the first survivor of abuse to have such a fantasy; therapists’ offices are filled with women and men who continually re-enact (invariably unhappily) these childhood traumas.

I’m going to ask Emily (and anyone else in her position) to reread the advice I gave to "Kate" last May, particularly the bit about doing what is so difficult to do in adolescence: wait.  And I’m going to say this as well:

Any man in his thirties, forties, or above who has a sexual relationship with an adolescent girl is a criminal.  Now, that may not always be true legally, but in my book, it’s always true spiritually and morally.   A man in his forties might say of Emily, "She’s of legal age" (which she is in the UK), "and she knows what she wants; it’s absurd to say I’m a criminal for giving her what she wants.  What about Emily’s agency?"  Emily’s own letter makes it clear that she badly misjudged her abuser when she was 15, and though she might like to believe otherwise, it’s unlikely that she has become a substantially wiser and more effective judge of character in the space of two years.  Frankly, as an adult who works with teens, I don’t trust their desires, knowing how volatile they are.  A good man, a kind man, a "together" man in the age range that Emily finds attractive will set clear and healthy boundaries with her.  Her desires do not give him permission to engage with her in what will be, I’m convinced, a sad and painful re-enactment of her earlier abuse.

Male sexual fantasy — particularly in pornography — is filled with narratives of seductive Lolita figures who captivate and seduce much older men.  The fantasy goes like this:  perfectly nice and respectable thirty or forty-something man encounters niece/daughter of friend/student/what-have you, an apparently virginal girl in her teens.  In these fantasy scenarios, played out in countless erotic short stories and even in what passes for serious literature, it is always the adolescent girl who pursues the initially reluctant older man.  He generally makes some protestations, trying to convince his pursuer that she’s too young, that it isn’t right, but she persists and invariably gets her way.   The intensity of the girl’s desire gives the adult man in the story (and by proxy, the male reader) permission to cross the line drawn by both the state and common sense.   The story usually ends happily (Nabokov excepted), with the girl enthusiastically grateful for her sexual awakening and the man thrilled with this guilt-free fantasy!

Barf.  Seriously, barf.  The fact that so many men (and not a few young women) find compelling elements in this fantasy doesn’t make it okay to act upon.    Girls like Emily may look "grown-up", they may claim to be active sexual agents and not passive victims, but for all their apparent maturity and aggression they are still girls, girls who ought to arouse a paternal and protective response in any man biologically old enough to be their father!  While Emily might long for an older man, I can assure her that any man in his thirties, forties, or fifties who takes her to bed when she is still a teen is not himself emotionally or spiritually capable of offering her anything of enduring value.  Indeed, though she may plead her own agency to the high heavens, he is still a predator, even if he deludes himself into believing that it was he who was pursued.

I think I’ve said my peace on this subject.  Emily, best of luck.  I’ll pray for you.

A note to Scarlett about older men, younger women (again)

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 16, 2005
in Feminism, Marriage, Older Men & Younger Women, Relationships and Sexuality
. 34 Comments

It was a busy morning, and I had no time for a post.

I got a lengthy email from a woman named Scarlett today, and it revisits some of the issues from the first and second posts on "older men, younger women."  Honestly, I get more e-mail about this topic than anything else I’ve posted on, save for men’s rights.  Here’s part of what Scarlett had to say:

I’m 21.  I have always been attracted to older men.

It seems that each time I start a new relationship with an older man, I am
looking for stability more than anything.  A man who wants to settle down and is finished with his partying days.  A highly intelligent, professional man that is financially secure.  Someone who I could see myself raising children with.

Someone who would undoubtedly be able to provide for a family, both
emotionally and financially.  Someone who has done a lot of living.  I have
lived through a lot in my short life, and I have a very hard time relating (and this goes both ways) to ANY person (young OR old) that has had the perfect ‘white picket fence’ life.  Naivety in a partner (or friend) is just not an option for me.  Not to mention I’m simply just not physically attracted to men my own age.  It’s always been that way for as long as I can remember.  In third grade, puberty hit - hard and fast.  I wasn’t afraid of cooties, I was too busy being attracted to my male teachers.   

I’m not saying that I’m this extremely mature woman and I have nothing left to learn or that I’m more attractive or better than anyone else in any age group.  I just want to have a family unlike the one that I knew while growing up. 

I’ve tried dating younger guys and sex seemed to be the only thing that we
could productively do together.  It just seems to be a fact in my life.

It’s not as if I’m wandering around, saying to myself "oh, I like old rich guys, they are like soooo hot"  and have no real basis for feeling the way I do.  I know what I want from life…

Women like Scarlett and Kate are a chief reason why I modified my position between the first and the second posts on the subject of older men and younger women.  Obviously, age discrepant relationships do have their merits (as long as we aren’t talking about minors and adults), and Scarlett has made one of them clear right here: older men can offer a kind of stability and experience (financial, spiritual, emotional, sexual) that her peers generally cannot.  We are quick to assume (armchair psychologists that we all are) that the Kates and Scarletts of the world are hungry for father figures.  Surely that’s true for many young women who are drawn to older men, but it would be a crude misrepresentation to say that some sort of Electra complex drives them all. 

Part of the problem that Scarlett points out is the "maturity gap", in which we see young women developing far more rapidly than their brothers.  Surely we all recognize that we live in a culture that encourages far too many young men to live in a state of prolonged adolescence well into their twenties and thirties!   But this is hardly biologically inevitable.  Indeed, just a couple of generations ago, we saw young men demonstrate responsibility and commitment on a massive scale.  At the end of World War Two, men of 19, 20, and 21 came home from war, married, and had children.  They did so by the millions.   The classic example, of course, is that of George H.W. Bush.   A combat-tested Navy pilot in his teens, he was but 22 — and married — when our current president was born in 1946.  Compare him to his son, who didn’t become a father until he was 35.  I have no intention of disparaging our current president, but his "growth trajectory" (like my own, thanks) was  slow indeed compared to that of an earlier generation of men!  The relative affluence of our culture, and the widespread availability of sex outside of marriage have reduced the appeal of marriage and maturity for young men enormously.

(Parenthetical paragraph:  whenever I talk about the baby boom in my gender classes,and talk about the readiness of so many millions of young veterans to marry and have children, the eyes of half the girls in the class light up.  No wonder we all love World War Two movies; we love seeing a generation of very young men who were willing to make commitments - and keep them!)

Of course there are some fellows in their late teens and twenties today who very much want to get married.   But a great many of them seem to be members of  conservative religious groups.  This might work out well for a young equally religious gal, but what about a Scarlett, who isn’t (apparently) a devout Christian waiting for her wedding night to surrender her virginity?  I recall the plight of a young woman I knew at Fuller Seminary, who complained that all the young secular men she dated just wanted sex without strings and the Christian guys she knew all seemed eager to have a "pastor’s wife" who wouldn’t have sex until after marriage.  My friend wanted a committed, monogamous relationship open to marriage, but one that would be sexual beforehand.  (Yes, Virginia, folks at Fuller Seminary have pre-marital sex.)   As a liberal Christian, my friend didn’t like the choices she had; neither libertines nor traditionalists had much appeal.  (She was not attracted to older men, either, so she was in a bit of a pickle.)

Given this culture of young male immaturity (and to be fair, a great many young women today reject responsibility with enthusiasm), where else can a Scarlett look save to older men?  I asked Kate to "wait" in my previous post on this subject, but Kate is 17.  Scarlett is 21, and there’s a world of difference in those four years.  While some older men she will encounter may have a sexually predatory agenda, and others may be looking for someone who won’t "call them on their crap", some may indeed be ready and willing to give her what she needs in every sense and receive from her what she has to offer.   And what else can I do but wish her the best?

More on older men and younger women, a long response to “Kate”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 18, 2005
in Older Men & Younger Women and Sexuality
. 140 Comments

I got a very interesting e-mail last week from a young woman whom I’ll call "Kate" (not her real name):

I am 17 years old…and I googled "Older Men, Younger Women" because I am attracted to older men and I feel alone in my peer group (despite my many good friends and wonderful family). I was thankful to find your post. So many things you touched on are things that I feel. But I also felt abnormal and ridiculous for having the feelings I do. Although I am young, I suppose am one of those girls you described, "…those who appear outwardly fully adult may still be in need of our care and protection." I am in every way mature. I feel more comfortable with adults than I do with my own peers thus the need for more attention from the more mature male. Having said that, I want you to know, I am a good girl. I know right from wrong…and these attractions I have for older men always stay platonic—-mostly because I’m attracted to the men who are safe. But sometimes it pains me because I feel like I’m building such awesome relationships that when I become legal, or more eligible to date older men, they won’t see me like that. At that point, I get upset and I feel so rejected before anything even began. This usually happens in the school atmosphere because there are many male teachers. So many of them seem wonderful because of the teenage boy scum I go to school with. You touched on that too–the obvious attraction girls have because the older male is (hopefully) well spoken and has a wealth of knowledge and experience…verses the teenage male who is not any of those things.

I hope this e-mail makes sense…it’s so late and I am confused by my feelings. My mother knows how I feel about older men–and she said she expected it because I am so mature mentally, emotionally and yes…physically. I want to be seen and appreciated by men…and for the most part I am–and I have been for a long time. It is getting to the point, however, when I want things to progress and they just can’t. Then I don’t know how to behave and I just want to crawl out of the hole they call high school and just exist in this world without my age tattooed on my forehead.
Anyway, as much as your post made me feel slightly exposed, it was comforting because you seem to know the inner-working of the young female mind. So, thank you for that. And if you could extend some advice or something, I would appreciate it. I apologize if this is scatter brained…again, it’s late, and I’m a bit nervous e-mailing someone and pouring out all these intimate details—but I wouldn’t have done it if I thought couldn’t help me sort things out a bit.

I asked Kate if I could respond via a post, and I’m afraid I haven’t heard back from her.  Given that her e-mail contains nothing that could identify her, I’m going to assume it’s okay to respond publicly.

I just checked on Google, and this post is the #8 ranked site for the query "older men, younger women."  Who knew?

Kate’s e-mail really challenged me.  In that January post, I laid out what I believe is a fairly compelling argument for older men to avoid romantic and sexual relationships with much younger women.  I was fairly clear that I wasn’t worried about women in their thirties dating men in their fifties; I was more concerned about young women in their late teens and early twenties dating men eight or more years older than themselves. 

But yet, where does that caution leave the Kates of the world?  If I can take Kate at her word, she’s an unusually mature teenager.  She’s still got plenty of growing up to do, as even the most sophisticated of youth do, but she’s probably right when she says that she’s significantly ahead of many of her peers.  Obviously, she’s still a minor, and she recognizes that she’s not yet "legal".  But next year, when she’s 18?  What then?  If all older men scrupulously avoid dating young women Kate’s age, whom is Kate supposed to date who meets her intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and yes, physical needs? I don’t think all teenage boys are "scum", mind you.  (My men’s rights advocate critics might suspect that I harbor that conviction).  But I’m aware that many young women, like Kate, mature at a much faster rate than their male peers.  It’s going to be difficult for her to find a real equal among young men her age, and I’d be giving her unrealistic advice if I told her that there were large numbers of mature, sensible, emotionally grounded and wise 18 year-old men running around.  That doesn’t mean that such fellas don’t exist, just that they aren’t plentiful!

I think there’s a colossal difference between an 18 year-old woman dating, say, a 30-something man she met at church or through friends and dating a 30-something teacher.  Leaving aside the question of professional ethics (something that the teacher ought never leave aside), a relationship that begins with an obvious asymmetry in terms of direct power is, I think, almost always a profoundly unhealthy experience for both parties involved.   But if Kate (once she’s 18) wants to date an older man who has no direct responsibility for her academic development or emotional well-being, what then?  Does an age gap of ten, twelve, even twenty years or more inherently constitute an unhealthily asymmetrical relationship in terms of power?  Frankly, I think it depends entirely on the two people involved, simply because I know too well just how different  18 year-olds (and some 35 year-olds, for that matter) are from each other.  A hard and fast rule, as it were, simply won’t suffice.

Here’s a section of what I wrote in January:
If I were to flirt back, or if I were to date a student, I am convinced I would send a devastating message about  what older men "really" want.   Young women need older men in their lives who will respect and care about them, who aren’t their fathers or brothers but who aren’t prospective lovers, either.  They need to know that they bring more to the table than their sexuality.  They need to be seen as complete human beings.  Paradoxically, seeing young women as complete human beings means that in actions, words, and yes, even in thought, older men cannot see them as objects of sexual desire.  That doesn’t mean that we (older guys) shouldn’t acknowledge that younger women are sexual creatures.  But we must (and the burden is on us alone here, fellas) love them with radical unselfishness,and that requires that we ourselves always refrain from sexualizing them. 

I still stand by that.  But I wrote those words not just as a man in his late thirties, but as a teacher and a youth worker.  I see teenagers and young adults through the eyes of my profession and my avocation.  I’ve known for years that I was called to work with young people, and as a result, I value my role as a mentor and (sometimes) a "father figure".  In my work as a professor and church group leader, it’s absolutely vital that I never, ever, sexualize the young women with whom I work.  It’s essential that I keep firm boundaries in place, the kind that allow young people to trust me.

But in my customary enthusiasm, I took a code of ethics that applies to me personally (and one I had to grow into) and offered it up as a standard for all "older men."  Obviously, most men my age don’t do the work I do.  Most men in their thirties and forties don’t spend both their days (and often, their nights and weekends) with teenagers and young adults to whom they aren’t related.  And I’m not sure it’s reasonable to ask all men to refrain from exploring romantic relationships with women who are significantly younger.  And Kate’s letter reminds me that it’s even more unreasonable to ask all young women (provided they are legally adults) only to date men who are no more than five years older than themselves.

I’ve seen many, many disastrous relationships between young women and much older men.  But to be honest, I’ve also seen a few such relationships that were marvelous, sparkling, honest, mutually rewarding, and long-lasting.  I think such relationships are uncommon, often because so many of the older men who do date much younger women are struggling with their own issues, issues that an older woman would challenge them to confront but a younger girl might not recognize.  And of course, more than a few young women do have unresolved issues with their fathers that they seek to play out in a relationship with an older man.

But these are generalities that do not apply in every instance, as Kate (and others) have reminded me in the months since my post on the subject.  So, to conclude this long post, here’s the best advice I can give to Kate:

I understand that it’s not easy to be where you are, caught between adolescence and adulthood.  17 is rarely easy for the bright, the gifted, the mature, the one who isn’t thrilled by all that high school society has to offer!  It’s natural and normal to want to be seen and appreciated by men, and to be appreciated for all that you have to give.  Please know that your teachers, if they love their profession and genuinely care about you, ought not only not act on any feelings they may develop for you, they ought not even make you aware of them.  That’s not about infantilizing you, it’s about honoring the very special

trust that ought to exist between a teaching professional who loves teens and the students who rely upon him.

But Kate, I do think it’s possible that in the years to come, you will find older men to date who aren’t in a position of responsibilty towards you.  Honestly, you’re right:  all things considered, men who are a decade or more your senior will likely be able to offer you things that your male peers cannot.  You’re not wrong to want those things, and I don’t think that all older men will be "bad" for wanting to give them to you.  Yes, I’ve seen a few — a very few but a few — healthy, loving, supportive relationships between young women just about your age and men substantially older.  Such relationships are rare, but not unheard of. 

Kate, I don’t know you.  But I can tell you I’ve known a few young women who’ve said things very similar to what you’ve said.   And I know that in the end, what many of them really wanted from older men was not a sexual or romantic relationship, but validation and recognition and attention.  In our highly sexualized culture, however, they couldn’t believe that a man would really love them and care for them unconditionally unless they could offer him something sexual or romantic in return.  They shortchanged themselves, and sadly, they found older men who reinforced the notion that their sexuality was the most valuable thing they had to offer.  I don’t know if that’s what’s going on with you.

Adults always tell teens to be patient, and teens get tired of hearing it.  But if I can give you a piece of advice, it is to be patient just a while longer.  Let whatever boundaries you have in place that have served you well stay in place just a little bit longer.  Keep those boundaries in place especially with the men who have a sworn (even sacred) responsibility to care for you as your teachers and mentors.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting.  But there’s much to be gained by waiting, just a little longer, before "taking the next step" with anyone, especially someone considerably older than yourself.  Once you become a legal adult, and (perhaps) are in college, you will begin to meet many different men who will be unlike those you knew in high school.  You might even find someone closer to your age who does share your interests and your passions.  Stranger things have happened.

I wish I had a magic bullet to make this growing up process easier for you.  I know it’s frustrating and confusing as hell.  But it’s my hope that the older men in your life today will continue to be loving, wise guides through that process, and at your age, that’s all that they ought to be.

Please take care.

Pluss redux

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 26, 2005
in Older Men & Younger Women, People and Teaching
. 104 Comments

Three weeks ago, we all had a big fuss about FDU adjunct — and Nazi leader — Professor Pluss.  Now it turns out that there’s another twist to the story.   The good professor’s fiancee claims to have been forced off the FDU campus according to this far-right website.  The article notes that the unnamed woman is a sophomore English major.  Pluss is, according to a number of articles about him, 51. 

Should we all just hope the future Mrs. Pluss is a student of non-traditional age?