Men’s sexual desire is driven by culture, not evolution, Hugo Schwyzer argues. Here’s what young women are really looking for, and why we’re fools to think otherwise.
In my office, Amber is telling me a familiar story. She’s come to talk about her autobiography paper for my women’s studies class, and she reads part of her rough draft aloud.
“I was 12, and this car pulled up alongside me as I was walking home from school … the driver looked a little older than my dad, at least 40. He leaned out, and I thought he was going to ask me for directions, but instead he asked me how old I was. 
When I told him, he laughed. ‘Damn, you got some big titties for such a little girl.’ He made this gross smacking sound with his lips, and sped away. I ran all the way home.”
Amber looks up at me. “I want to know,” she asks, “why do older men hit on younger women?” She’s 20 now, tall and graceful; she tells me that for the last eight years, older men have been approaching her. “It’s not just me,” she adds, “it happens to most of my friends, almost regardless of what they look like or what they’re wearing. It makes me feel like I can’t trust anyone, like all men want just one thing. Why can’t they chase women their own age?”
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I’ve been writing and researching about relationships between older men and younger women since 2005. While the media is hyping the “cougar” phenomenon, they ignore the reality that in most age-disparate affairs the man is the older (sometimes, as in the case of Hugh Hefner, astoundingly older) partner. We take it for granted that many men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s will be more sexually attracted to younger women than to their peers. While most men and women alike are appalled by stories of adult men hitting on 12-year-olds, we still assume that men will “naturally” lust after young women just a few years older.
In 2005, John Derbyshire, a much-admired right-wing pundit at the National Review, opined:
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.
Remarkably, the “family values” editors at America’s flagship conservative journal let this nonsense run, perhaps because they accepted what he was saying as gospel truth: 15- and 16-year-old girls are more sexually alluring to normal adult men than are women in their late 20s. But Derbyshire wasn’t telling us a truth about women’s beauty—he was telling us a truth about the way we’ve socialized male desire.
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No one thinks babies were the first thing on the mind of Jason Statham when he started dating a 23-year-old Victoria’s Secret model, or that Sean Penn (50) is motivated by the desire to start a family with Scarlett Johansson, who’s barely half his age.
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Ask any porn site operator: the “barely legal” or “teens” sections are among the most popular niches. That doesn’t sound so troubling when you imagine an army of teen boys masturbating to images and videos of their female peers. It’s considerably different to imagine men jerking off to pictures of girls young enough to be their daughters—or granddaughters. Since Hef published his first Playboy magazine in 1953, we’ve raised three generations of men to believe that women peak in desirability somewhere between 18 and 24. For many men, that peak starts much earlier. Ask a 17-year-old how often she’s been leered at (or worse) by a much older man.
For too many men, the term “jailbait” isn’t a warning. It’s an enticement.
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Spare me the arguments from biology or evolutionary psychology, the ones that excuse predatory old guys from staring at “young firm flesh” because that flesh belongs to a woman near the peak of her fertility. The great lengths to which countless men go to avoid fatherhood suggests that the continued evolutionary imperative to “spread one’s seed” is oversold to the point of being illusory. No one thinks babies were the first thing on the mind of Jason Statham when he started dating a 23-year-old Victoria’s Secret model, or that Sean Penn (50) is motivated by the desire to start a family with Scarlett Johansson, who’s barely half his age. This is about the cultural cachet of dating a much younger woman—and about the difficult-to-deny reality that younger women lack the experience and wisdom to call their older lovers on their bullshit.
Two recent books do a superb job of puncturing the argument that male sexuality is primarily a creature of evolutionary programming. University of North Carolina professor Martha McGaughey’s The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence and Science (Routledge, 2008) makes the convincing case that our beliefs about male sexuality form the science, and not the other way around. In other words, men who want a reason to chase younger women are desperate to claim that what is a culturally constructed choice is really an unavoidable biological reality.
Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference (Norton, 2010) offers a systematic debunking of the idea that men’s sexual decisions are driven largely by brain chemistry. Both Fine and McGaughey make a compelling case that the actual science doesn’t support the idea that men’s sexual desires are driven by evolutionary imperatives.
In other words, John Derbyshire (and a lot of other grown men) may be sexually attracted to underage girls—but they don’t get to blame that fetish on biology.
Even if it were “natural,” there’s nothing innocent or harmless or healthy about older men pursuing substantially younger women. The cost is high to everyone involved. While a few young women may be attracted to much older guys (often because they falsely imagine themselves to be “so much more mature” than “other girls” their age), most are like Amber—disheartened and disgusted by the endless parade of men 10, 20, or 40 years older who harass and hit on them. These young women aren’t flattered. And even if they seem flattered at the time, it doesn’t mean the attention from older men isn’t doing great harm.
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Lynn Phillips, a psychology professor at New York University, did a famous study of young women (mostly under legal age) who were in relationships with significantly older men. Most of the girls she interviewed described these affairs as mutual, exciting, and fulfilling. They pushed back against the suggestion that they were being exploited, claiming in many cases to have initiated or at least welcomed the sex with older men. Phillips then interviewed a similar number of older women. Each of these was over 30, and each had been in a relationship with a much older man while still in her teens. With the benefit of hindsight and experience, these older women acknowledged that they’d been used and hurt and exploited. They admitted that their claims of maturity and sexual adventurousness were all a pretense. In other words, what Phillips found is that while there are some teen girls who are “asking for it,” it’s not what they really want. Teen girls feign sexual sophistication; men need to be able to see through that.
Kerry Cohen, author of Loose Girl and the forthcoming Dirty Little Secrets: Breaking the Silence on Teenage Girls and Promiscuity, argues that “when adult men sexualize teen girls, even just by ogling them, the girls are reminded that their worth in their world is dependent on how sexy they are.” “Girls who choose men so far out of their age ranges,” Cohen writes, “tend toward low self-esteem and depression.” These aren’t sweet coming-of-age stories. And they don’t fit the pornographic story line that young girls are eager for sexual initiation at the hands of an older, wiser mentor.
Here’s the brutal truth, guys. Teen and 20-something women aren’t nearly as interested in much older men as you may think. Sure, there are high school girls with Johnny Depp fantasies, but guess what? You’re not Johnny Depp. (If you were that 48-year-old actor, you’d be devoted to your 38-year-old French girlfriend.) Yes, some young women do flirt with older men. Some do it for validation, some do it for excitement, but a hell of a lot of them do it because guys like you have already taught them that’s the only thing that older men want.
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A true story about the way younger women really see “older men” (and if you’re attracted to 18- to 24-year-olds, you count as “older” if you’re on the high side of 30).
A few years ago, my friend Sean went through a rough divorce. Newly single and almost 40, he went back on the dating scene for the first time in over a decade. But the woman who caught his eye wasn’t someone he met online. She was his favorite barista at his local Starbucks. She was 19.
Next: The girl behind the counter
Pages: 1 2
About Hugo Schwyzer
Tbh, this is the most ridiculous bunch of crap I’ve heard in a long time…although your line about Johnny Depp was semi-clever.
So, basically, what you’re saying is that young women, girls, have no control and thus no responsibility for their own behavior or sexuality and that if not for your warnings, men everywhere would be nothing more than rampaging pedos looking for any 6th grader that will look at him sideways. Interesting.
Hugo, you make a somewhat reasonable point here, but you could stand to find another way to hammer home the idea of ‘substanitally older’ without the moldy ‘young enough to be one’s daughter’ nonsense. I’m 52 and my girlfriend is 35. What’s so wrong with that? It strikes me as if you’re trying to make up for the fact that you slept with some of your students.
Excactly, Catullus…I was going to make this very point actually.
A 12 year old and a 30 year old is a VERY different scenario than a 30 year old and a 50 year old. It is conceicvable (in fact even likely) that the 30/50 pair are peers and have many things in common, whereas the 12/30 is just pedophilia. Hugo’s use of Scarlett Johansen and Sean Penn is not only irrelevant, it’s misleading. I think Hugo probably only used it to try and demonstrate how ‘widespread’ the ‘epidemic’ of what he typefies as male sexual deviance is.
By likening it to ‘young enough to be one’s daughter’, he adds that element of seediness that he seems to need to color men’s sexuality with.
We all find it convenient to ascribe the lowest possible motivation to those we dislike. Andrea Dworkin was a master of this and MRAs have learned a lot from her.
That poster is not being let respond to you.
Hugo, are you able to approach gender issues from anything like a non-moralistic viewpoint? Because when I read articles like the one above, it very much seems to me that what you’re doing is wrapping an extremely traditional, protestant and conservative understanding of sexual and and affective morality in a feminist banner to try to give new life to outdated and suspect ideas which are quite patently non-liberatory and which do not respect peoples’ freedom of sexual choice.
I wholeheartedly agree that most men are full of USDA Grade A bullshit when they claim that chasing after a woman half their age is some sort of “biological imperative”. The hell it is. As you very cogently pointed out, if biology was running the show, why the worries about birth control and pregnancy? Why the use of horse-sized doses of viagra? Yeah, you’re right: it’s socialization and culture driving most men when it comes to their oft-stated desire for much younger partners.
But, as is so often the case, you seem to take this male bullshit as license to concoct your own little “just so” story morality myths, naturalizing these with a chutzpah that would leave even the most ferocious socio-biologist gasping in awe.
In the article above, your entire argument is that, somehow, large age differences between partners inevitably results in the younger female partner being “disappointed and betrayed”. Your main substantive proof for this argument is some anecdotal conversations with a student and Phillips’ “famous” (by what standards, I wonder?) study regarding older men and younger women. Said study, we’re told, somehow “proves” that these relationships are negative because a handful of 30 year old women who went through them no longer think they’re positive when they look back on them. Because, of course, people generally look back on their exs, in western culture, with an overwhelming mixture of love, respect and generosity… right?
That’s some science there, Hugo.
I have a piece of information that should be blindingly obvious to a sexuality and gender studies researcher like yourself: 30 year olds (men or women) almost universally look back at the relationships they had a decade previously as being inadequate and classify themselves, at that time, as emotionally unprepared. Looking back, they frequently feel sorely used by their first partners, who were often people who had more experience, whatever their relative ages. This is not at all news in sexuality studies, Hugo. The fact that 30 year old women now regret the liaisons they made with older men when they were 18 or 20 is not proof of your hypothesis that such relationships are “naturally” prejudicial to women.
In fact – and again, this seems to be a common habit with you – you’re engaging in the same sort of naturalizing behavior as the men you critique and based on evidence that is, if anything, far less impressive than the evidence showing that young people tend to be sexually attractive to people of all ages.
I’m surprised that I have to bring this up, but yes, it is indeed a fact of nature that young people are generally better looking than older people. It is thus no wonder that, as women gain greater power and more economic weight, we’re seeing more and more matches between younger men and older women. Sure, nothing in the numbers like the traditional male/female old/young matches, but hell, women have only been really present in significant numbers among the ranks of the wealthy, independent and powerful for two generations or so. Give them time and I’m sure they’ll catch up in this, as in other things.
I’m a man who’s dated many women who were 15-25 years my elders and learned quite a lot about life and love in doing so. My wife’s first sexual relationship was with a man 20+ years her senior and they remained close friends and confidants until his dying day. My mother’s second marriage was to a man almost 30 years older who I can say, with no doubt at all, is one of the best men I’ve ever met. I have never had any interest in dating people much younger than me, but I am VERY glad that some people do. One can learn an awful lot by dating one’s elders, even if some of those lessons aren’t always comfortable and the resulting relationships may not end up “happily ever after”.
It seems to me that your article, while dressing itself in the trappings of feminist concern, actually infantilizes young adult women by presuming that they must be protected in a sort of sexual “middle school”, where they would only be allowed to date within their generation for their own good. You seem to be honestly worried about women (but oddly enough, not men) being hurt by older, more experienced partners. But that, Hugo, is the name of the game when it comes to love. Love is a risky business and the only way to learn about it is by doing it. EVERYONE I know made bad initial choices of partners when they were younger and got burned, independent of age differences. As a guy going on your third marriage, I very much doubt you can say differently. And while yeah, its a gross stereotype to think that younger people “naturally” gravitate to older people as “wise, calm, learned partners”, it’s just as much an offensive stereotype to presume – as you do here – that older partners are all “betraying, disappointing” pseudo-pedophiles, out to strip the youngsters of their dignity and independence.
Seriously, Hugo: you have some very prominent unexamined moral issues and prejudices showing in the article above. There are good relationships and bad relationships, but most are a mixture of positive and negative things. There is exactly ZERO solid evidence to prove that, given two adult humans, age difference is a significant factor in a relationship’s eventual success. Experience, age, wisdom and the ability to manipulate other people do not grow in linked fashion during the course of one’s life and to presume that they do – and that society needs must protect adult women against “inappropriate” sexual choices based on age – is so much ageist, sexist, falsely moralistic bullshit.
I wish I could thumb this up a bazillion times
Sorry but I have to be a naysayer here. The psychology of young women is not fully untangled from the conditioning women have received generally in being seen in the political economy, and in individual families as equal to boys – when they are girls – and having the potential to become equal to men when they are women.
The way you stop “infantilizing” a girl or young woman is to support her agency in EVERYTHING, including earning money, including politics, including holding up men’s responsibility for the work of childcare/parenting.
It’s very convenient how this “infantilization” argument gets trotted out only when the subject is young women consenting to sex.
Sorry, I made a typo –
“The psychology of young women is not fully untangled from the conditioning women have received generally in NOT being seen and supported psychologically in the political economy, and in individual families, as equal to boys – when they are girls – and being equal to men when they are women.”
The way you stop “infantilizing” a girl or young woman is to support her agency in EVERYTHING, including earning money, including politics, including holding up men’s responsibility for the work of childcare/parenting.
I’m not sure I agree, but let’s take you at your word. So logically, then, this means supporting said young woman if she decides to date an older man, correct?
Hugo seems to think that sort of agency is noxious in young women.
It’s very convenient how this “infantilization” argument gets trotted out only when the subject is young women consenting to sex.
Really? By who? Me, or in general? Because if the observation is directed at me, you are quite wrong. I can show you many places where I’ve discussed the infantilization of women, in general. If it’s directed at society at large, I still think that you’re wrong: there are tons of books, blogs and articles that discuss the infantilization of women.
So what I find “interesting” is your need to ascribe a behavior to people you don’t even bother to name, as if making this sort of generic, unsupported statement somehow divests you of the need to engage with and refute what’s actually being said: to wit, if you support women’s agency, then you needs must support them when they make decisions that you, personally, do not like.
The way you stop “infantilizing” a girl or young woman is to support her agency in EVERYTHING, including earning money, including politics, including holding up men’s responsibility for the work of childcare/parenting.
I agree. And that goes for committing violence and other crimes and making decisions that go against the tow line.
It’s very convenient how this “infantilization” argument gets trotted out only when the subject is young women consenting to sex.
Kind of like how it never comes up when a woman commits a violent crime right? All of a sudden she couldn’t have done that on her own it must have been some man that made her do it.
It may be convenient but that hardly makes the point invalid. You’re welcome to propose raising the age of consent to thirty if you think that helps.
“The psychology of young women is not fully untangled from the conditioning women have received generally in being seen in the political economy”
Huh? So what. It can’t ever be untangled. Are you saying you envision a society where a women makes choices completely independently of societal conditioning. Is that even possible?
It trotted out as you say for sex because sex is important and has large consequences. And there hilarious thing to me here is that feminists have always been the ones to emphasize the importance of women’s sexual choices. I guess you originally did this because it was convenient to YOU. And now that it not convenient to you because it conflicts with YOUR societal conditioning you have decided to abandon the idea. How very convenient.
You know this and I know this. Hugo knows it too, I suspect. I can’t help but wonder if a lot of this is brand-building.
TBH:
I know I am coming very late to the game on the first page here, but that was the best deconstruction of one of hugo’s man-hating witch hunts that I have ever seen.
I totally agree with Hugo. I can assure you that when I was a girl of 18, I was not interested in any guy older than 25. Probably too confident to need an older more experienced guy. My relationships with guys my age taught me everything I needed to learn. Now that I am in my forties, I still only feel attracted to guys my age (somewhere between 8 years older/younger than myself). I notice that guys my age sometimes go for at least 10 years younger and that I get hit on by guys at least 10 years older. Hopefully I will eventually meet someone my age. I don’t want an older guy because I feel that I would not be in the same life phase as him.
I don’t think you should be attracted to any particular age group, GS. What works for you, works for you. What I object to is Hugo’s attempt to portray certain kinds of relationships as seedy, exploitative and bordering on pedophilia simply because the female partner is, say, 12 years younger than the male partner.
I think men have a strong, global (testosterone fueled) desire for reasonably attractive women, in spite of what constructionist authors may argue. Attractiveness reflects health and is not simply based on age. I will look at the authors cited above, but I have a hunch that they’re ideological (Lysenkoistic.) Many ev-psych prople overly complicate what is a basic testosterone driven set of desires.
“Attractiveness reflects health”….
Sure, Henry. Which is why women who are far under their ideal body weight are considered “attractive” and women who are not at all obese are considered “too fat and ugly”. This is all biologically programmed…. Right….
I think you should read Cordelia Fine’s work. It is an excellent dissection of the available evidence out there re: testosterone (among other things) as a root for gender difference. Dr. Fine takes the science apart quite nicely, IMHO, and I’d be interested in seeing what you have to say re: her arguments.
Thad– Maybe not what I’d consider healthy. Or you. I’ll check her out. Hint: don’t typecast my utterances too readily.
Is your view that you are testosterone why you need Viagra, then?
See David Schnarch’s book “Passionate Marriage” where he identifies, correctly I think, that men who lack a healthy, emotionally differentiated self-in relation often need to rely on hormones (and artificial supports like Viagra when they age and those hormone levels drop) to override their anxiety in the intimacy required for good sex.
Where did he say anything about needing Viagra? Stawman much?
But I agree with Thaddeus that testoerone has very little to do with who you are attracted to, just the level of desire, if that. High levels of testosterone can very easily make you attracted to big, burly men.
Although he doesn’t say it here, Vandenburgh is a big Viagra fan – he heavily criticizes Hugo’s and other’s articles that talk about alternatives to Viagra.
They’re not actually alternatives. ED is a real condition. Yes, there are plenty of other things you can do in lovemaking. Many of us do them. At length (no pun.)
Before Viagra, alternatives were using a dildo, or having an implant (no thanks.)
I won’t list my wife or past lovers for a poll, but I find this “Viagra bad” business utterly nutty. It doesn’t change a single thing about how one makes love. At all. Setting up a false dichotomy about “sensitive” men versus “hormone powered” men is pretty crazy.
Not denying that ED is a real condition (as are analogous conditions in women).
You are talking about physical remedies only – pills, dildos, implants, etc.
Again, you don’t know what you are missing.
Hate to keep harping. The anti-Viagra stuff is weirdly misconceived. And hard to fathom. In my case, Viagra suddenly became necessary, right to the day almost, when my blood pressure medication was doubled. I have absolutely no anxiety about sex. I find ideas like Schnarich’s and others’ here oddly projective.
Viagra’s not an aphrodesiac; it’s an erection aid. It does nothing to libido. I suppose testosterone decreases with age. If this is a factor, than it’s nice that we have it. Mental desire doesn’t decrease with age.
I think the weird, hoary stories of young men asking for Viagra–are basically these men acting on a fetish (the name Viagra), to the extent that they’re true.
I think you are missing something. Have you tried counseling on differentiation/emotional availability issues? Or read Schnarch’s book or Jack Morin’s book “The Erotic Mind.” You might be amazed.
It is sadly true fact that many men in our culture have often been shamed out of their emotional lives and not had them validated, no? This is especially true for many men who are Baby Boomer and older. By the time Gen-Xers came around, this shaming conformity and lack of emotional support for boys had started to unravel, it seems to me.
I have a 73yo father and I’m pretty sure that he would test on the Asperger’s scale even though in fact I’m sure there’s an emotional life in there that wants to connect and is just scared to do it. Really traumatized me as his kid, though.
Inappropriate stereotyping. I’d been a psychiatric nurse and a counselor– before I got my PhD. Most who know me think I’m pretty emotional.
Maybe the reason you chose to become a psychiatric nurse and a counselor is because you wanted help with some subconscious?
Being a psychiatric counselor is not the same as having undergone psychiatric nursing or counseling.
Knock it off. You’re stretching, and they’re basically snide ad hominems now.
“Being a psychiatric counselor is not the same as having undergone psychiatric nursing or counseling.”
This is an ad hominem attack? YOU were the one who claimed expertise based on yourself.
Sorry, I actually felt compassion for you and was trying to help but you are pissing me off. There is no fool like a self-righteous one.
Projection.
Hey, I agree with Henry. I’m as in touch with my emotions as they come and, at 43, with high blood pressure meds, I too use viagra occasionally. It doesn’t increase my desire or make me hornier or whatever. It DOES indeed allow me to maintain an erection for a longer than ten minutes.
Now yeah, there are PLENTY of other things one can do in sex and we do them. But my wife happens to like intercourse and when she wants to have it, she wants to have it for longer than ten minutes. Viagra’s great in that respect.
I am too young to have this problem right now but I have one question: When you read erotic stories like for instance Nancy Friday’s Women on Top do you get an erection without medication?
I suspect you do. Sex is ultimately more mental than physical and I am suspicious of medicalizing sexual dysfunction because I know that this hasn’t worked for mental illness. There is something deeply wrong with our society if we need drugs to sleep and to have sex.
My 22 year-old-friend is technically dating someone old enough to be her father, but they’ve been together for almost 4 years, and I can guarantee you they’re perfectly happy. I was skeptical at first when she told me she was dating this guy, but when I actually met him and got to know him, he turned out to be someone perfect for her and is definitely not after her for the sex. Plus, he’s a college professor in creative writing and American Literature, and that’s just plain out perfect for her. She’s incredibly mature for her age, knows what she wants, and frankly, there aren’t a lot of guys around our age that are that driven. Nothing wrong with that at all. There are women our age that aren’t as driven as her, either, so it’d only make sense for her to find somebody who already knows what he wants.
Which explains why my 21-year-old step-son is marrying the 20-year-old mother of his child. Who, by the way, makes more money than he does.
I’ve personally never seen any medical information that said men’s brains take 30 years to mature. At most, the difference between brain development in men and women is 2-3 years based on what I’ve rad.
Add in the fact that men and women do sometimes use different part of their brains to relate, some areas men are stronger in and some areas women are stronger in. Men over all have larger brains due to their stereotypical larger size and it makes them less susceptible to dementia when they are older but women are less prone to learning disabilities that men might fall to like AHAD, which has a higher rate in boys then girls. Also consider the extended adolescence both men and women live today. Men decades ago where mature enough to go to war and have families at 18. But that’s not so much the case anymore. Today it’s a stereotype that men still like video games and live at home into adulthood. That’s a cultural shift, not a biological one. Which I think is a combination of the economy and not giving kids the tools to grow up. Add in the fact that if you are someone that believes men have been demeaned in media, then it’s logical to conclude that some of that has been absorbed unfortunately to the determent of men.
Also, little boys and little girls have bigger differences in their brain when they are little but as we grow and mature, that gap closes up.
Today it might take men 30 years to mature, but that’s not because of biology. It’s because of our culture.
“I’ve personally never seen any medical information that said men’s brains take 30 years to mature. At most, the difference between brain development in men and women is 2-3 years based on what I’ve rad.’
Yeah. That’s the first I have ever heard of that too. Brain maturation – how is that even measured?
The NIH/NIMH study, entitled “Sexual dimorphism of brain developmental trajectories during childhood and adolescence,” is reprinted by permission of Elsevier from the journal NeuroImage, volume 36, number 4, pages 1065-1073, July 15 2007.
In the figure below, from the NIH study, shows trajectories of brain development in girls (red line) and boys (blue line), with 95% confidence intervals above and below each line. The arrow indicates the “inflection point,” roughly the halfway point in brain development. Girls reach the inflection point just before age 11 years; boys do not reach the inflection point until just before age 15 years. A young woman reaches full maturity, in terms of brain development, between 21 and 22 years of age. A young man does not reach full maturity, in terms of brain development, until nearly 30 years of age.
education.com
Sigil, if you would please tell us how they measure an abstract concept like “maturity”, then that would be very helpful. It’s kind of your responsibility, seeing as how you brought this source to the debate.
As Cordelia Fine points out, what very often happens in brain studies of this sort is that some sort of progressive process is identified. We have no real idea what it does or what it means, but being as how it’s a process which progresses with age, one can plausibly attach a label like “maturity” to it and WHAMMO! All of a sudden girls’ brains mature more quickly than boys brains.
To begin with, this is very bad science. It attaches causality (in this case, women’s preparedness for a serious relationship) to some process in the brain of which we have no clear functional conception.
Secondly, it’s this very poor sort of “just so” story which has had a long and very well documented history in science of being used to justify unequal treatment of women.
To put it simply, I’m not at all impressed with this rot of thing.
Now, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe neuroscience has indeed advanced so far in the last decade that we can now quite clearly map emotional maturity to structures in the brain. That is why I’d like you to tell us how they are measuring this thing. What do they mean by “maturity” and why do you think this has anything to do with emotional maturity?
Not to mention the fact that a brain isn’t a mind anymore than an eye is a color.
“This isn’t about shaming adult men for doing a double-take at a cute high school cheerleader. It’s about gently reminding all of us that what looks so grown up isn’t. It’s about remembering that our libidos should be growing along with the rest of us.” PERFECT.
The article is amazing and, as far as I can see, all of Hugo’s articles make total sense to his female readers. It makes women feel they’re understood and contemplated. It’s awesome, really. I hope it reaches men in the same way. I hope they read and understand it, so that maybe they can see things from a different perspective.
I think The Good Men Project contributes in a very positive, intelligent way with society. Keep up with the amazing work!
I agree with you Melissa!
Only, of course, that the ‘reminder’ is not all that gentle. Not if says that by doing the double-take the guy ‘earns’ epithets like ‘creep’ or ‘perv.’
These men aren’t “hitting on” younger women– they are harassing them.
Pretty wide net, Mordicai. If it’s OK for someone in a woman’s age range to do (eg offer a compliment or ask for a date), it should be OK for an older man to do. If not (eg, catcall or compliment in a manner that exudes a sense of entitlement), it’s not.
If you think it’s creepy for older men to try to date younger women, that’s your prerogative. You shouldn’t describe it as ipso facto harassment.
About the discussion on the comments board, my opinion:
Obviously there are people that share more than sexual attraction towards one another. I think that there are exceptions on women in their 20-something and older men that really click and connect (when it comes to teen girls, sorry, I don’t think so!). But I felt Hugo’s article was more about the general situation… about walking on the street and listening to old-enough-to-be-your-granpa kind of men doing absurd NOISES towards your ass or neckline. And how this is something reinforced by culture, sadly.
Is any of this any more palatable or more acceptable when done by men in a given woman’s age range? If not, you need to explain why it’s particularly creepy when much-older men do it. If it’s simply just one’s sensibilities, that’s perfectly fine. Just say so and be done with it. Simple, no?
I think all Hugo is saying is that instead of always sexualizing girls and women, instead of always reducing us to just something to get off to, that it would foster a healthier and happier partnerships between men and women if we didn’t use each other for our personal base reasons. If more men took up a leadership non-sexual, non-predatory guidance role with the girls that look up to them, I think girls could develop healthier relationships with men. It would build a foundation for girls to have older male figure to look up to as examples without feeling their only worth to them is their bodies. And this needs to happen with men outside their own families. Because that’s the only way girls are going to learn that men outside their families respect them too. I don’t see a negative in promoting adult male figures for girls and boys to look up to where girls don’t have to feel sexualized. There are plenty of men that do that, that provide those guidance roles. The first man that ever hired me was someone I really looked up to. He was a father figure because he taught me a lot about the business world and he never acted inappropriately toward me or the other girls in the office. He clearly loves his wife and his two children and that’s what he made his life about. These are the men women respect.
But there are also men that objectify girls/women for the simple fact they are girls/women. Why would a man expect any woman or girl to respect him for that? Men don’t want to be used for their money. Period. And women and girls don’t want to be used for just their bodies or youth. Period. It’s when both genders use the other gender for these means, even while justifying it, that causes bitterness and strife. How many men come on this website know a man that was taken for all he was worth in divorce? Or dated a woman that just let him take her out to fancy dinners but was never serious about him? That stuff hurts right? Well it hurts women just as much when you make the importance of our existence about our bodies. A woman can rationalize all she wants that she is looking for a “provider” because of “biology” but it doesn’t make it okay to use men for this means. Vice versa for men concerning women’s bodies wouldn’t you agree?
I’ve come to learn in my own experiences that there are two different type of men in the world in regards to this issue. Men that only want to date younger women and/or have a history of it and men that might date younger women but aren’t dating them for their age and don’t have a history of always dating younger women.
Either way, we can’t deny that there is a huge pressure on women to remain forever youthful or else she deserves to be cast out the door. Anyone ever been to Askmen? I remember they had some kind of countdown for when the Olsen twins turned 18. Heck, now those girls (at the ripe age being 20 something now) are old news to the likes of Miley Ray Cyrus. Is this what men want womanhood to be about? Is this what men want for their daughters?
In all honesty, how many men watch porn? How many watch porn of the same 18-24 year old age group while your lives go on? While you have kids, while your kids grow up, while you and your partner grow older? Teenaged boys using porn, yeah I get that. Their boys. They have so many emotions and feelings flying through them and porn is a teenage boy’s wet dream. Making women the image of what his immature mind wants them to be. But when we hold fully grown men to the same standard of teenage boys, I really think we are doing men more harm to good. This isn’t to “demonize men”. Especially in an industry that does way more to demonize what women are about like porn does. This should be to help men. Help men realize they are better then that. They have more to offer a woman then decades of always turning back to the teenager in porn. Male sexuality has a chance to grow and develop. But not if we tell men their sexuality is no better then a teenage boys.
It’s just fact that Sean Penn is dating a woman young enough to be his daughter. Scarlett is no 12 year old but she isn’t a 50+ year old either. 20 year olds haven’t learned things yet that hopefully and probably a 50 year old has. Again, this is just fact. Life breeds experience. Now Scarlett is a woman that has responsibility for her actions. But it’s ironic that we expect so much more responsibility from women years younger then we do of men that have lived half their life already. And while we hold women more responsible, we also preach about how older men are so desired for their maturity. So if men are desired for their maturity, shouldn’t they in turn hold more responsibility as well? Isn’t that just plain logical?
It’s funny how much more accountable we hold teenage girls for their budding and new womanhood that we easily say “But this is what the girl did..” in regards to an adult grown man that’s lived in the adult world years more.
I can only say for myself that as a woman that dated older men when I was younger, I especially look back on those relationships with more regret. I wish I had spent more time with boys/men my own age. My peers made me so much more nervous then older men. Older men didn’t require the same level of effort and knocking down walls that I needed to do to relate to guys my own age when I was younger. So I opted for the easier choice. Older men. I didn’t have to do anything or be anything more then cute and fun. Now that I’m older, in hindsight, I do have regrets. Now that I look back on these relationships more maturely, I have a little contempt for these older men that didn’t really desire anything more from me and they were willing to slobber all over me. If I could do it again, I would have spent more time focusing on boys my age who were more of the challenge.
I think when we are younger and we date our peers, unless we are abused or cheated on in some kind of way, we can look back and be thankful for what we learned from that relationship even if it didn’t work out. I know I did. But with the older men I dated, I regretted it in a different way. I did feel taken advantage of. Would these same men still have wanted to date me at my age now? I don’t know but I always wondered. In hindsight, I hold some contempt for them. And I even regret that I do because it makes me a little bit skeptical of men in general. That’s my own personal issue but I am so sick of hearing too many guys defend their obession with younger women while they becry about the injustice of women taken advantage of them for their money.
Because to me, it sure does seem like men are saying “we are better then women because our worth as men outlives that of the worth of a woman”. Isn’t that in a nutshell what men are saying when they say how much better older men are compared to their peers?
I like much of your reply. Between marriages I dated a woman 24 years younger than me, and another 28 years younger than me. Some of the reasons younger women may prefer older men include:
- Kindness (young men can be pretty cruel)
-More skilled lover
-Mentoring (this is invariably a factor)
-Has stopped running around with male friends
-More intreresting
It’s hard sometimes being with a younger woman because they may be going through life stages you’re happy are over. They’re usually not as good in bed as an older woman. And less interesting.
Both marriages and most of the relationships I’ve had have been within only a few years of age differentiation. Younger women usually leave you at some point (when the “mentoring” is over.)
Thanks Henry.
At the time, I did find older men kinder and more mellow. At least kinder to me. Maybe not to women their own age? I don’t know for sure. But the older men I dated did have interesting things to say and do.
But I do have to disagree that an older man is always a better lover. This is one area where experience doesn’t always breed more success. Not all older men are great lovers. Not all younger men are crappy lovers. Those are kind of stereotypes if you ask me. You can also always tell which men watch a lot of porn when you go with them into the bedroom.
But now that I’m older, I’m looking for someone to relate to instead of someone to look up to. And when I was younger, I was looking for someone to look up to.
I agree that porn can be a problem. Degrading things like going far too fast all of the time, facial ejaculations, degrading language, gender unbalenced foreplay, and mandatory anal have colonized sexuality to an extent. My perception is that the younger generation is far more in thrall to this than we were (probably because porn didn’t really arrive till the eighties, and internet porn the nineties. It sort of goes with hammering studs through your cheeks and tattooing.) I would hold out for the possibility of visual erotica, which lacks these degrading aspects, and occasionally occurs in porn almost by chance. Women can be colonized by ,modern porn too– it’s not just men. One of my younger lovers had accomodated herself to this discourse, and we were mismatched sexually.
By the way, Good Men Project, your comments program characterizes later messages as older ones. Something is backward here. Thanks for disabling the autorefresh (if you did.) I haven’t seen it lately.
I like erotica. YOU like porn.
Nice!
Pauvre vous! There are bad men in this world! Pathetic.
As a 25 year old woman who has a date scheduled tonight with a 40 year old man, this precise issue has been on my mind all day. When I was a teenager, I was absolutely cocky and overly excited by my newfound sexual power–I flirted vigorously with older men because I felt like boys my age couldn’t handle me. And while I’m not ashamed of it, I’m very, very lucky that nothing truly bad happened to me, because I got myself into situations that would prevent my father from ever sleeping again if he knew about them (16 years old in a bar in NYC drinking beer with a few guys from the Merchant Marines? You bet!) and looking back on it, I was in way over my head. I thank those men now for not taking advantage of my inexperience. But come to find out a few years later, 21 and living in the city, I still had to learn the hard way that I was not going to be the exception that made the 37-year-old perpetually single investment banker change his mind about his lifestyle. I wanted love, I wanted to be treated as an equal, and I couldn’t see that he didn’t see me that way–and instead of walking away from me, he hurt me very badly. While in a way I do thank him for teaching me a lesson I clearly needed to learn, I do hope men take the lesson in this piece to heart–we may be asking for it, but that doesn’t mean we’re ready for it, so if you sense that’s the case, be the bigger person, be the good man, and walk away.
As for the current prospect, the only reason I’m going is because I have no illusions that it might work out between a divorced, and recently heartbroken once again, 40 year old and me–but since he doesn’t look a day over 30, we might be able to have a bit of fun
Hugo–your article is *Great* thank you!
You have the courage to speak what most men won’t–hence their hefty doth protesting so much against your article. While your article isn’t perfect, and there are exceptions–your basic premises are solid.
Especially the extremely selfish motives of older men when pursuing younger women–and the fact that yes–many of these young women think they’re ready or okay with it cause they’re ‘so mature’.
Well–all of that creates a false paradigm and the fallout can be much more than just a relationship looked back on with regret–some of those turn into Lifetime movies.
Keep up the good work.
“…Growth itself contains the germ of happiness…” ★ 。 。★ 。 。*~ Pearl Buck ★ 。 。★ 。 。★ 。 。★
“You have the courage to speak what most men won’t–hence their hefty doth protesting so much against your article. ‘
Most men? No women are saying the same thing here? You clearly haven’t read the thread. You might start with the comment directly above yours!.
Whether a woman, or women were or are ‘saying the same thing here’–is *irrelevant*–you understand…? Irrelevant. Also, in all your excitement Jim–there is no need to punctuate after an exclamation point, that is actually punctuation itself. Therefore your period, much like your comment, remain…irrelevant. Good Day. 。 。★ 。 。★ 。 。★
Part of being a good man is matching your language to your life, matching your desires and your values. Teen girls, and teen boys, need to see the older men in their lives as trustworthy and reliable. Like it or not, in the eyes of a young woman, you’ll never be trustworthy if you’re hitting on girls her age. You’ll be a “creep” and a “perv.” And you’ll have earned those names.
I think there is a big bit of presumption going on here.
It seems to mandate that as a man gets older his tastes in women must be a certain (in this case being attracted to women his own age) or else he deserves to be called a creep and perv. As long as said young woman is of legal age there is nothing wrong with showing interest, as long as its done appropriately.
That story at Amber at the beginning where the older guy commented on her tits and sped off would have still be horrible if the guy was 18 or she was 25. Why? Because that sort of behavior is plain rude (and probably falls into that category of catcalling that women point out as being bothersome).
This isn’t about shaming adult men for doing a double-take at a cute high school cheerleader. It’s about gently reminding all of us that what looks so grown up isn’t. It’s about remembering that our libidos should be growing along with the rest of us. Most of us who are over 30 don’t have the same haircut or listen to the same music that we did when we were teens. Unless we’re the unfortunate John Derbyshire, shouldn’t we be attracted to a completely different age group than we were when we were too young to drive?
After two pages of “if your tastes don’t change over time you deserve to be called a perv and creep” I find it odd you then try to end off with claiming this is not about shaming adult men. I myself have been attracted to older women since I was a teenager (before American Pie came started the MILF trend and made it hip to like older women). Based on your logic (that tastes in women must change over time simply because we get older over time) my attraction to older women should have changed. But it hasn’t.
An age gap doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) make one a creep (cuz I sure as hell haven’t heard about anyone calling cougars creeps, in fact they are being celebrated by the very people taht would yell creep if the ages were swapped). What makes them a creep is pusuing someone even after said someone has show disinterest and inappropriate behavior (I’m pretty sure most women would not appreciate a guy just walking up to them and asking for a blowjob, stuff like that).
The slur “cougars” implies a predatory intent, no?
But apparently its a good sort of predatory when used in this context. Somehow when its older women its okay but when its older men its disgusting.
Maybe some people see it as a “good sort of predatory.” I think many people don’t – myself for example (and I’m nearing “cougar” age and income, etc).
I don’t mind if people want to play power or predatory games in sex/relating if they are in an otherwise equal relationship; it can be very fun actually.
The problem is that these are sometimes not equal relationships.
I think there’s more than one may think that believe that it is a good type of predatory behavior. Namely that such women are often portrayed as being sexually free, finally able to do what they want and have what they want. Personally I don’t care for the label not only because of predatory nature of it but also because of the cultural implications of it.
Like I said thanks to the likes of American Pie its not just okay to be attracted to older women but its actually trendy and hip to be attracted to older women (although I wonder how okay it will be once the cultural coolness has worn off). You see I’m of just barely enough age to recall when talking about being sexually attracted to older women (and just to establish by older I’m not talking I’m 16 and she’s 25, I’m talking I’m 16 and she’s 50) was call for teasing. But now a whole subgenre of porn has developed around the cultural hipness of MILFs and cougars (who seem to be getting younger and younger I might add, thus almost defeating the point).
I think the term “cougar” is just another way to label women. Another name. No different then calling us sluts, MILFS…etc etc. They all have the same end result. To portray a one deminsional view of a woman. I don’t consider “cougar” a positive. And when I’m older, I certainly don’t want to be called one just because I still express a sex drive.
Resist the urge to refer to older men as “creeps” and “pervs” and you may just avoid being called a name you don’t like. Simple, no?
I think the term “cougar” is just another way to label women. Another name. No different then calling us sluts, MILFS…etc etc.
I’m not so sure about that if for no other reason than I’ve never seen women actively taking on the title slut or creating sub categories (like cubs, cougars in training, etc…). I think I ever recall an article from a about year ago where there were workshops on how to be a cougar. Even if you don’t like there is definitely at least an attempt at putting a positive spin on it.
And when I’m older, I certainly don’t want to be called one just because I still express a sex drive.
And yet that is precisely what Hugo does to men by saying that being attracted to younger women warrants being called a perv or creep.
That is not *at all* ‘precisely’ what he’s saying. Having a sex drive is one thing–it’s about the appropriate use and energy and direction of said sex drive. She was saying when she’s older she’ll still have a sex drive–not that she will do what men do (some men) and selfishly pursue young, innocent girls. Also, there is a difference in being attracted and acting out.
An implication of predatory intent is not quite in the same league with explicitly calling someone a creep. Is it?
“An age gap doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) make one a creep (cuz I sure as hell haven’t heard about anyone calling cougars creeps, in fact they are being celebrated by the very people taht would yell creep if the ages were swapped).”
Possibly because, as has been displayed in comments on other articles in this blog and others (eg., “Why Does It Matter How Many Partners She’s Had?”), females are still valued for their youthful sexiness combined with a lack of sexuality/sexual experience (this lack of sexual experience somehow being equated to fidelity) whereas men are valued for pretty much everything else plus an almost excess of sexual experience/prowess. When a female is older (at an age where one can pretty well predict that she’s had sexual experience), her value no longer lies in her lack of sexual experience but in the sexual experience that she can bestow upon a younger man, thus increasing his value in the sex department and quite possibly his confidence with women now that he has gained some experience.
It doesn’t work out quite the same way in the older man/younger woman scenario when a long-term relationship is not what’s in play.
Is it fair that older men are viewed as creeps when pursuing younger women and not older women when pursuing younger men (the cougar phenomenon)? No, it’s not, but neither is the difference in the way males and females are valued or devalued based on their sexuality (or lack thereof).
Our capacity to narcissistically rage at strangers in internet comments sections never ceases to astound me
The fray about how conservative gender roles may be impacting Schwizer’s article is beyond my wisdom. I suspect there’s something to that red flag though.
HOWEVER, what I find beautiful is his insight that “younger [lovers often] lack the experience and wisdom to call their older lovers on their bullshit.” And his call at the end for men in their 30′s, 40s, 50′s to find some way to be in relationships with women in their teens and 20′s that isn’t sexually charged or predatory is beautiful.
Our culture’s entitlement of men to rework a relationship with any woman into some sexually-charged fantasy is not only violent and traumatizing to women who don’t consent to the objectification and unwanted drive-by-sexuality, it also allows men to permanently hide in a 16-year-old self, not having to do the difficult work of growing and working alongside the accountability and companionship of women their own age.
“It’s about remembering that our libidos should be growing along with the rest of us.”
But that’s just it, Tucker. We’re already in relationships with teens and 20-somethings that aren’t sexually charged and predatory. You know that. You probably also know that taking exception to a craftily-fashioned slur against men of a certain age isn’t “narcissistic[...] rage at strangers in internet comments.”
“Our culture’s entitlement of men to rework a relationship with any woman into some sexually-charged fantasy is not only violent and traumatizing to women who don’t consent to the objectification and unwanted drive-by-sexuality,”
“sexually-charged fantasy ”
Ha ha ha. Clearly you’ve never been married!
He is not talking about marriage. He is talking about meat market style interactions between genders.
Funny how this “women have agency – don’t condescend or infantilize them” line always gets conveniently trotted out by some men with regard to the young women (or girls!) consenting to sex but not with regard to recognizing their economic autonomy, political rights, or their needs for empathic, non-exploitative mentoring just like young men (or boys) need.
Calling someone a pedophile doesn’t constitute an argument outside of feminist forums.
You are not gender neutral, you are just paying lip service to it now.
You patronise, infantilise and frighten young women while demonising men, for a living, as your student suggested, when you obtain sex from your students on that basis, you are obtaining sex by deception.
I disagree with Hugo on a lot of issues, but I’ve never seen anything that indicates he sleeps with his students. I’m getting pretty damned sick and tired of hearing people whine about ad hominems and deception and then seeing them let loose with crap like this.
Hugo has written on his blog about affairs he had with a few students early in his career. I don’t doubt that he is faithful to his current fourth wife. I do think his perceptions of relationships between older men and younger women are colored by and in part a mea culpa for past indiscretions. His religious conversion happened after these affairs.
Yeah. The accusations, however, are that he is doing this NOW. And while I agree that Hugo’s new-found relationship with God and thge guilt that his chosen religion creates re: matters sexual definitely needs to be taken into consideration when reading his pieces, that’s no excuse to accuse the man of abusing his teacher/student realtionships, nor is it callfor veiled accusations that he’s a pedophile.
I don’t think anyone implied that Hugo is a pedophile, I think that he is leveling the veiled accusation at others. And the student that is making these allegations about him and his female students came forward very recently, as I understand it just days before this article was published.
A student of his came forward? That’s not at all what I hear. I would like to see some proof of that, please.
Strangers on the internet are going to be less likely to fetch things for you if you speak to them in that tone and treat them as if they are dishonest, besides the channel that the student contacted was mentioned early on in the thread.
“or their needs for empathic, non-exploitative mentoring just like young men (or boys) need.”
I thought they have agency. So how can you presume to tell us what they need? Are you speaking for them. Please speak for yourself.
The debate that’s raging here is sort of… well, entirely typical of debates that tend to rage on any given internet news site or blog. Everyone has their own experiences that shape their opinions. And I get that. My own experiences were this: starting at 9, I started developing. I was a D cup by 13, and hideously embarrassed by this. I wore baggy clothing, XL t-shirts, etc. I felt like I was doing a dandy job in camouflaging myself. Of course, I was totally naive. I was 13. Of course I was sure a big hoodie was all it’d take. At 13, I was at the supermarket with my parents, leaning on the cart, bored. They’d walked over to the more crowded butcher section a few feet over, so I stayed with the cart. The moment my parents were out of earshot, two men, well into their 30s at least leaned over and said “You think you’re sexy, don’t you” and I straightened up, immediately, bewildered. I was wearing shorts about 2 inches over my knees, a t-shirt, and Keds. I was routinely called ugly at school by my peers, and certainly didn’t think anything was sexy. Embarrassed, I walked away. I caught them leering at me at the end of a couple of aisles, even when I was with my parents. I think the thing is, it wasn’t anything to do with my physical appearance, it was that these douches got their rocks off on saying something lewd to a very underage girl. You can safely assume most 13 year olds are incredibly insecure, and I think my embarrassment and shame–which I already was harboring about my body–was essentially all they wanted.
I had 25 year old men ask about how “fat” my pussy was while riding down an escalator at the mall at 14; at 16 I was an extra in a movie and alternately had a few older men joking about my breast size, and one man around 50 awkwardly lavish compliments on me, and even offering me his business card to come “visit him”. I was well aware of how gross all of this was and had by this point taken to saying things like “I’m only 16/I could be your daughter”, and that just invited more attention.
By the time I was 18, all of it stopped. I became an attractive young woman, not an awkward, unsure of herself child. And I wasn’t of any interest to men older than me. It’s like someone waved a wand.
No one waved a wand. Come on, were you any less buxom at 18 than at 16?? It’s absurd.
No one waved a wand. Most of us men understand and practice self-control. We can’t really help the fact that some of us are assholes. We don’t expect women to do something about those women who are assholes, either.
You miss the point here. She was targeted for her vulnerability. Precisely when she became a legal adult the ‘lure’ of doing something nasty wasn’t there anymore.
Girls are targeted for vulnerability, but these men would have to possess one uncanny faculty of discernment if they can tell an 18-year old from a 16-year old.
Or a 25 year old from a 16 year old, for that matter.
That was one of the things bothering me about these constant “when I turned 18, the harassment stopped” testimonials, too.
Here’s an alternative explanation: when you turned 18, society began seeing you as an adult and you were thus allowed to decide for yourself about sexual matters without feeling you were violating rules. It thus became much easier for you to simply tune the creepy jerks out.
I think there’s something to be said for allowing young women (and men!) the opportunity to mature with their peer group. Regardless of how immature we might think our generation is, I was incredibly lucky to meet a man at 18 who was only a year older than men, and thus roughly at the same place I was in life: never had a relationship, unsure of our individual futures in terms of study and work, same sort of friendship turmoils and family dramas. Eight years later, I think it’s paid off.
It has been truly lovely to be able to share those life milestones with each other at around the same time; graduating from uni, getting full-time jobs, and buying a house together at roughly the same stage in life.We can appreciate the stress these things put on our lives and because we’re going through it together, it really creates a sense of empathy that might otherwise be lacking if you have to impatiently wait for your partner to finish college at 23, even if you’re in your late thirties and have an established business and work profile.
Allowing the young to date the young?? How is this not allowed? The world is not a giant FLDS compound, despite what Hugo Schwyzer and his fans seem to think.
My, that’s some mighty fine reading comprehension there.
Hey, sorry. I know it’s blameworthy that I don’t take “artichoke” to mean “tuberculosis.” I’ll try and improve, really I will.
I see several things conflated together in the article and in the comments: lusting after younger women, harassing them, asking them out, and dating them. These are not all the same thing. They may be on some sort of continuum, but it’s quite a long stretch between the guy in the car harassing a 12-year-old and Sean Penn dating Scarlett Johansson. (I admit I don’t know the details of their relationship, so I’m making some assumptions here.)
I think one of Hugo’s central points is quite valid, that when an older man shows romantic interest in a much younger woman, she may not be as flattered as he thinks she will be. She may feel a little creeped out by the attention. What a man thinks of as friendly may be something that a woman sees as predatory. I can buy that. It makes sense to me, but the article makes this a very overstated point. I get the sense that Hugo and his students see an older man’s interest in a younger woman as inherently exploitative and predatory, simply by its very nature. That seems extreme to me.
As far as sampling goes, from what I know about Women’s Studies courses at my school, Hugo’s students may not be a good cross-section of women’s experiences, not even young college-aged women. Such an elective tends to attract people with similar outlooks and experiences, even common axes to grind. (I teach some controversial subjects as well, so I’m very familiar with student cadres who join a class with battles to fight.)
Another valid point in the article is looking at the conclusions that many women come to when they see men’s behavior. Many women are hearing very negative messages about men and are coming to really negative conclusions about them (and about ALL men!). It’s good to hear the points of view of people such as Amber. However, perception isn’t reality. It’s crucial to honor one’s feelings, but a feeling is not a conclusion. It’s a shame that she has come to make an absolute judgment about all men. Is it some men’s fault that she thinks this way about men? Certainly. Does that mean she’s perfectly justified in holding onto a stereotype about half the world’s population? I don’t think so.
I don’t think the article calls for infantilizing young women, exactly, but it does suggest, that older men should be very careful with younger women, suggesting that older men have some kind of mentoring responsibility. I can buy that a little, too, but only up to a point. At a certain point an adult has to take responsibility for his/her own disappointment in a relationship. If a relationship with an older man disappoints you, it’s unfair to blame all men, and in fact the age difference may not have been the most important factor.
At the risk of sounding like a hairsplitter, if there is some general theory about older men preying upon younger women and age difference is a crucial factor, then can someone (expert or not) give me a good algorithm or chart to use? When is the man too old for her? Presumably it’s a sliding scale relative to her age, as someone mentioned – I’m guessing there’s no problem here with a 35 year old woman and a 50 year old man.
You won’t get this algorithm, at least not from Hugo. His aim is to make men ashamed they feel any attraction to younger women. The fact that most of us won’t act on the attraction doesn’t matter to him. It doesn’t matter to his supporters, either.
What blows me away is the repeatedly expressed belief that older men can somehow “hurt” younger woman more than younger men. Where’s the proof for this, exactly?
It’s interesting, because several of the female posters above seem to claim that there’s some sort of hegemonic female position on this issue, but so far the women who’ve weighed in to complain about their older male boyfriends have been all over the board in terms of describing their attitudes. Erin says she feels taken advantage of. Another poster claims that older men are kinder and calmer and her complaint is that this didn’t prepare her for guys her age. A wholes slew of posters seem to mistake dating an older person with receiving rude and sexist comments from an older person (and don’t bother to explain why this is necessarily worse when it comes from a 50 year old rather than a 20 year old… ageism, perhaps?)
When i was under 25, i knew full well a woman in her 30s & beyond. had vastly superior life experience. And that the subsequent power differential was vast.
I still went after older women, & at 25 had a 3yr relationship with a woman 20yrs older than i.
So im surprised that these women believed that they were close to being the mental equals of these older men.
How could they arrive at such a thought.
And if young women over18 need extraprotection from themselves. Doesnt that infantilise them?
The real aim of the Schwyzer-Marcotte-Valenti axis in feminism, aside from earning a crust, is to drive home two ideas. First, the problem with women is men. Second, men don’t really deserve women. They’re the heirs to the Dworkin-MacKinnon-Morgan axis. It can be difficult to remember most feminists are closer in outlook to Laura Kipnis than Hugo, but it’s true. Thank God for that.