I am a gay male, but I always seem to be attracted to men that are about ±10 years.
I thought about this as today I was watching a rerun of “Married With Children,” and I thought, “You know Al Bundy really is kind of attractive.”
Also there’s the old joke, “You know you’re getting old when you watch reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” and start thinking, ‘I never really noticed what a goodlooking woman Mrs Howell is’?”
Now it’s not that I don’t think someone who’s like 25 is unattractive, but when I see guys that age, all I want to do is pat them on the head and buy them some ice cream
So that’s what I mean by my question, does your attraction to the opposite sex, or same sex if your gay, change as you age?
And I don’t mean this as a rap. I mean I see nothing wrong if you’re older and only like young ones or if you’re young and only like older men and/or woman.
I just thought it was interesting as I age, so does my definition of attractiveness also seems to age.
When I was 18, I wasn’t particularly attracted to women much past their late 20s. And, of course, I was very attracted to 18-year-old girls.
Now that I’m 46, I find (pretty) women of my own age very attractive. And, I still can appreciate 18-year-olds, even if I recognize that sort of makes me a dirty old man.
I think that your appreciation grows with age; what looked impossibly OLD at 20 looks decent nowadays. By that same token, there are a lot of college-age girls who look really frighteningly young. Attractive, but in a jailbait kind of way.
At 20, I found bald men completely unattractive.
At 30, I found baldness was not incompatible with hot.
At 16, I found 16 year old boys attractive.
At 34, I find them gawky, unfinished and awkward looking.
I think the range of ages that I’m attracted to spreads a bit as I get older, but that makes sense. The age gap between 16 and 26 is far more significant than the age gap between 56 and 66. The “Half your age plus seven” rule also results in an expanding range of acceptable mates.
I was always attracted to older men in my youth. As I age, the men in my dating pool tend to be closer to my own age, some even younger (but not by much).
I still see the attractiveness of a hawt! 25 year old guy, but the next thing on my mind is Holy shit! I’d have to housebreak him. Guess my answer would be not too much of a change.
:scratches head: I wonder if I’ll still be attracted to forty-something year old men when I’m on social security?
Yes. I’m more attracted to personality and life-stage compatibility than looks in general. I can look at a 17 year old and realize they’re good-looking, but I’d never want to be in a relationship with someone that young. And that limits the overall amount of attraction potential they can have for me.
I’m only 26 but I imagine this will keep happening as I get older. When I was <25 years old, I would never have dated someone over 30. When I was 18, no one over 23. Now I’d realistically look at anyone up to 40. My last bf was 33, bald, and fat and I still found him sexy. If I’d looked at a picture of him 5 years earlier, I would NEVER have gone for that.
Yeah, this is pretty much how I feel. But if, in my fantasy, they’re over the age of consent and love me despite my decrepitude (I’m 46), my conscience doesn’t shout at me too loudly.
27-year-old straight male. And absolutely, I’ve noticed that women I’d have considered absurdly old in college (which doesn’t feel that long ago) are now often just absurdly hot. Some of the most attractive women I know are in their late thirties. And while I still notice an attractive 18-year-old, I’m not nearly as interested as I would have been even five years ago. Last time I saw a Victoria’s Secret display, I found myself regretting that they hadn’t found an older model.
Yeah. Damn good thing, too, since I was attracted to girls my own age when I was 9 or thereabouts.
I’m 50 now and I can happily report that the trend continues. I’m involved with other 50 year olds and they look right. I can still look at 20-somethings and find them cute, but not compelling.
At first it seemed like it wasn’t, but lately it has been. I’m just a little behind: most attractive is not at my age, but 3 or so years younger. It goes +10 from there, but obviously not -10.
I’m 29, still sexually attracted to 18-24 year olds but in terms of actually wanting to date them (hang out with our friends, have long conversations with, etc) I find THAT age goes up as I get older because naturally we have more to talk about.
I was out with an 18yo once and we both took the same class subject in school. It took me a solid 10 min of us sharing stories to realize she was talking about the high school version of the class and I was talking about college haha
(she was a super sweet girl and we dated for a few months, and now shes actually in college and we still keep in touch, just so I dont sound like a monster here)
So I’d still fuck the young’uns but I wouldn’t want to stick around for breakfast like with a woman closer to my age
The best way to represent my answer to the OP is with graphs.
Note, the graphs represent what percent of women of a certain age I find hot/sexually attractive. This has nothing to do with the desire to date them, especially if the age difference is too large.
**When I was 18:**
20% ***
Percent 10% **
I find 5% **
hot 2% **
0% --------------------------------------
18 20 22 24 26 28 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Age of woman
**When I was 25:**
20% ***********
Percent 10% **
I find 5% **
hot 2% ****
0% --------------------------------------
18 20 22 24 26 28 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Age of woman
**When I was 35:**
20% ***********
Percent 10% **
I find 5% **
hot 2% **********
0% --------------------------------------
18 20 22 24 26 28 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Age of woman
**Estimated, when I'm 45:**
20% ***********
Percent 10% **
I find 5% **
hot 2% ****************
0% --------------------------------------
18 20 22 24 26 28 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Age of woman
Overall, I think that the basic distribution of sexually attractive women stays the same, with the caveat that as I get older, some older ages that previously had close to zero hot women, now have some hot women.
Basically, almost any age has some sexually attractive women, it’s just that the percent is higher for the younger ages.
Sometimes there are threads where people ask “which age differences are ok to you” or something similar. I felt like I was some sort of narrow-minded harpy because my “no eyebrows raised range” is the same it was when I was 12: 6 years.
Then I realized that, then like now, the immense majority of the guys I find attractive are within that range of my own age. So yeah, my “attractiveness range” gets older along with me, which means I now have no problem believing that “old codgers” do find their age-peers attractive. I expect that there will be a point in my life where any dude with a full head of black hair and no wrinkles will get dismissed as “uninteresting” unless he happens to be too gorgeous for words.
Am similar age to AHunter3 but in some ways polar opposite. Am locked happily attracted to girlfriends in early to late 20’s.
I’ve never looked for a “soulmate” (whatever the fuck that means) My work and lifestyle is incompatible with “settling down” But when am home I need someone who can be active, take time out of their schedule to go sailing or maybe a week diving etc.
I have some older female friends who share some charity projects with me but there is no sexual attraction there whatsoever.
I think the only reason I still find young people attractive is because I missed out on relationships at that age. If I had had one or two, I’d probably dismiss them now. As it is, I mostly like the range of 25 to 45.
I know that I found teen girls hot when I was a teen. But now I see them and wonder how that was possible. I mean, they’re children to me now. Nowadays, it’s not the students, but the teacher who’s a hottie. Unless she’s too young, as well.
Guess my answer would be not too much of a change.