# Is finding an adult young enough to be your child attractive disgusting? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 5, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996 "2016-05-05T16:24:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/41 "2016-05-06T00:34:38Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > When I first met my husband, I was 42 and he was 22 (same birthday). That was almost 29 years ago. Over the years, I can’t think of one time the age difference caused a real problem. On the other hand, I think the relationship has had an added dimension because of it. This, and for more reasons than just what **panache45** noted. Mrs. Guest and I enjoy the same age difference as the panaches. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/42 "2016-05-06T01:24:06Z")
Personally, I spend too much time around teenagers to really be able to be attracted to them any more. I see firsthand just how immature they are on a daily basis, and it’s left an impression on me. But that doesn’t mean that it’s skeevy to appreciate them, just that I don’t. EDIT: To be clear, that’s just for appreciating them. Acting on that appreciation, definitely skeevy. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/43 "2016-05-06T01:59:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Personally, I spend too much time around teenagers to really be able to be attracted to them any more. I see firsthand just how immature they are on a daily basis, and it’s left an impression on me. But that doesn’t mean that it’s skeevy to appreciate them, just that I don’t. > > EDIT: To be clear, that’s just for appreciating them. Acting on that appreciation, definitely skeevy. If they’re old enough to work full time, make all their own medical decisions, vote, live on their own, and (in most countries outside the US) drink alcohol, I don’t think it’s ‘skeevy’. ---
**Author:** ![NeonMadman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58f4c7/32.png) [@NeonMadman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeonMadman)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/44 "2016-05-06T02:06:36Z")
So everyone over 40 or so who reads \*Playboy \*or \*Penthouse \*must really just be reading for the articles? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/45 "2016-05-06T03:14:01Z")
I don’t find it inherently disgusting. Good-looking, charismatic older guy with a young girl who adores him? No problem. OTOH I think it is sad, and skeevy, when you see older guys who are trying very hard to get young girls in a predatory way that makes everyone uncomfortable. It’s sad because they’ve reached a later point in their life and still have a poor understanding of how people hook up. Some idea that they can wear girls down and not understanding the signals the girl is giving, that dating them is out of the question. * * * For me, I’m lucky that I’m generally attracted to women close to my own age, and pay younger women no heed. However, in the event that a girl turns out to be older than her appearance would suggest, or a young girl takes an interest in me, something clicks in my mind and I’m allowed to notice she’s hot 🙂 > [@Orwell](#): > > I also find the idea ridiculous, and illogical in a biological sense. Not sure what you mean. It makes sense, in a “selfish gene” way, for men to continue to find young women physically attractive through their whole lives. Women too, to a lesser extent. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/46 "2016-05-06T03:31:47Z")
Being attracted and acting on it are two very different things. One you can’t control and one you can. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/47 "2016-05-06T04:26:04Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > No. I’m 47. Let’s say that someone young enough to be my child is anyone 18 years younger than me. (..scribbles numbers on paper…) That’s 29 years old. How old is, say, Jennifer Lawrence? I think she’s around there somewhere, maybe even younger. A world in which it is disgusting for me to find Jennifer Lawrence attractive is a world that scares me. 25; she turns 26 in August. For the record, I’m 51, I think she’s a total hottie, and I don’t feel badly about that. (Nor does it bother my wife. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/48 "2016-05-06T04:45:52Z")
I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. I do think its kind of silly that my mid 50’s Father is dating a 27 year old, a few years younger than me, nearly 10 years younger than my older sister. It kind of makes me sigh on the inside when I see them out and she tries to talk down to me like I’m younger than her or something when I’m not only older but married with kids and a house, things that she doesn’t have and ergo isn’t really as experienced in life as I am. I think its silly but its pretty clear my Dad is only in it for the youth factor, and she for the money being spent on her by him. It’s definitely skeevy on a lot of levels, but I’m the live and let live type, I don’t hold it against him or even her. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/49 "2016-05-06T04:50:03Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > \*It felt like a second to me, she claims I was leering. Reminds me of what Seinfeld said about looking at cleavage (45sec video): [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbsmbCWUNEE](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbsmbCWUNEE) About the topic of older person dating a younger person, in previous discussions here some have suggested a formula determining how young is too young. Does anyone have that? Some time back I was out of town for work. At the end of the day we were meeting a coworker at a bar. A couple of young girls were there and they looked attractive, but when I found out they’d just graduated college and realized my daughter had just graduated too, I felt a little skeeved out by the thoughts I’d been having. ETA: I’m in my 50s. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/50 "2016-05-06T04:54:30Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > That sounds viable, as long as the 20 year-old doesn’t want to have biological kids of his own someday… But, what if he does? He waits until he is 40, has a younger wife, a little common sense, a well-established carer, and can afford to raise them. ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/51 "2016-05-06T05:00:02Z")
Cool. What does he do in the meantime? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/52 "2016-05-06T05:13:02Z")
> [@NeonMadman](#): > > So everyone over 40 or so who reads \*Playboy \*or \*Penthouse \*must really just be reading for the articles? Yeah, because we can find better porn for free on the net. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/53 "2016-05-06T05:16:00Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > I’ll be forty-one in four days. How much older are we talking about? I’m 64 and I haven’t stopped looking. My father-in-law is over 100 and I don’t think he has either. When he was 80 or 85 he’s call me wondering how the porn wallpaper got on his computer. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/54 "2016-05-06T05:55:09Z")
Attractive things are nice to look at. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/55 "2016-05-06T06:00:14Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I don’t find it inherently disgusting. > > Good-looking, charismatic older guy with a young girl who adores him? No problem. > > OTOH I think it is sad, and skeevy, when you see older guys who are trying very hard to get young girls in a predatory way that makes everyone uncomfortable. > > It’s sad because they’ve reached a later point in their life and still have a poor understanding of how people hook up. Some idea that they can wear girls down and not understanding the signals the girl is giving, that dating them is out of the question. > > * * * > > For me, I’m lucky that I’m generally attracted to women close to my own age, and pay younger women no heed. However, in the event that a girl turns out to be older than her appearance would suggest, or a young girl takes an interest in me, something clicks in my mind and I’m allowed to notice she’s hot 🙂 > > Not sure what you mean. It makes sense, in a “selfish gene” way, for men to continue to find young women physically attractive through their whole lives. > Women too, to a lesser extent. Trying to wear girls / women down so they’ll go out with you is inappropriate no matter what your age, or theirs. I’d also guess the wearing down strategy is more often employed by younger men than older ones, because of the maturity thing. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/56 "2016-05-06T07:43:51Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Trying to wear girls / women down so they’ll go out with you is inappropriate no matter what your age, or theirs. > > I’d also guess the wearing down strategy is more often employed by younger men than older ones, because of the maturity thing. Of course most stupid behaviours are going to be more common in the young than the old. But there’s a specific kind of behaviour I’m thinking of, and I see it more often in older guys than younger guys. A kind of focusing on a shy / nervous girl, being aware that she’s uncomfortable and _consciously_ trying to wear her down. Perhaps it works sometimes, but I’ve only seen/heard instances where it upsets and annoys. Maybe the dynamic is slightly skewed here as I live in Shanghai and in the set of {older guys I’ve seen trying to pick up young girls} it’s disproportionately white guys trying to get asian girls, and white, older guys in Shanghai may not be a very representative group. But then I never made any claim about the prevalence of this approach. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/57 "2016-05-06T08:19:31Z")
Actually, on thinking about it, I’ll drop this particular tangent. If a particular skeevy behaviour was relevant to the question of whether older people finding much younger people attractive is disgusting, then we’d have to say young guys finding young girls attractive is _more_ disgusting, because there is no shortage of skeevy stuff some young guys do. (probably I was one of them :() ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/58 "2016-05-06T09:35:47Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I’m 64 and I haven’t stopped looking. My father-in-law is over 100 and I don’t think he has either. When he was 80 or 85 he’s call me wondering how the porn wallpaper got on his computer. > [@GuanoLad](#): > > Attractive things are nice to look at. I’m in my 50s and was recently telling a 30-something coworker that one great thing about getting older is that my radar finds more lovely ladies to admire. Beauty abounds. My radar now finds lovely ladies in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, whereas when I was in my 20s my radar only found lovely ladies in their 20s and 30s. Anyone older than about 50, I didn’t really notice them unless it was a Joan Collins or Sophia Loren type, otherwise while walking around my radar just wasn’t tuned to that age. It is now, certainly. So as I’ve gotten older has my radar gotten better? Or have my standards dropped? Or maybe a little of both? ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/59 "2016-05-06T10:55:31Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > I guess I’ll go against the grain. I’d say that “disgusting” is too strong a word, but it definitely makes me feel skeevy to think about girls my son’s age in a sexual context. There does seem to be a sort of threshold for a lot of men. I’ve reached a point where celebrities in their 20s, I just think “cute kid.” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996/60 "2016-05-06T11:19:05Z")
I was talking to a guy I know when his eyes glazed over, his jaw dropped, and he just stared over my shoulder. I turned around, and there was my 15 year old daughter walking up to say hi. Ten years have passed and I stil think of him as a creepy dude. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-finding-an-adult-young-enough-to-be-your-child-attractive-disgusting/753996.md?page=4)