I’m 20 and Mr Johnson will be 26 later this month. I think a lot of it has to do with the stages of life the two people are in. I want to be with someone I can experience life with and grow old with. To me, a 40+ man has experienced half of life already before me.
That… and there is also that my dad is in his 40s.
FYI, the youngest Vietnam-era veterans are 51.
IMHO, for what it’s worth (about two or three pennies, I know 
):
If it’s a healthy, loving relationship on both sides, I really don’t care if the guy’s eighty-four and the girl’s twenty-two. Relationships don’t come with pigeonholes.
My emphasis is on the healthy, loving part–if he’s with her because he’s fulfilling some sort of neurosis, or she’s leading him on for his money, then that’s not kosher (and it wouldn’t be even if they were the same age). But if they’re genuinely in love and genuinely enjoy and cherish each other’s company, who’s to say that’s wrong?
I’ll be 40 in about six weeks. I’ve never been married, and I like women in their 20s. Why?
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Most women my age, at least the ones I come in contact with, are married and therefore off-limits.
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I’ve overheard too many conversations between women around my age, in which the women compare notes on what assholes men are. Usually these opinions are based on a history of extremely poor decision-making on the woman’s part, i.e. they keep going after the same kinds of men (“ooh, that guy in the loud, jacked up 4X4 is sooooo hot!”) and then being surprised when they turn out to be assholes. I prefer a woman who does not have a 20-year string of ugly relationships to compare me to.
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This seems to apply more to people slightly older than me, but I find it unattractive when people (men or women) won’t abandon the style they had in high school. I’m talking about women still running around with Farrah Fawcett hairstyles, and men with mullets. I’m certainly no fashion plate, but I try to keep current without trying to dress like I’m still a college student. I find the styles popular among the younger crowd appealing. I like long, straight hair and low cut jeans.
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Dammit, I want a blowjob! The women in my age group who I took home or went home with in my 20s (and who are, of course still in my age group now) thought oral sex was just disgusting and vile and out of the question. Change their mind by going down on them (which I really enjoy, too)? Hell no, they think that’s disgusting too. While I realize I may be buying into a popular myth, I hear that the younger generation is much more open to oral sex, as well as other more “adventurous” sexual activities.
As to why some young women think an older man hitting on them is “gross”, I partly blame the barrage of warnings about child molestation in recent years. While I think such awareness is good and necessary, I believe it has gone so far as to convince an entire generation that anybody more than five years older than them is “old” and therefore some kind of potential pervert who is just trying to take advantage of them.
Anyway, my current object of desire is fourteen years younger than me. She’s beautiful, and smarter than me (IQ around 170, compared to my 136), delightful to talk to and we get along famously. And her mom thinks I’m great, which is a bonus. Unfortunately for me, she’s in a relationship with the father of her child, and for better or worse, my own code of ethics doesn’t allow me to interfere with that. sigh
Otherwise, my current rule of thumb about how young I’ll go (within legal limits, of course) is that I have to be younger than her father. Assuming she’s interested in me, I’m game as long as I’m not older than her dad.
I think you’re wrong on this. At least my plurality of anecdotes tells me so.
Of my past (counting on fingers) 7 girlfriends, all but two were into the sucky sucky. Their ages when I met them were 26-42. Their ages now would be 36-49. And the two exceptions had serious emotional baggage. Even then, they’d do it on rare occasion.
In fact, I can’t think of even one serious girlfriend I had who refused outright, all the time.
Maybe I just have a knack for picking the right women, I don’t know.
As a 36yo female, I agree that Phase42 either makes unfair assumptions or has been awfully unlucky. This is one of my pet peeves, actually - those of either gender who refuse oral as if it’s some sort of deviant act. :rolleyes: Every man and woman has the right to expect it as part of the package. Those not intersted need to form their own dating service or something, and leave the rest of us alone. Or perhaps Phase42 had a hygiene problem in his twenties that his GF’s were too polite to mention? You know what I mean, girls. :dubious:
Never having dated women in their early twenties, but having been one, I would think they are more inhibited sexually due to insecurity about her body (that most women suffer, no matter how ‘hot’ they are). I mean, they might be more exhibitionistic or porny due to the “Girls Gone Wild” sort of cultural expectation, but I don’t think this translates into genuine sexual freedom. Often this sort of behavior is a beacon of self-esteem issues and deep desire for attention and acceptance. In the end once they “win” the man of their dreams, they turn off this freewheeling nature since they no longer need it. Huge generalization, I know, but it happens.
By contrast, women in their 30’s are (again, generally) happier with ourselves and our bodies, worried less about the expectations of others, and therefore much free-er in the sack.We’re also less likely to put up with bullshit, which might turn off men who like to dish it out.
Well I don’t know about you but I have all the power in my current relationship …as long as it’s ok with her
Not sure I totally agree, although I am interested in receiving your newsletter.
Everyone has the right to engage in whatever consentual activities they want. But they don’t have the right to expect a partner to do something the partner is unwilling to do. That borders on rape.
Will women in their early 20s who refuse to engage in oral continue to carry that attitude the rest of their lives? Yeah, maybe a segment of that population. Especially within older generations, pre sex revolution. I certainly don’t want to picture my great-grandmother doing that sort of thing. Ever.
But I’d say a more likely scenario is that younger women are not only more inhibited about their own bodies, but probably a little more scared of the unknown. And they (broad brush here) tend to be grossed out by far more things of any nature. As women grow older, they tend to get a bit wiser about what is acceptably sanitary and safe. Just one of the benefits of the wrinkly years.
Hear, hear!! [pounds table, stamps feet, waggles tongue]
Why?
Erm, no. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been one of those “I shall shower every day, sometimes twice a day, no matter what” people. I love showers, and I love being clean, and my profession requires being clean. Plus, being uncircumcised, I learned early to keep the tool especially clean.
In any case, since these women wouldn’t go down there in the first place (how could they see what they were doing anyway, what with all the lights off and being under the covers? 
), I don’t know how they’d tell if I had a hygiene problem anyway.
Maybe it’s just a small-town thing. I knew there was a reason I hated this place.
Um, my town, that is, not the SDMB …
Well, there is this one dear female friend of mine whose two long-term relationships have both been to notably older men, and ostensibly part of what she found desirable in that setup was precisely that he would not expect her to marry him and have his children.
The irony being, that this woman who fiercely declares herself phobic to permanent tie-down and domestication, has had some of the longest-lasting most stable pairings of any of our circle of acquaintances
How far do you have to go before the “ick” factor kicks in? Are there certain milestones that accelerate it? I found that in the online dating world, the majority of women who were 31 or 32 would have an upper age limit of 39 as a preference for their mate. I just turned 40, and now I’m finding that the WSM upper age limit just jumped up for guys like me; it seems like very few women under 35 or 36 will consider dating a 40-year-old. 40 seems to trigger the old-man “ick factor” in a lot of women.
I should point out, without taking further part in the discussion, that I would most definitely date Patrick Stewart. Salt & pepper chest hair or no.
To be honest, the main reason I would date an older man is intelligence…if he was clearly more intelligent and well-read than me. Intelligence is sexy. I was always a fan of Spock rather than Kirk.
It’s already been brought up in relation to value of aging actresses vs aging actors, but IMHO the “ick” comes primarily from that fact that such relationships are a glaring reminder of yet another sexual inequity.
It seems audacious that a middle-aged man should ever even entertain the idea of courting a woman from the primely contested pool of 20-somethings. What’s more crushing is that such men are successful, while women their age discarded for the insulting reasons already mentioned in this thread (looks, emotional baggage, and children). Seeing older men/younger women couples is a slap in the face to women of any age who recongize them as a reminder of their disinfranchised position in sexual politics.
Interesting question.
I think my reaction to this is conditioned by the relationships I see.
I live in a reasonably affluent neighbourhood; most of the relationships I see of the “[much] older man with younger woman” variety are those involving reasonably wealthy men working on their second wife (or third). I have a neighbour a couple of doors down who is starting up a new family; his pregnant wife is around the same age as his daughter, who visits on the weekends. This sort of thing is not uncommon (I can think of at least three others on the block, though without the same-age daughter think).
I guess this bothers me a bit.
Of course this could be nothing but a bunch of bad stereotypes. I don’t actually know these people all that well. But assuming that my impressions have some validity, I guess it bothers me for these reasons:
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I like to think of a marriage as a union of equals. These sorts of relationships don’t look very equal - more like the wife is some sort of possession, to be traded in for a better, newer model;
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I don’t particularly like the whole notion of marrying for money or material comforts. Whether justified or not, I always thought that marrying (or settling down, or whatever) out of mutual attraction is superior. I just get the impression that these young women are marrying these older dudes because they have pots of cash.
Indeed, I saw an ad on the Internet recently which played on this notion. The ad was for an investment service; the pic they used was of an older guy in a wedding with a young woman - the clear message I thought being “let us handle your money, so when you are old, you will have enough to attract the young chicks”.
On the other hand, there are no doubt many reasons why young women would go for older men, even if they were not comparatively wealthy. It is probably a prejudice on my part - but not I think one wholly without foundation.
That’s totally true. When I was under 35, I couldn’t imagine dating someone 40 and up; that just seems too “adult” for me. A lot of it was my own insecurity about growin older; I felt dating someone 40 would make me older by association. Now that I’m 38, I’ve adjusted my upper limit to 45 and I wouldn’t rule out a really cool 47 year old.
It works both way tho’. A lot of guys have their upper limit set at 35 and once a woman passes that milestone, she falls off the radar. That’s a big signal for me, if a guy is only looking for women 10 years than himself and won’t consider a woman his own age, I automatically rule him out.
What ick factor? Assuming I were not in a steady relationship (which I am so this is all hypothetical to me), I would be delighted if an interesting male within 15 - 20 years of my age expressed an interest in me. I reserve the right to be ick’d off by whatever combination of lack of self-care and unappealing mental, emotional and physical attributes this male may have.
I’m a 22 year old woman. Senior in college. About to enter graduate school. I have ALWAYS been exclusively attracted to older men. While in high school this meant I preferred men in their early 20s. Now that i’m in my 20s I am finally of the age to date basically anyone I want to. And as icky as other people may find it, I am sexually attracted to men mostly in the 35-45 year range.
I’m not really sure what the psychology behind this personal preference is but I do know I can’t really help it. I just always like older men. I don’t see this as having anything to do with my father. I have always had a great relationship with my dad and whats icky is to compare my sexual attraction to older men as a sexual attraction to a father figure.
What I can explain about this whole thing is how much I dislike men my own age. You can barely use the term “men” here. 22 year olds are still in this whole frat boy “eat my shit” shallow college phase where they typically live in squalor with five other dudes and go out binge drinking and prowling for one night stands. In my experience, older men are more appreciative of beauty that doesn’t necessarily fit into the blond cheerleader empty head category. Not to mention older men are better conversationalists.
I however feel most of the time that I have the power in these situations. These are older men and I am a young sexy educated woman that could leave and find someone new in five seconds. I think they sense this and are more appreciative of my attention and fidelity.
This may not be at all how others feel but thats just how it is IMHO.