Article:
In 2018, the Science Advances journal published a study about the "aspirational pursuit of mates" within online dating. Researchers looked at nearly 200,000 heterosexual users and found that while men's sexual desirability peaks at age 50, women hit their prime at 18. Another study undertaken by dating website OkCupid found that "the median 30-year-old man spends as much time messaging teenage girls as he does women his own age".
But why does this supposed fixation that older men appear to have on young women bother me so much? Is it because, as a 40-something woman, it reminds me that in the world of dating, women of my vintage have depreciated in value? That the idea suggests physical appearance still matters more for women than men and we are thought to diminish in attractiveness more precipitously? Is it because research like this confirms what I’ve long suspected: some men (hashtag not all men) find girls more attractive than grown women – women with possibly more opinions and agency?
What ultimately bothers me is a man who believes that a woman his own age is too old to love. The French novelist Yann Moix intoned last year: "The body of a 25-year-old woman is extraordinary. The body of a woman of 50 is not extraordinary at all."
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Thoughts?
In 2018, the Science Advances journal published a study about the "aspirational pursuit of mates" within online dating. Researchers looked at nearly 200,000 heterosexual users and found that while men's sexual desirability peaks at age 50, women hit their prime at 18. Another study undertaken by dating website OkCupid found that "the median 30-year-old man spends as much time messaging teenage girls as he does women his own age".
Older men’s fixation with younger women really boils my kidneys
Tanya Sweeney: My experience of a relationship with an age difference was a disaster
www.irishtimes.com
But why does this supposed fixation that older men appear to have on young women bother me so much? Is it because, as a 40-something woman, it reminds me that in the world of dating, women of my vintage have depreciated in value? That the idea suggests physical appearance still matters more for women than men and we are thought to diminish in attractiveness more precipitously? Is it because research like this confirms what I’ve long suspected: some men (hashtag not all men) find girls more attractive than grown women – women with possibly more opinions and agency?
What ultimately bothers me is a man who believes that a woman his own age is too old to love. The French novelist Yann Moix intoned last year: "The body of a 25-year-old woman is extraordinary. The body of a woman of 50 is not extraordinary at all."
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Thoughts?