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 Younger Women, Older Men: Vice Versa and Versa Vice
by Marjorie Dorfman
Are you the only one on your block hanging out with people your own age? Secretly, do you wonder what makes these May-December romances click? Well, ponder no more, yonder or otherwise. Some answers are here as well as a lighter attitude and a few chuckles.
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Biologically, it makes more sense for older women to have sex with younger men- unless they want to talk afterwards. – Joan Collins
If love between a man and a woman is as old as the hills, how much older then, is love between younger women and older men and vice versa? If opposites attract, as the saying goes, then King Solomon’s words, uttered shortly after he threatened to cut the proverbial infant in two are also true. He is credited with having once said that whatever draws a man to a woman is the greatest mystery of all. He ought to have known, as he had many, many wives! If a great and wise king like Solomon couldn’t figure these things out, why should we lesser mortals bother to try?
It seems, indeed, a dauntless task to understand the depths of human nature. The truth of the matter is that age taken by itself has little bearing on any relationship. The couple’s feelings for each other and their overall level of compatibility are what cement their future. More important than one’s actual age is the age one feels. Hence, someone can be old at forty and young at seventy-five. According to sexologist, Sandra Reishas, when two people of different generations come together, they each bring something unique to the relationship. Different experiences can only enrich the time spent together.
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 Men have been dating and marrying younger women for ages. It is accepted even when there is a great age difference. When George Burns was once asked why he didn’t date women his own age, he smartly replied, "There are no women my age." In a recent interview with David Letterman on the subject of his divorce from actress and model Rachel Hunter, Rod Stewart admitted he had been foolish to marry a woman 20 years his junior. He was not referring to dating, but rather to the complications arising from a young wife who grew into a person with different goals and expectations.
Even though this is hardly a hot new trend, repercussions can be unexpected, far-reaching and sometimes even devastating. A sexual affair between a thirty-something woman and a teenage boy can lead a lady to jail, as in the notorious case of Seattle schoolteacher, Mary Kay LaTourneau. On the other hand, this same sort of liaison can inspire a critically acclaimed movie comedy such as Tadpole, in which a fifteen year old preppie tumbles into bed with his mother’s best friend and during intermission develops a king-size crush on his very own step mother! Many glamorous stars are married to conspicuously younger men. These include Susan Sarandon (twelve years older than her spouse), Daryl Hannah (also 12 years), Raquel Welch (14 years), Bernadette Peters (14 years), Madonna (10 years) and Joan Collins, who is a whopping thirty-three years older than her husband. And don’t forget Mary Tyler Moore who married her doctor, a man considerably younger than her, and with whom she appears to have a strong and healthy marriage.
In many of these relationships, the older woman is loved for who she is and not what she looks like. Basically, two people are attracted to each other for the same reasons any other couple are. (King Solomon, where are you?) Some important questions abound however, when and if the relationship takes a turn for the more serious. Should she move or should he? Who sacrifices their job? What about her children? What if he changes his mind? Will he leave her for another woman ten or twenty years down the road? (That can happen at any time anyway.) The answers are simple. Ignore them. Follow your heart, hold on tight and don’t look back! (Otherwise, a major headache and possibly some palpitations might ensue.)
 Some would say that these unions represent evidence of female empowerment. According to author Warren Farrell, older women with younger men was an almost non-existent phenomenon in the 1950s and 60s because there weren’t enough opportunities for women to be economically secure on their own. (Except maybe Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard.") Women have more rights and choices to exercise today, not to mention the right and inclination to exercise. In the 1950s, a lady as young as 35 or 40 might be expected to resemble Betty Crocker or someone of that ilk. Novelist Anna Quindlen has bravely divided women’s lives into three distinct stages; Pre-Babe, Babe and Post-Babe. Thanks to aerobics, hormone treatments, cosmetic enhancements and other technological advances, many females can greatly reduce the duration of that final stage or eliminate it altogether.
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Don't miss this excellent book:
Older Women, Younger Men
by Felicia Brings and Susan Winter
This book handles a timely, yet touchy subject in a tasteful manner. It is written primarily around couples where the female is at least 10 years older than the male in her life.
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