What's Behind the Trend of Women Dating Younger Men? Exploring the modern coupling phenomenon
By Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D. Special to Special to Yahoo! Personals Updated: Jun 13, 2008
There appears to be a trend of older women dating younger men, notably illustrated by celebrity couples including Demi Moore and Aston Kutcher, Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry, and the most recent fling between 48-year-old Linda Hogan and 19-year-old Charlie Hill. According to a study of 50,000 women daters over 30, conducted by an online dating site in 2007, more than one-third of the subjects showed interest in men at least 5 years younger. And in 2003, an AARP survey revealed 34 percent of 3,500 women (between ages 40 and 69) dated men who are 10 or more years younger than themselves. This trend appears to be shocking to some people, but I don't find it so unusual.
Socially, there's a role reversal of sorts going on, women are more powerful now than ever before and may want men who are younger, and perhaps, more flexible; men who can handle it if the woman's career and lifestyle takes priority over their own. Media portrayals in "Sex and the City" (like movie characters Smith Jerrod and Samantha Jones) and "Desperate Housewives" are also showing women that dates don't have to be older. Women who have high-powered careers -- or a well-developed self-image -- are exercising more choice. Women who have been divorced and are established single moms may enjoy having a playmate, someone to have fun with; who doesn't try to control her.
In my counseling office, I have seen many relationships succeed with this kind of older woman/younger man scenario.
The media focuses on the age difference, but what really makes or breaks the relationship is how well the couple can form a partnership that works.
Age difference is an adolescent worry: When you're a teenager, an age difference of even two or three years makes a vast difference in your experience and your outlook on life. Such a difference can interfere with communication, life goals, outlook, and relationship experience. In addition, for the young, the social reaction to such a relationship is often negative. If one partner is underage, a sexual relationship is even against the law.
But, as you get older, life experience and emotional growth help to equalize your relationship skills and resources. A 10-year or more difference in your ages makes little difference in how well you can conduct your relationship.
Don't focus on an arbitrary numbers difference in your ages. If you are getting along, you have good communication and problem solving, and you love each other, that's a precious thing, and far more important than any age difference could be. If other people have a problem with it, let it be their problem.
Whether or not a relationship is healthy is not determined by age differences, but by the interaction between the partners. A 10-year difference is not too difficult to bridge, but a 20-year differences or more in age can lead to some difficulties as the partners get older. For example, the younger partner may mature and reconsider his or her choices, or an older partner may confront aging problems much sooner. But, as long as both parties are adult, and the couple has talked about their age difference and the future possibilities, I don't make judgments about their respective ages.
There are healthy and unhealthy reasons to date someone of a different generation.
One inappropriate motivation for dating a younger person is fear of aging on the older person's part. A younger partner isn't going to reverse the aging process or protect you from old age. Obviously, a man or woman who dates someone as young as his or her children is going to run into some social opposition, but the differences that can cause the biggest problems within the couple's relationship are differing maturity levels.
As more and more women choose younger partners for relationships, the question arises: Are women in their late 30s and early 40s likely to be successful with partners who are 10 to 15 years younger than themselves?
Success in these relationships depends on what the motivations of both people are. Some older people feel younger at heart than their contemporaries and like to date people who are as active as they are. Chronological age doesn't always reflect either physical capability or emotional maturity. Sometimes an age difference creates a mentoring relationship the older person advises the younger one on life or career. This can backfire if and when the younger person decides he or she has learned enough, and wants to move on.
If you're asking: "Is it OK for me to have a partner who is much older or younger than I am?" You'll do better off if you forget about your ages and concentrate on whether the relationship works for both of you, or not. What really makes a romantic relationship succeed is the emotional connection.
Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., of www.tinatessina.com is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice in Long Beach, Calif. since 1978 and author of 13 books in 14 languages, including two new books from Adams Press in 2008: "Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage" and "The Commuter Marriage". She publishes the "Happiness Tips from Tina" e-mail newsletter, and the "Dr. Romance" Blog. She has written and been interviewed for many national publications, including Cosmopolitan, Maxim, and TimeOnline.com. Online, she's known as "The Dating Doctor" and "Doctor Romance" and is a Redbook Love Network expert as well as for Yahoo! Personals.
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Women Harassing Men
Complaints about women bosses preying on men have doubled since 1990. What’s going on out there?
By Gretchen Voss
He was just a young thing — in his early 20s — and only two months into a promising new job at First Mutual Corporation in posh Cherry Hill, NJ. That’s when Jackie Mesinger — the Pagan Princess, as she called herself, a woman twice his age — began groping Louis Oblea Jr., as he remembers it, and lobbing sexual innuendo into their conversations.
Oblea reported her to his boss. His response? Oh, she does that to some men. She’ll stop eventually. Until then, avoid her.
And so Oblea did just that, until the day after Christmas, when he logged onto his company computer and clicked on his e-mail: There was the Pagan Princess, completely nude and performing a sex act on herself. Not two minutes later, another e-mail from her landed in his in-box. This one, another woman, in a bondage getup.
Oblea complained again. He even showed his boss the pictures. Please, he said, just make it stop.
His complaints echoed up the chain of command, but they were ignored, perhaps because the Pagan Princess was also the company’s rainmaker, reeling in the big clients. Young Oblea was just an entry-level loan officer. He was expendable. Two days later, when Mesinger heard that Oblea was making noise, she sent him an e-mail. You should rethink your position, it read.
A few weeks after that, although Oblea’s manager had recently said that he was adapting well to his new position, First Mutual fired him. For poor work performance.
That’s when Oblea turned to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC filed a lawsuit on his behalf, and he received a monetary settlement from First Mutual. Oblea then quietly slipped away. No media blitz. After all, who would empathize? Was it even possible for a man to be sexually preyed upon by a woman?
The harassment of men at the hands of women is clearly having a moment. While the total number of sexual-harassment claims brought to the EEOC has been declining steadily over the past eight years, the percentage of allegations filed by men has doubled between 1990 and 2007, to 16 percent of all claims. Given that it’s estimated only 5 to 15 percent of incidents are even reported, and those that are remain confidential unless a lawsuit is filed — which rarely happens in cases where men are the victims, says EEOC spokesman David Grinberg — who knows how many Louis Obleas are out there, staring in horror at nude pictures of their female superiors? “Most complaints are mediated and resolved, and you’ll never hear about them,” says celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred. “You won’t even see a piece of paper.”
While it’s true that the boldest headlines still involve old-school offenders like Knicks coach Isiah Thomas — who was found guilty of harassing a female former Knicks executive (she claimed that Thomas told her he loved her, and also called her a bitch and a ho) — the more recent phenomenon of women taking lascivious liberties with men has slipped quietly into the zeitgeist. Note Lipstick Jungle’s stiletto-wearing magazine editor, Nico Reilly, getting slapped with a complaint after dumping her young lover, Kirby, a photography assistant who works with the magazine. The plotline is plausible because women finally have the power to be predators. We’ve come a long way since 1994’s Disclosure, about a female boss who tries to coerce a male employee to have sex with her, the very premise of which was considered silly at the time — the stuff of, well, Michael Douglas movies. According to New York City lawyer Ronald Green — who represented Bill O’Reilly after O’Reilly’s female producer accused him of, among many things, fantasizing over the phone about lathering her up with a loofah mitt — his big clients are now coming to him for help in defending their female executives against sexual-harassment claims. “Women are just behaving like those who came before them,” he says.
The relative newness of women in the corner office has lent an undeniable frisson to the corporate environment. Given how accustomed women are to drive-by comments and propositions, it can be thrilling when the tables turn and they’re the ones controlling the dynamic. Says a 35-year-old executive at a Massachusetts financial company, who has 37 men reporting directly to her: “There are days when I just think, You know, I could have any single one of these guys. Of course, in reality, I wouldn’t step over that line, but I know I could. And to be frank, that thought makes work far more interesting.” She admits to dressing for her male colleagues. And when hiring an assistant, damned if she didn’t choose the “totally hot” 25-year-old former professional hockey player. “If I have to look at this guy every day, why not have it be someone who makes me remember what a schoolgirl crush is?”
Then there are the women who aren’t totally comfortable with their professional power and resort to flirting to get what they want out of their employees. “I’ve seen this happen, when the man thinks, Oh man, she wants me,” says Rhoma Young, a human-resources consultant who investigates sexual-harassment complaints. “And the man might take someone wearing a shorter skirt who is trying to be stylish as a come-on, because that’s how they relate to women.”
A clear factor in cases brought by men is the difficulty society might have believing they would be offended by a come-on. No real man rebuffs sexual attention, goes the thinking, so how can he even be sexually harassed? “It’s sort of a societal taboo. A man’s going to complain because a woman’s hitting on him? What’s wrong with him?” says Alexis McKenna, a lawyer who litigates such cases. Men simply haven’t been raised to think of themselves as potential victims — making it all the more difficult to protest. “It’s much more shameful for men to have to confront sexual harassment and admit it,” says University of Maine sociologist Amy Blackstone. “It’s something that gets joked about.”
Just ask James Stevens, a soft-spoken, devout Christian who worked for more than 15 years at a Vons supermarket in Simi Valley, CA, who claims that a coworker named Laura Marko was inappropriate with him every day for two years. “Most black men would love to have a white woman sexually harass them — that’s what I’d hear,” he says. “But I couldn’t be more repulsed. She would ask me point-blank, Do I go down on my wife? When I announced that my wife was pregnant, she suggested that if my wife had done a different act, she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant.”
Stevens finally complained, and the company transferred him. “And the first thing out of my wife’s mouth is, ‘Why are they transferring you if she was harassing you?’ In the back of her mind, she was thinking maybe I could have been harassing this woman,” he says. His coworkers thought that, too. The rumor spread. And then Vons fired him.
“It really destroyed my family,” Stevens says. “It destroyed my life.” He spent most of his days lost in a prescribed narcotic cocktail — Zyprexa and Celexa and Vicodin — and then his wife took their baby daughter and left.
Determining that Vons fired him in retaliation for his complaining about being sexually harassed, a jury awarded Stevens $18 million, one of the largest decisions of its kind. (Vons has appealed.) But when I call Laura Marko and tell her that I’m writing a story about male victims of sexual harassment, she laughs hysterically (not to mention bitterly). “It was actually the other way around,” she says. “He was just a guy waiting for an opportunity.”
Of course, there are men who might just resent the increasing presence and influence of women in the workplace, who don’t like that times have changed for good. For those men, is lodging a sexual-harassment complaint the ultimate retaliation — the way to make a woman’s gender her downfall?
Or maybe they just feel...harassed. Consider the case of former senior undercover drug detective Matt Floeter, a deeply tanned 41-year-old with bulging muscles and eyes the color of the South Florida ocean. From the day Sergeant Barbara Jones took over as the supervisor of his hard-core, paramilitary-style unit of the Orlando Police Department, she could not keep her hands to herself, he says, grabbing and hugging him and the other guys every time they passed her desk in their big, open box of an office. “She was like a kid in a candy shop,” he says. “She had a full-court press on me all the time” — even rubbing her groin against him, he says, and at least once humping his leg, just like their unit’s drug-sniffing dog, Gunney.
It’s hard to believe that this tough guy — who once shot a whacked-out dealer five times in a bust gone bad and who was commended for valor by former Attorney General John Ashcroft for doing it — would allow a woman pushing 50 to molest him. Floeter explains: “Hey, that is a sergeant, and you have got to bow down and say, ‘Yes ma’am, no ma’am,’ and you have to respect the rank.” Plus, she was personal pals with her supervisor.
And yet Floeter did complain, finally, after three months of the alleged behavior, following a closed-door meeting with Jones in which she came down on him about his poor work ethic and threatened to subpoena his phone records because he was using his cell phone while on duty for calls related to his personal business, Aqua Cops. After another argument during a unit meeting in which Jones detailed changes she was set to implement that Floeter felt would undercut his investigative work and damage his reputation, Floeter drove straight to Internal Affairs and reported her for sexual harassment. The city settled out of court with Floeter last December, for an undisclosed amount. For her part, Barbara Jones was reprimanded for conduct unbecoming an officer.
“It was horrible,” says Jones, who is now the public-information officer for the Orlando Police Department. “Especially when you didn’t do anything, but you don’t have any proof that you didn’t.”
Her explanation is simple: She was forcing the detectives to be accountable for their productivity, and they didn’t like it. “They’re all macho and aggressive and the best of the best and don’t mess with us kind of thing,” she says.
Who’s telling the truth — the befuddled woman with the sweet Southern accent, now 53, or the defiant detective who drove 260 miles on a Sunday to tell me his side of the story?
Sure, Jones had hugged her men — “in a congratulatory way,” she says. But it wasn’t anything weird. That’s how a woman shows appreciation. That’s just what a woman does. Isn’t it?
| Confessions of a cougar
By Jane Ganahl
Much has been made lately of the “cougar” phenomenon—so much so that you might assume the dating universe is now littered with Demi-Ashton wannabe couples. Not necessarily so, although cougars are becoming more visible with each passing month.
For the uninitiated, a cougar is a powerful, sexy woman of a certain age. She is not looking to get married or have babies. She loves nothing better than to pick up man-cubs and have her wicked way with them. Think of the 40-something Samantha on Sex and the City, who rode off into the night with her beloved 20-something Smith, howling an (ahem) ecstatic tune.
Why cougar-cub pairings make sense
So what’s wrong with that scenario, you ask? Nothing that I can see! Think about it: Women reach their sexual peak roughly 15 years later than men. So it makes perfect sense for a 25-year-old guy to date a 40-year-old woman—for them to “meet at the peak,” so to speak.
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I had a cougar phase in my 40s, and sweet it was. I was just coming off a divorce, my daughter was just off to college, and it was playtime! I salved my “empty nest” heartbreak with a series of enthusiastic younger lovers who brought a wonderful energy to my life and reminded me that there were plenty of miles in me yet.
Like me, many women hit a self-esteem dip in their 40s due to divorce; for those women, I heartily endorse reclaiming self-esteem by dating younger guys—they are generally far more worshipful than our contemporaries.
The pros and cons of cougar-hood
I grew out of my cougar phase when I realized that great sex, while an important part of a relationship, wasn’t as important to me as shared life experience. (As Nietzsche famously noted, “A good marriage is based on the talent for friendship.”) I became more interested in a suitor’s brain, spirituality and music preferences than I was his washboard abs. And I definitely viewed my cougar activities as just-for-fun; it didn’t occur to me that a December-May relationship could have a future.
Perhaps it should have! Many so-called cougars have found long-term love with their junior swains. The 15-year age difference between Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher — so tittered about at first — now seems like a big so-what; their marriage seems solid and real and adoring.
But taking the cougar route is not for the faint of heart. There are still some ugly stereotypes out there that suggest cougars are pathetic, lonely, bored creatures, rather than powerful sexual beings. Pshaw, says Valerie Gibson, author of Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men.
“If the sexes were reversed, would they say that about an older man bedding a young woman? Of course not!” she says indignantly. “I’ve spent the last several years trying to change that image, but society hasn’t quite gotten it yet.”
She points out that this social phenomenon has a lot to offer mature single women: “The whole cougar movement is about giving women the opportunity to think differently about aging. Where it used to be all over at this age, now it’s only beginning. These women have everything to offer and should not allow society to put them down.”
Gibson also sees no reason why such unions can’t lead to love and marriage. “It’s foolish to assume that love can’t blossom no matter what the age difference. And unlike the old days, when women had to marry someone older than they were, dating younger expands romantic opportunities significantly,” she says.
What every would-be cougar should know
So if you’re a woman who’s considering dating younger (perhaps way younger) men, consider this advice:
Some women are better suited to this lifestyle than others. If you have a hard time dealing with raised eyebrows and tittering among family members, consider whether you have it in you to color outside the dating lines in this way.
If you decide your younger man is worth it, then set the tone for your friends’ and family’s reactions by presenting your relationship to them as healthy, happy and loving. And when you do, they are likely to respect your choice!
Be aware of potential issues that might arise if you do fall in love with a cub. Compare your long-term goals; if he’s anxious to get married and have kids and you have been there/done that, that might be an insurmountable problem.
Be open-minded to maximize your experience! More important than years on the planet are shared values, similar interests, and chemistry.
Remember, such liaisons are becoming more commonplace all the time! And we don’t all have to look like Samantha to score. And with any luck (and a big dose of love and lust), you can ride off into the sunset with your younger man, as she did.
Jane Ganahl is author of Naked on the Page: the Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife, editor of the anthology Single Woman of a Certain Age, journalist of two decades, and co-director of San Francisco’s Litquake literary festival.
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