Double Standards Regarding Age Gaps

[Atonement]

So, earlier today I was thinking about the double standards regarding age gaps between guys and girls, and thought it could be a good topic to discuss.

The other day, a friend of mine (girl) who is dating a guy 4 years older than her made a comment that dating a guy just a year younger would be “gross”.

While I’d say her comment was a bit extreme, I feel like that’s kind of a pervasive issue in our society- Having a girl be even a little older than her male partner is viewed as a bit predatory, which is a total double standard.

Personally, I have found myself attracted to some guys who were a few years younger, but I’ve always held back, partially because I’m not really a pursuer type anyway, but also because I worry both that guys would be turned off by an older girl, and also about how friends/family members would react.

Do you guys have and stories or thoughts to share?

[Keda]

I think it depends massively on the age of the people involved. Especially as a teen, it's easy to see anyone younger than you as a kid - so I can see how a 16 yearold, for example, might say "gross" to the idea of dating a 15 yearold but be fine about dating an 18 yearold. Although it's not necessarily a sensible way of thinking about things, I can see where that can come from. In that sense I guess my experience is that it's less to do with gender - in fact my experience is probably that older guys dating younger women is seen as more predatory (sometimes appropriately).

[Heather]

My sense, Atonement (it's been so nice to see you back around, btw!) is that when it comes to the sexism in these double-standards, it's not really that only women dating younger men - and of course, hello heterocentrism with all of this -- is seen as predatory, but that many, if not most, cultures simply either outright approve, or at least permit, men to be predatory, but not women. Note, as an example, the level of outcry we see and here when there's a story about an adult woman in a sexual relationship with a teenager, versus a man, even though in either case, chances are usually awfully good both adults have abused their power and influence equally.

I think a lot of people often see both as predatory, or as imbalances of power, which they certainly sometimes can be, regardless of gender, but an imbalance of power where a guy has more is pretty universally accepted and endorsed, including, and sometimes especially, when it comes to sex and women.

And with younger hetero women, especially, I also think something else gets all caught up in this, which is a typically-learned idea, one where often there isn't a lot of self-awareness, that there is more status in dating someone older than you, less in someone younger.

That all said, I think on the whole, this particular double-standard has been shifting. I'd certainly say that in the course of my own lifetime, there's more acceptance for women dating someone who is younger than they are. I'd also add that, on the whole, younger people tend to be way more judgmental about sex, dating and social status than most will be in even just a decade or so, and I'd say this is one area where frequently see that.

[Atonement]

I think you really described it well, as always, Heather!

I really think it does go way beyond teens thinking in a "younger= gross" thing. When I was in high school, It was completely acceptable for a senior guy to date a freshman. But I never saw that happen the other way around, and I know it would have caused a huge stir if someone had.

I wonder if it goes along with another stereotype, that the guy should have more sexual experience than the girl? This certainly goes along with everything Heather said about the power dynamics.

[Heather]

I would say it does, for sure. Same goes with the long-held and widespread idea women should save sex for marriage, but it is no big whoop if men don't, nor is it expected of them.

[Keda]

You've grown up in a very different setting from where I have, so I've no doubt your experiences are different, and I'm not trying to trivialise what you've seen happen at all - I realise what I said could have come off as a bit condesending, I didn't mean it to - I'm just describing my experiences. Back when I was in school I don't remember anyone dating with an age gap of more than a school year, so I never saw how people would react to that actually happening: but I heard what people thought about the idea in abstract, and that's the thing I remember - that my peer group considered anyone younger than we were to be immature and annoying.

And I think Heather made a really good point about it being more acceptable for men to be predatory - I'd never thought of that, but it makes sense. And, also worryingly, I realise that part of the reason why I don't think of age gap different-gender relationships where a woman is older than her partner in the same way as I do when a man is older, is because the model of a predatory woman isn't really something that exists in my head outside of really extreme examples, which is not good.

[Heather]

In some ways, a lot of this reminds me of the assumption that if women had all the power in the world men do, they would necessarily use it better, and be more moral. And of course, that's fallacious: we have no idea if that would be true, and chances are, because women are simply people, people with flaws and failings and a lack of ethics no greater or lesser than anyone else, it wouldn't be that different.

I think we see similar when it comes to sex and standards around binary gender, like the idea it's on women to sexually "police" men and their shared sexual lives, it's on women to be "pure," it's on women to behave sexually in a way that is different than men's sexual behaviour. And, of course, it's on women to "do right" sexually, with greater expectations of doing so (whatever "do right" means to any given person, community or culture) and that certainly includes giving sexual license to men they themselves don't take.

[suburban_witch]

I also think this double standard is heavily culturally influenced/reflected back to us. Seeing older men with younger women is really normalized in our culture. I saw a chart a while back on NY Mag about how when men start their film careers, their love-interests are the same age, but as they age, their love interests' ages remain the same as when they started their careers. That chart's here: http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/leading- ... -dont.html

[dday76]

The fun way to do the math is half your age plus 7. It actually works out pretty well. But I'd say the 'older guy' double standard isn't entirely arbitrary. I'd suggest these objective differences:
1) Guys develop later and so have at least a few years delay in their sexual maturity (in very general terms). This is especially obvious when girls mature and find their peers aren't interested but older guys are.
2) It also seems to be the case that girls have to fight off guys their whole life. So by virtue of their need to be selective and reject many offers, they end up with a lot more relationship experience and maturity. Guys get less opportunity to develop relationship maturity because they think about girls a lot but don't talk as much as maybe they should. That puts them behind in relationship maturity as well.
3) Even if older guys aren't more mature, they may seem more inaccessible and aloof. The prevalence and persistence of teens boys chasing girls may seem normal and mundane thus encouraging girls to prefer the less common aloofness of older guys.
4) Heather pointed out heterocentrism in this as well. There is a common perception that gay men have a gender gap as well with younger men interested in older. I'm not sure if that would bear out as fact or if it would be seen in lesbian population as well, but it suggests another factor. Older people may generally be more financially stable and mature in general, men and women. And because women can be more selective, they just end up choosing the older men who happen to be more stable. Men would too except they are too busy chasing their peers instead of stepping back to be selective about their partners.
5) I'm sure there's some Freudian psychology here about father vs mother figures too, but that's not my area...