to expect 51 year old DH not to look at 20 year olds?

I’m guessing there’s a tension in older men. Yes, decent ones will be fatherly… but that doesn’t remove their biological instinct! You can pretend “good” men don’t find young women sexually attractive, but you’re deluding yourself.

Nobody in real life particularly cares.
If she's 20, she's a young woman, not a girl or child.

There is such an obvious difference between a 12-year-old girl and a 20-year-old young woman that I find the nasty hints and accusations here about the p word wholly unwarranted.

People may think well that's one hell of an age gap, bitchily muse he must have money, women of his own age may be annoyed he's not picked them, other men may be envious etc but nobody in their right mind thinks that he's the p word. Nobody.

And you're not convincing me on the eye-f*ing thing.

You must have a very low opinion on men to think this.

I occasionally catch my dh having a quick glance at an attractive woman.
(BTW he tends to like older women as a rule so it's always them I see him looking at) I don't for one minute think he's eye-f*ing them, just thinking, 'wow she's hot.'

I joke about it. It's no big deal. He tries to be discreet.

Exactly, it’s relative. So many excuses on here for creepy, weird men. If you are with a man who does this, because there are plenty who aren’t, then you need to rethink the relationship as you will always feel insecure as you age. I would never be with a man who didn’t feel fatherly towards younger women as I feel motherly to young men.

Found the man 😂

I find it amusing that you take issue with the word I use to describe a man old enough to be the father of young woman barely out of her teens blatantly slavering over her, and not the action of the man.

Eye-fucking is very accurate; having read and heard men talk about it, he's almost certainly thinking 'yeah I'd like to fuck that', not something so adorably mild as 'she's sexy', and even thinking 'she's sexy' is leching and objectifying – AKA eye-fucking.

I dont have an issue with age gaps, as someone who likes older men (as I said), but 20 and 50s is disgusting on the part of the older person. Generally, I think if the gap is bigger than half your age plus seven, the power differential and life stages are too different.

He is an old man compared to the yound girl he is perving after.🙄

I agree 100%.
Thank God I am older now. When I was younger I would often wear glasses with plain lenses, pull my hair back, wear a big coat, just so I could go about my business in peace.
I didn't realise it at the time, but it was often deliberate intimidation that gives some men a sense of power.
Age brings freedom from lecherous creeps.

Let’s be real here…. A young, attractive woman goes out in public in revealing, figure-hugging clothes precisely because she wants to revel in her sexuality and be recognised as hot by the men and women she passes… she wants to be an object of desire.

Equally, she does NOT want to be made uncomfortable from being gawped at, crudely propositioned, catcalled or stalked. And she most definitely does not want to be assaulted! To be crystal clear as I suspect some posters will accuse me otherwise if i don’t: NO WOMAN IS ASKING TO BE RAPED, NO MATTER WHAT SHE’S WEARING!

Yes, she’d prefer that those admiring her sex appeal were just her female contemporaries and hot young men, but by consciously choosing to dress like that in public, as an adult (and 20 is definitely an adult for such purposes), she has decided that she is willing to expose herself to the lustful, admiring or jealous impulses of everyone she encounters!

It doesn’t matter how much older or less attractive women hate it, or try to shame men into suppressing their biological instincts, the vast majority of hetrosexual men - whether they are 20 or 80 - will find a young woman who has chosen to flaunt her body extremely attractive and will feel lust for her… young women know this, and dress like this anyway (at least those who choose to dress like that), knowing and even revelling in it.

As for the OP’s DH, he has merely responded to the woman in the way she invited…. He wasn’t intrusive, he didn’t intimidate her or make her feel uncomfortable (she was in his line of vision), and he certainly didn’t crudely proposition or inappropriately touch her! He was at fault in that he looked a little too long and wasn’t subtle enough so that the OP caught him… all whilst the young woman wasn’t adversely affected at all, and got kind of the attention she was inviting… In the grand scheme of things, he committed a pretty minor faux pas, and he’ll be more careful next time - no harm done unless the OP unduly escalates this out of jealousy.

I agree 100%.
Thank God I am older now. When I was younger I would often wear glasses with plain lenses, pull my hair back, wear a big coat, just so I could go about my business in peace.
I didn't realise it at the time, but it was often deliberate intimidation that gives some men a sense of power.
Age brings freedom from lecherous creeps.

Have you written this as if you think that because many men do it, it makes it alright?!? Strange if so. It makes every single one of them grim, entitled pervs. Women need to be single more!

Absolutely. I think that many men who are blatant enough for their ogling to be noticed want to be seen - it's part of the thrill, for them. They like the sense of dominance it gives them. Because it's just so easy to be discreet, as you say.
He's probably known at the gym amongst the younger women, as the old perv who blatantly slobbers, and who still thinks he could pull them. Yuck.

Absolutely. I think that many men who are blatant enough for their ogling to be noticed want to be seen - it's part of the thrill, for them. They like the sense of dominance it gives them. Because it's just so easy to be discreet, as you say.
He's probably known at the gym amongst the younger women, as the old perv who blatantly slobbers, and who still thinks he could pull them. Yuck.

I do agree with that - but even if they are attracted, it's just incredibly easy to be discreet. If he behaves so obviously and creepily when out and about with the OP, his entitlement is off the scale. He must be absolutely repellent at the gym.

I think there's a difference between noticing how youthful and beautiful someone is, and being attracted to them, though.

Both my DH and I can notice and admire a person in their early twenties on an aesthetic level (on the telly or something), but neither of us would be attracted to them in terms of being interested in having sex with them, because they're just babies who are hardly older than our eldest, and imo, it should be weird and off-putting to think of shagging someone who's closer in age to your children than yourself.

Exactly of course they are attracted by something younger and prettier. We all are. It's human nature.
Dosent matter whether men have got daughters or not.

Yeah, that’s extremely grim behaviour. As a younger woman, I was repulsed by men who subjected me to this sort of behaviour and had nothing but contempt for them. It happened to me almost every day of my life (and often multiple times a day) for at least fifteen years.

Young women can be subjected to this many times a day in many forms - leering, comments, horn beeping etc. I remember one old man absolutely terrifying me when he sped past on his motorbike, threw his arms in the air, and (literally) screamed a sexual comment at me - I was fourteen.

It’s vile behaviour. There’s a huge difference between noticing someone yet choosing to respect their humanity by not leering, and leering. Embarrassingly for your husband, to a twenty year old woman, a man in his fifties will almost certainly seem unfathomably old. At best, she will likely be repulsed. At worst, she will be intimidated, especially as you mention your husband’s strong physique.

Behaviour like that of your husband affects the way women go about their day to day lives. It affects the space they feel able to take up in the world. It’s a fundamental violation of their right to feel safe in society. Please show your husband this comment. He needs to do better.

Hence why I said people learn to act 'decently'.

Let's not pretend that a lot of women aren't affronted by the fact that middle aged men still find young women attractive, irrespective of how said men conduct themselves. The truth is that young women are usually objectively more attractive than middle aged women.

I'm always a little bemused when women on here seem surprised that their husband finds them less attractive after they put on five stone. Yes, most people get squidgier with age and personality is also a big factor, but generally if a man finds obese women attractive he'll go for one in the first place.

Yuk. I often see men like this ogling my 20 year old daughter. Funnily enough I never see similar age women doing the same to my 19 year old son. Male entitlement.