Anyone else see the double standards?

[NEVERQUIT3331]

We see posts of where a guy is 33, 34 going out with a 21, 22 year old woman (he is seen as predatory, rapist etc..

But we do not see the same outrage when women that are 40s have flings, relationships with men that are in their early/mid twenties.

In fact we see sometimes in newspapers where older women see it as complimentary that they are able to get a guy that is 20 -25 years old younger than them to go out with them.

My point is you either say both are right, wrong or have no judgement to both these situations. You cannot say one is wrong and the other is right.

None of them are wrong theoretically.

In practice, one relationship dynamic has been linked to predatory behaviour while the other hasn’t.

So I don’t judge those relationships at face value but I do scrutinise them context and I struggle to celebrate them if I don’t know the context very well.

I think you're wrong. A much older man/woman dating a young man/woman in late teens or even early 20s is generally considered a bit icky by most people. But a woman as the older person would definitely get more accusations of being predatory - eg the weird contortions I've seen when a male teacher elopes with a teenage girl to either accuse the girl of being overly sexual/extra mature and/or to say that it was real love etc whereas in as similar situation a woman teacher would be seen as a predator.

Similarly, famous older men with much younger wives don't even get it commented on vs famous older men with younger husbands.

And any 40 year old who is dating a 20 year old is inappropriate in my opinion. A 60 year old and a 40 year old is a bit odd but I wouldn't get worked up about that.

OP, you appear to live in a completely different world from the one I see around me.

Women who date or marry much younger men get mocked and smeared and get called predators absolutely constantly.

Men who date or marry much younger women rarely get a single word because older men with younger women is so completely normalised in society.

Look at the French President he essentially married his "teacher." But how often will you see people saying "she is a predator, rapey etc.."
Constantly. There's been tons of stuff in the press and online calling Brigitte Macron a predator and casting aspersions on their relationship, she's suffered widespread condemnation for it.

If it was the other Macron was 40 and he married a 22, 23 year old woman you will hear things like "he only married her cause he could not find a woman his age." "he is a predator." "The relationship is imbalanced poor girl does not know what she got into."

LOL, come on. Do you really believe that? Middle aged men marry 20-somethings all the time with nary a single word of criticism or anyone even noticing. It's totally the norm and most powerful and famous men are married to/dating much younger women. I've never heard or read a single word calling Boris a predator for getting engaged to a women 20 years younger than him.

Really really disgusting the amount of people that are judgemental cunts over age gaps in relationships.

I agree. I'm 28, my husband is 45. Other than the off few disapproving comments, we mostly had people asking how he bagged me, why i'm interested in an older man and generally just supportive/interested comments. But DH's best friend is the same age as him but her partner is 26 and they only get grief. If we're all out together they get funny looks, we don't. She looks much younger than DH and she still gets looks, but grey haired DH and young looking me don't get anything.

I must admit though, even I found it odd to see an older woman with a younger man. Probably due to some internalised mysogyny I'm now at peace with.

My son was 17, nearly 18 when he began a relationship with his 49yr old manager. She used him as a crutch when going through a messy divorce, made him keep the relationship a secret and then dumped him when she got sorted out as she didn't want anyone to know she was sleeping with an 18yr old, especially not her 18yr old daughter. It completely messed up his mental health for about 2yrs, he's only just getting back to normal now, but is still very wary about dating. Up to that point I didn't think big age differences in relationships bothered me, I was wrong it bothered me greatly.

What?!!! Society puts far, far more stigma on women dating younger men, than the other way around. What on earth are you talking about?

Who celebrates older women with young men?

YANBU. I have seen a thread here with the exact ages my partner and I were when we met (although in this case I'm the older one, on the thread in question the man was older).
He was called all sorts, but lots of posters seemed to conclude he must be some sort of creepy sex offender simply for dating someone of that age when he was older, and the woman must be naive and vulnerable with no life experience.
My partner had jointly run the family business by that point and later did most of the work in buying our house, which I probably wouldn't have done myself.
It's the blanket judgements on age gaps which are plain ignorant.

@AryaStarkWolf

Who celebrates older women with young men?

Benjamin Braddock?

Maybe not.

Someone in their 20's can go out with whoever they like as far as I'm concerned. Your example of 21/22 going out with a 33/34 year old doesn't seem like an issue at all. The age gap would be around 12 years.
There might be more of a problem with a teenager going out with someone 12 years older. The sex of the protagonists is irrelevant.

Anyway... why are you asking?

@NEVERQUIT3331

My point is you either say both are right, wrong or have no judgement to both these situations. You cannot say one is wrong and the other is right.

Except that’s just not true. It depends on the balance of power - so a 40 year old, well off, experienced man and a naive 18 year old on benefits has a much bigger power imbalance than a 28 year old male teacher dating a 50 year old female teacher.

It’s ridiculous to pretend there’s any kind of equality if there’s a huge power imbalance.

Also I’m sure you dont need every inequality in society generally between men and women pointed out to you. I guess when we don’t have misogyny on earth any more we can worry about men looking creepy for dating much younger, much less experienced women.

@NEVERQUIT3331

Look at the French President he essentially married his "teacher." But how often will you see people saying "she is a predator, rapey etc.."

If it was the other Macron was 40 and he married a 22, 23 year old woman you will hear things like "he only married her cause he could not find a woman his age." "he is a predator." "The relationship is imbalanced poor girl does not know what she got into."

Well a quick Google turns up loads of critical articles about the Macrons, one linked below. Newspaper articles don't tend to use the term 'rapey' can you provide any examples? This article also references Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/may/15/it-isnt-wrong-to-raise-an-eyebrow-at-how-the-macrons-got-together

Didn't stop him being elected, though. Nor Johnson, or Trump, all with much younger wives/partners. Older actors/presenters being cast opposite younger actresses/female presenters is so common I don't even know where to start with it. It really hardly raises an eyebrow.

Anyone who thinks older women, at a class level, are on anywhere near an equal footing with this is too deluded to have any kind of intelligent conversation about it.

Are you joking?

If one of my late teen / early 20s nephews got into a relationship with a woman close to my age (I'm 42), I would seek them out to have some fairly strong words with them. I'm not a violent person at all, but I would hope that a robust peer-to-peer chat would dissuade them.

Similarly, I'd be pretty disgusted if any of my female friends or peers thought hooking up with a young adult barely out of their teens was a good idea.

@DrSbaitso

Didn't stop him being elected, though. Nor Johnson, or Trump, all with much younger wives/partners. Older actors/presenters being cast opposite younger actresses/female presenters is so common I don't even know where to start with it. It really hardly raises an eyebrow.

Anyone who thinks older women, at a class level, are on anywhere near an equal footing with this is too deluded to have any kind of intelligent conversation about it.

Yeah it's very annoying. If you had an older woman with a much younger guy in a film as love interests it's going to be part of the story line where as it's just totally normal for old guys to be cast with much younger actors as their love interest, no explanation needed

Yeah. I made a joke about Benjamin Braddock earlier but it was true. Older woman with a younger man is seen as a kink, maybe an aberration even. And women are seen as "older" somewhere around the age of 35. Most action heroes don't even start until they're around that age!

I'm not saying young men can never be exploited or abused, or their abusers shouldn't be brought to justice. But come on. Does anyone really, truly believe that society is unused to the idea of older men with younger women and has an endemic problem with it, when we see it positively portrayed and normalised everywhere? And whenever it's the other way round, that's the actual story itself?

There's certainly a double standard going on, but it's not in older women's favour.

Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller is an excellent book.

I do judge Macrons wife for example though. He was groomed while under age and she didn’t back off when his parents asked her to.

I cannot imagine going on dates with your daughters class mate.. and her poor children who had to witness that.

If she had such strong maternal instincts then she should’ve dedicated that to her kids.

The whole thing is a bit queezy. Because of the way they first met.

I feel like he probably still didn’t grow up from that 15 year old boy.. emotionally stuck there it seems.

I’m quite surprised she isn’t Jailed as a pedophile and for breaching professional conduct !

People have a variety of views on age gap relationships, but there are people who are inconsistent about it. There are some people of people who automatically think any older man who dates a younger woman is a creepy weirdo, and some of those same people are much more understanding about an older woman and a younger man, they seem to see it as a blow against the patriarchy.

I don't think men in their 30s who go out with women in their early 20s get called predatory though.

It's usually when she's 15-18 and he's in his 30s or older.

When I was a girl sam fox was on page 3 at 16 for men of all ages to erm look at, bill Wyman was on wogan with Mandy Smith and their 'romance' was presented as wonderfully romantic. In more recent times adult men 'dating' underage girls in Rotherham etc was of zero interest to police etc for years.

You’ve seen a 33 year old man dating a 22 year old woman labelled a rapist?

Where?

Hollywood films the men get older and older and the 'love interest' stays young.

Reminded me of this (shame about the last bit though!- Daniel Craig)

'This was demonstrated during an interview with Red Bulletin, when his interviewer suggested that Bond in this film was shown “succumbing to the charms of an older woman”, aka Bellucci, ironic considering Bellucci is only four years older than Craig.

“I think you mean the charms of a woman his own age,” Craig responded. “We’re talking about Monica Bellucci, for heaven’s sake. When someone like that wants to be a Bond girl, you just count yourself lucky!”'