Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask if most straight men are attracted much younger women?

415 replies

RubyTuesday10 · 08/10/2025 21:11

Had a depressing moment at work today, male colleague played a Jimmy Carr stand-up clip on his phone and it went along the lines of “if I had to pick my favourite child it would be my neighbour’s hot daughter.” The other men with him laughed at it. I couldn’t help feeling a bit nauseous and it’s made me question whether many older straight men actually do fantasise about girls in their late teens or whatever. Perhaps I have been naive to think it was something that just appealed to a minority of perverts. One or two of them have daughters too and it just strikes me as odd that they could even laugh at a joke like that. Am I naive to feel this way?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
5128gap · 09/10/2025 16:16

whataweekImhaving · 09/10/2025 13:53

This thread is hugely depressing.

Sadly I think you’re right.

I’ve unfortunately seen some of the ladies my husband ogles online and they are young. 19-early 20s young.

I’m mid 40s and feeling crap beyond measure.

You really don't want to take these threads too seriously. They appear every now and again and fill up with the projections of women insecure about their own looks, with a sprinkling of incels and MRA types who want to make women feel they're worthless after 30 so better settle for any inadequate specimen who'll have them.
Reality is, it hardly matters if men want 19 year olds, given attractive young women wouldn't look at most of them sideways.
Most men are not dating much younger women. Most people date within 5 years either way. Your average Joe in his 40s is not going to be getting a hot young woman. He will not have 'aged better' than his female counterpart, so frankly will be lucky to get an average woman in her 40s unless he's loaded.
Don't fall for the propaganda.

Yahyah65 · 09/10/2025 17:07

Stop internalising this narcissists thoughts. Everything he has said about you is what he thinks of himself.

Also, as mentioned, records of everything and get the authorities involved. The guy sounds looney toons

JHound · 09/10/2025 17:10

There are studies that show when it comes to physical appearance yes, most straight men find women in their early 20s the most attractive to look at.

But (luckily for older women) for may men attraction and compatibility is a lot more than merely physical appearance.

TwinklySquid · 09/10/2025 18:23

There are similar charts to this:
https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/22/men-regardless-age-will-always-attracted-women-early-20s-8718590/amp/

I do think some of the men would have gone lower, if it was legal.

Nolongera · 09/10/2025 18:24

The whole point of the joke is that it's a revolting thing to say. That's where he gets his laugh.

That's what much of his act is.

If he had said. " My eldest" there would be no joke.

5128gap · 09/10/2025 18:37

JHound · 09/10/2025 17:10

There are studies that show when it comes to physical appearance yes, most straight men find women in their early 20s the most attractive to look at.

But (luckily for older women) for may men attraction and compatibility is a lot more than merely physical appearance.

Luckily for men you mean. Because if they were only attracted to early 20s women most of them would have to be celibate once they hit 30.

exaltedwombat · 09/10/2025 18:45

Of course men notice pretty girls of all ages. Yes, a few of them do something about it. But it’s sad when a man who dares to say ‘That’s a pretty girl!’ is accused of being a perv.

localnotail · 09/10/2025 19:30

IAmThePrettiestManOnMyIsland · 09/10/2025 13:45

I don't accept that. 15 year old girls are not fully developed. Most men are attracted to curvy women not skinny teenagers.

There are girls that look like young women at 12-13. They obviously are not if you look at their face/ speak to them - but all men are seeing is a beautiful body/ nice skin etc.

My friend's daughter is 14 and she is taller then me and has much more defined feminine figure than I ever had. She is still a baby but she has men asking her out etc...even when out shopping with her mum...but, to be fair, most are running away when they realise her age.

Oldwmn · 09/10/2025 19:45

sundaychairtree · 08/10/2025 21:38

Dont be silly a woman of 18 or 19 is not a child!! Of course nen are sexually attracted to women in tbe prime of their fertility andv health and thus Most able to make and birth healthy children.That is not perverted its a Perfectly normal evolutionary biological urge.

They may be but middle aged men are rarely healthy (thinking of all the fat middle aged blokes I know ) & their sperm won't be in as good nick as it was when they were 18/19. Why would most young women look twice?

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 19:48

Do you really want to know the answer?

Most men find girls in their late teens attractive.

The main thing is that they know what's right, & therefore leave underage girls alone. Men who date only much younger women are also sneezy ofc, though it's legal.

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 19:50

localnotail · 09/10/2025 19:30

There are girls that look like young women at 12-13. They obviously are not if you look at their face/ speak to them - but all men are seeing is a beautiful body/ nice skin etc.

My friend's daughter is 14 and she is taller then me and has much more defined feminine figure than I ever had. She is still a baby but she has men asking her out etc...even when out shopping with her mum...but, to be fair, most are running away when they realise her age.

Yes I had a school acquaintance who got asked out at 11 by an 18yo! 🤮 Tbf she DID look maybe 14 or possibly older? This was in Greece, I don't know if mores there are different towards young girls, hopefully not..

I also had an Italian friend whose had 14yo friends in Italy who tried to get her a 14yo boyfriend. She said they seemed to forget she was only 12..

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 19:52

MidnightMeltdown · 09/10/2025 13:49

Because men are not the same as women! They are very different both from a biological, and an evolutionary perspective. Honestly, I don’t know how you can be in your early 40s and not have realised this.

Sadly yes. I'm 19 & I'd rather not believe that but it's best to accept reality... As I say, they're not bad unless they creep on underage girls.

Wildefish · 09/10/2025 19:57

TheWonderhorse · 08/10/2025 21:43

People don't actually understand humour. If it were true it wouldn't be funny, or even a joke. It's funny because it's an outrageous thing to say.

Some things are just off limits for me to find funny even though I know it’s a joke

GaIadriel · 09/10/2025 20:00

The reason the joke is funny is because it's outrageous. It's amazing people are missing this. It wouldn't be considered outrageous if it was perfectly acceptable.

GaIadriel · 09/10/2025 20:05

Strictly speaking, a lot of men probs have innate attraction to teenage girls. We haven't evolved much in the past few hundred years since the times when women were marrying in adolescence.

GaIadriel · 09/10/2025 20:06

Oldwmn · 09/10/2025 19:45

They may be but middle aged men are rarely healthy (thinking of all the fat middle aged blokes I know ) & their sperm won't be in as good nick as it was when they were 18/19. Why would most young women look twice?

You're missing the point.

Laurmolonlabe · 09/10/2025 20:18

TheWonderhorse · 08/10/2025 21:43

People don't actually understand humour. If it were true it wouldn't be funny, or even a joke. It's funny because it's an outrageous thing to say.

It wouldn't be funny if there were no truth in it at all- people would just scratch their heads.

MemorableTrenchcoat · 09/10/2025 20:24

Laurmolonlabe · 09/10/2025 20:18

It wouldn't be funny if there were no truth in it at all- people would just scratch their heads.

My mum told my nephew that if he ate too many strawberries, he would turn into one. Everyone laughed. Needless to say, there is no truth in that at all.

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 20:33

Walt Bismarck is a right wing Substack acquaintance of Mary Harrington (which is how I found out about him). I don't like him at all, he clearly has an unpleasant attitude to women, & he's a former white nationalist who still seems somewhat racist.

This excerpt from a piece on early female puberty, is, however, pinpointing something which unpleasant men are usually wise enough not to say. Bismarck, however, has no filter.

Sadly, I think that what he's saying is probably not that far from how a lot of men think - certainly more men than we'd like to believe.

'One thing I’ve noticed talking to various female friends / girlfriends over the years is that basically all of them complain about having been sexualized as a preteen girl in a very traumatic way. Usually these stories involve a sleepover / pool party at a friend’s house and creepy behavior from said friend’s dad or older brother. The other big one is being ogled or catcalled at Target or something.
It seems very obvious to me what is happening here.Girls are getting their periods and developing secondary sexual characteristics (boobs) 1-3 years earlier than they “should be” biologically. But they can’t psychologically handle the stresses of incipient womanhood (menstruation, intrasexual competition, sexual attention from men) because they still have the mind of a little girl.
Most men aren’t going to touch this with a ten foot pole, because whenever you point out this phenomenon around normies you inevitably get some hatchet-faced schoolmarm going “WELL MEN SHOULDN’T BE LOOKING AT YOUNG GIRLS ANYWAY” and implying you’re a pedophile for even talking about this. Men are extremely afraid of being called pedophiles, so this shuts down all discussion.
Most of these women are simply retarded low openness bigots, but some are just reacting to their own adolescent trauma in an unproductive way, and I have a lot of sympathy for them. But this kind of censorious impulse is incredibly toxic and doesn’t help young girls at all. When trying to solve difficult social problems on the ground we must speak candidly about the world that actually exists, not the world that should be.
A lot of girls complain about creepy looks from their friend’s dad at a pool party. Suspiciously few of them wonder if anyone says the same thing about their own dad.If they did I think they’d start approaching this from a more constructive direction.
Unfortunately, normies don’t really care about arguments and facts. They care about personal credibility and a position’s prestige coding.'

BigAnne · 09/10/2025 20:41

sundaychairtree · 08/10/2025 21:38

Dont be silly a woman of 18 or 19 is not a child!! Of course nen are sexually attracted to women in tbe prime of their fertility andv health and thus Most able to make and birth healthy children.That is not perverted its a Perfectly normal evolutionary biological urge.

I think they're attracted to them because they're bodies haven't birthed children and not that they'd produce healthy ones.

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 20:45

ufo · 09/10/2025 10:14

I think the answer to this question is both better and worse than you'd like to hear. Men are basically attracted to anyone who seems within the ages that women are able to make babies. So that's both younger than is socially acceptable (as soon as girls hit puberty) and later than is generally thought (incels who tell you 30 is the limit are a decade or two too low)

Should be remembered that 'sleep with' is very different to 'be with'- especially for men.

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 20:48

RingoJuice · 09/10/2025 11:06

They are adults in many cultures. In Western cultures, adolescence was being recognized as a separate life stage but this is a relatively new development.

Yes, imo an adult man dating a 16yo is 🤮 but it was legal to marry at that age until recently.

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 20:49

MidnightMeltdown · 09/10/2025 11:10

Exactly. ‘Adulthood’ has been socially constructed. From a biological perspective, they are adults at 12 or 13 when they start menstruating. I imagine that this is when they start to appeal to most men.

12....so that makes Humbert Humbert not a paedophile for being attracted to poor Lolita...

Not convinced by what you say...

PrincessSophieFrederike · 09/10/2025 20:51

BatchCookBabe · 09/10/2025 11:25

Yep I agree. When I was at school, there were a number of girls aged 14-16 (maybe 9 or 10 of them over the time I was there) who had flings with older men. Some of them had one with a teacher, or the school janitor, or the school gardener. One girl was 14 when she got pregnant by the school janitor, and he was a 37 year old married man. He already had 7 children by his 2 wives. (3 with one, 4 with the other - who he was still married to.) His second wife was 10 years younger.

He left his (second) wife, for this girl and moved into a flat with her. The second wife divorced him for adultery. He married the girl when she was 18, and she was pregnant with their third child on the day they got married. So 10 children at this point. He was about 41 by now.

I moved out of the town soon after, and saw him some 10 years later, when he was in his early 50s, and he was with a different woman again. My friend with me knew his 'new' fling a bit, and she was 23 and had had 2 children with him at that point. She had one 2 months after she was 16, which means she was pregnant at 15. Utterly grim. He looked like a skinny Frank from Shameless too. Always looked dirty, with greasy hair, and was often drunk. (So he acted like Frank too. I don't think he worked again after he was sacked from the school for getting a 14 year old girl pregnant!)

How on earth he managed to get all these girls/young women to marry him just baffles me. So does the fact that he has NEVER been charged with having sex with under age girls!

Yes my grandmother was pretty sure at least one man at the school she taught at was having 'relationships' with the girls. Apparently no one reported him..

Incidentally in Anne of Green Gables, I remember that the 16yo Priscilla is in a relationship with the teacher & it doesn't seem to be a big deal.. 🤢 1908 Canada..

Laurmolonlabe · 09/10/2025 20:51

MemorableTrenchcoat · 09/10/2025 20:24

My mum told my nephew that if he ate too many strawberries, he would turn into one. Everyone laughed. Needless to say, there is no truth in that at all.

You obviously don't understand how comedy works- The strawberry comment is not funny and is not meant to be- so how is it relevant?