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

[RubyTuesday10]

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?

Exactly. Many a double chin has been hidden by a beard. I remember quite fancying this guy at my previous workplace. Bit of a dad bod, but in the true sense as opposed to just being a euphemism for being a bit fat - like when obese women describe themselves as 'curvy'.

He was an ex rugby player with a good shoulder/waist ratio and a tiny bit of a belly. Nice beard and rugged features. But then he randomly shaved the beard off and his face somehow looked a bit doughy with a small double chin that bunched up when he looked down. I didn't fancy him at all then! Thankfully, he grew it back sharpish.

Indeed they don’t. But the original post I quoted seemed to be saying that they fancy Jason Statham so baldness is attractive. When the reality is that most men do not age well whether they go bald or otherwise.

Well, logically if we're saying somebody is attractive with or without hair it's probably the case that they're generally attractive. Most men with hair are average looking so it's a false equivalence to compare a hunk with a full head of hair to an Uncle Fester lookalike.

However, as above we have studies comparing the same men with and without hair and thousands of women voted that they looked more confident and dominant when bald. That's not my opinion, that's what thousands of women said.

I recall reading so e statistics that said men generally will always go for the younger woman.

Except I'm pretty sure my last 4 relationships were all with men who were younger! Current one being nearly 11 years! 😱

I think there may some truth in men who basically don't know/feel they are ready to settle down, and if the woman is prime child bearing age and wants kids it's an added pressure some men seemingly run away from....but the weirdly quite often you find they leave, get with a younger woman and have kids and get married-all the things they apparently weren't "ready" for 🤔🤨

Most younger women aren't feminists nowadays and I think this appeals to a lot of men truth be told. Not because they want to be misogynists. Sometimes because they want to be a man and not be chastised for it or expected to conform to some feminist idea of 'what a man should be'.

I'd imagine a midlife crisis will in some cases exacerbate this dynamic because men more often tend to do things like buy a motorbike/fast car or start working out rather than take up tiddlywinks.

What statistics do you have about most younger women not being feminists? My daughter and her friends are most definitely feminists. My experience differs from your broad brush statement. In fact, my experience is that generation Z are in no hurry to be in relationships at all.

According to the results from the 2016 Fawcett society state of the nation report only 4% men and 9% women polled labelled themselves as feminists. When asked to describe what the word meant to them a shocking 26% of the words used were negative e.g. irrelevant, bitchy, while 22% used positive terms such as strong-willed.

https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/socscilibrarians/2016/01/22/only-7-of-people-describe-themselves-as-feminists/

More in depth article of the above study.

Only 7 per cent of Britons consider themselves feminists

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/only-7-per-cent-of-britons-consider-themselves-feminists/

Less than a third of American women identify as feminists

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/american-women-and-feminism

Slightly more women consider themselves feminists now (38%) than they did in 2016 (32%), close to half (48%) of women still say they are not feminists, according to new data from YouGov Omnibus.

Among non-feminists, there are a few common reasons they don’t identify with the label. Almost half (48%) of non-feminist women say “feminists are too extreme.”

https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/21348-feminism-american-women-2018

New YouGov poll reveals only 35% of Britons identify as feminist

www.google.com/amp/s/thenewfeminist.co.uk/2025/03/new-yougov-poll-reveals-only-35-of-britons-identify-as-feminist/%3famp=1

There's more but I can't be arsed to post tbh as it was just intended as a passing comment. And let's be honest people will find reasons to disagree with them.

I was right that most young women aren't feminists but also sort of wrong in that they're still more likely to be feminists than older women in recent years. I also saw a European graph previously which I'm not searching for now as need to be up at 5am and should've been asleep hours ago. Sweden was the most feminist with 40%.

Women seem to agree with many of the stated principles of feminism but not with the reality/implementation of it. I agree in some ways. It does attract a lot of bitter people who want to hate on men while perpetually serenading on their tiny violin.

It's like how nobody can really say men's rights are a bad thing but an MRA is generally a euphemism for a sexist guy that has a whole maris piper on his shoulder.

These kind if claims irritate me, but I think it's essentially because women often associate feminists now with terminally online SJW activist-just-for-show types who make a lot of claims without much backing & are overly woke (extreme over Gaza, Just Stop Oil, trans issues etc)

I will always stand by the Gloria Steinem definition of feminist meaning 'believing in the equality & full humanity of men and women', but clearly many don't associate it with that. In surveys women mostly associate it with extreme, they also say they support equal rights mostly so it's more of a disagreement with extreme connotations than equal rights per se.

Hmm, what do you mean by many women 'not agreeing with the reality/implementation" of feminism?

I thought it was more of an issue with extremes (eg. Believe literally all women no matter what, exaggerations about rape culture & patriarchy etc) rather than disagreeing with the 'reality/implementation" of equal rights?

Anecdotally, I'm Gen Z & several friends are proud feminists, others don't like the word/connotations but believe in equal rights.

Edit : Sorry, I know it's v late! Not expecting an answer now!

For tomorrow : when you say men think that feminists will make them conform to feminists ideas of what a man should be, what kind of ideas do you mean?

Very late to this thread but I really don’t think men in general are attracted to much younger women. Not in my experience anyway. There is probably a subset of (insecure?) men who are, but the majority go for women more or less within their own age group who they find attractive.

I think this pretty much sums it up.

I agree that old men may see young women as easier to manipulate and dominate and that this for some will be part of the appeal. I don't think its particularly revolutionary that there are men who use their advantage, be that wealth, status, power or life experience to manipulate women and will consider the percieved easier target of a young woman attractive. Though I doubt they trawl the internet for surveys about where the age groups stand on feminism before deciding if their young bodies appeal.
Regardless, young women rejecting the label of feminist (which is not at all the same as rejecting feminist principles) hasn't translated to a desire to partner with older men. The stats for this remain tiny. So whether in reality the men would find them more complient remains for the most part a matter of old mens fantasies.

What I meant was basically what you said. I think some people associate feminism with extreme views. Stuff like the recent thread titled something like 'AIl men are filthy losers'. So they see people saying things like "if you believe in equality you're a feminist" then they read these threads and think no that doesn't represent me.

It's difficult because sometimes the same posters have other views I'd agree with but I don't share their general outlook. I guess it's like how I agree there are some issues with immigration and cultural integration but I'm absolutely not a Tommy Robinson or BNP supporter.