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Lately I have been wondering why our society is (or seems to be) increasingly hostile towards romantic/sexual relationships between a (1) a man; and (2) a much younger woman. Recently I read that a well respected football coach -- Bill Belichick -- was denied admission to the Football hall of fame based on the fact that he is in a romantic relationship with a woman who is much younger than him.
What's interesting to me is that for many years, there has been a popular idea that it's completely fine for two consenting adults to enter into a sexual/romantic relationship, even if those two adults are the same sex; even if they are different races; and so on. Societal disapproval of relationships between an older man and a younger woman seem to be an exception to what could be called the "love is love" principle.
I admit that I have a personal interest in this issue: I am a middle aged man and my fiancee is a good deal younger than me. I will call this an "age-gap relationship" or "AGR." (For purposes of this post, I am referring to AGR's involving an older man and a younger woman.)
I can think of a few hypotheses:
(1) My initial assumption is wrong; outside of a few extremists online, most people don't care about AGRs. As noted above, my fiancee is a great deal younger than me; we have gotten the occasional curious glance while out in public, but I haven't directly experienced any hostility. That being said, the case of Bill Belichick seems to suggest that this sentiment is affecting real world decisions.
(2) This is reflective of society's increasing hatred of and hostility towards men. Although it's been common for decades for TV commercials to portray wives as smarter, wiser, and generally better than their bumbling idiot husbands, it seems this trend has gotten much more intense in recent years. "women are superior to men" is pretty much the constant drumbeat in most media these days. Coupled with that is the idea that male desires are invalid and illegitimate. Against this backdrop, arguably one would expect that society would disapprove of AGRs inasmuch as they are perceived to satisfy the common male sexual desire for younger women.
This explanation appeals to me since it fits with the (very satisfying) idea that my outgroup (progressives) are mainly just bad people who are full of hate, but I will try to keep an open mind.
(2a) Women (whose sentiment has a huge impact on societal values) object to these relationships since it reminds them of a significant disadvantage they have in comparison to men: Female sexual attractiveness inevitably and steeply declines relatively early in life. Since women tend to compare themselves to the most elite men, they get the frustrating impression that society has made life extremely unfair for them. Perhaps women have always felt this way and what's changed is that they have more of a voice.
(3) The internet and social media has made it much easier for AGRs to develop so it's a bigger issue. This seems plausible to me, but on the other hand when I was in high school many years ago there were sexual/romantic relationships between teachers and students. Although these were never approved of, they are far less tolerated nowadays than they were in the 70s and 80s.
(4) Society has become aware that these types of relationships have a much greater opportunity for abuse. While there are definitely a lot of predatory men out there, my issue with this explanation is that there are a lot of relationships (both romantic/sexual and non-romantic/sexual) which entail a lot of abuse and predation, which relationships society doesn't seem to care all that much about.
(5) There's no real reason per se. It's just a self-reinforcing bandwagon effect. This is definitely a possibility but it's difficult to think of how this hypothesis could be verified. Besides, this hypothesis doesn't seem to explain, in a satisfactory way, why society would make this exception for the general "love is love" principle.
(6) It reminds people of guys like Jeffrey Epstein. The thinking is that if a man will openly date a 19 year old, chances are he secretly lusts after females who are below the legal age. This seems plausible, but it doesn't really account for societal disapproval of a relationship between someone who is 70 and someone who is 24. (Or does it?)
Anyway, I would be interested to hear peoples' thoughts on this subject.
Just as an anecdote and because I like to talk about it, I'm substantially older than my wife and we've both found it to be a healthy, even ideal dynamic. Coincidentally, yesterday, she told me that sometimes she likes to dream that I'm even older and she's even younger. But then we are also countercultural weirdos who believe in things like traditional gender roles and having lots of kids, so ymmv.
Finding a jailbroken woman who's willing to notice how things actually work and what she actually wants, independent of mass cultural programming, is strongly indicated if one can manage. But despite having intentionally optimized for finding such a girl, I can't pretend it was anything other than the grace of God that we got together. It's hell out there.
Thank you for this bon mot.
Any tips for the young trad turboautists on the bored to replicate your success?
I'm leery of this for the reason I already gave, which is that I cannot take credit and I mean 'the grace of God' entirely literally.
But, off the top of my head:
It wasn't until relatively late in life that I discovered that I'm very attractive. All the signs were there all along but no one ever told me so I didn't know. Hilarious amount of history snapped into place when I realized it, etc. But this doesn't help anyone not in the same boat.
That said you may be more attractive than you know and regardless you are absolutely capable of maximizing this by working out and dressing well. The former does take a lot but pays its own dividends; the latter is much easier and cheaper than commonly supposed. Happy to expand on either upon request.
The usual advice seems to be that women are attracted to confidence (true) so the winning move is to learn to fake those signals (effective but ultimately pyrrhic). In fact the 'secret' is to genuinely become confident, which can only be accomplished through intentionally choosing to become worth that sense of self. In my case, going into business for myself and learning to stand my ground unflinchingly in the face of despair may be the single greatest factor in my maturation. Whoever said that trying to get one's own business off the ground is like eating glass every day until (and if) that changes was correct. While I've never gotten much alpha from stuff like BJJ I expect that in most cases something like that would be a helpful and viable path for other men. At least in the US we have been raised in a culture which seeks to infantilize and emasculate us; this must be countered consciously, but not obnoxiously. Women out there, regardless of what they repeat to themselves and each other, are desperate for grounded, confident, masculine men.
In that vein, if you want a hot young happy wife, and especially one content to be a full-time woman rather than pursuing her own career in the masculine sphere, you need to be able to generate enough income to keep her comfortable that way plus the inevitable frivolous expenses which please women so well. This may sound callous but it's almost impossible to manage that with a job at this point; starting your own business is, in our generation, the only plausible path I've found to this level of income, and it's far from a guarantee.
Learn basic stuff like how to repair things around the house, cars, etc. Youtube is amazing for this and a little bit goes a long way. My wife likes to say "A husband is a Daddy you choose" (tongue in cheek, mostly) and whatever you can do to push that button is probably worthwhile. Gets back to masculine confidence.
Trite as this may sound, I don't think I could have landed my wife until I had made peace with the possibility of not finding anyone, especially as I got older. Once I was at peace with myself as a single man I instantly became much more attractive. Not much turns off women like the smell of desperation. When a mutual friend introduced us I told her up front "I'm not really interested in dating at the moment," (true; I had decided to raise my SMV a bit more before getting serious about that) "but you seem really interesting so let's at least meet up." Was I conscious of this as 'game'? Yes. Did it only work because I actually meant it? Also yes. In other words, don't chase girls and don't try to make them into anything they don't want to become. Raise your own value, stand firm, and let the illiquid market come to you. This may be a comparatively high-risk strategy but the rewards, if any, are commensurate. She was amazed at how unconcerned I was with impressing her. "This is going to be yes or it's going to be no and either way it'll be by a landslide," I said; "Either way we don't need to worry about it."
Know what you want (this takes experience and maturity) and hold to it. When I met my wife I told her that if we were going to move forward she wasn't a vegan anymore (because babies) and that her beliefs were her business but we'd be going to church together, and ultimately as a family, every week. Pop relationship advice might label this as controlling or somehow abusive but I could almost see her sigh with relief. Women want you to establish structure and boundaries and can't feel safe unless you do. Flip side, again, is that doing this in a loving and appropriate way requires a certain gravitas which cannot be effectively simulated in the long run.
Your wedding is the starting gun, not the finish line. She married you because you gave every indication of continuing on the trajectory that she found so attractive and you owe it to her to live up to that, and only by doing so may you expect the same in return. Failure is more acceptable than you'd think, but defeat is a state of mind and must never be accommodated. Learn to take losses in stride without losing your own frame before imagining that you are ready for a wife.
Pray without ceasing. This will go over the heads of many here but you want the woman God has for you, or else none at all, and those really are the only two good options. You can be ready for her to appear but you cannot cause her to appear. Thy will be done.
I'd echo this, especially 3, 5, and 9, as great advice. However I'm speaking as a guy who got pretty damn close to marriage before things imploded.
4 is where guys will stumble b/c pursuing that wealth can become all-consuming, and at the very least will interfere with actually looking for a woman. Although I gather that once you hit a certain level of success women are more likely to just show up in your life. You've time to make a decent number of dice rolls in your mid-twenties, but you also have to be smart.
So I'd say there's no shame in somewhat lowering your expectations and while you should walk around with dick-swinging swagger being modest enough not to promise the sun, moon, and stars to a woman avoids some problems.
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