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What's in It for Older Women?
As any middle-aged woman who's ever swooned over the hot, hard body of Jake Gyllenhaal or Matthew McConaughey can tell you, a younger man can be hard to resist—particularly when it comes to sexual desire. "Men's testosterone levels go down in their 40s, while women's sexuality peaks in their 30s and stays there for quite awhile. So, by age 50 or so, men have far more sexual problems than women, which is reason enough for an older woman to consider a younger man, with whom the sex can be just spectacular for quite some time," says social anthropologist Helen E. Fisher, PhD, professor at Rutgers University and chief scientific advisor of Chemistry.com.
But sex appeal aside, gender expert Susan Shapiro Barash says younger men also offer a cultural understanding of older women that they just don't get from men their own age or older.
"When it comes to issues like careers, money, even traditional female roles, men in their 50s often have a different mind-set about women than women have about themselves, mostly because the world hasn't changed as much for men in relation to how it's changed for women," says Barash, an instructor at Sarah Lawrence College and author of Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry.
And oh, how it's changed! When the hit show All in the Family became part of our culture in 1971, the middle-aged woman of the day was brilliantly portrayed in the character of Edith Bunker—a doting, sexually inhibited housewife who lived to bring Archie his beer.
Fast forward some 30 years, and your TV dial lands on Sex and the City. Here, middle age took on a whole different meaning in the career-oriented, younger-man-loving character of Samantha. What many viewers of both shows never realized: The characters of Edith and Samantha were approximately the same age!
And while 40-something women today are more likely to relate to the likes of Samantha, Barash says for many middle-aged and older men, Edith still has a foothold in their minds. "In this respect, a younger man may be far more in tune with how an older woman in 2007 sees herself, particularly her goals, her dreams, her view of the world and of herself and her sexuality, than any man her own age will ever see her," says Barash.
And of course, no matter how a woman sees herself, who can resist the ego-boost that comes from discovering that not only do men still find you attractive, but that a younger man is interested in what you have to offer!
"At a time when a woman may feel she is losing her vitality, not to mention her looks, what could be better, or more appealing, or more energizing, than having the attention of a younger man, particularly if she has already walked away from one or more failed marriages with someone her own age," says Nancy O'Reilly, PsyD, founder and director of WomenSpeak.com.
