My boyfriend and I exchange DMs and Tweets throughout the day — a non-verbal way of expressing our likes and dislikes through memes, editorials, celebrity gossip and homoerotic imagery (daddy Diplo, anyone?). Recently he sent me a photo dump from Dua Lipa with a message: “Dua posting her new man in the third pic.” Obviously, I clicked immediately. A quick deep dive — for journalistic purposes — ensued. The soft-launched man in question, via a sensual smoking-while-on-vacation profile picture, is Romain Gavras — a certified hottie, Daddy-type French director. He’s created videos like M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” and Kanye’s “No Church in the Wild.” Hot, right? Somehow, that’s not the best part… Romain just so happens to be 41 years old. Not much rhetoric has been spilled on the alleged couple’s 14-year-age gap, at least on my end of the internet. But on the other hand, the 48-year-old Real Housewives of Miami cast member Larsa Pippen sent the reality TV news cycle into a frenzy with her relationship with 32-year-old friend Marcus Jordan — yes, son of Michael.
I got to thinking about age gaps in romantic rendezvous, which, pending your POV, my relationship falls under that umbrella, being that I’m three years senior to my partner. As it turns out, in Western culture, less than ten percent of hetero couples “have an age gap of ten years or more,” one study shows. The percentages dramatically increase for gay and lesbian partnerships, though — duh. My research also led to a pivotal piece of television by Lena Dunham — Yes, that episode of Girls where Hannah Horvath cruises an older gentleman, while taking the trash out at her coffee shop job. A doctor, we soon discover, with whom she then spends a whole weekend enjoying hot sex, luxurious home-cooked meals, elegant amenities and attention to the extent of adoration. The episode highlights the experience of sleeping with someone older — an established adult, if you will. It’s a short-lived sexual fantasy that some of us might dream of experiencing in our early 20s.
Age gaps in relationships, with their forbidden allure, continue to spark interest in our culture — feeding the tabloids and fueling online debates. Mainly, the online trolls spend their time questioning the morality of engaging in a romantic relationship where, they argue, the power balance is off-kilt from the get go. Older age equals more experience, more money, more power and control. You’ve heard that story before. We all know a friend of a friend, right? I started thinking…
Are age gaps in romantic relationships controversial? Are there pros and cons? Are there rules for dating outside our age brackets? Do people even care, in today’s world, about dating someone far older or younger?
Our culture seems to be sold on the idea, as this research paper indicates, that age gaps “only seem to be socially acceptable when the older partner is a man.” More importantly, however, consensual age-discrepant romantic relationships continue, in this day and age, to be judged as “less acceptable, more disgusting and less likely to succeed than age-similar relationships.”
“This mostly becomes a topic of discussion and controversy when it comes to women dating younger men,” Liz Goldwyn, author of Sex, Health & Consciousness and founder of The Sex Ed, tells me. “The reverse has been upheld for centuries with little to no issue.” Ageing like a fine wine is an adage often used to describe older men. The same is rarely said for women.
In the US, the average age gap in hetero couplings is about 2.5 years, while only one percent of couples present an age difference of 28 years or more. Despite the lack of cultural appreciation of women dating younger men, some studies found — over 13 year period — that older women dating younger men are “generally more satisfied with their marriages” than younger women dating older men. Somehow, it feels like this judgement toward women dating younger men is tied to an antiquated moralist and patriarchal agenda. Women encounter judgement and oftentimes shaming if they date younger — take Larsa being questioned during the RHOM reunion about dating a man 16 years younger than her, fielding odd questions from Andy Cohen, and of course judgement on the internet.
One Twitter search of “Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor” — the iconic lesbian couple whose 32-year-age gap constantly sparks controversy — is enough to further clarify the disparity in our culture when it comes to accepting and understanding the double standards applied to male and female age gap relationships. “For an older woman to be sexually confident and date younger seems to get much of the patriarchy’s panties in a bundle,” Liz adds. “I love seeing Cher with her young man. If Rupert Murdoch can do it why can’t they?”
Courtney Cox aimed to disarm these beliefs with her 2009 cutting-edge sitcom Cougar Town, where we follow a recently-divorced mother reclaiming her life — both emotionally and sexually. The Housewives have shifted our culture’s general understanding of womanhood, opening the eyes of many to the fact that humans, despite the unavoidable fate of ageing, continue to desire love, affection and, yes, sex. “As much as we are culturally uncomfortable speaking about sex, we really don’t want to accept that we will all get older and eventually transition out of our bodies,” Liz says.
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It’s important to note that, despite our culture’s knee jerk reaction to women dating younger men, research shows that overall the prejudice in age-gap relationships is aimed towards the couple, not one person in particular. As my friend H, a 31-year-old art director living in Brooklyn tells me, people are often “slightly uncomfortable or curious about the power dynamics” of age gap relationships. For the past three years he’s been dating a man 13 years his senior, and has ample experience dating older men. As he put it, “I’d rather date someone ten years older. There is something about the level of maturity that changes the dynamics of a relationship.” Yet, the audience continues to wonder about the inner workings of relationships with substantial age gaps. “People usually think that having an older partner means that he is your sugar daddy,” H notes of the prejudice. “Or that you have attachment issues.”
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to age gaps in romantic or sexual relationships — despite the many conversations surrounding them. It’s mostly gossip and fodder for the moralists trying to hold on to a cultural structure that, as we know, only benefits a few. “In our youth-obsessed society, it may be impossible to believe that growing old and gaining wisdom were once celebrated,” Liz says. “There is a prevalent social message that sex is for the young.” Though, factually, that is far from the truth — “Regardless of our stage in life, most of us require touch and close relationships with other humans,” she adds.
Engaging in an age gap relationship comes with both hurdles and enjoyments — emotional, mental, physical and, largely, social and cultural. Like most sexual and romantic explorations, this is a personal journey filled with nuance and caveats. For some, ageing may represent a decline, not only in beauty, but in sexual ability and desire. For people like my friend H and Liz, ageing represents wisdom, stability and power. “I’m looking even more forward to being a super powerful, magnetic 60 year old who is having the best sex of her life,” she says.
Well, despite my efforts, I’ve failed to locate and create a simple guide to age gap relationships. It simply doesn’t exist. I asked H for his advice for others who might be interested or afraid of dating older or younger partners, consensually, of course. “I don’t think this is a question of deliberately deciding to date someone older or younger,” he told me. “We say we should look beyond sex, race and age…” It all goes back to breaking down preconceived ideas of what a correct or moral relationship looks like. Fuck the prejudice, is what I understood. And I couldn’t agree more.