A Friend Stopped By | 08/05/2009 11:00 pm
In Praise of Younger Men, by Lynn Freed
The vaunted novelist and essayist on the pleasures — and complexities — of May-December affairs
Lynn Freed
Editor’s Note: Lynn Freed is the author of the new novel The Servants’ Quarters, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The recipient of the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has written five other highly praised novels, a short story collection and an essay collection.
"Younger than what?" you may ask. Younger than the kiss on the cheek, the sensitive stomach, the consumer price index. Younger than asleep at the opera or awake at the cocktail party.It has become a commonplace among women — full-blown, multiparous, 40-, 50-, 60-year-old women: "Younger men are better." They are tighter, tauter, smoother, looser, funnier, sexier. And they like women. They look women in the eyes; they kiss them on the lips; they call them by their names. They actually like women.
Consider the situation from the younger man’s point of view. He is the child of the women’s movement. He has answered for the sins of his fathers and grandfathers and has learned to find happiness in androgyny. To him, the telephone repairwoman wrapped around the telephone pole is neither a turn-on nor a turn-off. She’s a woman. And this he only knows for sure when she descends to tell him his line is fixed. It is only then that his finely tuned libido propels him into the pas de deux of youthful sexuality – a minuet of serious communication and self-revelation.
| Husband, beware! Tighten your jaw! Pump up your act! Sharpen your blade! The enemy stands behind you in the shadows. |
Something has been lost to him, however, pervaded as he is by sexual common sense. It is fantasy. Oh sure, he has fantasies. But the quality of those fantasies is a little obvious, a little loud. They don’t have the breadth of vision, the complexity of plot, the devotion to character that sustained his father and his father’s father through 30, 40, 50 years of marriage. Our young man’s fantasies are brief and utilitarian. And he has the feeling that he is missing out. When he goes to the old ’40s movies, or to the modern remakes of the old movies, he finds that, despite himself, his breath shortens and his pants tighten when Bogart moves in on Bacall. He’s secretly turned on by all the newly rediscovered taboos. He strains to catch a glimpse of a few feet of white thigh as the heroine rolls on a silk stocking with long, scarlet-tipped fingers. And he’s thankful for the darkness that hides his flush.
Then he spends the weekend with his roommate’s family in the suburbs. On Sunday, he meets her mother – a splendid woman of 45 or 50, who once taught art history in junior college, but abandoned it to become a photographer. She has two children and a silent husband glued to the football game in the den.
After lunch, his roommate goes off to tai chi and he is left alone with the mother. They commiserate about football, about suits, about the drop in real estate prices. Her English is pure, her head sharp, her experience manifest. She has a deep, smooth voice and laughs a lot, saying she knows what she doesn’t want (which seems to include the husband). Although she steers the conversation away from her children, she wears her maternal robes easily, modishly décolleté. She also wears strappy sandals and painted toenails and crosses her legs a lot. Her body looks rich, soft to the touch, as if she knows just what to do with the hormones she has left.
He is mellow as can be. He doesn’t need to strain himself into earnestness on the subject of a woman’s right to her body. She even seems bored with the topic of keeping fit. In fact, she has that je ne sais quoi (he has just acquired the phrase) that really turns him on. Finally, it comes to him: sophistication. Oh, wow!
Immediately, his fantasy life improves. He finds himself creating rendezvous after rendezvous, orchestrating each with a quiet Fado beat. The lights are low, the danger high. There are dark restaurants, foreign beaches, important choices to be made.
Read more about: A Friend Stopped By, Adultery, Affairs, Books, Cleopatra, Cougars, Dating, Entertainment, Humphrey Bogart, Joan of Arc, Lauren Bacall, Older Women, Passion, Relationships, Sex, Younger Men
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26 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I’m not a fan of May/December relationships whether older male younger woman or the opposite. Are these persons involved in a long term relationship or merely a sexual fling/arrangement? I see nothing interesting, intriguing nor exciting about these couplings. I don’t care how sophisticated the younger partner. I’m realistic and practical when it comes to these matters. I’ve heard from others that younger men are more open minded and sexually adventurous. Some older men are stuck in the fifties and expect a woman to do all the cooking, cleaning, washing and arranging social activities and are close-minded sexually. Why would I want someone my son or daughters age?
I’m not interested in the arguments men have been doing it for years. So what?
It is not my intent to be judgemental. Hey, if someone is in a relationship with a much younger person and it’s working for them God Bless!
I was watching a television program not too long ago. Demi and Aston were guests. The age difference was painfully obvious. He was asked questions but with some coaching from Demi he answered them. He looked like her son. It was painful to watch. She appeared to be leading him by the nose. They want children but Demi is having trouble getting pregnant. If they do not hire a surrogate, employ fertility treatments or adopt is it fair for Aston to be denied his own biological children? I’m just asking. Demi and ex-Bruce have three adult children together. She’s nearly fifty and he’s not even thirty.
The bottom line is to enter these relationships with your eyes wide open and know why you are there. Personally, I have no desire to be a Mrs. or Mr. Robinson.
What a beautifully written piece, and eternally fascinating topic. I am not surprised one bit by the attraction "older" women feel toward younger men … man, we may be sagging on the outside but our memories are as sharp as ever and heightened by years of wisdom and the realization that those days are over, but the longing is still there. There’s been a wonderful discussion on another thread about just this fascination …. the difference, the BIG difference, is that most of us do not follow through. Maybe that is why we love young gay men so much, there will BE no follow through, it is safe. What’s the saying ? "I may be old but I ain’t dead " A sinewy arm and taut skin will forever be a turn on.
What I find fascinating about this article is the point of view of the young man. The "child of the women’s movement" the androgyny, the lack of experience in Tracy/Hepburn Bogart/Bacall, the "pas de deux" that is missing in todays age of equality, the instant hook-up, the let it all hang out in the workplace. Do we older women really hold that that chaste covering over the hidden vixen ? The Madonna/whore as every man’s desire ? Wow, that needs some more thought.
While I think Ashton Kutcher is the cutest thing since pink polka-dots, and admit to entertaining a few fantasy thoughts about being Demi, what do they talk about "afterwords" ? I wish them luck but I don’t see it ending well …. but then again ….. she got a few REALLY good years out of him. Oh, how crass ;-)
I have thousands of women in my online community. Many of these fabulous females over 40 are happily involved in relationships with younger men. They didn’t go prowling - two people just met and then nature took it’s course and they fell in love.
Let’s stop being so critical and give a thumbs up to happiness wherever you can find it.
www.therealcougarwoman.com
I agree with you with regard to finding happiness where we can find it. A single woman, or man, in their 40s who finds happiness with someone 20 years younger can be wonderful. Whether it’s for a weekend or a lifetime.
What isn’t wonderful is when the someone 20 years younger is the same age as their children or a friend of one of their children or worse the boyfriend or girlfriend of one of their children. Even worse is when they are married. Flings are fine for single people. Not really for married people. Been there, done that. And looking back, it is most unfair to everyone.
I knew a real Mrs. Robinson. Who took a liking to her daughter’s boyfriend. And moved him into her bedroom and shipped her daughter off to boarding school and left her other daughter alone while she and the boyfriend went off here and there. There is nothing wonderful in that. There is really nothing wonderful about Mrs. Robinson. Or Mr. Robinson. What happened to the real Mrs. Robinson I knew? June met another June and dumped December who spent six months in seclusion. Embarrassed I suppose. As she should have been.
The bottom line, as Linda stated above, is giving a thumbs up to happiness wherever you can find it in this crazy world. That being said, I don’t see this happening all that much.
I see the majority of men as visual beings whose eyes pass over all that wisdom and hard earned inner beauty and gravitate right towards the young thing who is all fresh and smooth and taut. I really think it gives them a major ego boost and makes them believe they are still fresh and smooth and taut!
I may check them out occasionally, and have been flattered a couple of times to have attracted their attention, but I never forget that young ones have really short attention spans! So I want to age gracefully and not have the added burden of wondering what they might be seeing as time goes by.
One final thought; I’m so tired of people gushing over Demi Moore’s looks. This woman made herself over from head to toe years ago (I think for her movie "Striptease"), and I am certain she now spends hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in maintenance "fees" to keep up with her young guy.