When Nancy Jo Sales fell in love with the man she calls Abel, she was 49 and he was 23. It was the summer of 2015 and she had just finished writing a big Vanity Fair story on how Tinder had caused an “apocalypse”, both in dating and in the treatment of women. The piece caused Tinder to have a well-chronicled meltdown at Sales on Twitter. No wonder: Sales had just made a convincing argument that the dating app had not only done something terrible to intimacy, but that it had unleashed a monstrous form of masculinity too.
Intriguingly, while reporting on the sexist horrors of Tinderland, Sales was using the app herself, by her own admission addicted to it. In her compulsive new memoir, Nothing Personal, she admits that as the proofs of her Vanity Fair article arrived in her inbox, she was messaging the young Abel, an exchange that would lead to his appearance at her Manhattan apartment a few days later — and a multi-year involvement that friends came to call a “situationship”. This description wasn’t to do with the age gap, but with the “casualisation” of dating. As Sales stresses, the barrage of choice offered by internet dating has “made marriage and committed relationships look less attractive and less necessary, especially for straight men”. Her entanglement with Abel was never going to be a relationship, then, to the dismay of a smitten-but-realistic Sales.
It’s become received wisdom that apps — the delivery devices of hook-up culture — encourage a kind of callousness that is particularly damaging to women, for whom purely transactional sex is more likely to be a downer. Tinder’s founders are archetypes of the Silicon Valley “tech bro”, who dress up poor treatment of women as sexual revolution. But despite this, something surprising is happening: the inversion of powerful truisms about women’s age and sexual desirability.
Until recently, it was a basic assumption that women age out of the fray, our peak time of sexual desirability being our late teens and twenties. This idea was sharpened by a raft of inaccurate studies in the 1980s suggesting that after 30, women’s fertility sinks like a stone. In Bridget Jones, published in 1996, the heroine is a “spinster” at 32. Even in 2014, dating and relationship “expert” Katy Horwood wrote that women in their thirties must “either compromise or dust down your spot on that shelf”. Just last year, Made in Chelsea star Ashley James told how she had a “meltdown” on the eve of her 30th: “I didn’t feel old enough to be… well, old. I wasn’t married, I wasn’t even in a relationship.”
James felt she had “run out of time” and remembered hearing people talk about women who were single at 30 as being “left on the shelf”, their “looks fading”. Part of the problem, perhaps, is the fact that older men have continued pursuing younger women.
Now, however, the middle-aged woman has become a prime target for younger men, not only for sex but in some rarer cases for relationships too. Sales never has trouble getting matches on Tinder, and the age difference between her and her lovers was dramatic: about 25 years. She’s not the only one. High profile examples include Kate Beckinsale, who at 43 was caught kissing 21-year-old comedian Matt Rife; at 45, she dated 25-year-old comedian Pete Davidson. This reshuffle has also become a trend among ordinary folk.
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SubscribeLet’s see if I got this straight. Older men who prefer younger women are wholly misogynistic. Younger men seeking out older women are no less misogynistic, as their reasons for doing so involve living their pornographic fantasies. Younger men who overlook women in their own age group are “callously” misogynistic as well as insecure and financially challenged. Men who prefer marrying women who will stay home and raise children are, of course, the worst misogynists of all. Men who go on Tinder are exercising a particularly repellent form of toxic masculinity. Women who go on Tinder are true and pure of heart, interested in romantic love.
Is it just me, or is the author of this article just a little hard to please?
The author is a feminist. Being hard to please goes with the territory.
The article is completely incoherent, as you note. The reason for this is, feminists have seized total control over contemporary discourse on sex and gender issues, and “feminism” today is little more than an exercise in open misandry and female chauvinism. They just talk in circles to each other now, throwing the term “misogyny” at any and everything they don’t like, spinning further and further into entitlement and grievance and away from reality and any need to present coherent arguments.
given the rise of the trans movement, womanhood itself faces an existential threat but the feminists are too woke to notice.
My pet theme on that is that the trans lobby, in so far as it is male to female trans, is just another branch of the patriarchy, just another way for men to subdue women.
The trans woman hates women because deep down she knows she can never be one. That is what is behind her desperation to crash female only spaces. It is the very male need to dominate.
I think that may be true if it’s messed up trans activists who barely know what they are. Every transwoman I’ve come across in real life hasn’t resembled them at all and are generally more like Debbie Hayton than Munroe Bergdorf
Personally Alex I don’t think transwomen (ie men) are any threat to women at all, if you are referring to competition. They are a threat in terms of ignoring our boundaries and forcing sex-single spaces to become co-ed by their presence.
Not true, the old school feminists noticed and get called TERFs and banned from college campuses
Wasn’t always thus. I have given up trying to make people do what I say (finally, thank God), but all men should read The Female Eunuch. A whole lot would become clearer to them if they did.
Women won’t read it, of course.
Cheap copy of Second Sex by Simone de Beauvouir
If the author has been infected by the post-modernist brain-virus, they are compelled to view society in terms of power, oppressor/oppressed etc. They can’t help it.
The only cure is the Red Pill, but this has to be self-administered by choice. This tends to happen only on rare occasions when the infected person encounters reality they cannot ignore.
Unfortunately, trying to ‘help’ infected people simply reinforces the virus-effect.
Human society _isn’t_ dominated by power relationships? Not saying they’re the only ones, but come on.
No, that sounds about right.
You go girl, you awesome cougar.
OMG he must be twice her age, disgusting old pervert.
Also the older woman ‘teaches’ the younger man who then goes onto find someone more his age , but this doesn’t happen in reverse.
Well said. She’s a feminist nutbag.
Excellent article… as a young man in my early twenties, I was hopeless chatting up women my age, but had a number of older women initiate me into the pleasure and art of sex and how to give and receive pleasure, and all of that while also giving me some grown-up emotional support, none of which I ever got (or could give) in relationships with women my own age, where insecurity and youthful turbulence and flightiness always got in the way.
Looking back, I can now understand that my older female lovers were guides for me in how to make love, and how to be there for another person. They knew to appreciate what we had in that moment, as they were old enough and wise enough to know that nothing lasts forever…. If more men are seeking that, then all the better.
We are all getting older everyday, and will each face the moment when we are no longer seen as sexually attractive to anyone else, so let each person enjoy what they can in life, before its all gone to dust.
One of the most touching films concerning this subject is Harold and Maude
Awww sweet post. I’ve been chased after by younger men since I was about 30 and now I’m 50 and it still happens occasionally! I have occasionally partaken as some have been truly delightful young men. They considered me a teacher (which makes me roll my eyes), they do get a wiser head advising them, but I think they also like that I’m unshockable, have a good sense of humour and I’m not a moaning, whining, needy younger woman who doesn’t call them asking where they are every 5 minutes or need to talk about our feelings in the way that teenage/20-something girls often do (I was guilty of all these things myself in my younger years) and we don’t expect them to be some perfect Prince Charming who can read minds. So I can relate to what you said (from the perspective of the older woman) and from my side the benefit is a lovely ego boost, a very enthusiastic lover, a reminder of more innocent times and for me, a great insight into the younger person’s lingo and interests which means I understand them better than my friends do, as they are not as honest with their parents as they are with me.
Why have young men switched the focus of their sexual energy on to middle-aged women? It has nothing to do with the p o r n genre; that is just a reflection of an unchanged reality: older women are, first and foremost, women. They’re not petty little girls engaged in psychological gamesmanship who use sex as a weapon. These females are confident, they’re not mired in whatever the day’s social cause is, and they don’t freak out if you don’t call by X time the next day. Frankly, they are great. One of the downsides of aging is that “older women” are more like old women, but fortunately for me, I am married to a M I L F.
When I was 21 I had a wonderful dalliance with a 46 year-old. It was so liberating to have a no-strings arrangement with an experienced, mature woman who I could spend nights and weekends with. All my lovers since have her to thank. At the time I was at Cambridge, with its claustrophobic student bubble, ultra-hypergamous females and my on-off girlfriend at the time never washed before bed. I have only recently come to realise, as someone with Asperger’s, how difficult the minefield of “chat” and cliques was. My other relationships since have been with older women. They know what they are doing in bed and know what they are after.
In a broader sense, why would a young man pursue women of his own age nowadays? I can imagine a lot of them are woke feminists, and many who aren’t are so entitled it is ridiculous. Before any feminists come in, why would anyone bother dating someone who has it in for your immutable characteristics (i.e., being male). Add a dollop extra if you dare to be a white male.
Some woman gave a TED talk on what their man had to be. It was a list of 36 characteristics, mixing traditional masculinity with nu-male characteristics, representing an impossible list of demands much like Kipling’s “If”, which, while a brilliant poem, demands an impossible standard of being a man, my son. Young women want the benefits of “equality” and the treatment of the days of old. Many men don’t think it is worth the bother. Just check out some of the TikToks and tweets about men.
Many younger women now are Insta-obsessed, hyper-credentialist, rigidly conformist, incredibly dull, have never been told they are wrong and have grown up in the age of “men bad”. So it seems men who are not ready to settle are better off going for women who grew up in an earlier era. Now I am a bit older, I am guessing there may be some younger women who might be immune to the woke plague and might be worth the beans. Here’s hoping. But I will always love MILFs.
I’m 50 and I cringe at what I was when I was younger and how much worse that is now, vacuousness, entitlement and unreasonable demands are an epidemic, self-awareness and respect for men non-existent (til they need a shelf put up of course). I feel sorry for young men nowadays. But don’t give up, just try to be fussier about where you’re wetting your whistle or you’ll get trapped by some horrible narcissist.
I think your probably over analyzing here. Most single men will want to have sex with anyone they find sexually attractive. Apps like tinder has made it easier to find women of different ages, outside your usual group hang out group that’s typically your own age. Add to this higher divorce rates/ less marriage have lead to much more supply of single older women.
As my old carpenter said, a drunk man will F**k a dead opossum.
I’m sixty and married for nearly 30 years. As we oldies recount our youth, a recurring theme is the number of times, one got chased around the sofa by friends’ Mothers. The bemusement and mild satisfaction, that we spotty boys were, at least, attractive to someone.
The acquaintance whose summer job at a fibreglass factory, resulted in him being stripped naked as part of an initiation by the prodominantly middle aged female workforce.
The good natured, tipsy assault, by women coming out of the assembly rooms, having spent the evening watching the “Chippendales” strippers.
Pre-social media, women weren’t all victims, all earnestly seeking love with the “one”. Many were confident, brash and experienced, with husbands, brothers and sons of their own, an acquaintancship that gave them a realistic appraisal of men.
Right. Any moderately attractive younger man out on the town learns to steer clear of drunken hen parties—unless that’s what he’s into.
Nice summation, particularly the last paragraph. In short, they were women, not girls.
It appears only the middle class privileged types were/are the victims.
Paint me all Clan of the Cave Bear, but perhaps older women should bed younger men and teach them how to pleasure future female partners both physically and, crucially, psychologically. And in reverse, older men should bed younger women and save them the ghastly teenage wham-bam fumble years that characterises sex for most young guys. Imagine a world where yin was actively taught how to engage properly with yang. It would eradicate 90% of identity politics at a single, ahem, stroke. I’m Auel for that.
At the age now of 75, do you think I would be eligible to join your gang Craig?
Only if you have the stamina for the chase. At 80, I imagine finding a replacement for my late wife pointless. I’ll leave that for those over 40 but under 70, male or female.
Though aren’t they suggesting you find an older woman ie 100+?
Pretty twisted, your modern thinking. How about young people get to dating, become fond of each other, get married, have a family, stay together for life as they do not see ‘Partner’ as some kind of amusement and instruction to have and move on from, but as creating a family, one of in-laws, parents, children, cousins, grandchildren – all with a total lifetime commitment to each other.
Also do this when young enough to have relatives for the children? One problem when the older man marries younger woman , will probably leave her with young children wheras other way around presumably aren’t going to have children ie the happy marriage of Alfred Molina & Jill Gascoine-who both already had children from previous relationships.
I have heard somewhere of an (American) Indian tribe/nation that arranged things in exactly that manner. Interesting if true. Also interesting that until recently, exactly the opposite sort of matching has been customary in at least American culture, supported by strong prejudice.
A verse from a song of mine: “Grey Rap”
In the old days that is probably exactly what happened as a normal thing.
“High profile examples include Kate Beckinsale, who at 43 was caught kissing 21-year-old comedian Matt Rife”
caught? How does any single adult get “caught” kissing any other single adult?
I bet if he sexes were reversed the guy would get crucified.
Crucified? What bit of ‘crucified’ means ‘admired and envied’.
The stunning Kate is not exactly your average 43 year old.
Would the author have suggested that because of George Clooney 60 year old men are similarly in vogue?
Exactly John, Kate can hold her own with women 20 yrs younger so I see her more as the exception that proves the rule.
Phone the newspapers to send a photographer around
Could some young mens’ preference also be influenced by the increased risks now of accusations by a female peer, as well as the perceived higher maintenance factor.
Invert the title’s subject/object I.e, “Why MILF’s love young men” and (i) the subtitle is explained (ii) women cease to be victims (iii) women might be construed as predatory. Replace “MILF” with “older women” and “young men” with the term they use – “twinks”, and the underlying dynamic is even clearer.
Love the female hypocrisy, men with young women is unbelievable and age-inappropriate, but its ok for. old women to shag young men.
I generally prefer older women. They usually have interesting stuff to talk about and tend to be less totalitarian than younger women. I dislike generalizing and admit to doing it here.
Whatever happened to the idea of consenting adults?
I’m not on it myself, but presumably anyone, regardless of gender, who goes on Tinder doesn’t do so because they’re looking for a second hand washing machine.
Almost everything in life is ‘transactional’, but that doesn’t mean that money has to change hands, merely that both parties are broadly happy with the outcome, regardless of their own personal, sometimes wildly differing and selfish reasons for doing so.
Something like this might act as a warning or cautionary tale to a few, and there is nothing wrong with that, but people are complicated, their lives and needs are complicated and always changing but as long as there is mutual consent there, and presumably there is in the vast majority of cases, then I don’t really see where the problem is in this instance.
brilliant line.
I keep being offered all this carefree casual sex but all i want is to clean my clothes.
This problem has been discussed previously by Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress (1745). He gives eight excellent (though somewhat cynical) reasons why a younger man should conduct an affair with an older woman as opposed to a young one.
Number eight – if memory serves – being that “they are always so grateful!”. But then, Ben Franklin never saw a skirt he wasn’t motivated to chase. And he WAS talking about mistresses, not wives.
In a relationship gap in my mid 40s (before the Tinder age), I was pursued by many younger men seeking ‘experience’ and presumably lack of commitment with someone who did not look mumsy. As these things happen, the one ‘affair’ I indulged in, turned out to be a bit longer and more complicated than both of us anticipated. We are still in touch many years later. There are no firm rules, except that a winter/spring relationship is much easier if you are spring… I have done both! Best of all by far, comparing apples with apples, is having similar ages.
Older men like milfs too…
I’m pretty old now, but I can remember being young. As a young man I felt no strong sexual attraction to older women – unless it was all I could get (Which it never was, by the way). I am afraid that the author is peddling a fantasy.
The author is about 40 years old. She wants to continue with the fantasy that women like her are still as desirable as women two decades younger – she’s mistaken.
agree with you there Mark, lot of projecting going on here. But an article:
Why do younger men sleep with older women? Because they are available.
thats not hitting any word counts
I’m getting a lot of old incel vibes here. Just because younger women don’t clock you, or women your age don’t turn you on, doesn’t mean it’s not a fact older women are massively sought out by younger men these days.
Stay mad about it all you want
I’m certainly not mad about older men having sex with whoever they like. It just seems to be that women seem to to be desperate to think this means they’re still as sexually desirable as a woman two decades younger. It’s probably linked with the need of women for validation and the fear that they effectively become invisible and of less value as they age.
Only if the value you place on women is reproductive.
Women have attributes other than their breasts you know?
The good thing is that Pleistocene mentality will frizzle out with the last of your generation.
✌
When people resort to personal insults (Pleistocene mentality) that’s the time I realise I’m dealing with a moron.
You wish.
Women want one thing in men, and men want one different thing – well, two.
That isn’t going to change until we evolve into a different species.
She’s one of many who thinks male perspectives and preferences “fizzle out” of existence if you censor them off of the woke internet.
What she fails to understand is that if it wasn’t for our biological imperative feminists like her would never have got the vote.
I think nothing of the sort, being neither woke nor a censorious man-hater.
And to be honest I get your perspective. You’re arguing for what comes naturally to the evolved primates we are, and aligning yourself with evolutionary psychology theory. I guess we can’t fight biology when it comes to sexuality. We like what we like- and to be honest young people are definitely more attractive, displaying fertility in females & vigour in males.
All things considered, I think it’s fair enough to say it’s unrealistic to either expect men to desire wrinkled fat 50 year olds or women to want to date insolvent short bald ones.
And even if milfs and sugar daddys are quite popular exceptions these days, the biological rules stand. Old people are unsexy.
I’m sorry, I’m not trying to get at you, but as I said in my earlier post, I was a young man once and I understand what young men want, and what they want doesn’t change. It doesn’t change because it is based on the biological imperative to sleep with women who are young enough to have children. Nature isn’t kind to men or women. Let us find consolation in philosophy.
I don’t think there’s a lot of data to support that contention. First off, young men will sleep with anyone who has two X chromosomes. I’ve not seen any evidence that they shun women of their own age in favour of older women. Any port in a storm.
Furthermore, “massively sought out” is a subjective view and one in which it’s easy to be mistaken. There are 67 million people in the UK of whom 34 million are female. Assuming they’re evenly distributed by age that means there are about 400,000 of any given age. So there are 4 million between the age of 40 and 50 of whom perhaps a third may be single.
These 1.3 million women would feel themselves in demand if there were 1.5 million men chasing them, but 1.5 million men is only about 15% of the 10 or 11 million men between 18 and 45 who might be interested, and you’d probably find that those 15 million are equally interested in women of other ages too. The other 85% are only interested in women of other ages.
Quite. The cope is strong with this one. How do these older women rationalise this crap?
A good looking 40 year old is more desirable than an ugly 20 year old and a lot nicer to live with than a good looking 20 year old.
But that’s just my opinion.
I married a good looking 20 year old who grew up – best of both worlds.
Exceptions don’t disprove the rule.
Sorry, I don’t get you. What is the exception?
In many ways, “women like her” ARE desirable. They come with far less bull sh!t than those in their early 20s who believe in idiocy like r a p e culture and perpetual misogyny. The latter is particular ironic since those older women were far more likely to have experienced bad male behavior than the young ones. They lived in a time when harassment got the wink-and-nod treatment; they were the ones who made it unacceptable.
The come with more baggage than Heathrow on a bank holiday weekend
Oh I don’t know about that. I loved being taken on by a woman in her mid thirties when I was seventeen, I felt grateful and free from the pressure I always felt with girls my own age. It’s also to do with libido, us guys hit our peak in our late teens and early twenties, for women it’s their late thirties and forties, so from a purely sexual point of view these relationships make sense.
“is a historian of gender and intimacy” So that alone says a massive amount. No one takes on $100,000 student loan debt creating some weird degree in the history of gender unless they have some issues.
What a strange thing to say. Of course women of any age can be ‘more desirable’ than other women of any age to men. That is not a fantasy. It comes down to sexual attraction, and that is unique to everyone. To assume ‘all men are attracted to only young women’ when sexual attraction happens randomly, and is often linked to chemistry, shared values and personality etc is rather close minded. I have been with my husband who is 18 yrs younger than me, since he was 23 and I was 42. That was 17 years ago. Many others I know are happily in age-gap relationships.
Sexual attraction does not happen randomly at all. On average men find younger women who aren’t fat more attractive than older women who are fat. Your happy anecdote doesn’t change that at all.
It takes a woman to mix up “shared values” with sexual attraction… no wonder it is that much harder for men to get laid.
Some women like to pretend that sexual attraction is somehow yucky yet look at womens’ dating profiles where so many of them want a tall man!
Sexual attraction doesn’t happen randomly on Tinder where you only connect if you find someone physically attractive. Shared values and personality are strictly analogue qualities that only reveal themselves if you spend time together. But on Tinder people take less than a second before swiping one way or the other.
The number of single older women is probably smaller than the number of younger men who’d like to sleep with them, which probably conceals that it’s a minority taste. A friend of mine resolutely pursued younger women on the basis that he’d be sleeping with older ones for the rest of his life. A man of 50 who pursues young women gets no applause for doing so, so the best bet is to do so while the window to do so remains ajar.
My own experience has been that younger women are physically more attractive than older women, but are simply technically incompetent through lack of experience and enthusiasm. The intimacy of intercourse, what it entails, and how much you realise you have not been told are all pretty shocking initially. Whereas most men are over this shock after one experience, women seem to take until they’re about 30 to 35.
The reason they’re then in demand among younger men is that in their approach and slowly-acquired insouciance they’re finally conducting themselves in the bedroom as the men always have and would like their women to do.
Is there anything, anything at all, which is not the fault of men?
It is almost impossible to open one’s mouth, as a man, without being labelled misogynistic. Even were one to enthusiastically agree with every single thing every single woman says, one would still be regarded with suspicion.
Why are men to blame for everything they do, and also to blame for everything women do?
It is as if the female sex (I know, so last century) has given up on moral autonomy, and chosen instead to yield to the notion that the male provides the point of reference for everything women say, do and think.
Feminism is now telling us that women are too helpless to have agency and that men are so superior that they have agency for both.
When men and women have been drinking, it’s the woman who is assumed not to be able to consent to sex while the man remains fully responsible, even when both are equally inebriated.
Any sex that ensues is statutory rape and the man is the guilty party.
In effect, women are officially being defined as less capable than men and not responsible for their own actions. They are legally stripped of all power and treated like children.
The real truth, the biggest fan of milfs is older men 40s – 70/80.
Probably true. Throughout my life I’ve been attracted to women of my own age. I consider this a stroke of luck.
The older blokes, well some of them anyway, certainly get to catch the young ladies fancy. There’s a fun discussion on You Tube, the delightfully effervescent Nicole Arbour calls Jordan Peterson a DILF and a silver fox. There’s more to his female fan’s attraction than just his philosophy I suspect.
Strangely enough there have bee a few occasion when much younger women have found me attractive. 2 times I have been approached by significantly younger women while making my way to Kings Cross in late evening. Oddly they use the same chat up line “looking for business”.
I imagine the transaction is much the same with younger men and older women. Much as the women concerned were unable to resist my good looks and air of mystery, so the younger men in question obviously find older women attractive and alluring. Obviously, in the latter case, nothing so coarse as cash is discussed, that would just have destroyed the romance.
The son of a friend of mine in his early 20s hitched up with a single mother in her mid 30s. What was in it for him. Some where to store his stuff while he was off surfing around the world, a base with food when he gets home an a woman who is grateful and sensible enough not to ask who else he is seeing.
and people say Chivalry is dead.
Because they are:
a)Well practiced
b)Grateful, therefore considerate.
Have I missed anything?
They’re adults. They’re not likely to be among the wokerati fretting over first world issues. They don’t care about your wallet or job title because those are works in progress, and they don’t expect to be in the picture that long anyway.
As Benny Hill famously sang back in 1970s:
“They don’t yell, they don’t tell, and they’re as grateful as he’ll, so give me an older woman every time.”
It’s very simple: younger men who are losing out in the competition for women their own age are still able to meet decent-looking older women on dating apps.
When I was a twenty-something I would have been petrified if approached by a marauding milf.
“Why have young men switched the focus of their sexual energy on to middle-aged women?” – a few anecdotes does not mean a damn thing. I suspect young men have always gone after older women because they’re seen as an easy target. The author is just another older woman desperate to think older women are still fab when it reality they’ve hit the wall and their SMV has gone down the toilet.
Young men don’t “love” older women. Older women hate losing older-men’s attention to younger women, so they put out for free to tell themselves it ain’t true. But it is.
The simple truth is that older women are low maintenance, thankful for the attention, and know what they want.
Young women are toxic.
When I was young I saw some of my male friends doing this. To me it was like effing you mother. I respected my mother. For good reason. One being she stayed with my father for life. I didn’t see women as objects. I understood that as misogynistic, but mostly just wrong. Yet, a female friend of mine was lining up her older female friends for me. I didn’t partake. I valued sex as a component of love. Of course I have aged quite a bit since then and seen self destructive women my age self loathing about being unable to carry out a loving relationship with a man of any age. Yes. I still feel sorry for them, but I guess they got what they deserved. Whatever that may be.