Questioning Age Old Old Age Clichés

Lux Alptraum of Boinkology notes another dent in our (extravagantly age-ist) narratives about "immutable" gender roles.

When an older man pursues a younger woman, it’s considered normal. When an older woman pursues a younger man, she’s a bit of a novelty. But that may not be the case for much longer: in the world of online dating, at least, women over 50 pursuing younger partners is par for the course. She said it here.

Purely anecdotal evidence digression: Some time last year, I think, I got curious about all those online dating sites and signed up for a bunch of them. Most of them were for pay, and even more were about straight-up find-a-life-partner match making, and I quickly let most of the trial accounts lapse. OkCupid, on the other hand, seems almost more like a social network site than a dating site (though plenty of people on the site date) and it's free so every now and then I check to see who their system thinks would be interesting to me or I to them.

I mention this because OkCupid gives you a little list of who's been interested enough in you to check out your page. And that's relevant because I'd say that roughly half the people who've been checking me out or otherwise indicating interest (via other contact features) have been older and half younger.

Various dominant narratives about gene-based or hormone-based gender interest would have it otherwise but I *still* think it's got a lot more to do with being human-based. In other words *humans* when given a chance have a broad array of interests, except when that array is carved away by expectation and/or indoctrination.

Another anecdote: While I enjoy generally enjoy being a reluctant but sincere monogamist, last weekend while browsing the street-fair style booths alongside Vancouver's Jericho Beach Park I was briefly but very nicely chatted up by an older woman, born some time in the 1940s or perhaps early 1950s, with beautiful, naturally turned-white hair.

At one point afterwards I felt a bit silly for thinking "Hmm, if I were younger, and still single..." Except that when I was younger and still single I was still blinded by ageism. And I shared the general opinion that men and women are "over the hill" between maybe age 25 and 35 where except for a couple of mostly male icons they generally stop getting romantic roles in movies and photographed for fashion magazines. And I might have been horrified by the idea of "people with wrinkles having sex," even if they happened to be cute wrinkles. But mostly when I was younger I was indoctrinated to believe "elderly ladies" "outgrew" interest in romance, let alone lust.

All of which leads me to question one bit of Alptraum's very nice post: is it really a novelty that older women are expressing interest in younger men, or is it that we just hadn't previously noticed? Or cared? Or *permitted* it?