Why are older men infatuated with younger?

Not all older guys are pervs who hunt for teenage boys, but unfortunately, a lot of them are.

My advice? Don't get so worked up about it. Take it as a compliment that so many men hit on you. When you do get unwanted flirting, politely refuse and remove yourself from the situation.

 

As an "older man" I guess I should reply to this!

I do like younger guys, but not teenagers. Early 20s to mid 30s is my preferred age-range, but I am realistic and realise that most people in that are-range, especially towards the younger end, are not going to be interested in guys in their mid 40s. Also it is probably too wide an age-gap to be sustainable.

Now I am single again I have started using a few dating websites. These do not seem to take into account the other person's preferences when searching by age or whatever. I always look at the details in the profiles of matches they find before considering making contact, and if their preferred age-range does not extend up to 40s I don't bother wasting my time making contact. Also if there are other attributes they are seeking that I don't have I don't make contact.

That doesn't answer the question "why" though. I can't answer that and can't give a specific reason why I like the age-range I do. It just seems that the guys I find attractive are normally in that age-range.

 

Another older guy chiming in.

I haven't been attracted to people under the age of 21 or so since I was...25? Something like that. So I can only speculate from what I've seen, heard, and been told.

It may give them feel younger to be with someone younger.
It may make them feel attractive that they can attract someone younger.
They may think that a younger guy is more likely to be inexperienced, and thus more likely to say yes.
They may have an "indoctorinating" fantasy. Where they find a young, inexperienced, uncertain gay male, and "teach him the joys of gay sex".
They may enjoy "daddy and son" relationships.

It may be any one of these, a combination, or none of these.

Lex

 

Younger boys are easier to deceive. It is the truth, sadly. THAT IS WHY WE SHOULD ALL READ A BOOK A DAY.

Ok, last thing was a sarcasm, but my first sentence is not.

 

Well there are many reasons simply it is easy to get a younger person because they don't know all of the tricks. Plus there is also that fantasy of teaching and being with someone who isn't experienced.

Now for a scientific explanation. It is human nature to seek someone in there 20's because biologically that is the optimum age because humans really aren't supposed to live that long (that long being only until 50's being the oldest) so that is when the human body is at the optimum age for reproduction. Now obviously gay people can't naturally reproduce but that doesn't mean they aren't bound by this same biological human nature.

Also don't think that it is only gay people that do this. There are plenty of older straight men in there 30's that seek out young girls.

 

I think you may have hit the nail on the head with the comment about America's obsession with youth. I'm pretty convinced that plays a big part in it.

As you also say, there is likely a racialised component to it, too. There's quite a power differential between being white and non-white in US and Canadian and Western European society, so white guys might feel more entitled, especially when it comes to pursuing non-white guys.

One of the other things I think is at play is basically stereotype fulfillment--and I think this happens with a lot of gay behaviour, not just older guys sometimes pursuing younger guys. Gay guys grow up with the stereotype that all gay guys are after young guys... and so you mix that with the whole obsession over youth and you get a pretty strong push towards going after younger guys.

Something to remember, though, is that this isn't really an older gay guy thing... you could just as easily be a girl complaining about older guys hitting on you in exactly the same way. I'm not sure the gay factor really has that much to do with it; we're all brought up to overvalue youth these days, regardless of our sexuality and gender. Men are socialised to be more sexually forward, so obviously we'd see more men going after younger partners, no matter what their gender preference. But you have the whole "cougar" thing with women going on recently (or at least being labelled and pointed out as such recently; I'm sure women have been interested in younger men for more than the past 5 or so years).

Another thing is that--and I think this happens more with men because they're not really taught to connect much with their feelings, which would be even more the case for guys in their 30s and 40s now--I don't know... people kind of expect that at some point early in your 20s, people under the age of consent just magically become unattractive to you because they're under the age of consent... as if there's some biological change that happens to us in response to the law and getting older that makes young people "off limits" in terms of objects of affection. But the fact is, that isn't true. I mean if you're in your 30s or up, or late 20s and up even, consciously and intellectually someone can realise that an 18yo or 20yo or even 25yo is not necessarily a suitable partner for a relationship for a whole host of reasons. But physically, I don't think the attraction just magically goes away. If you at 20 thought someone who was 18 was physically attractive, why would you stop thinking that at 25 or 30 (or 40 or 50)? I don't think people's sexual attraction is determined wholly by what society considers appropriate in terms of respective ages of romantic/sexual/relationship partners. And so what I mean about guys in particular is the tendency to confuse sex and love... or to focus on sexual attraction over other factors.

And also on top of that, if what I'm saying is true, and that the constraints on attraction to younger people that people feel as they age are more reflective of conforming to society's expectations of who we're attracted to than our actual physiological reaction to those people, then it would make a certain amount of sense that you might get more gay guys who eschew those boundaries than you would straight guys (although really I do think the aiming for younger partners thing is a guy thing in general, and not a gay guy thing in particular) because gay guys are already some of society's biggest non-conformists/transgressors... a lot of our cultural and political background is built around being proud of our deviation from the mainstream, even.

That's not even touching the whole topic of the "initiation" thing that's already been mentioned, which is actually a whole huge other area to explore because traditionally, until very recently, the whole younger guy being with a (at least somewhat) older guy was a pretty common pattern in gay coming out scenarios because younger guys were not very often out and there weren't things like GSAs and anti-discrimination policies and gay marriage discussions. So the only for-sure gay guys a guy coming out could find were people who were likely not his peers in terms of age.

There are younger guys who do go for older guys... I've met quite a few and some of them were interested in WAAAAY older guys and I was like, "Really? You're into someone who's old enough to be your dad?" Similarly, you do see young women, gay and straight, into older women and men, too. So it's not totally a 1-way thing or a guy thing.

More than anything, though... you were, as you say, taken advantage of. That's a whole different thing from attraction. That's predation. There's a world of difference between someone being interested in someone younger than them and someone who takes advantage of others, regardless of their age. I mean, if the guy who had taken advantage of you was your age or like 18 or 19, would we still be having this discussion? Would the older guys who responded to your profile have made you feel as pissed off? You've associated being violated with the violator's age... but assholes like that come in all ages, just like respectful and loving people do, too. So of course now you're going to notice any older guys who are "creepy" because you're (quite understandably) hyper-sensitive to that. Chances are, though, that you're not going to notice any older guys who are respectful or who don't even really notice you. Or maybe you'll only come in contact with the pushy people who border on creepy (like the guys on the Internet) because all the rest of the more mature guys out there are taking note of what you said in your profile and avoiding contacting you.

So I disagree about what Time said about "a lot of them" (older guys) are pervs. I think we just tend to notice those people more because they are actively doing something we think is bad... all the other evidence to the contrary (older guys who are just regular guys and aren't chasing after younger guys) is passive. It's like how do you prove something doesn't exist? Or, maybe a little closer to home, the notion that youth are super-crime prone. Crime is abnormal/inappropriate so we hear stories all the time about youth who commit crimes. Do we hear about the statistically far vaster number of youth who are good law-abiding citizens? Nope. Similarly, we hear all about Internet predators and pedophiles but do we hear anything about the far, far greater number of people over the age of whatever who are just living their lives and leaving younger people to their own devices? Nope. So you get two stereotypes: youth are criminals and older guys are pervs who want young boys. Neither one is very accurate (in my opinion).

 

Picking up indirectly on this point, and referring to my own experience:

Most straight men will get married and have kids, as will their friends etc. Seeing their kids grow up tends to show a generation gap at maybe 20-25 years younger. So someone aged about 40 would see someone aged around 18 as being of their son/daughter's generation and not of their generation, which would probably set a mental barrier.

Many gay men probably don't have that, so don't see the barrier. It is something I have noticed, and it does feel a bit odd when I realise I'm about the same age as some guy's parents! I had a crush on a (straight) guy I worked with in a previous job. He was early 20s and I was early 40s then. I was the same age as the boss and he was the same age as the boss's son. :eek: Thinking about it that way made it clear to me that the age-gap was way too large. :eusa_naug

Another possible factor is that gay pubs and clubs tend to attract a wider age-range of people than straight venues. Here in Hereford for example there is one gay pub which attracts people of all ages - 18 up to whatever - because it's the only option we have. Whereas there are dozens of straight pubs which tend to attract more limited age-ranges.

 

I think the point you missed may be the "of caucasian decent" bit, which is where the cultural reference comes from. Not the age-range that you picked up on.

 

Easily said by someone that is 18. :dry:

 

Exactly.

This thread started out asking questions and several of us replied with our thoughts, opinions and experiences etc. In return we then got preached to by an 18 year old who appears not to have taken much notice of most of the replies.

 

I think this thread has run is course