older man/younger woman relationship

[tomkice]

My girlfriend is 35 years younger than I. She is now 32. We've been together for 7 years. We have friends who accept us fully, but others that don't really and some who have hurt us with remarks and rejection. I am older than her parents, and they reject our relationship. I understand that they feel weird about us, but this is very hard on us. I recently read 2 articles in the Guardian by Deborah Orr, who is prejudiced against such relationships in general. This is my reply to her, which I sent her. The Guardian wrote me politely saying they don't want to print it. For what it's worth, to show how ostensibly liberal people can be so bigoted:

1. Saturday 13 October 2012 p 39, ‘Sex, perverts, power and exploitation’
2. Saturday 10 November 2012 p 39, ‘The way we look at women is worrying – even when it’s women doing the looking’

Deborah Orr attacks men with “much younger” female partners. I am a male whose girlfriend is much younger but well over the legal age. I am thus a person characterised by Orr variously as “power”-seeking, “emotionally immature”, “exploitative”, and “perverse”. Her October column begins by discussing “child abuse” and “paedophilia”, correctly noting the “perversion” and “illegality” of such sex with people “under the age of 16”. She then suddenly switches to “17-year-old women” who are “a more archetypical representation of female sexuality than a 37-year-old woman.” Her trick here is to magically extend her condemnation to legal sexual relationships.

Orr then speaks in general of “an older person’s attention to” and “flattery” of “young people”, moving from underage to legal-age women but also away from “stars” like “Jimmy Savile” to “relationships of generational inequality” as such. That’s two conflations in two paragraphs, and she’s added a bit more opprobrium by using the generally negative term “inequality”. In sum, “it’s about power” (not love or even desire, I guess) and it’s “easy” to place young people “in awe of” oneself. She does concede that “love can transcend generations”, but immediately and sternly judges that May-September relationships that “start with sex… need to be seen for what they are.” Seen for what they are!

Forget about Orr’s Puritanical condemnation based on how a relationship starts; relationships can start in many ways, and I submit that sensuality isn’t a bad thing in principle. But her view that young women are highly susceptible to “attention” – strangely for a feminist like Orr – underestimates young women.

My girlfriend (of 7 years) and I have suffered under people’s bias. I wrote to Ms Orr objecting to her bigotry, to which she replied that she indeed does not “approve of older men who prefer younger women” – i.e. not only if the relationship “started with” sex.

In her November column Orr observes that Britain is at the moment condemning the crime of “absusive paedophilia” [is there ‘non-abusive’ paedophilia?], which is “dangerous and perverse”. She goes on: “But this might also be a good time to ask whether more generally pervasive ideas that link attractiveness to sex [sic.] and sex to youth are a bit dangerous and perverse as well.”

She then describes the process during which women growing older in our society become aware that they are no longer looked at. This, women “live with and dread”, and it is surely painful, but Orr has also called it “dangerous and perverse”, a choice of words suggesting criminality and rhetorically referring back to paedophilia. A good old-fashioned smear.

Before we condemn people for their proclivities, we might recognise something I learned in psychotherapy: We are responsible for our actions. We are however not responsible for our feelings, aesthetic sense, taste in food or sexual desires. They are what life gives us, and with them we try to act responsibly. At the least, people like Orr might respect others’ feelings, sexual or otherwise, whatever they are.

One wonders by the way what Orr thinks of “such relationships” in which the woman is “much older”. Maybe I’ll write her and ask her. At any rate, Orr is tying the pain of becoming older with the negative generalisation that men with certain “ideas” of preference for younger women are “dangerous and perverse”. Analyse that.
50 years ago columnists were against homosexual relationships, or horrified by ‘mixed-race’ marriages. There will always be pompous moralists sticking their noses into others’ bedrooms and private feelings, but hopefully their targets are gradually becoming fewer in number.

[Wakeup]

One wonders why you give a crap what some article writing stranger thinks about you and your personal taste in young women?

I say: Think twice before comparing yourself to the torment, predjudice and inequality homosexuals and black people had to and, in some places still do have to endure. You can't expect the entire world to view grandfather/grandaughter age difference in a relationship as the perfect situation. Enjoy what you have with each other and stop worrying about what others think. You are not being tormented, abused, you enjoy the same benefits as any church/state endorsed hetrosexual relationship and you're happy. No need for the soap box. Do you have children?

[bcgirl]

Who cares about Orr? It seems you care so much about her writings because maybe some things ring a little too true? Therefore it may be a battle within yourself. Are you a pervert? Are you a pedo?
Is your relationship is great and you aren't anything Orr says.... Then who fu(king cares. However I think there is something much more to it. So why were you seeing a psychotherapist?

[tomkice]

Thanks, Wakeup. No, no children. And you're right, my post is from the 'soap box', and the tone grates. The reason is, I was staying in Deborah Orr's moralising mode. But: the likes of Orr are indeed looking at others - 'mixed marriages', gays, whatever - and wrinkling your nose instead of letting people (us) be. I'm sure Orr is very liberal on these other things, but not September-May. That's hypocrisy.
Just not caring what others think is easier said than done. We do OK, but it really hurts sometimes. Strangers think my girlfriend might be in it for... my money or position (absurd, I'm on the poor side and have no position). They're strangers, so it doesn't matter unless they are for instance hotel people who make snide remarks. Worse, she's been told 'He only likes you because of your youth.' Whereas she's as smart, funny, helpful and caring as they come. What really bites, though, is that she has to pay the price of a degree of alienation from her parents.
Why can't we expect the 'whole world' to quit judging?

[tomkice]

Thanks bcgirl. The therapy was a long time ago and didn't touch this. No, I'm not a pervert by any definition I know. Not pedo.
Battle within myself? Maybe, but I care about Orr because other people have made things hard for us (see my reply to Wakeup) and Orr puts it out there, reinforcing the bigotry, mixing it all up with the Jimmy Savile and pedo stuff.

[bcgirl]

My mom and step dad have a big age gap. Give it another 10 yrs and your gf will start to look old and no one will care. It'll just be two old ppl. For some reason ppl care when one is young and looks hot (Anna Nicole and that billionaire) but when you two reach a certain age, ppl will stop caring

[Wakeup]

Why can't we expect the 'whole world' to quit judging?

Because we don't live in that mystical place known as the Garden of Eden where "Judge Not lLess Yee Be Judged" needn't have been penned.

[Bibi]

An outside view.
In relation to your love situation which you argue for.
I dont like it, I dont agree with it and I dont understand it, but I believe that everybody has the right to find happiness where they wish and I should accept people's choices. I think that people who are against the age gap or homosexuals or any other relationships should just learn to accept things as they are even if they dont understand them or agree with them. Things would be much easier for everyone like this.

[Wakeup]

yes...to each their own. However: I also agree with free speech and that those that don't agree with OP's situation have a right to voice their opinion. It's all good, right?

To add:

Thanks bcgirl. The therapy was a long time ago and didn't touch this. No, I'm not a pervert by any definition I know. Not pedo.
Battle within myself? Maybe, but I care about Orr because other people have made things hard for us (see my reply to Wakeup) and Orr puts it out there, reinforcing the bigotry, mixing it all up with the Jimmy Savile and pedo stuff.

Can you provide us with a link to her article so that we can read what she wrote, please?

[bcgirl]

In this day and age and society, I really doubt Orr can get away with writing such stuff in her columns. It's like how you can't get away with bashing on gays or racial dating. If she is writing up a bunch of non-sense, the public wont give into it. Maybe you are reading too much into it and being paranoid that ppl are caring when they aren't

[smackie9]

OMG I get creeped out by guys that are 10 years older than me....to each their own I guess.

[tomkice]

To post, I had to remove the links. Just go to guardian.co.uk and Search for Deborah Orr. I give the dates above.
Free speech, of course. Don't know where that comes in.

[tomkice]

Dear smackie9, Now we're getting somewhere. What is it that creeps you out? Just a description - I've no intention of judging and am not offended because there's nothing I can do about my age, ha ha. But I'm curious as to what might creep people out.

[tomkice]

Dear bcgirl, Yes, I'm super-sensitive on this. But the thing about pundits - the 'commentariat' - is that you have to read between the lines, I mean, you have to interpret, pick up the subtle hints. They are great at rhetoric. So, read her stuff and tell me what you think. When you read even short things like her first piece, it's a string of words going by in a flash, then you move to the next article or turn the page. The whole subtle effect is what counts.
When somebody slyly, with elisions and associations, puts me in with Jimmy Savile in the space of 3 or 4 short paragraphs, I am pissed off.

[surfhb2]

Weren't these questions asked by you when you started dating at 25 and 60?

It's mind boggling you're either surprised or care about people's reaction to your relationship.