Why do some young women think the interest of older men is "creepy?"?

There was a time that it was the norm for an older, established man to take a younger wife. Providing many more years of child bearing.
Him being established provided for the ever growing family.

I think it is because people (parents) and other adults put that idea in their heads by telling them that if an old man looks at them they are a pervert and all of that stuff.

I think a lot of it is that the older man’s experience is intimidating. Along with power level, as you said. Society has beat it into our generations head that if an older person looks at you, they’re a pedophile.
I personally don’t feel that way at all. I’m young and am quite attracted to old men. A great deal older in some cases. I find the experience to be sexy..but then again, it’s probably just because I’m not supposed to ;-)

Conversely, dating a cougar is awesome.

Because it’s weird to be attracted to women who are young enough to be your daughter, or grandaughter. And the attraction seems to have questionable motives. Why does a man want someone much younger? Mid-life crisis? Sexual fetish? Mistress?

I’m single, and have had a few guys in the 18–21 range take an interest in me.

I find it extremely creepy, because I’m old enough to be their father. And the creepiness factor isn’t balanced out by any other attractions, because they’re still late teenagers and they’re still figuring out who they are. I mean, yes, they have the sex drive of an 18-year-old, but you can’t build a long-term relationship on sex; and even if you did, guys my age have realized that it’s not just about getting off as quickly and as often as possible.

If I were to get involved with one of them, the relationship would be really asymmetrical: I’d have all the power (money, experience). I’d find myself wondering often if he was interested in dates with me because of me, or because I can afford to pay $100 for dinner and a movie for two; if he liked staying at my place because of me, or because at his place he has four roommates and one of them is always having loud sex.

I am 45 my GF, well now ex. after 2 years. Is 28.
Age was not an issue.

I think that it is really creepy. I was attracted to 16 year olds when I was sixteen. I am now 30 and find people from 25 to about 35 attractive. I find some older men sexy, but i’m an adult. Sixteen year old girls are kids and shouldn’t be responsive to fifty year old man attention.

One creep factor is that a fifty year old man and a sixteen year old girl are obviously not mentally or spiritually compatible. At 16 you haven’t begun to discover who you really are, and at 50 I would hope you are well on your way to discovering it. So what is left if there is not potential for long term relationship? Sex. And that is creepy.

I’m not answering your question, but i think it’s a little silly to assume that I can’t be legitimately attracted to something now that I was ten years ago (or however long). Granted one’s perspective on relationships has hopefully changed, but if something or someone is beautiful, then they’re beautiful. Maybe it’s the quality of the attention that matters—lustful vs appreciative. But doesn’t that apply just as well to “normal” interactions?

I would also chalk up younger girls reactions to breadth of life experience. There are more reasons to say no to something you’ve never seriously considered.

well she was 16 and he’s 50, thats fucking creepy! I mean I am 24 and I think it’s creepy to check out a girl who’s 16, though these days it’s sometimes hard to tell…

@madcapper Yeah, but why? We know women can find it creepy, but what, exactly, makes it creepy?

At the age of sixteen, I would find it creepy simply because of my ‘minor’ status. When I was 17, I worked with a man who had been convicted of statutory rape. I don’t know the details of the case, but I do know that he was 30 and hit on me constantly, in a pretty offensive manner. I found that creepy because I was a minor, and his advances were technically illegal (although I didn’t know what to do about it at the time). I also didn’t appreciate that he didn’t stop when his advances were rejected.

I understand why younger women are attractive to older men; it’s a natural instinct. Younger women are more fit to carry children. The chance that the man’s genetics will be passed on are higher if the woman is younger. Society dictates different ideas though, sometimes to protect children, and different societies have different standards. For me, I think that the older you get, the less important age differences are. There are some limits though, and, imho, I think people should be on the same page mentally, in the same place in life. Women also mature more quickly than men, probably as a product of the same natural selection traits I mentioned earlier. I always have dated older men, but not 34 years older. The largest age gap between me and a man I’ve dated was 6 years. The largest gap between me and a man I’ve slept with was about 10 years.

On a last note. I find the manner in which some older men display their interest in me (I’m 20) creepier than simply the fact that they are interested.

I think @jamielynn2328 hit it on the head. It’s an experience thing. 16 year olds are immature and 50 year olds should be very mature. I know I thought when I was 16 I was soo mature but looking back of course I wasn’t. I know from school that when I was 23 there were a few 19 year old girls that would come over to our place. They were ok and all but very immature and the world is seen through a different light to them. I could not relate at all to their “problems” nor I to theirs so then the only possible connection we could have had was sex. ( I will however not speak for all 19 year olds because I have met some who were mature and I didn;t even think the were 19)

* correction I met them to mine, didn’t mean to reiterate the same point within the same sentence haha

Creepy, gross, icky, keep away.

I think when you’re talking 16 yo girl with ANY guy over 18 that’s troubling. But a girl in her 20’s with a guy in his fifties? Why not? If both enjoy each other’s company and have a lot of fun, GREAT. And if BOTH want the sex, nothing wrong with it.

At 16, yes it is creepy for such an older man to find the girl sexually attractive, since she is a minor.
I have no issue with large age gaps, I’ve never had a larger gap than 11 years…but I’m young and married a man that’s about 4 years older than me. Still in the same generation.
Some girls just aren’t attracted to much older men. Personally, I think men in their 40s are their most attractive.

I find it incredibly creepy, but then again I’m also pretty gay so I find attention from a good proportion of men to be creepy. Old ones definitely more than young ones though. I think it’s a generational thing – I don’t know how to relate as well to people who’re a lot older than I am, so it’s harder to give them a polite go-away signal that I know they’ll understand and listen to. I also feel less comfortable using the gay thing as a scram tactic because older people tend to be more homophobic and won’t react in an “Oh, sorry” way but are more likely to take it as a challenge (the creepiest of all responses!). I’m less creeped out by attention from older women (say, in their 30s), but if they’re older than maybe 40 then that’s pretty creepy, too. (I’m 22.)

@daloon It is “all of the above” to the reasons that you mentioned. I vividly remember that happening time and time again when I was in my teen years.

Once I was with my dad in a department store parking lot when he ran into someone from work. I was 12 years old. The man asked my dad if I was his wife!!!!!!!!!!!!! Another time, I worked after school at the Officer’s Club. While serving a dinner, a father of a girlfriend grabbed my ass. I was so grossed out.

Sixrteen year old girls are not really thinking about sex per se. They are thinking about “boys”. Older men to them are guys who are 18 or 19. They think about flirting, dating, having boyfriends. This may be hard for men to understand, but none of that is about sex.

To have a guy your father’s age looking at you lustfully is gross. Believe me, we may not be thinking about sex, but we already—from the time of puberty on—know what it’s like to objectified.

Since there is obviously no chance of an emotional pairing or a meeting of the minds, it is nothing but dirty old man sexual interest. So it is creepy.

By the way, girls that age find older men (50 and up) gross—flabby and wrinkly.

Any man looking at a woman that way is GROSS. No matter what the age.

Always about respect, no matter how engorged you might be becoming.

@ChazMaz Well said. keep one’s engorgement to oneself unless invited to share.

When this happened to me when I was in college, and professors would ask me out (no longer tolerated), I felt it was “creepy” because they were the same age as my father—and that totally weirded me out. And I told them too, and it didn’t seem to bother them at all. I noticed that one of these professors, a rather famous man, died recently, and I didn’t shed a tear.

It borders on child molestation, heck, it IS child molestation. Sixteen year olds think 30 is old, and 50 is ancient. That would be their grandparents ages. They would not be interested in a 50 year old unless it was for money.

Lolita is required reading in high school?

I think maybe it’s the way they express their attraction – old men around here do creepy things like touching themselves and licking their mouths and all that…gross

Most women like to be thought of as intelligent human beings who are valued for something more than sex. When a man is old enough to be her grandfather, generally it is believed they have so little common vis-à-vis, experience, interests and physical compatibility, that all he is interested is putting his wrinkly, saggy body against anybody’s smooth, supple skin. Now that’s a big EEUW!

Older guys like to fool themselves that being with a much younger girl is a sign to the world that they are still studly. Today most of us assume chemical enhancement rather virility. How about another EEUW!!

But there are still younger girls who are with old guys and while the rest of us are amused by geezer-squeasers we know most of them have Daddy issues or are attracted by the money not the manhood. A prime example is 72 yo Prime Minister Berlusconi. When he was 29 he married a woman in her 20’s. At the age of 49 he married another woman in her 20’s. He started running around publicly in his 60’s and now he has a 30-something mistress who is acting as his official hostess while his wife is divorcing him. He is also playing sugar-daddy to an 18 yo model. He has also played pimp by inviting an Eastern European head of state to spend the weekend at his estate with prostitutes. His response to criticism of his personal life is that everyone is jealous of him. EEUW EEUW EEUW.!!!

When a female is as young as 16 and getting checked out by someone as old as her father – or even older – it’s extremely creepy, simply because most females at that age think nothing other than “that guy could be my dad”. And knowing that someone as old or older than your father is physically attracted to you is gross to the teenage girl’s mind. It’s very rare that a girl that age would reciprocate the feelings. And even if she does, she generally has some kind of father issues and it’s not true reciprocity. If she shows interest in a guy that old, more often than not, she’s looking for more of a father-daughter relationship than any other kind.

That said, as long as an older man is attracted to a female that young because her body is mature and she looks like a woman, I see nothing wrong with it. Beautiful is beautiful. It’s when older men are attracted to females that age because they look young that it’s absolutely disgusting. And as some other people have pointed out, the way that a lot of older men go about expressing their attraction is disgusting. Staring with smirks on their face, licking their lips, slowly rubbing their hands together while they stare, etc. That’s gross at any age and makes women feel like nothing but a piece of meat.

Some young women don’t want to date significantly older men. That doesn’t seem unusual. It must be awkward for some young women to be approached by men older than their fathers.

Some women (girls) have fathers that get too close to them. Then the daughters, who by nature of being a daughter cant have a relationship with their father. They wants the same connection that the SOB father has had with them. So they look for men that relate in the same way their fathers did with them. Meaning, older men.

Again, I offer the flip side.

Men love being treated like a piece of meat.

When I was in high school I had a teacher that gave me a lot of attention. I thought of him as a mentor. I knew him from 14–18 and when I graduated, he showed up at my apt. saying things like, “I always knew we had something special”. He was only 28, but I was not at all on the same page as him. I thought he was just looking out for me all those years, but he was quietly waiting in the wings. I never knew because girls just don’t know to look out for that kind of stuff. I kind of took it as a compliment then, but now that I’m older and have a brain, I think he was a manipulative pig.

@jamielynn2328 – I also was approached by a former male teacher after I graduated at 18, but he was in his late 50s.

My 15yr old daughter has really changed, over the last year. She doesn’t look like a younger girl at all, anymore. She runs cross country, and has changed sizes a few times. Any signs of blemishes have disappeared. She’s matured. In addition to all of this, a neighbor (relatively new to the street we live on) came up to ask me who the hottie was leaving our house. He’s not 50, he’s 27. I wanted to smack him.

When I hear older men commenting about younger girls and I’m talking minors, it really disturbs me. At 50, you are old enough to be the father of the girl you are ogling.

A friend of ours, 47, was commenting on a girl in his neighborhood – describing her, someone asked how old she was…she’s just about to turn 17. BLAH! My husband pointed out that he was old enough to be her dad and also to keep in mind that his own daughter was about the same age. Then, as an added measure, my husband asked him how he would feel about a 47yr old man starting at his daughter, making comments to his friends, later in the day. It shut him up.

One has to assume that a 50 year old male’s interest in a 16 year old female is not based on intellect, shared experiences or probably any feeling other than lust or the assumption that here is a woman I can dominate. I have heard that one many times when an older man is chided for dating a much younger woman, they do what they’re told, they’re compliant. These men aren’t looking for a partner, they are looking for a slave of one sort or another.

Yep, definitely CREEPY. And really no different when it is an older woman with a much younger male.

because sometimes the older man is creepy.

I forgot to add that it is very prevalent here where I live. 14 year old girls “promised” and then married to old men. A year later they have an infant in one arm and will be pregnant again in no time. All ignored by child protection services in the name of saving a “culture” that is thousands of years old. Theoretically the old man will protect the young girl from marauding young single males. But who is to protect her from her protector?

Attention of older guy = sleep with your father.

@Grisaille that is not true for mature men who have a sense of self worth.

You got me there.

I dated a man 13 years my senior. He was an instructor at my college, and practically a colleague, since I was a teaching assistant for the class he taught. At the time, I was engaged, and I think he saw this as a “challenge.” He hit on me incessantly, especially when he found out that my fiance and I were having problems.

We dated for a while, but I came to find that although he was 34, he was stuck at the mental age of 18. He also had anger issues and clearly had strong possessive and dominating tendencies.

He was constantly calling me, text messaging me, and trying to contact me when I was out with friends. He would even try to restrict how often I could see them when he wasn’t around! He asked me to lie to my parents about where I was so that I could be with him more often, and he always had to have his arm around me, or be holding my hand.

I realize now that he was a creep who wanted to control me, and thought that I was totally enamored by him, totally obsessed with him, although I know that I wasn’t. I was, actually, repulsed by him and his behavior.

I’m not saying that this is the case for every situation, but please, women wanting to date older men, ask yourself why he is single, ask yourself why he wants to be with you, and analyze him thoroughly.

What’s wrong with him? Can’t he relate to women his own age?

Also, physically older men smell wrong. They sound wrong. Their skin is overly weathered. I just have no desire to find out about the other senses. It’s just visceral -the physical part of it is, anyway. It’s a sudden, “back off, old man”.

I don’t get the argument often made that checking out a much younger girl is wrong because she’s old enough to be your daughter. It means that checking out a woman your age is wrong because she’s old enough to be your sister. It just doesn’t make any sense.

@Jack_Haas Um… It makes plenty of sense. If a guy is checking out a girl when he’s old enough to be her father and she still looks like a minor, it’s very easy to see why it’s creepy. At least a woman old enough to be a guys sister isn’t a minor and doesn’t look like a minor.

@Jack_Haas In my opinion, when an older man is attracted to a much younger woman, it is because he is a pedophile. Even if she is not a child, the age difference is the same as between a man and his daughter/child. That’s why people say that. It’s creepy, and disgusting. It has become worse as people are living longer and longer.

@YARNLADY I really think that’s quite a leap to make

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Some people might think I’m the wrong one to say this, since my husband is 8 years younger than I am, but I still believe that when the age difference is far enough enough apart for a parent/child relationship, it is just plain creepy.

@YARNLADY your right to be creeped is fine by me
but to call every old guy who is attracted to young women a pedophile is a stretch

@Simone_De_Beauvoir you are right. my fiance is 26 yrs older than me, but we love each other and there is nothing creepy about it at all. and @Jack_Haas you are right.

I don’t think an 85 year old man with a 65 year old girlfriend can be considered a pedophile. The older that people become, it is not as taboo to be involved with someone of a different age. I am 30, and I could see myself with a 50 year old man/woman if that is how my life played out. I think the word pedophile is such a strong word that it should be used for those who are attracted to children.

@justus2 ,good for you! And I agree with @Jack_Haas too, i.e., the girl may be young enough to be the daughter, but she’s NOT the daughter!

Ok, I’m going to have to back off my own comment. I just realized that an actor that I find very attractive is younger than my own son. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.

I’m glad you backed off of that comment Yarn lady because that seemed pretty retarded to say and if your thinking was correct then you would be calling the likes of Ronald Reagan, J.F.K. ,and many many others a pedophile. and believe it or not people of different ages can and often do have many things in common and as Marie and myself have build wonderful relationships. it is the shame that there are people with the same narrow minded believes about love and relationships as you. then when its convenient for you, you change your belief so that your not considered a pedophile.
you happen to work at a waffle house?

@justus2 Waffle house, hahaha, very funny. Really, I apparently have two different points of view about this, probably based on the fact that – well – it depends on the indivuals involved.

@justus2 : How do you get Ronald Reagan and JFK out of that?

@DrasticDreamer “if the girl looks like a minor”. If you start to add criteria that weren’t there in the first place we won’t go anywhere. Here’s another one: “if the girl is really a female donkey”. Yes, I admit, in that case it’s wrong too. You’re going into an entirely different territory here.
1) A 20 year old girl is old enough to be a 40 year old man’s daughter. 2) Checking out a 16 year old, fully developed girl is not the same as checking out a 12 year old girl who looks 12, or even a 20 year old who looks 12. Entirely different thing. Not what I was talking about.

@SirBailey Bingo!

@justus2 My wife and I have about the same age difference as you and your fiance, except my wife is the older one. We’ve had ups and downs, low lows and high highs, but the funny part is that we’re still together after 16 years while all the couples who schemed and conspired to separate us divorced in the first 4 years of our marriage.

Here’s the thing: not all teenagers are airheads, there are plenty of 16, 17, 18 year olds who know what they want and where they are going. As a guy, when I was 16 I didn’t have time to waste on people my age. I had maybe 2 friends my age but the people I was hanging out with on a regular basis were businessmen in their 40s and 50s, people whose life and professional experiences could benefit me. Interacting with young people of my generation felt sterile, made my brain freeze and was depressing overall.

So it didn’t feel weird when I learned that the woman I had fallen in love with was over 20 years older than I was. After all she was the same age my friends’ wags were. But the main reason was because…most 18 year olds would kill to look as good at 18 as she did in her late 40s. Then there was her mystique, she was from a generation that didn’t feel it had to either ape or vilify men to earn respect. The way she dressed, the way she carried herself, her intoxicating charm, her discretion, her elegance… and she oozed sensuality from every pore. People who visited us were then amazed by her talent as a hostess, a master cook, her decorating skills, and when she opened her mouth they discovered a whole ‘notha dimension that they hadn’t suspected. She had lived in different cultures, like Africa and the middle east, she had known people from all over the world, and learned from them, whether they were her Pakistani maids or Israeli diplomat friends, she had read tons of books and was knowledgeable on too many subjects to count. She had an experience that you can’t get in 10 years.

Seriously, who in their right mind, upon starting their adult life, would rather choose an equally clueless and inexperienced teenage girl? Especially occidental girls of the present generation, who are way too smart to learn from their mothers, who were themselves way too smart (you know… the “strong and independent” kind) to learn from their own mothers? From what I have seen of young couples, Jesus Christ, I’m so relieved I went a different route.

Here’s another thing I don’t understand: in the professional world, no one in their right mind would pair 2 rookies together and 2 veterans together. It’s basic common sense to pair a veteran with a rookie. But when it comes to something far more complex to learn and train for as life, all of a sudden this logic doesn’t apply anymore. I hear arguments as to why that is, but I’m still not convinced.

I think it’s honestly because to quite a number of very young women, a lot of older men are physically unattractive to them. If Brad Pitt, who is 45 now, were to try to chat a young woman up, how many of them would put him off? I’m sure some would, but I don’t believe it would be that many!

@YARNLADY Thank You.

Many young women (not 16 yo but older) like the experiences older men can share with them that young men don’t have a clue about. Why not go for it?

Social programming. Our families raise us to believe the attentions of old men is lecherous. Old men feel comfortable to flirt, ogle and act somewhat lecherous because they think their age gives them a free pass, as though no one will take them seriously so it’s all okay.

@SirBailey I agree with you, but a girl that is 19 like myself that desires older men and their experiences that they can share with them, who are we to say they didn’t have those desires at like 16?

Since there are all kinds of people, of course there are young women who don’t think the attention of older men is creepy. However, I am interested in knowing why the ones who do think that.

What I’m hearing is that some young women think of older men as predators, and they don’t like the feeling that the men know so much more than they do. It makes them feel too vulnerable. I think there is also a “yuck” factor here, in that older men just don’t have the body tone that younger men have, and that softness and wrinkliness is just plain yucky.

There’s a normative thing going on, too. Some people seem to feel that it’s wrong to have relationships with a large age disparity. People should be relating to their peers, not to people who have a lot more or a lot less knowledge and power. It’s somehow wrong to want to have a relationship with someone who could be a child or parent, even though you aren’t related at all.

There’s also this “leering” thing. It’s kind of insulting, I guess some women feel, to have older men drooling over the beauty and tone of young women’s bodies. It is kind of unbecoming, and worse, it makes the young women uncomfortable. They feel a kind of weakness, or trappedness, under the gaze of these men, who they believe don’t take them seriously, but just as sex objects. That would be pretty creepy, it seems to me.

Respect, of course, is crucial in relationships. I think some women think that if an older man is interested in them, it’s automatically disrespectful, and therefore creepy.

Other young women, however, are appreciative of the attention of older men. It might make them feel more powerful or interesting, especially if they think the older man respects them not just for their body, but for more. And even if they do think they are being liked for their body, they might feel justified in using it to get resources from the powerful men.

I guess what annoys me is that people are prejudiced about this. They think that it’s automatically bad, without even bothering to look at the individuals involved and the individual circumstances. A man might look a woman up and down, and the woman just feels creeped out because they feel like the guy is undressing them mentally. They feel vulnerable, simply because of what they imagine is going on in the guy’s head.

Well, perhaps the guy is undressing them. It’ll bother them if they have no interest in the guy. However if some guy they think is hot undressed them mentally, they’ll have no problem with it. They might even enjoy it.

In the end, though, it does seem to me that it’s about respect, and the perception of the possibility of respect. Some people hold prejudices that if there is a large age disparity, then it means that one person is taking advantage of another. It is, of course, possible for there to be respect between such couples, but not everyone believes this, and not everyone is willing to keep an open mind about it. They just get creeped out, automatically.

Hey, “leering” is rarely looked at in a positive light, no matter what age is doing it or receiving it.

@justus2, I agree. Age differences only matter to the couple involved. An older man taking advantage of a minor is just as bad as an older man taking advantage of a mature woman.

The bottom line is the couple involved. So long as both parties want it of their own free will, then I say there’s nothing wrong with it.

Because it IS creepy! I think it’s creepy in the movies, too, when a grey-haired, wrinkled actor is romantically involved with a sweet, young starlet. Yuck! What’s wrong with pairing him with someone his own age?

So a young woman could never find a man three times her age attractive or desirable? There always has to be a pathology motivating the relationship? And vice versa?

@daloon As usual, the words “always” and “never” make the comment ludicrous. In the normal course of things, the common perception is the one that we can discuss, not the extreme.

@jamielynn2328 Your anecdote has touched on something that no one else has mentioned. Sometimes, when an older man takes an interest in a young girl, he tries to manipulate her. He wants to groom her into the type of woman that he wants, sexually and otherwise. A good example of this is Elvis Presley (although it hurts me to say this because I am such a big fan of his music). Elvis, who was in his mid 20’s when he began dating the teenaged Priscilla, taught her to fashion her hair styles, makeup, and clothing in a manner pleasing to himself. I believe that he even got her to dye her hair black to match his. So before a girl has even formed an identity of her own, an older suitor can step in and do it for her. That’s why the older male/younger female relationship can be creepy (depending on the age of the girl): the older man in the relationship often has a controlling edge to his personality , and his intentions towards the girl may be less than sterling.

@wundayatta I’m 46, and when I see myself I feel sort of creeped out.

Out of compassion I try (usually with some measure of success) to keep anyone out of my mind younger than age 50. I make an exception for my wife who is 47. I have a thing for older chicks. Especially foreign spies, and musicians.

Actually when a younger (age < 30) woman is flirtatious i get uneasy. I know it happens, but in my line of work the clamping down for the sake of professionalism has turned me into a cranky bastard (when I’m not laughing).