There are a lot of reasons why women want to date younger men, instead of men their own age.
When an older man is in an intimate relationship with a younger woman, we rarely bat an eye. It’s a relationship structure that we have become used to seeing in our culture. George and Amal Clooney, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones — the list goes on and on. However, we are much less accustomed to seeing relationships in which the woman is noticeably older than the man.
When we do see these relationships, we tend to think of her as an object of his sexual fantasy (think of Stifler’s mom in American Pie). Older women are also sometimes fetishized (there are “MILF” categories in pornography, for example).
But a new study published in the Journal of Sex Research challenges what we might think we know about “cougars” by asking women who date younger men about their experiences and motivations.
The research suggests that not only does dating younger men allow women to break down some social norms and barriers that might otherwise be present during heterosexual sexual interactions, but women reported high levels of sexual pleasure and satisfaction within these intimate partnerships.
The Study
Dr. Milaine Alarie at the Institut National de la Research Scientifique, in Montreal, interviewed 55 women aged 30 to 60 who reported having relationships with younger men (termed “age-hypogamous intimate relationships”). In order to be eligible for this study, women had to be in a relationship with a man at least five years younger than herself. There was no criterion related to the length of the relationship. In that sense, women reported on their experience of dating as well as casually sleeping with partners.
The Findings
1. Women were attracted to younger men’s sexual stamina.
Over the course of the interviews, women in the study reported that they were more sexually drawn to younger men because they believed younger partners had more to offer sexually.
Specifically, women indicated that compared to men their own age, they felt younger men tended to have higher sex drives, could last longer during sex (or be physically ready to have sex again sooner), and had more reliable erections. Given that many women in this study described having a fairly high level of sexual desire, they saw this as a very positive aspect of dating younger men.
As one woman said: “I have a big sexual appetite, very big. I might want to do it, like eight times a day, you know. So with a man in his 40s, he will find that fun the first week. But I can tell you after the second week he doesn’t find it funny anymore.”
2. Women felt more comfortable embracing their sexual assertiveness.
Women in the study also described how dating someone younger than them allowed for the disruption of certain restrictive gender roles. That is, in traditional heterosexual partnerships, the man is expected to be more sexually experienced, while the woman is typically more passive and receptive to his advances.
Women in this study, however, felt that being older than their male partner allowed them to embrace their sexual assertiveness. Many women felt that younger men fantasized about older, sexually assertive, and experienced women and said their younger male partners were often appreciative of them taking a more active role.
Women also described feeling less preoccupied with rigid beauty standards that may have been restrictive earlier on in their lives. Some women described feeling more comfortable with their bodies now than they might have been when they were younger, which they described as translating into more sexual confidence.
As one participant said: “Older women, we’re more, you know, confident about ourselves. And we are going to walk into the room in our lingerie, if we have cellulite or not, you know? And a younger woman would be like, ‘Oh my god! I can’t wear this in front of him!'”
3. Women felt able to place greater importance on their own sexual pleasure.
Women in this study often described the importance of prioritizing their own pleasure during sex. Women said they liked dating younger men, because, from their experience, younger partners were more motivated to provide pleasure and satisfy them before they satisfied themselves.
