> > To the extent that it doesn't, there is no societal remedy. Unless you
> > want to forbid people from dating people much younger or older than they
> > are, or take other nasty authoritarian measures which I'm sure nobody
> would
> > want.
> >
>
> yes, i agree that one cannot forbid. But we CAN encourage people to
> think about their expectations of gender, and challenge their
> disinclination to examine their supposedly innate and unchangeable
> preferences. After all, if i said, well actually I'd like to just keep
> all my money and white skin privilege -- that's what feels good to me,
> that's just the way i am-- I wouldn't get much sympathy on this list!
> In fact, social customs and expectations play a big role in how people
> act and what they want. Tolstoy was an immensely experienced 36 or so
> when he married his wife, a 16 or 17 year old virgin straight out of
> finishing school. I think a man who did that today would look weird --
> pathetically insecure, or maybe even a pervert. But in Tolstoy's day it
> was the norm.
> maybe if old man-younger woman was treated less as a desirable norm
> -- if Sean Connery and Warren Beatty DIDN"T get the young beauties --
> there'd be less of it. And maybe if Joanne Woodward got sexy parts
> instead of having to play unhappy old ladies, there'd be more male mays
> and female Decembers.
>
I'm skeptical of how counterhegemonic - as Doug would put it - Katha's ideas about old-young hetero relationships really are. There's a current advertisement for Forbes magazine -- seen in glossy mags, on buses, etc. - showing a well-off, middle-aged woman riding in a convertible with the top down and a twenty-something guy in the passenger seat.
The copy says something like: "Our readers include wealthy executives at some of the top companies in the world. Inevitably, some choose to take trophy husbands."
If there were more ads like Forbes', would the world be a better place?
Seth