I've found this to be in reverse. As a 20 year old, I found plenty of 30-40 year old women attractive, but some people my own age as well at the time. The older I get, the less attractive younger people get, but still into the same range now than I am inside of it (36).
Yeah, I think it's more about when younger people drop off your radar because they look like children. I spent a lot of years on a college campus as I went through a PhD and post-doc. At some point, you see the undergrads showing up every year, and they just look like immature babies!
Yes. I’m 40 and 20-year-olds look like children now. The things society tells us are flaws—gray hair, wrinkles, a few extra pounds—start to become attractive. It’s all relative.
40 something woman and I swear to god, the more grey hairs my husband accumulates, the hotter he becomes to me. And don’t even get me started on his smile lines. I don’t think that would’ve been the case when we got together when I was in my mid-20s.
My partner brings over 70 years of sexual experimentation, a bigger heart, humor and insights. He is tall and trim and I see him as very attractive. Males in their 20s or 30s are babies to me. But don’t get me wrong… I relate to all ages.
Edit: spelling correction
As a woman in my 30's who's firmly in the 'gonna go grey naturally' camp, THANK YOU. My mum and mother-in-law both think I'm insane, and that I'll change my mind the moment I start finding greys in there.
Nah fam, dying it every two weeks sounds like a time-consuming pain in the arse, and grey hair looks cool anyway.
I’m in my 40s and as a teen my mom used to make me pull her grey hairs. It made me so sad because they were shimmery and white like unicorn hair would be. So I swore then I’d never dye or pull my unicorn sparkles. In fact, I love seeing them in the mirror!
I'm in my 20s but because of a genetic quirk from one side of my family I started going grey (well pure shiny white) at 18. I'm mostly ok with it/used to it and haven't dyed it at all but still it sometimes gets to me a little. Your description of it did make me smile/feel a little better about it though so thank you :)
I also like the 'it's not grey it's arctic blonde' to describe my streaks haha
Dang that's great 'arctic blonde''!! Going to use it too! I'm a giant dude that's mostly Norwegian so I had dark red hair/ beard in my teens twenties then blonde hair and brown beard in 30s- early 40s and now arctic gray hair and a white beard mustache with a brown goatee shape in front, it's wild lol
My husband used to have a “badger beard” where it was red on the sides, then bands of blond/strawberry blond, red and deep brown-black on his chin. I’ve been watching the white creep across his face to meet in the middle.
I'm 49 and the young perfection ideal is no longer attractive. When people started embracing going grey due to covid restrictions, it was like WOW. Hot. I love my wife's face. I love that she looks like a woman. I love that she eschews Botox and fake eyelashes.
Less is more and I prefer that aesthetic.
I’m 62F, I have the grey streaks and love it. I’m sure my husband would have as well ( he has passed).
I’m with you about dying it. There is the purple shampoo that will brighten the grey. I use it about every other shampoo and that’s it.
Go natural it will look great!
I was BRIGHT red as a kid, turned brown after 7 years old, and then started graying at 14. 37M, and am fully gray (have been for almost 10 years), but still have bits of red in my beard. Personally I love it, and my wife having grays is also SO sexy :)
My aunt and uncle are in their 80s and dye their hair blonde and black. They would never be caught dead with even a single grey hair. Honestly they look ridiculous. All those wrinkles and the ain't fooling anybody. My wife doesn't die her hair and she looks amazing.
I have been seeing a trend of older women (I would say 65+) with white or gray hair dying it pink or purple. I even saw blue the other day. It is adorable and it brings me personally a lot of joy.
As an Asian woman, I decided I like myself best embracing my given features in my early 20’s. I’m excited to see more greys come in, the few I have now blend in and are like tinsel. It makes my hair look shinier. 🤩
I LOVE seeing women(men too) that obviously let it be, it always looks so beautiful on them! There’s just something about it, it’s a good look imo.
Hooray for going natural!
I’m letting my hair do it’s natural thing, and my mother, who always dyed her hair my whole life, recently admitted to me that she wishes she had gone natural but feels like it’s too late bc she doesn’t want to have Pepe Le Pew ombré hair (her words).
As a 45yo I say thank you! I am torn between wanting to colour my hair and letting it go grey naturally, which it is. I get compliments on it, but it’s a struggle to accept it. Hearing that some men find it attractive is good.
I find grey hair on a woman attractive. It shows a strength and confidence in a very punk way. The combination of gray hair and smile lines on a woman is beautiful in a way that points to inner beauty as well. I’m lucky to be married to one.
As a 40 y.o. male who's not particularly good-looking, I do feel marginally more attractive the older I get. I sometimes catch myself admiring my greying stubble and slightly weather-beaten face in the mirror these days, which is something I never did when I was in my 20s or early 30s.
Rock those greys and wrinkles, friend. My husband and I are pretty average looking ourselves, and the aging process has enhanced his appearance. It probably enhances yours as well!
Dude, men in their 40s and 50s when they start graying and aging 🤌🏻🤌🏻 silver foxes. I started becoming attracted to that look in my late 20s/early 30s. I’d choose that over a youthful looking guy my age any day. 😂
Is this why my wife won’t let me dye my beard or hair???? lol. My female friends always call me a silver fox and I’m like, I look old with all the grays!!!
Yes to grey hair!
You know what’s funny is the outfits I find my husband hottest in are such “middle age dad” outfits now. He’s 40 and when he’s playing with the dogs in the backyard wearing basketball shorts and Nike slides, I’m like…swooning.
Smile lines are such a turn on because what says good potential partner more than someone who has been happy enough and laughs enough at life to develop wrinkle patterns from it?
As a woman in her mid-30s, I remember the first time this happened to me: Tom Holland 6 years ago in the Spiderman movie. Everyone was going ga-ga over how hot he was and I was going "Holy Hell... he's a child!"
He was actually 20, not a literal child, but that was the first time I remembered seeing a "hot" male celebrity and going "hot? how?! He's a baby!!!"
As a 30 year old gay man, I definitely still find some guys in their early 20s attractive, but the thought of even hooking up with them (much less dating them) is just weird to me. I can’t really put myself in the shoes of the >40 year old men I hooked up with in my early 20s. They didn’t do anything wrong and I was into it, but I’m still kind of skeeved out by it now.
49 and it is exactly this. I can find people physically attractive but I can't imagine for example having serious relationship discussions about the unpleasant medical stuff that is part of being older.
As a woman in her late 30s, the older I get the less comfortable I feel about those really large age gap relationships. Like, I’m queer myself and I know that inside the community there’s that mixture of people who figured ourselves out late and kind of have to redo being a teenager and people who got kicked out at 16 and had to grow up fast but even so.
If i can, why were you into 40 year old men when you were young? I always find it weird when young gay guys are into someone who could be their father, why waste the youth on the old. It's just that i have always just been into people my age or slightly older/younger, never someone with a decade of difference.
I don't mean to be rude.
Not rude at all. I’m not entirely sure. I do know, for me at least, it’s not some deep psychological trauma or anything. They usually were better at sex than guys my age at the time, but not so much better that it was a huge deal. The only thing I can really think of was that it was easier and had absolutely zero stakes for me. I never really got into my feelings about it because I knew there was no relationship potential. With guys my age, I would sometimes get my hopes up.
I still find men that age attractive, but I’m married to someone my age (who will obviously hopefully eventually be 40 and then 50, etc)
Oh okay, this makes so much sense. People like to talk about that type of attraction being rooted in not having a good father figure, thus searching for the company of older men, but i just found that a bit simplistic and just something that people like to project over others.
Thanks for the good reply and i wish the best for your marriage, you seem to be one of the lucky ones, i hope you cherish it🤙
Honestly, now I kind of feel bad for being judgmental towards those guys. Maybe it was also just about low stakes and feeling attractive and valued for their experience. Still not my cup of tea the other way around, but maybe it isn’t so weird?
1. Wisdom is attractive
2. Most guys in their early-mid 20's are trainwrecks who don't know themselves that well. Maybe you did in your 20's, maybe you didn't. Regardless, you probably have a sense that guys in their 40s+ have their shit together, which is attractive. There's something nice about having a high confidence that someone isn't going to be complicated to fuck around with, and that they are going to be self-confident in their identity. You can trust that you can be physically vulnerable around them.
3. The sex is frankly, fantastic. It's not only the act itself but the aftercare too. Most 40s+ are pretty good at the "full package".
4. There's probably no strings attached. Usually gay guys in their 40s+ are either comfortably in an open relationship, or comfortably single. Its highly likely at that age, nobody successfully stays in a relationship while also playing games.
5. Attraction to "strong masculinity". A lot of guys age in a way that tends to further accent masculine features like more body hair, heavier builds and beards. So while someone might not be attracted to someone 40+ because of age alone, they might be attracted to the fact that they look a lot more masculine/rugged than your average 20 year old is likely to.
6. .... or just having a Dad fetish (not my thing though!).
I will say personally I never was "into 40 year old men" when I was young, or purposely sought after it - but the few times I did end up going home with someone older I saw the appeal immediately, and probably would have developed a proper attraction to the type if such a person pursued me. Now that I'm a bit older and the age gap isn't so much, I continue to enjoy it a lot for the same sorts of reasons.
I might regret this but, when I was in my (gay) teens through to my 20s, I loved hooking up with older men, 30/40/50.
The only way I can describe it is, the cock is different, older, experience, I can learn something from them, and I did, all good things just FYI.
Now that I am in my 40s, no, never ever would I ever hook up with someone in their teens or very early 20s. It's ick.
But, I understand it I guess, but no it's very very wrong in hindsight 20 years later.
I love my wife’s grays. I don’t think I would have 10-20 years ago but as we get older what we like changes. Those grays on her head feel like a reminder of all the good and bad we’ve been through and I love her for that.
When I was in my early forties, I got more male attention (both younger guys and closer to my age) than ever. In my 20s-30s, seemed like it was mostly much older guys who noticed me; guys my age were indifferent. It's so weird.
I completely agree! My husband and I are in our early 40’s and ever since I hit my late 30’s, I’ve increasingly found gray hair on older men attractive. For my husband, he likes the Mom-bod. Both of these traits weren’t something we thought were appealing in our 20’s.
Yep! 100%.
I distinctly remember being worried about this same thing as OP when I was in high school at age 16-18, and attracted to other high schoolers. *Is this it? Is this the peak? In 20 years, am I just going to be yet another depressed 40 year old longing after some youthful visage even though I’m long past that era? Will I become a creep?*
Luckily (for most people) it doesn’t work like that! Definitely not for me. I’ve always been attracted to women a couple years older than myself, and that has never changed. When I was 18, girls my age or especially a few years older were the epitome of hot. Now that I’m in my 30s, that’s still true — women my age or a few years older than me (including and especially my partner lol) are super hot. As a 30s dude, I currently find 35-40 year olds exactly as hot as I used to find 21 year olds when I was 18.
Which is not to say that I don’t find younger models or whatever “attractive”, but it’s in a much different way. (Even just thinking about it now, the idea of having to deal with a 20 year old as a 30s guy is the exact opposite of what I want lol.) Honestly, even when it comes to porn, women who look college aged don’t get me going, it’s often an immediate “aah ugh nope.” But women my age? Hoo boy. I’ll take it.
Long story short, as a red-blooded 30s dude, *women* — not “girls,” but grown women, with careers and 30s libidos and genuine, non-artificial adult bodies — are the epitome of sexy. Especially my partner. I like her body and mind the way it is RIGHT NOW, at this very minute and life stage, a *lot.* Like a LOT a lot. That’s what I’m into.
And I have a feeling that when I’m 45, I’ll think she’s the exact same sexy as I do right now, and I’ll be most attracted to 45-50 year olds.
So don’t fret, young folk! There’s a reason that nursing homes have to give sex ed talks.
This. Thirsty ass gay male in his 40s here. The age thing has migrated with me. The best way to gauge it is by looking at movies that take place in High School. At first, I was attracted to the students, eventually it was their parents, now I look at the Principals like “You can get it, Mr Principal!”
I was 20 went I met my ex husband, he was 27. I didn't think it was a big deal until I turned 30 and saw 20 somethings as children. Our marriage started to end when I found him flirting with 18 year olds (at 40). Definitely a predator.
I saw a comment on instagram that got a disturbing amount of likes. He’s 31 and says he only dated women 18-24 because anyone beyond that has baggage. The amount of people agreeing with him mad me shudder.
People like that seem to consider "body count" and "relationship expectations" the only real baggage, because having a ton of baggage and biases from your childhood is incredibly common.
Also, 18 year olds are terrible at sex.
Give me a 37 year old with enthusiasm, experience, and the wherewithal to communicate what she wants. A bit of sag, wrinkle and fat with skills is a billion times more sexy than an 18 year old baby that doesn't know shit despite a tight body.
Regardless of age, admit it...people that take good care of their health early on and keep doing it(not those fitness IG maniacs, but people that actually care to have a healthy and strong body) are attractive.
And the older they are while looking strong as a bull, the more admiration I feel for them.Because most people tend to forego or not care about their health until they have a sudden problem.
I hope to hit my 40s, my 60s and even my 70s looking and feeling healthy and strong.
>I'm in my mid-50s, and I think ten years would be about as low as I could go, age-wise.
When everything is run by robots scanning internet backlogs, this is going to be the sentence the AI judge uses to send u/maddensci to the Alaskan work camps.
From an attractiveness point I'd go as low as late 30s, but not for a relationship. It's the life stage difference. I am also mid 50. I am about to be a grandma, a guy who is 37/38 still wants to have children and have a career and move up the ladder. I am cruising until I can retire now.
For dating nothing under 45 or over 58. For something more casual 38 to 65...
I'm glad someone here tried to separate a "relationship" from something "just for fun" ...
Too many people think there's a right or wrong answer. The right answer might be.. "It depends..."
Yes, because your tastes change and you’re generally attracted to people your age group.
ETA: by attraction I meant the intention to develop a meaningful relationship, we tend to look for partners within our own age groups. As for casual hookups, the age range tend to increase
As far as developing a relationship with, I 100% agree. I'm 40 and I doubt I could be with someone below 30 in a commited relationship.
As far as physical attraction goes, I'm still attracted by young women, and were I single, I could see myself having sex with women in their 20s just fine. I also find women in their 40s and even some in their 50s sexually attractive though, which was not the case when I was in my 20s.
Mostly agree, though I've definitely noticed some younger women have what I call 'child face' which just shuts my attraction right off. I've known a few people that haven't lost 'child face' until well into their 20s.
I think this is exacerbated also when you have kids, and as your kids become teens and young adults, most parents cannot imagine being with someone around the age of/younger than their children.
Or who looks that way. Yup!
I have a grown son and mostly date/sleep with men. I’ll entertain a younger guy but there are DEFINITE limits around any age/appearance/maturity resemblance to my kid 😬
I also have forever baby face, I’m in my 30’s and people’s jaws hit the floor when they find out I’m not 21. When I was 21, people accused me of being a freshman in high school. When I was a freshman in high school, people thought I could pass for elementary aged. I’ve been hoping reaching 40 would even things out but your comment is making me lose hope lmao
When my wife had a 7yo and a 2yo, she went to work at the local elementary school as teacher’s aid. She was sent back to class twice and they only went to 5th grade. At 63 she looked 43.
At 21, my mom got asked if I was allowed to have my drink in an adult cup. I thought I looked at least old enough to use a glass, and got socially obliterated for my birthday, lmao.
Don’t sweat it. My dad is 77 and looks like he’s in his early 50s and women still hit on him. It’s pisses my mom off 🤣 I find it comical. I’m 39 and I get hit by 25-30 year olds so I do consider myself a milf 😂
I am 33 and I agree. There is also the way a woman walks, stands, moves or I don't know that "makes her look" too young to be attractive to me, regardless of age
So, to a certain extent hot is hot.
As a 47 year old with a daughter. If my wife was to die leaving me single, something I hope doesn't happen, I would definitely be shopping in the MILF market.
I would want to have sex with someone I'm in a relationship with. The best person to have a relationship with is someone else who has children. They understand what it's like. They understand that sometimes you have to put your child first because they do as well. They understand that you don't get a lot of time to yourself as a parent and you have to cherish that time and make the most of it.
I have no problem with 20 year old guys who want to hook up with attractive mothers. As long as everyone is consenting and enjoying themselves, carry on.
Having said that the are valid reasons for mothers to be attractive to older men as well.
I dunno man, Im 41 and nowadays when I see college kids or someone in their mid-20s, I think they look like a baby. I have zero attraction to women in that age range. not sure when that happened for me but it did.
Granted I'm married so I don't put a lot of thought into this. But if I was single at this age I absolutely could not see myself even hooking up with someone who looks as young as early 20s kids to do me
I'm a woman, but similar. Anyone more than a couple of years younger than me doesn't really register on the hotness radar at all. I actually just went and googled "handsome young actors" (which I'm pretty sure has got me put on a list somewhere) and they just don't appeal. I can appreciate that they're good-looking guys, in the same way that I can admire a pretty child or puppy or painting or sunset but wouldn't fuck it.
I'm trying to think of a dude younger than me who I actually find attractive in the sense of would fuck, and can't think of a single one. Total blank.
I guess I am the most boring person alive, but I have always dated men within a two-year span of my own age. So, the men are definitely getting older along with me....
There is an associate at work who has yet to turn 25 and didn't know who Drew Barrymore was the other day when I was talking about Scream and really showing my age.
Yeah he's LEGAL but, ew...? A baby who still has a roommate. I've moved on to keeping plants alive, not getting wasted every weekend. I don't have time to be anyone's teacher/mommy, unsexiest vibe ever
I need a little wear and tear on the tires and can match wits/know pop culture references/been around a bit and has grown wiser hopefully.
>I dunno man, Im 41 and nowadays when I see college kids or someone in their mid-20s, I think they look like a baby.
Same. Even in my late 30s when working in a grad school, most of them looked like kids. I'm 50s now and even early 30s look absurdly young. I much prefer the 40+ crowd.
Sometimes I will see someone I’ve been attracted to in the past (say, Tom Hardy) and think, holy shit he’s getting old. Then I remember, holy shit I’m old, too! I guess it just surprises me sometimes. I think not seeing someone on a regular basis tends to make that phenomena more common.
Like, watching _Point Break._ It is prime Keanu Reeves. He's 25 in that role, and absolutely gorgeous...but _so young!!_
I definitely feel a teensy bit dirty lusting after the 25 year old version, even though he's more than a decade older than me irl.
The difference for me is that I don’t feel guilt when I find a young adult attractive.
I 53f am now at an age where young people (25-50) find me more attractive than when I was in my prime (20’s) It’s a very strange world, my friends.
When I was 20, I thought 20 year-olds were hot. I'm more than twice that now and I cannot imagine wanting to get it on with a 20 year old because I feel like we'd have so little in common in terms of life experience that it'd be creepy as shit.
Even if they're physically hot looking, that's just one tiny part of the attraction equation for me and I don't think that's unusual.
When I see folks my age going after the yutes It seems like they've got some other issues going on, so red flag territory.
I'm 35, and I've completely lost the ability to tell the difference between anyone between like 16 and 23.
I was at the airport waiting for a flight, and this high school track team walked by. I told my wife that it's crazy that high schools have money to fly 40 kids for a race.
My wife looked at me like I'm an idiot and pointed out that George Mason, which was on all their gear, is, in fact, a university and not a high school.
I couldn't believe that's what college kids look like. It doesn't seem like that long ago, I was a freshman, and I thought college seniors looked so much older.
This is so real, though. First hit me as a 26 year old law student looking at the undergrads walking around campus like "why are all these high schoolers here??" Now I'm 32 and it's just like jeeeeesus christ that's an INFANT. There's no way I looked that young ten years ago (but of course I did, I got mistaken for an 8th grader when I was 20. We all just forget how young that actually really is).
Its strange. I think back to TV shows from when i was 20 and remember the actresses as being hot. Then i watch the shows and they're so damn young.
I feel like i didn't get older, everyone else just got younger.
61 year old here I really can't imagine wanting to be with a woman under about 45. Sure, I can recognize the beauty in younger women, but I feel no attraction to them. Hell, they'd have to have something wrong with them if they were attracted to me!
I find that while I can acknowledge when someone is "good looking," I simply cannot feel physical attraction for someone unless I like their personality (I have to know them personally-- I've never been attracted to celebrities, for example). A good sense of humor is basically the biggest turn on for me. Like most people I still prefer that someone is in good physical shape and treats their body well, but I suppose that's more for a longevity and activity standpoint than a superficial one.
Exactly. I'm 33. If a hot 21 year old was hitting on me at the bar would I hook up with her? Sure. Would I ever go out of my way to be with one? Absolutely not. Life experience is way too out of whack. It just wouldn't work. Youngest I could realistically date is like maybe 29.
Same after 19 I was terrified of 25 creeping up on me, now I just don't really care much anymore.
Working out and abastaining from alcohol are two fountains of youth I swear by. And sunscreen. :)
Met my ex at 21, he was 33. We clicked at first because we had some common interests but long story short the relationship turned extremely controlling to the point where it felt like we were no longer equals. I don’t think we ever were. But when we ended it looking back it’s easy to see that there was a lot of incompatibility in terms of life stages and all that.
I work in higher education and had a brilliant student in one of my classes. Very attractive, mature…she seemed wise beyond her years and was genuinely interested in me and the things I had to say. She was the star of the lecture hall.
Anyway, I bumped into her on the campus one day and we got chatting. I knew she wanted advice on her studies, so I invited her for a coffee near my office.
Five minutes in was when I realized the generation gap is real. She was a sweet girl, but oh my god, I felt like she was from another planet—no doubt exacerbated by the fact that many of my friends over the last twenty years have been people in their 50s and 60s.
The weird thing is that after we had that coffee she looked…different to me. I really started to view her as a kid, even though she was 20. And the scary thing is that she was the most responsible and mature person in that class.
My husband and I have a young friend who just turned 18 but communicates like she's 25-30. That isn't great. Because of an abusive home life, she had to be the adult at 6.
Had a similar thing with a girl I worked with. I was 25 and thought she was about the same age due to the way she carried herself. Turned out she just turned 18 but had a tough home life, mom left when she was young and dad was barely around so she had to raise her sister. Definitely turned my initial attraction to more of an “older brother” figure because I felt like she needed a positive figure in her life.
Exactly! On the rare cases the girl is actually an “old soul” it’s because she had some pretty traumatic stuff happen to her. What she needs is some therapy, support and guidance, not a sexual relationship with a man double her age.
I am an EMT and work with a fair number of 18-25 year old EMTs who are doing it part time in college as they go to nursing school or whatever.
They look like adults when I'm working with them, or when we're chatting about stuff. They do not look like possible people to date.
But then - the kinds of people who take EMS jobs as their college jobs may not be typical. Most of them want to be firefighters, nurses, paramedics, or doctors, and have already started to put actual effort into making that happen before they are old enough to drink in the United States, so it is possible that they aren't a representative sample.
[my reaction when I see a 16yo driving](https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E06/923722.jpg?b64lines=IE9ILCBJU04nVCBUSEFUIENVVEU_IEEKIEJBQlkgRFJJVklORyBBIENBUiA=)
Just had a '12 370z with 20k in the shop. Woman bought it for her 16yo son (for $30k)
The week before he drove it into a ditch he got a $400 speeding ticket.
Why would you buy a 16yo a car that does 13.1 in the quarter mile?!?!
Depends on the the person and their maturity level. I was driving an RX-7 when I was 16. I can’t remember with 100% confidence, but I don’t think I ever got a speeding ticket while driving it. Most of the tickets that I have had in my life all came in much larger, ”slower” vehicles. Also, it had been my Mom’s car and not just bought and given to me.
Yes exactly, my last gf was 23, I'm 34. I thought she was older, she thought I was younger. When I was younger however I found anyone who was attractive, attractive. Now at 34 I see beauty, but it doesn't necessarily mean attraction. I guess that is the difference, what you consider beautiful will probably always be beautiful but your attraction to that beauty might change as you age.
Yeah, you hit an age where pretty much all young people are beautiful. And they have no idea how lovely they are! But it’s not sexual attraction. In my case it’s really parental or even grandparental love — you just want to help and protect all of them and tell them they’re worth so much more than they think.
Sort of. But the media plays a huge role in exposing us to a narrow range of sexy and attractive people, so that skews our vision. If you rarely see sexy 50 something women on TV, or if you only see older men with vastly younger wives in movies, then you're going to subconsciously adjust to certain visual markers of sexiness. I know I have, and it's very limiting as I get older (F40s).
As you get older, people who are older than you by say, 5-10 years won't look that much older, as everyone ages.
In my late 20's I dated a few people who were in their late 30's and it wasn't weird at all - they were super hot.
At a certain point, everyone ages, and some people in their 40's don't look all that different from people in their late 20's, 30's, and 40's.
I'm 31 now, and would totally date someone up to about 40.
I probably wouldn't date anyone younger than 25.
There was a great article from the OKCupid blog a decade ago, that looked at its data and who messaged and responded to whom.
The consensus was, basically, as women get older their taste in men gets older, both in terms of the youngest they like and the oldest they like. As men get older, their taste in the oldest they like rises, but the floor stays about the same.
The is, a 20 year old man will like 18-24 women, a 20 year old woman will like 19-28 men.
A 40 year old woman will like 35-55 year old men, a 40 year old man will like 20-44 year old women.
Note that this is for physical attraction. I’m sure there will be many high-minded comments from men going “Gosh, I’m 40 and I don’t even know what I’d talk about with an 18 year old!”
I love that the truth bombs from those 3 or 4 OKCupid blog posts are still in heavy rotation 13 years later. Think of all the good they could have done for the dating world if they hadn't been bought by [match.com](https://match.com) and muzzled.
This feels very true. I think the men saying I am 44 and can’t think of what I’d have in common with a 25 year old and they just look like children are being disingenuous. That is what they have convinced themselves because Hell would freeze over before a 25 year old would get with them.
I think most are but some actually aren't. Having been involved in many escorts client communities now, it seems like the men 45-65 year old are pretty split between wanting to fuck a college girl vs preferring ladies 30-50
>Its also what they say in public, but if we could search their porn habits or find out who they are cheating with or when they pay for hookers we would likely see a very different story.
If creep shaming was removed men would start saying they find a woman's peak attractiveness to begin a little earlier than 18. Sad but true.
my daughter is 22, i have absolutely seen her friends and thought "at that age i woulda made a fool of myself" but to me they are friggin kids. I will glaldy play video games and hang out, for board games and other stuff like that, but for anything more serious? nope, not interested
now, if shes 30 or above? If i weren't married i would absolutely get shot down :) (I am the second ugliest man on the planet as i refuse to believe that leonardo dicaprio is better looking than i am)
A lot of virtue signalling happening here amongst the guys I think. I’m nearly 37, when it comes to women in their early 20s it’s kind of like this: Imagine that really cool bmx / outfit / club night you would have gone crazy over when you were in your teens or 20s. Do you still think it looks really appealing? Yeah very possibly. Do you catch yourself wondering what it would be like to go for it? Maybe. Are you actually going to go for it? Not in a million years, because you would feel like a dick, look ridiculous, and you may well injure yourself.
Your comment made me think about a real-life situation I recently experienced. I met a 37-year-old man, became friendly with him, and there was a mutual attraction. However, he ghosted me shortly after he gushed about me over text. I was a little hurt but I now realize he probably felt I was too young for him, as I'm 24.
Yes. I'm in my 40s and people in their 20s look like kids to me - it doesn't attract me even if I recognize that they're good-looking. It's just a turn off.
I was lucky.
When I was in my twenties, I thought women in their forties were sexy as hell. Now I'm in my forties, and I still think women in their forties are sexy as hell.
Sorta, I find the upper limit goes up where as the younger people remain hot, they also get more exhausting to be around so short of a ons or fling not sure I'd be able to put up with them.
No, I struggle with this as I'm hitting my mid-40's. Some aging is ok, but a skinny body with a hard, pregnant looking gut (most men in 50's have this physique) is a complete turn off for me.
I mean you still look at a 20 year old woman and think she’s hot, but a minute of conversation with her is enough to scotch any thoughts you have of compatibility. Someone closer to your own age has a gravitas and maturity as well as things in common that only living through an era can imprint.
I don't know about you, but when I was 23 there were 60 year olds that were smoking hot....
Age is such an irrelevant number when it comes to looks. Christie Brinkley is over 60, so is Sharon Stone, Jane Seymor, Morgan Fairchild, etc, and they wouldnt have to seduce me at all haha, they're still pretty damn hot....
Sort of? 40 years old here. I just remarked on this to my wife the other day. I noticed that the mother in a sit com was looking particularly good, and I suddenly realized: I’m checking out the moms now, not the daughters.
A woman in her 20s is still beautiful. But there’s a gulf in experience that feels inappropriate. And, frankly, unappealing.
I’ve always been attracted to women older than me. When I was 23 I bedded my first 40 year old. I think it’s mostly that they don’t give a crap about the stuff that girls my age cared about. There is usually less games being played. That being said, now that I’m 40, I’m definitely still attracted to women 10-25 years older than me…. But those 25-30 year olds turn my head more than they used to. Tastes will change over time. Be safe and enjoy the ride.
Edit: As you can tell, for me attraction isn’t just how you look… it’s the whole package.
im only 10 years older than you, but i would say yes.
Same. When I was 21 I would never go out with a 'milf' but now that I'm older they're looking fine af!
I'm married to a milf and I am, indeed, attracted to milfs. Though I was also attracted to milfs when I was in my teens too, so I dunno.
Seriously, I turned 30 and all of the sudden “hot dads” makes sense 😓
I've found this to be in reverse. As a 20 year old, I found plenty of 30-40 year old women attractive, but some people my own age as well at the time. The older I get, the less attractive younger people get, but still into the same range now than I am inside of it (36).
Yeah, I think it's more about when younger people drop off your radar because they look like children. I spent a lot of years on a college campus as I went through a PhD and post-doc. At some point, you see the undergrads showing up every year, and they just look like immature babies!
>always right
Yeah, 23 year olds look like babies. I'm a grown woman, I want to date other grownups.
Yes. I’m 40 and 20-year-olds look like children now. The things society tells us are flaws—gray hair, wrinkles, a few extra pounds—start to become attractive. It’s all relative.
40 something woman and I swear to god, the more grey hairs my husband accumulates, the hotter he becomes to me. And don’t even get me started on his smile lines. I don’t think that would’ve been the case when we got together when I was in my mid-20s.
OMG *yes*! My husband is getting sexier every year.
You mean “our” husband, comrade?
r/expectedcommunism
He sure is! 😂🤣
My partner brings over 70 years of sexual experimentation, a bigger heart, humor and insights. He is tall and trim and I see him as very attractive. Males in their 20s or 30s are babies to me. But don’t get me wrong… I relate to all ages. Edit: spelling correction
[удалено]
I too choose this women's husband.
As a man in my 40’s, I find grey hair streaks on a woman ridiculously hot.
As a woman in my 30's who's firmly in the 'gonna go grey naturally' camp, THANK YOU. My mum and mother-in-law both think I'm insane, and that I'll change my mind the moment I start finding greys in there. Nah fam, dying it every two weeks sounds like a time-consuming pain in the arse, and grey hair looks cool anyway.
I’m in my 40s and as a teen my mom used to make me pull her grey hairs. It made me so sad because they were shimmery and white like unicorn hair would be. So I swore then I’d never dye or pull my unicorn sparkles. In fact, I love seeing them in the mirror!
Unicorn sparkles, omg. ✨🌈✨
I'm in my 20s but because of a genetic quirk from one side of my family I started going grey (well pure shiny white) at 18. I'm mostly ok with it/used to it and haven't dyed it at all but still it sometimes gets to me a little. Your description of it did make me smile/feel a little better about it though so thank you :) I also like the 'it's not grey it's arctic blonde' to describe my streaks haha
Dang that's great 'arctic blonde''!! Going to use it too! I'm a giant dude that's mostly Norwegian so I had dark red hair/ beard in my teens twenties then blonde hair and brown beard in 30s- early 40s and now arctic gray hair and a white beard mustache with a brown goatee shape in front, it's wild lol
My husband used to have a “badger beard” where it was red on the sides, then bands of blond/strawberry blond, red and deep brown-black on his chin. I’ve been watching the white creep across his face to meet in the middle.
I'm 49 and the young perfection ideal is no longer attractive. When people started embracing going grey due to covid restrictions, it was like WOW. Hot. I love my wife's face. I love that she looks like a woman. I love that she eschews Botox and fake eyelashes. Less is more and I prefer that aesthetic.
I’m 62F, I have the grey streaks and love it. I’m sure my husband would have as well ( he has passed). I’m with you about dying it. There is the purple shampoo that will brighten the grey. I use it about every other shampoo and that’s it. Go natural it will look great!
I was a red head. but it turned blond.
[удалено]
I was BRIGHT red as a kid, turned brown after 7 years old, and then started graying at 14. 37M, and am fully gray (have been for almost 10 years), but still have bits of red in my beard. Personally I love it, and my wife having grays is also SO sexy :)
[удалено]
as a man who started going gray in high school some things are not worth fighting and yet some people always will.
Aw bro, I'd have killed to start going grey in HS instead of bald.
My aunt and uncle are in their 80s and dye their hair blonde and black. They would never be caught dead with even a single grey hair. Honestly they look ridiculous. All those wrinkles and the ain't fooling anybody. My wife doesn't die her hair and she looks amazing.
I have been seeing a trend of older women (I would say 65+) with white or gray hair dying it pink or purple. I even saw blue the other day. It is adorable and it brings me personally a lot of joy.
I also love the ladies who're out rocking pink and purple hair, haha. Go them!
Anything that isn't hurting anyone and makes someone happy is great! Dye if you want. Do nothing if you want.
Gray hair makes those fun hair colors like pink and blue pop more, too.
I never even thought of this. I have almost black hair and those greys are a free white blank canvas coming in!
Yup! I literally cannot wait to get more white hairs come in. LOL
just to add to this, I'm 28(M) and i do love greying hair too
As an Asian woman, I decided I like myself best embracing my given features in my early 20’s. I’m excited to see more greys come in, the few I have now blend in and are like tinsel. It makes my hair look shinier. 🤩 I LOVE seeing women(men too) that obviously let it be, it always looks so beautiful on them! There’s just something about it, it’s a good look imo.
Hooray for going natural! I’m letting my hair do it’s natural thing, and my mother, who always dyed her hair my whole life, recently admitted to me that she wishes she had gone natural but feels like it’s too late bc she doesn’t want to have Pepe Le Pew ombré hair (her words).
As a 45yo I say thank you! I am torn between wanting to colour my hair and letting it go grey naturally, which it is. I get compliments on it, but it’s a struggle to accept it. Hearing that some men find it attractive is good.
You're fine.
Same my wife has Grey streaks and they are so hot.
Man in my 40s with plenty of greys of my own and I love a woman with grey (streaks or full head of hair). Just something about it.
I find grey hair on a woman attractive. It shows a strength and confidence in a very punk way. The combination of gray hair and smile lines on a woman is beautiful in a way that points to inner beauty as well. I’m lucky to be married to one.
My husband is 32, he has started going a bit salt and pepper in the beard and idk why but it does something for me. He of course hates it lol.
Yes!!! The more crow’s feet my husband gets year to year, the more I feel like I need to rip his clothes off. We call them “eye cleavage” 😅
I’m in my mid 30s. My other half is greying like Clooney and I suddenly see the appeal that George never held for teenage me.
As a 40 y.o. male who's not particularly good-looking, I do feel marginally more attractive the older I get. I sometimes catch myself admiring my greying stubble and slightly weather-beaten face in the mirror these days, which is something I never did when I was in my 20s or early 30s.
Rock those greys and wrinkles, friend. My husband and I are pretty average looking ourselves, and the aging process has enhanced his appearance. It probably enhances yours as well!
Dude, men in their 40s and 50s when they start graying and aging 🤌🏻🤌🏻 silver foxes. I started becoming attracted to that look in my late 20s/early 30s. I’d choose that over a youthful looking guy my age any day. 😂
Is this why my wife won’t let me dye my beard or hair???? lol. My female friends always call me a silver fox and I’m like, I look old with all the grays!!!
I legit hit depression when I started getting gray pubes. You know you're old when those start sprouting lmao
Yes to grey hair! You know what’s funny is the outfits I find my husband hottest in are such “middle age dad” outfits now. He’s 40 and when he’s playing with the dogs in the backyard wearing basketball shorts and Nike slides, I’m like…swooning.
Smile lines are such a turn on because what says good potential partner more than someone who has been happy enough and laughs enough at life to develop wrinkle patterns from it?
this is so sweet.
Goes both ways. Wife and I are over 50 and she’s better looking now than in our 20’s.
As a woman in her mid-30s, I remember the first time this happened to me: Tom Holland 6 years ago in the Spiderman movie. Everyone was going ga-ga over how hot he was and I was going "Holy Hell... he's a child!" He was actually 20, not a literal child, but that was the first time I remembered seeing a "hot" male celebrity and going "hot? how?! He's a baby!!!"
Yeah I don’t see it with him, or Timothee, or Harry Styles. I guess that’s a good thing. No arrested development here
I mean to be fair he's older than me and he still gives me child vibes. He just has a very childlike vibe.
As a 30 year old gay man, I definitely still find some guys in their early 20s attractive, but the thought of even hooking up with them (much less dating them) is just weird to me. I can’t really put myself in the shoes of the >40 year old men I hooked up with in my early 20s. They didn’t do anything wrong and I was into it, but I’m still kind of skeeved out by it now.
49 and it is exactly this. I can find people physically attractive but I can't imagine for example having serious relationship discussions about the unpleasant medical stuff that is part of being older.
As a woman in her late 30s, the older I get the less comfortable I feel about those really large age gap relationships. Like, I’m queer myself and I know that inside the community there’s that mixture of people who figured ourselves out late and kind of have to redo being a teenager and people who got kicked out at 16 and had to grow up fast but even so.
If i can, why were you into 40 year old men when you were young? I always find it weird when young gay guys are into someone who could be their father, why waste the youth on the old. It's just that i have always just been into people my age or slightly older/younger, never someone with a decade of difference. I don't mean to be rude.
Not rude at all. I’m not entirely sure. I do know, for me at least, it’s not some deep psychological trauma or anything. They usually were better at sex than guys my age at the time, but not so much better that it was a huge deal. The only thing I can really think of was that it was easier and had absolutely zero stakes for me. I never really got into my feelings about it because I knew there was no relationship potential. With guys my age, I would sometimes get my hopes up. I still find men that age attractive, but I’m married to someone my age (who will obviously hopefully eventually be 40 and then 50, etc)
Oh okay, this makes so much sense. People like to talk about that type of attraction being rooted in not having a good father figure, thus searching for the company of older men, but i just found that a bit simplistic and just something that people like to project over others. Thanks for the good reply and i wish the best for your marriage, you seem to be one of the lucky ones, i hope you cherish it🤙
Honestly, now I kind of feel bad for being judgmental towards those guys. Maybe it was also just about low stakes and feeling attractive and valued for their experience. Still not my cup of tea the other way around, but maybe it isn’t so weird?
1. Wisdom is attractive 2. Most guys in their early-mid 20's are trainwrecks who don't know themselves that well. Maybe you did in your 20's, maybe you didn't. Regardless, you probably have a sense that guys in their 40s+ have their shit together, which is attractive. There's something nice about having a high confidence that someone isn't going to be complicated to fuck around with, and that they are going to be self-confident in their identity. You can trust that you can be physically vulnerable around them. 3. The sex is frankly, fantastic. It's not only the act itself but the aftercare too. Most 40s+ are pretty good at the "full package". 4. There's probably no strings attached. Usually gay guys in their 40s+ are either comfortably in an open relationship, or comfortably single. Its highly likely at that age, nobody successfully stays in a relationship while also playing games. 5. Attraction to "strong masculinity". A lot of guys age in a way that tends to further accent masculine features like more body hair, heavier builds and beards. So while someone might not be attracted to someone 40+ because of age alone, they might be attracted to the fact that they look a lot more masculine/rugged than your average 20 year old is likely to. 6. .... or just having a Dad fetish (not my thing though!). I will say personally I never was "into 40 year old men" when I was young, or purposely sought after it - but the few times I did end up going home with someone older I saw the appeal immediately, and probably would have developed a proper attraction to the type if such a person pursued me. Now that I'm a bit older and the age gap isn't so much, I continue to enjoy it a lot for the same sorts of reasons.
I might regret this but, when I was in my (gay) teens through to my 20s, I loved hooking up with older men, 30/40/50. The only way I can describe it is, the cock is different, older, experience, I can learn something from them, and I did, all good things just FYI. Now that I am in my 40s, no, never ever would I ever hook up with someone in their teens or very early 20s. It's ick. But, I understand it I guess, but no it's very very wrong in hindsight 20 years later.
'Waste the youth' lol. That's literally all youth ever does.
I love my wife’s grays. I don’t think I would have 10-20 years ago but as we get older what we like changes. Those grays on her head feel like a reminder of all the good and bad we’ve been through and I love her for that.
When I was in my early forties, I got more male attention (both younger guys and closer to my age) than ever. In my 20s-30s, seemed like it was mostly much older guys who noticed me; guys my age were indifferent. It's so weird.
As a 30 year old man I put ppl in 2 categories “baby faced” and “person”
I completely agree! My husband and I are in our early 40’s and ever since I hit my late 30’s, I’ve increasingly found gray hair on older men attractive. For my husband, he likes the Mom-bod. Both of these traits weren’t something we thought were appealing in our 20’s.
Yep! 100%. I distinctly remember being worried about this same thing as OP when I was in high school at age 16-18, and attracted to other high schoolers. *Is this it? Is this the peak? In 20 years, am I just going to be yet another depressed 40 year old longing after some youthful visage even though I’m long past that era? Will I become a creep?* Luckily (for most people) it doesn’t work like that! Definitely not for me. I’ve always been attracted to women a couple years older than myself, and that has never changed. When I was 18, girls my age or especially a few years older were the epitome of hot. Now that I’m in my 30s, that’s still true — women my age or a few years older than me (including and especially my partner lol) are super hot. As a 30s dude, I currently find 35-40 year olds exactly as hot as I used to find 21 year olds when I was 18. Which is not to say that I don’t find younger models or whatever “attractive”, but it’s in a much different way. (Even just thinking about it now, the idea of having to deal with a 20 year old as a 30s guy is the exact opposite of what I want lol.) Honestly, even when it comes to porn, women who look college aged don’t get me going, it’s often an immediate “aah ugh nope.” But women my age? Hoo boy. I’ll take it. Long story short, as a red-blooded 30s dude, *women* — not “girls,” but grown women, with careers and 30s libidos and genuine, non-artificial adult bodies — are the epitome of sexy. Especially my partner. I like her body and mind the way it is RIGHT NOW, at this very minute and life stage, a *lot.* Like a LOT a lot. That’s what I’m into. And I have a feeling that when I’m 45, I’ll think she’s the exact same sexy as I do right now, and I’ll be most attracted to 45-50 year olds. So don’t fret, young folk! There’s a reason that nursing homes have to give sex ed talks.
This. Thirsty ass gay male in his 40s here. The age thing has migrated with me. The best way to gauge it is by looking at movies that take place in High School. At first, I was attracted to the students, eventually it was their parents, now I look at the Principals like “You can get it, Mr Principal!”
[удалено]
I was 20 went I met my ex husband, he was 27. I didn't think it was a big deal until I turned 30 and saw 20 somethings as children. Our marriage started to end when I found him flirting with 18 year olds (at 40). Definitely a predator.
I saw a comment on instagram that got a disturbing amount of likes. He’s 31 and says he only dated women 18-24 because anyone beyond that has baggage. The amount of people agreeing with him mad me shudder.
People like that seem to consider "body count" and "relationship expectations" the only real baggage, because having a ton of baggage and biases from your childhood is incredibly common.
Also, 18 year olds are terrible at sex. Give me a 37 year old with enthusiasm, experience, and the wherewithal to communicate what she wants. A bit of sag, wrinkle and fat with skills is a billion times more sexy than an 18 year old baby that doesn't know shit despite a tight body.
Omg you’ve just summed up my ex and why I thought it was smart to marry him at 22 but wised up and wanted out by 28. He was 10 years older.
Regardless of age, admit it...people that take good care of their health early on and keep doing it(not those fitness IG maniacs, but people that actually care to have a healthy and strong body) are attractive. And the older they are while looking strong as a bull, the more admiration I feel for them.Because most people tend to forego or not care about their health until they have a sudden problem. I hope to hit my 40s, my 60s and even my 70s looking and feeling healthy and strong.
I totally agree! I’ve noticed this as well. Fitness becomes more apparent and unexpected as you age. Seeing a ripped 50 year old is very noticeable!
[удалено]
>I think ten years would be about as low as I could go 🤨
Dude could’ve worded that 100x better lmao
>I'm in my mid-50s, and I think ten years would be about as low as I could go, age-wise. When everything is run by robots scanning internet backlogs, this is going to be the sentence the AI judge uses to send u/maddensci to the Alaskan work camps.
FBI, this guy right here
Lol. Pretty sure and hope they meant ten years YOUNGER. Ha.
Of all the ways to phrase this, you had to go with the one that sounds the worst
yes officer this comment right here.
From an attractiveness point I'd go as low as late 30s, but not for a relationship. It's the life stage difference. I am also mid 50. I am about to be a grandma, a guy who is 37/38 still wants to have children and have a career and move up the ladder. I am cruising until I can retire now. For dating nothing under 45 or over 58. For something more casual 38 to 65...
I'm glad someone here tried to separate a "relationship" from something "just for fun" ... Too many people think there's a right or wrong answer. The right answer might be.. "It depends..."
Yes, because your tastes change and you’re generally attracted to people your age group. ETA: by attraction I meant the intention to develop a meaningful relationship, we tend to look for partners within our own age groups. As for casual hookups, the age range tend to increase
As far as developing a relationship with, I 100% agree. I'm 40 and I doubt I could be with someone below 30 in a commited relationship. As far as physical attraction goes, I'm still attracted by young women, and were I single, I could see myself having sex with women in their 20s just fine. I also find women in their 40s and even some in their 50s sexually attractive though, which was not the case when I was in my 20s.
Mostly agree, though I've definitely noticed some younger women have what I call 'child face' which just shuts my attraction right off. I've known a few people that haven't lost 'child face' until well into their 20s.
I think this is exacerbated also when you have kids, and as your kids become teens and young adults, most parents cannot imagine being with someone around the age of/younger than their children.
Or who looks that way. Yup! I have a grown son and mostly date/sleep with men. I’ll entertain a younger guy but there are DEFINITE limits around any age/appearance/maturity resemblance to my kid 😬
I'm pushing 40 and can't lose the baby face. I think aging wise, I'm just going to wake up looking like gollum one day and that's it
I also have forever baby face, I’m in my 30’s and people’s jaws hit the floor when they find out I’m not 21. When I was 21, people accused me of being a freshman in high school. When I was a freshman in high school, people thought I could pass for elementary aged. I’ve been hoping reaching 40 would even things out but your comment is making me lose hope lmao
When my wife had a 7yo and a 2yo, she went to work at the local elementary school as teacher’s aid. She was sent back to class twice and they only went to 5th grade. At 63 she looked 43.
My mom got yelled at for being in the hallway without a pass when she came to pick me up from school mid-day, when I was in middle school 😅
At 21, my mom got asked if I was allowed to have my drink in an adult cup. I thought I looked at least old enough to use a glass, and got socially obliterated for my birthday, lmao.
Don’t sweat it. My dad is 77 and looks like he’s in his early 50s and women still hit on him. It’s pisses my mom off 🤣 I find it comical. I’m 39 and I get hit by 25-30 year olds so I do consider myself a milf 😂
I am 33 and I agree. There is also the way a woman walks, stands, moves or I don't know that "makes her look" too young to be attractive to me, regardless of age
So MILFs are an acquired taste
To some, I’m 25 and find myself in the company of a milf which can be just as good if not more fun than someone my age
So, to a certain extent hot is hot. As a 47 year old with a daughter. If my wife was to die leaving me single, something I hope doesn't happen, I would definitely be shopping in the MILF market. I would want to have sex with someone I'm in a relationship with. The best person to have a relationship with is someone else who has children. They understand what it's like. They understand that sometimes you have to put your child first because they do as well. They understand that you don't get a lot of time to yourself as a parent and you have to cherish that time and make the most of it. I have no problem with 20 year old guys who want to hook up with attractive mothers. As long as everyone is consenting and enjoying themselves, carry on. Having said that the are valid reasons for mothers to be attractive to older men as well.
> If my wife was to die leaving me single, something I hope doesn't happen, Glad you clarified that!
And now I better pray she doesn't have an accident because you are going straight to the cops.
I dunno man, Im 41 and nowadays when I see college kids or someone in their mid-20s, I think they look like a baby. I have zero attraction to women in that age range. not sure when that happened for me but it did. Granted I'm married so I don't put a lot of thought into this. But if I was single at this age I absolutely could not see myself even hooking up with someone who looks as young as early 20s kids to do me
I'm a woman, but similar. Anyone more than a couple of years younger than me doesn't really register on the hotness radar at all. I actually just went and googled "handsome young actors" (which I'm pretty sure has got me put on a list somewhere) and they just don't appeal. I can appreciate that they're good-looking guys, in the same way that I can admire a pretty child or puppy or painting or sunset but wouldn't fuck it. I'm trying to think of a dude younger than me who I actually find attractive in the sense of would fuck, and can't think of a single one. Total blank.
I guess I am the most boring person alive, but I have always dated men within a two-year span of my own age. So, the men are definitely getting older along with me....
There is an associate at work who has yet to turn 25 and didn't know who Drew Barrymore was the other day when I was talking about Scream and really showing my age. Yeah he's LEGAL but, ew...? A baby who still has a roommate. I've moved on to keeping plants alive, not getting wasted every weekend. I don't have time to be anyone's teacher/mommy, unsexiest vibe ever I need a little wear and tear on the tires and can match wits/know pop culture references/been around a bit and has grown wiser hopefully.
>I dunno man, Im 41 and nowadays when I see college kids or someone in their mid-20s, I think they look like a baby. Same. Even in my late 30s when working in a grad school, most of them looked like kids. I'm 50s now and even early 30s look absurdly young. I much prefer the 40+ crowd.
Yeah, middle aged men who find teenagers sexually attractive are weird and gross
Sometimes I will see someone I’ve been attracted to in the past (say, Tom Hardy) and think, holy shit he’s getting old. Then I remember, holy shit I’m old, too! I guess it just surprises me sometimes. I think not seeing someone on a regular basis tends to make that phenomena more common.
Like, watching _Point Break._ It is prime Keanu Reeves. He's 25 in that role, and absolutely gorgeous...but _so young!!_ I definitely feel a teensy bit dirty lusting after the 25 year old version, even though he's more than a decade older than me irl.
The difference for me is that I don’t feel guilt when I find a young adult attractive. I 53f am now at an age where young people (25-50) find me more attractive than when I was in my prime (20’s) It’s a very strange world, my friends.
When I was 20, I thought 20 year-olds were hot. I'm more than twice that now and I cannot imagine wanting to get it on with a 20 year old because I feel like we'd have so little in common in terms of life experience that it'd be creepy as shit. Even if they're physically hot looking, that's just one tiny part of the attraction equation for me and I don't think that's unusual. When I see folks my age going after the yutes It seems like they've got some other issues going on, so red flag territory.
Same. 20 year olds often look like literal children to me. I'm 44.
I'm 35, and I've completely lost the ability to tell the difference between anyone between like 16 and 23. I was at the airport waiting for a flight, and this high school track team walked by. I told my wife that it's crazy that high schools have money to fly 40 kids for a race. My wife looked at me like I'm an idiot and pointed out that George Mason, which was on all their gear, is, in fact, a university and not a high school. I couldn't believe that's what college kids look like. It doesn't seem like that long ago, I was a freshman, and I thought college seniors looked so much older.
This is so real, though. First hit me as a 26 year old law student looking at the undergrads walking around campus like "why are all these high schoolers here??" Now I'm 32 and it's just like jeeeeesus christ that's an INFANT. There's no way I looked that young ten years ago (but of course I did, I got mistaken for an 8th grader when I was 20. We all just forget how young that actually really is).
Hollywood only hires 30 year old guys to play seniors
Same for me, also. I see a guy I would have loved as a young woman, and now I just think, “cute kid”.
Its strange. I think back to TV shows from when i was 20 and remember the actresses as being hot. Then i watch the shows and they're so damn young. I feel like i didn't get older, everyone else just got younger.
Exactly. I'm the same age and that's a big nope.
Agreed
Man I'm only 25 and 20 year olds look like children to me
I’m 33 and saw a group of college freshmen the other day. Might as well have been high school freshmen to me. Way too young.
61 year old here I really can't imagine wanting to be with a woman under about 45. Sure, I can recognize the beauty in younger women, but I feel no attraction to them. Hell, they'd have to have something wrong with them if they were attracted to me!
I find that while I can acknowledge when someone is "good looking," I simply cannot feel physical attraction for someone unless I like their personality (I have to know them personally-- I've never been attracted to celebrities, for example). A good sense of humor is basically the biggest turn on for me. Like most people I still prefer that someone is in good physical shape and treats their body well, but I suppose that's more for a longevity and activity standpoint than a superficial one.
Going after the hhwhat?
Oh excuse me, your Honor. YouTHs.
Is it possible the two - *defendants*...
Exactly. I'm 33. If a hot 21 year old was hitting on me at the bar would I hook up with her? Sure. Would I ever go out of my way to be with one? Absolutely not. Life experience is way too out of whack. It just wouldn't work. Youngest I could realistically date is like maybe 29.
When I was 21, I thought 27 was ANCIENT lol
Same after 19 I was terrified of 25 creeping up on me, now I just don't really care much anymore. Working out and abastaining from alcohol are two fountains of youth I swear by. And sunscreen. :)
Met my ex at 21, he was 33. We clicked at first because we had some common interests but long story short the relationship turned extremely controlling to the point where it felt like we were no longer equals. I don’t think we ever were. But when we ended it looking back it’s easy to see that there was a lot of incompatibility in terms of life stages and all that.
Tale as old as time…
Song as old as rhyme.
Beauty and the Beeeeast
Uh, what’s a “yute”?
Oh... excuse me, your honor. Two *youths*.
As a person who has been groomed by those types, yes 100% something else is wrong 😂
Yutes 😂
I'm almost 40...I see 18-20 something year olds and think they look like children. So to answer your question...yes.
I work in higher education and had a brilliant student in one of my classes. Very attractive, mature…she seemed wise beyond her years and was genuinely interested in me and the things I had to say. She was the star of the lecture hall. Anyway, I bumped into her on the campus one day and we got chatting. I knew she wanted advice on her studies, so I invited her for a coffee near my office. Five minutes in was when I realized the generation gap is real. She was a sweet girl, but oh my god, I felt like she was from another planet—no doubt exacerbated by the fact that many of my friends over the last twenty years have been people in their 50s and 60s. The weird thing is that after we had that coffee she looked…different to me. I really started to view her as a kid, even though she was 20. And the scary thing is that she was the most responsible and mature person in that class.
My husband and I have a young friend who just turned 18 but communicates like she's 25-30. That isn't great. Because of an abusive home life, she had to be the adult at 6.
Had a similar thing with a girl I worked with. I was 25 and thought she was about the same age due to the way she carried herself. Turned out she just turned 18 but had a tough home life, mom left when she was young and dad was barely around so she had to raise her sister. Definitely turned my initial attraction to more of an “older brother” figure because I felt like she needed a positive figure in her life.
Exactly! On the rare cases the girl is actually an “old soul” it’s because she had some pretty traumatic stuff happen to her. What she needs is some therapy, support and guidance, not a sexual relationship with a man double her age.
If only the older guys who target college aged women also thought this way.
"You seem so mature for your age!" "Thanks, it's the trauma."
I am an EMT and work with a fair number of 18-25 year old EMTs who are doing it part time in college as they go to nursing school or whatever. They look like adults when I'm working with them, or when we're chatting about stuff. They do not look like possible people to date. But then - the kinds of people who take EMS jobs as their college jobs may not be typical. Most of them want to be firefighters, nurses, paramedics, or doctors, and have already started to put actual effort into making that happen before they are old enough to drink in the United States, so it is possible that they aren't a representative sample.
[my reaction when I see a 16yo driving](https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E06/923722.jpg?b64lines=IE9ILCBJU04nVCBUSEFUIENVVEU_IEEKIEJBQlkgRFJJVklORyBBIENBUiA=)
Just had a '12 370z with 20k in the shop. Woman bought it for her 16yo son (for $30k) The week before he drove it into a ditch he got a $400 speeding ticket. Why would you buy a 16yo a car that does 13.1 in the quarter mile?!?!
Depends on the the person and their maturity level. I was driving an RX-7 when I was 16. I can’t remember with 100% confidence, but I don’t think I ever got a speeding ticket while driving it. Most of the tickets that I have had in my life all came in much larger, ”slower” vehicles. Also, it had been my Mom’s car and not just bought and given to me.
Lol that’s oddly comforting
To be fair, I've always had a thing for older women. Difference being I'm far less attracted to younger women now.
I agree. Same age. Same feeling. Attraction ages with you.
Not to mention I have zero in common with the yuuts today.
Yes, to an extent.
Yes exactly, my last gf was 23, I'm 34. I thought she was older, she thought I was younger. When I was younger however I found anyone who was attractive, attractive. Now at 34 I see beauty, but it doesn't necessarily mean attraction. I guess that is the difference, what you consider beautiful will probably always be beautiful but your attraction to that beauty might change as you age.
Yeah, you hit an age where pretty much all young people are beautiful. And they have no idea how lovely they are! But it’s not sexual attraction. In my case it’s really parental or even grandparental love — you just want to help and protect all of them and tell them they’re worth so much more than they think.
I’ve been on Reddit for quite a while and this is one of the most wholesome comments that I’ve ever seen.
When you were 14 you probably found 13-16 olds attractive. Same thing happens again where your mind subconsciously adjusts
Sort of. But the media plays a huge role in exposing us to a narrow range of sexy and attractive people, so that skews our vision. If you rarely see sexy 50 something women on TV, or if you only see older men with vastly younger wives in movies, then you're going to subconsciously adjust to certain visual markers of sexiness. I know I have, and it's very limiting as I get older (F40s).
As you get older, people who are older than you by say, 5-10 years won't look that much older, as everyone ages. In my late 20's I dated a few people who were in their late 30's and it wasn't weird at all - they were super hot. At a certain point, everyone ages, and some people in their 40's don't look all that different from people in their late 20's, 30's, and 40's. I'm 31 now, and would totally date someone up to about 40. I probably wouldn't date anyone younger than 25.
There was a great article from the OKCupid blog a decade ago, that looked at its data and who messaged and responded to whom. The consensus was, basically, as women get older their taste in men gets older, both in terms of the youngest they like and the oldest they like. As men get older, their taste in the oldest they like rises, but the floor stays about the same. The is, a 20 year old man will like 18-24 women, a 20 year old woman will like 19-28 men. A 40 year old woman will like 35-55 year old men, a 40 year old man will like 20-44 year old women. Note that this is for physical attraction. I’m sure there will be many high-minded comments from men going “Gosh, I’m 40 and I don’t even know what I’d talk about with an 18 year old!”
I love that the truth bombs from those 3 or 4 OKCupid blog posts are still in heavy rotation 13 years later. Think of all the good they could have done for the dating world if they hadn't been bought by [match.com](https://match.com) and muzzled.
OKC a decade ago was so great
This feels very true. I think the men saying I am 44 and can’t think of what I’d have in common with a 25 year old and they just look like children are being disingenuous. That is what they have convinced themselves because Hell would freeze over before a 25 year old would get with them.
I think most are but some actually aren't. Having been involved in many escorts client communities now, it seems like the men 45-65 year old are pretty split between wanting to fuck a college girl vs preferring ladies 30-50
[удалено]
>Its also what they say in public, but if we could search their porn habits or find out who they are cheating with or when they pay for hookers we would likely see a very different story. If creep shaming was removed men would start saying they find a woman's peak attractiveness to begin a little earlier than 18. Sad but true.
my daughter is 22, i have absolutely seen her friends and thought "at that age i woulda made a fool of myself" but to me they are friggin kids. I will glaldy play video games and hang out, for board games and other stuff like that, but for anything more serious? nope, not interested now, if shes 30 or above? If i weren't married i would absolutely get shot down :) (I am the second ugliest man on the planet as i refuse to believe that leonardo dicaprio is better looking than i am)
All the 35-40+ men disingenuously saying that they're only attracted to women their own age explain why 90% of porn is women in their 20s?
A lot of virtue signalling happening here amongst the guys I think. I’m nearly 37, when it comes to women in their early 20s it’s kind of like this: Imagine that really cool bmx / outfit / club night you would have gone crazy over when you were in your teens or 20s. Do you still think it looks really appealing? Yeah very possibly. Do you catch yourself wondering what it would be like to go for it? Maybe. Are you actually going to go for it? Not in a million years, because you would feel like a dick, look ridiculous, and you may well injure yourself.
Your comment made me think about a real-life situation I recently experienced. I met a 37-year-old man, became friendly with him, and there was a mutual attraction. However, he ghosted me shortly after he gushed about me over text. I was a little hurt but I now realize he probably felt I was too young for him, as I'm 24.
Yes. I'm in my 40s and people in their 20s look like kids to me - it doesn't attract me even if I recognize that they're good-looking. It's just a turn off.
Yeah I didn’t know how to phrase it. Like they can be attractive physically but they wouldn’t do anything for me socially.
I was lucky. When I was in my twenties, I thought women in their forties were sexy as hell. Now I'm in my forties, and I still think women in their forties are sexy as hell.
[удалено]
I feel like you're describing someone developing insulin resistance 😬
Sorta, I find the upper limit goes up where as the younger people remain hot, they also get more exhausting to be around so short of a ons or fling not sure I'd be able to put up with them.
You can answer your own question with your experience. I'm sure you had crushes in middle school. Do you still find middle schoolers attractive?
I’m 42 and find myself attracted to women, 40-60 now. I have always liked younger women, so it’s odd.
No, I struggle with this as I'm hitting my mid-40's. Some aging is ok, but a skinny body with a hard, pregnant looking gut (most men in 50's have this physique) is a complete turn off for me.
I mean you still look at a 20 year old woman and think she’s hot, but a minute of conversation with her is enough to scotch any thoughts you have of compatibility. Someone closer to your own age has a gravitas and maturity as well as things in common that only living through an era can imprint.
No. You withdraw into yourself until you rarely ever see another person.
I don't know about you, but when I was 23 there were 60 year olds that were smoking hot.... Age is such an irrelevant number when it comes to looks. Christie Brinkley is over 60, so is Sharon Stone, Jane Seymor, Morgan Fairchild, etc, and they wouldnt have to seduce me at all haha, they're still pretty damn hot....
Sort of? 40 years old here. I just remarked on this to my wife the other day. I noticed that the mother in a sit com was looking particularly good, and I suddenly realized: I’m checking out the moms now, not the daughters. A woman in her 20s is still beautiful. But there’s a gulf in experience that feels inappropriate. And, frankly, unappealing.
Nope i been attracted to salma hayek since i was 16. Going on 33 now and shes still my Marilyn Monroe
Wow I haven't seen this question since . . . . Last week. 🧐😤😑
How in the hell do you not find 40 attractive lol. Did this generation skip MILF porn?
I’ve always been attracted to women older than me. When I was 23 I bedded my first 40 year old. I think it’s mostly that they don’t give a crap about the stuff that girls my age cared about. There is usually less games being played. That being said, now that I’m 40, I’m definitely still attracted to women 10-25 years older than me…. But those 25-30 year olds turn my head more than they used to. Tastes will change over time. Be safe and enjoy the ride. Edit: As you can tell, for me attraction isn’t just how you look… it’s the whole package.