Not necessarily so

I came across this blog post today : excerpt below. It questions the societal assumption that a young woman and an older ( indeed old man) cannot really be in love.

Aren’t we all taught that true beauty lies within? That you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover? That it’s what’s inside that counts? So then…. why is it, that when a beautiful woman gets together with a less attractive man, that we assume she’s using him for money, or fame, or connections, or residency, or some other purpose? Is it not possible that a beautiful woman might well love that man for his personality, his intelligence, his wit – or just the fact that he is kind to her and makes her feel special? – Blondie

Here the author is questioning that a younger woman will only find an older man attractive for his money or other forms of currency. What I would like to question is that older men will automatically find younger women romantically or sexually attractive simply because they have sexually attractive bodies. That is just sexually stereotyping older men.

The question remains, though, why in human couples the man is almost always older. The usual explanation goes something like this: men prefer women who are young and therefore maximally fertile, whereas women prefer men who have proved themselves to be genetically fit (by surviving) and to be “good providers” (by accumulating status and material possessions). Both of those things take time. – Economist

Biologically younger woman are more attractive because they are more able to get pregnant and more likely to produce healthy offspring. A man who wants to pass on his genes is therefore better off having sex with a younger woman who is more likely to get pregnant and more likely to have high quality eggs. A woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have so the younger she is the fresher they are. This enhanced ability to reproduce is communicated visually by the healthy skin & hair of young women, the firmness of their breasts that will be needed to feed offspring and the shape and strength of their lower body for giving birth.

It makes more sense for an older man to reproduce with a younger woman than a woman in his own age range. This would explain men who have second families with much younger women. Having said that older men are not perfect from a reproductive point of view. Even though sperm is delivered (like good pastries) fresh every day it does age. An older man is more likely to father a baby with a birth defect.

This study shows that men who wait until they are older to have children are not only risking difficulties conceiving, they could also be increasing the risk of having children with genetic problems,” Andrew Wyrobek of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said in a statement. – Daily News Central

Human relationships are however more complex than the simple desire to mate and reproduce. We have emotional and intellectual needs we need to satisfy to be happy in a relationship.

MY personal experience is that I generally find a physically attractive women unattractive if she doesn’t stimulate me emotionally or intellectually. Furthermore a woman who is physically attractive may lack skills or enthusiasm during sex. I often find that I look at an attractive woman (young or older) and make an assessment of her ‘sexual energy’. If her ‘sexual energy’ feels right then I find myself attracted to her, if not I don’t get attracted irrespective of her physical charms. The other determinant of my feeling sexually attracted is what she says: if she doesn’t stimulate my mind nothing else in my body will get stimulated.