The Weekly Whims Of HatManJim: Toy Boys

October 31, 2009 No Comments

A weather-beaten eye cast over the media: HatManJim looks at a story in the headlines and as a feminist with a penis (Menimist? Femi-meni-mist? I just believe i n women’s rights, I’m not having gender-reassignment. OK?), attempts to map the sexism inherent in the press, without inadvertently saying anything lecherous about breasts.

Before we get going this week I just want to make it clear that what I really wanted to write about was why so many girls seem to dress up in revealing Halloween costumes rather than scary ones. It would have been witty, insightful and probably have mentioned the line from the Lindsay Lohan starring film Mean Girls where one of the characters says: “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it”.

But then I found it had already been done here, here, and , of course, here. The first of those even got the film quote in. Cow.

Besides which, given I’m probably going to spend much of the weekend discreetly looking at the cleavage of the nearest nubile young witch/devil/vampire/zombie cheerleader/etc. I risk sounding hypocritical.

So I’m not going to do that. I just want it noted that I was going to. I decided to pick an entirely different topic, relationships between older women and younger men. The “r” word. That’s really scary.

In fact, this is where I expect to come a cropper with this column: writing about feminism I can do, writing about sex, relatively easy, but now I’m going to try and write as if I actually understand relationships. This is where I end up looking silly.

The jumping off point for this is the news that the 42-year-old member of the Young British Artist set (when can we start calling the YBAs Middle Aged British Artists? MABA sounds cooler anyways) Sam Taylor-Wood is set to marry her 19-year-old toy-boy, Aaron Johnson, as reported by The Daily Mail here.

This would seem to lead to an obvious rant about how no one is ever judgmental when it’s the other way round, i.e. younger woman with older man. But if you actually read the article (for those of you outside the UK, The Mail is not renowned for being open-minded) it actually seems quite happy for her. Certainly far more so than most papers have been with Ronnie Wood and his 20-year-old cocktail waitress (admittedly Wood is old enough to be Taylor-Wood’s dad… with his girlfriends he’s essentially dating someone young enough to be his granddaughter).

So anyway, everyone seems content with the Taylor-Wood/Johnson set up (although it does veer a bit on the pervy side… She has just directed him in the leading role of a film about John Lennon AS A CHILD). But both are consenting adults and seem very happy.

Here’s the bit I don’t get.

I understand why older men date younger women. Essentially it is because men think with their pricks. There may be some evolutionary shenanigans going on there as well; men continue to be fertile even when they are older so feel compelled to look for younger mates. But fundamentally it’s because we’re letches.

I don’t understand it with women. I tend to work on the theory that all men are just large children who get slightly more tolerable as they get older. Older women interested in younger men baffle me.

Taylor-Wood is extremely attractive, intelligent and creative. I have no doubt that Johnson is all of these things but he is still 19 and one wonders how satisfying that can be for her emotionally.

I should add for the sake of transparency that my current girlfriend is, depending on which age she is giving (which can vary wildly), 17 years older than me. I put this question to her when we first started dating (by email luckily, so I can quote here). Her response was:

“Hmm. Point taken about men becoming more civilized with age, but the youthy ones are cute, fun and usually baggage-free. And they’re more likely to want to go to gigs (which I do a lot of) and do spontaneous things.”

Unfortunately for her I don’t think I’ve done a single spontaneous thing while we’ve been together. That’s off topic though.

Could it really be that women are equally as shallow as men when it comes to relationships? Or am I simply being too judgmental about younger men? What do you think?

HatManJim’s column will appear every Saturday.

Tags: evolution, feminism, Hallowe'en, HatManJim, marriage, objectification, older women with younger men, relationships, Sexy Hallowe'en costumes, shallowHatManJim