this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2026
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While I agree it's creepy if you specifically only go after women who are way younger, I feel the way this kind of discourse talks about these types of relationships essentially says "Women have no agency and no power to resist being with a man twice their age".
It feels like a lot of attacks on weird men's behaviour are actually just misogynistic underneath, in a "it's the duty of the man to do everything right because women are just dumb children incapable of taking decisions" kind of way.
USUALLY the same thing happens when women date much younger men.
It's about power, not about gender. People with a lot of experience and resources prey on people who have very little.
If someone is 60 and dating someone who is 30, that's usually ok (a little weird in my opinion tho) cause someone who is 30 is fairly mature and can understand what's going on, and usually has friends, a career, and a lot of stability in their lives.
If someone is 40 and dating someone that's 20... it doesn't matter what the gender mix is... the 20 year old is going to have a lot of trouble pushing back when things are wrong. The 20 year old isn't emotionally, or FINANCIALLY able to break away as easily. It's not misogynistic to say that a very young person (female or male) might end up in a situation they feel like they can't leave.
I don't agree that the younger have zero agency. Their youth is worth quite a bit. They can leave, find somone else, start over. Youth targets age almost as much as age targets youth. One side usually has more wealth, social standing and the other has more vitality. Both parties often find it is to their own personal benefit. To get rid of all the power imbalances that could happen in relationships, we'd have to have everyone date their equal in intelligence, wealth, social standing, occupation, looks or someone would always have the possibility to have the upper hand. Maybe what's needed is giving children (under 18s) the knowledge to be able to push back against wrong situations. I used to feel it was age that was the predator but I know quite a few people in recent years, male and female, who have been targeted for relationships with younger people simply because they are perceived to have more financial means.
I have barely saw that happening when the situation is older women with younger men, actually the men gets attacked in that situation too, and the women, infantilized in consequence.
Patrick Stewart's wife was less than half his age and I didn't hear many people who had a problem with that. I think it has to do with how people view the character of the man in the relationship, as you said if it's a pattern or in Billy's case people just don't like him.
Patrick's wife was 34 when they met. That's why people weren't bothered. Corgan's partner was 19 and he was 44 when they met
I just feel that her is trying to take advantage of him and his wealth, anyways, so if I had a problem with this, it would be that. But I can't, of course, prove anything, I just feel that it's like that because it's what I've seen the most.
that's actually a pretty fair point. Society tends to think of women as having less agency than men; that they're delicate flowers, or country bumpkins getting the wool pulled over their eyes by men.
No.
A lot of them enter these situations with their eyes wide open, and its our collective small minds that can't handle that truth, so we reinvent a different narrative.
Good catch, honestly.
"Taking advantage of less experienced, younger, which is equivalent to dumber for some reason." It is not misogynistic.
So… not misogynist, just infantilizing. Got it.
also very groomish too.
Also, that I don't see the same happening when it's the reverse situation. Even then, they'll attack the man because "oh no, he just wants to take advantage of that poor granny", thus infantilizing again the women.
If we're going to attack, we have not to do it based in the gender, but in the actual power balance, and act consistently across genres, because sometimes the women can have power over the men, even though it's more common the other way.
Plus, gender and age-gaps are only a small fraction of the differences through which power imbalances can exist. Something as simple as a difference of confidence, or as incredibly impactful as wealth difference can easily be a larger determining factor of control within a relationship. The hyper focus on young women's lack of agency feels more Puritan than anything.
Yeah. I'd even argue that younger people has in general clear advantages, such as more vitality, more energy, better health, a more flexible mind, etc., that can play in favor of them in terms of power.
Hell, what I'd think if I saw one younger person with an older one is that the younger one is only interested in their wealth and/or in their status and/or in their influence and/or in their reputation.
That's not always the case of course and there are actual healthy relationships between people with such an age gap, and tbh I know the other way is not uncommon at all, but with all these things such as sugar daddies/mommies and sugar babies, I'd think is not as common as the younger one being the one manipulating the relationship to their own benefit.
I think the older ones are in disadvantage most of the times because they're more prone to lack of confidence, generally less attractives, and what's worse, they're more sensitive/vulnerable to loneliness, so they're almost do anything their younger partner tells them to do in order to feel that they have a chance of not being abandoned.
But still, these relationships are between people that have both the right and the capability to consent, so it's basically nothing of my business even if I dislike it for the reasons exposed before.
Wealth is absolutely more advantageous than youth. Even in scenarios where an older person is buying the time and attention from a youthful person, the withholding of wealth can mean poverty and all the suffering that comes with that. The withholding of youth only incurs (at worst) suffering of loneliness, which is objectively less detrimental than poverty. In the instance of the Corgans, she was a wealthy heir to a fashion empire, meaning any imbalance of power was minimized from the outset of their relationship. As much as there are notions of who benefits more from a relationship, that is seperate from notions of power within a relationship. I don't tend to care much about power imbalances among the wealthy, as the objective suffering is negligible in most instances. Conversely, power imbalances within relationships where one is wealthy and the other comes from poverty should be heavily scrutinized. Situations where a partner's basic financial wellbeing are predicated on that relationship can lead to situations where the disadvantaged partner can be abused in brutal ways. The fear of loosing your home and ability to feed yourself will always be vector of gross power that individuals can yield towards awful ends. The reality is that wealth inequality in relationships leads to more abuse than age-gaps. Situations where one partner has all the (relative) economic ability leads to situations where women are exceedingly faced with abuse or homelessness. Alimony laws and the like exist for good reason and should be protected for these very reasons.