The uneven and changing attitudes about intergenerational dating relationships

[NotHardUp1]

I was looking up some biography of Richard Dean Anderson after seeing him lionized by some comments on a meme, and I found a couple of YouTube videos of him being interviewed by Jay Leno at different times.

The banter is typical. Anther one I watched was actually labelled the Gay interview because Leno badgered Anderson again about who he was dating and his failure to settle. He needled him until he got him to admit his mother had asked him if he were gay or not. The fans reacting to that were hugely defensive and hated Leno's taunts. Of course, it's the very reason why viewers made The Tonight Show so popular. They were in bed and wanted to laugh and be entertained, not just hear promos and bio stories.

This one has a really telling segment from about 2:20 to 4:30, in which Anderson dances all around, bragging about the age of his young partner, 20 years his junior. It's really a lot of classic hetero dick swinging and Leno is the typical wing man in awe of the alpha male.

It affords a perfect example of the changing attitudes publicly about cradle robbing. What's likely true is that it continues in the hetero world, despite all the Epstein and other hype, where one is a rapist by default due to the age gap, and in the gay world where so-called progressives dominate the socio-political tone and an age gap inherently abusive, or damned near it.

For most straight men, it remains a trophy catch, whereas for gay men, an apology is seemingly in order.

Agree? Disagree? Accusations, recriminations, protestations, solicitations, observations?

Is there a double standard between gay and straight views on large age gaps?

Oh, and the pedostache is just a bonus because RDA was filming Legend at the time, a western, so had to do the cowboy thing.

 

[DepravedMuscleFTL]

they key is that legal age is being discussed... this conversation would not go off then or today if the young lady was less than 18....

I think both orientations are still accused of trophy catches - remember these are always second or third relationships - or poly - however I think gay men are less guilty - for many gay men it is a security grab - they have no children to see after them in their golden years - and also to leave their legacy to - so it is often methodic that the seek someone younger who can assist them through the later years

 

[Cormac135]

they key is that legal age is being discussed... this conversation would not go off then or today if the young lady was less than 18....

I think both orientations are still accused of trophy catches - remember these are always second or third relationships - or poly - however I think gay men are less guilty - for many gay men it is a security grab - they have no children to see after them in their golden years - and also to leave their legacy to - so it is often methodic that the seek someone younger who can assist them through the later years

Yes i am open to a sugar daddy, PM me people.

 

[Alistair]

Yes i am open to a sugar daddy, PM me people.

You're too old for a sugar daddy. In gay years you're almost in the grave.

 

[Araucaria]

A couple of years ago, I googled intergenerational relationships. Since all I got were the generic Leave it to Beaver articles about kids getting along with adults, I then googled intergenerational sex. This time I pulled up a bunch of articles of pedophilic adults abusing children, which I wasn't looking for at all. You/d think that as often as older/younger adult couplings occur, there would be a good amount of serious material on the subject. But it still seems that most of what's out there is ridicule, or psychobabble about how and why it's an unhealthy situation or acting out some pathetic dynamics. I have seen a number of intergenerational relationships, and I don't see why, for instance, there shouldn't be a good number of positive articles for understanding and guidance, just as there are for similar-age couples.

 

[mcbrion]

I suppose it depends on the mindset of the locals.
This was not the case in San Francisco of the '60s, 70s, '80s,'90s, or into the new Millennium. What it is now, I cannot say. Back then, no, that was not an issue. I knew 40 year old acquaintances with 21-year old boyfriends. What I DID see, however, is that the 40 year old guys - as much as I like them - were not terribly self-aware, and did not understand that a 21-year old's brain was not yet fully formed. They expected a level of maturity that isn't biologically the norm.
The human brain doesn't even mature until 26, and that was the case back in 1995. Nowadays, I think it doesn't mature until the person is well over 30, due to the delay that technology seems to impart, rather than causing one to mature faster, and that on top of the fact that these acquaintances were still a bit childish (not child-like, which is a good thing!) themselves (it was right around the beginning of AIDS: maturity kicked in a few years later for many of them. And some never matured. They're not around now, sadly. But a lot of it was based on desire on both the part of the younger guy AND my (older) peers, who were very good-looking guys.
I don't see a double standard at all. After all, these gay men were, for the most part, raised by straight men (and women). You know, "the sins of the father are passed on 4 generations..." (The Bible) and all that. And the popular axiom, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree...." I think it's similar in both cultures.

 

[Cormac135]

You're too old for a sugar daddy. In gay years you're almost in the grave.

God, every time I want to be Peter Pan along comes Wendy.

 

[Latimer]

I believe I once read that the writer Christopher Isherwood and the artist Don Bachardy began their relationship when the latter was in his mid-teens. It seems the articles were wrong, or my memory has failed me: the official biographies of both men along with Guardian and NY Times articles say he was 18 at the time.

Bachardy is quoted in the Guardian as saying. "Chris always loved young men, and I was certainly young." I remember reading an interview with him a number of years ago in which he spoke of the utility of an older-younger relationship: after Isherwood's death he embarked on a relationship with a younger man, an assumed that just as he had cared for the latter in his declining years, his new partner would do the same for him. Perhaps it has worked out that way, as Bachardy is now in his 80s.

 

[Latimer]

^
The above sentence should read: "that just as he had cared for Isherwood in his declining years, his new partner would do the same for him."

 

[NotHardUp1]

Thanks for the thoughtful, serious, answers, guys, and for the fun ones, too.

And I admit that my use of trophy was prejudicial. Even I don't believe they are all that, not by a long shot.

As for reasons, I do believe that mature men may well be feeling paternal and not even know it.

I'm not sure there ARE any hot topics any more, apart from the political arguments, but I do believe the responses here indicate that there are serious topics and serious gay minds speaking to them.

If any of you members under 30 read this, it would be really nice to hear from some younger views of this.