older women and their younger lovers
reflecting on power dynamics, age as power, all fours, babygirl
Recently, a female friend who is 29 went on a date with a 20 year old man. She had been unsure about it even before they met – his stated age on the app was 23 (he had lied to appear older, already a red flag), and said he had never gone out with someone so much older than him. He was still in college, and she worried that what she was doing was maybe immoral, given how young and impressionable he might be by virtue of his age, thinking back to her own college-aged self. She also worried about whether he’d have expectations of her acting out some sort of “mommy” archetype, which she did not want, while simultaneously feeling somewhat stressed about his wellbeing. She accepted this date with a “handle with care” mindset, a departure from the cavalier way she usually approached dating.
Afterwards, she told me, she was unsettled by the encounter. In fact, she never felt more sure that the fact of being a woman engaging with a man would mean being relegated to a feeling of being on the backfoot. She told me that she felt meek and on the defense, when he did or said things that made her uncomfortable, she found the boldness surprising, and was unable to push back or assert herself. She found this both embarrassing and frustrating, seeing as she had 9 years on him, 9 years of additional wisdom, experience, confidence, built up in almost 30 years of life.
As a young girl, my understanding was that age conferred power. I understood that age was only one variable among many other axes of privilege, of course, but it felt like such an overwhelming one, that I assumed it must carry a heavy weight of authority and credibility in most interactions. That idea generally rings true to me still, now over a decade out of high school. I’ve observed my own maturation over the years, and sometimes work on youth issues in a professional capacity, learning about developmental stages at different ages and why we treat young people as vulnerable, how legislation (attempts to) protect them, the concerns of parents and experts.
When I heard my friend’s story, I was reminded of a few things.
First, a harrowing scene in Adolescence, a Netflix miniseries exploring the aftermath of a 13 year old boy’s murder of his female classmate. In episode 3, the boy is being interviewed by a female psychologist for the trial (her age is not specified in the show, but the actress is 32). He oscillates between sweetness and rage, despicable behavior – yelling at her, berating her, standing over her, swearing, kicking a chair. As a viewer, his behavior scared and shook me, as it did her. At the end of the episode, he asks her over and over whether she likes him. When he is escorted away by security, he bangs at the windows, continuing to yell at her from outside the room, while she sits in the room, taking deep breaths and crying softly.
Second, that I’ve always felt some type of way about romantic relationships with an age gap, both in reality and in popular culture. It is typically in the context of an older man and younger female, the power imbalance always in favor of the older man. I was first exposed to Lolita as a pre-teen, when Katy Perry recommended it as her favorite book in some Tiger Beat-esque magazine. I have the distinct memory of seeking out a copy for myself that summer, and buying it at a foreign language bookstore in Beijing. (Why she thought this was appropriate in a magazine for underage girls is crazy. I don’t have the magazine on hand, but I clearly remember this, because I really liked her music and therefore paid attention to her recommendations.) Growing up in Asia, I would also sometimes see older white men walking around with young Asian women, race adding that extra icky layer of discomfort. When my friend told me about her experience, I was coincidentally reading two books that centered age gap relationships. Unlike Lolita and other traditional age gap tales, these stories featured an older woman and younger lover, both consenting adults. And I thought back to other media I’d consumed in recent years featuring older women and younger lovers. I was curious, then, to understand the power dynamic that prevails when age is the potentially defining factor, how that is depicted in fiction. Let’s take a look at some examples. Below, two recent commercially successful stories on this theme:
In the film Babygirl (2025), directed by Halina Rejin, we follow a woman in her forties, the CEO of a big tech company, whose life unravels as she begins an affair with her 24 year old intern. He seeks her out to be his mentor in the company’s mentor program (she expresses doubt that she would have been included as an option in the program at all, but he insists). In their first 1:1, he gets way too physically close to her, towers over her, tells her that he thinks she likes being told what to do, and then instructs her to meet him at a hotel room. It all physically escalates, obviously, it is an erotic BDSM thriller, and I won’t get into the details of that. But there’s that infamous scene where he orders her a glass of milk at a company event at a bar, and she chugs the thing in full view of everyone. He shows up at her home and introduces himself to her family, without notice or consent, which she is furious about. When she tells him “You need to realize that what you’re doing is wrong,” he cuts her off by putting a hand over her mouth. He yells at her in a car when she tries to end the relationship. And still, her desire is intense, seemingly much more so than his, and in the end, he seems indifferent and unscathed. As for how she fares – it’s ambiguous, but didn’t leave me feeling good.
In the novel All Fours by Miranda July, we follow another woman in her forties, a 46 year old semi-famous artist, who becomes infatuated with a younger man, 31, local to a town she is passing through. She decides to stay in that town for weeks, rather than traveling to her final destination. After some seemingly innocuous interactions, this is how the affair begins in earnest:
[Female Narrator:] “So when you came into that restaurant, Fontana’s—”
[Man:] “I knew you’d be there. Because you’d asked the gas station guy where to eat.”
Not just a fan, a stalker.
…
“Why did you come back?” he said. “Why are you here?” He waited, his sharp, dark eyes on mine. “You came back for me. You’re here for me.”
[Narrator:] “Why would I do that? That’s crazy. That would be crazy.”
He smiled a little, sympathetically. “Yep. But that’s what people do.”
We sat in silence. I wondered if I was misunderstanding. He reached across the table and touched the back of his hand to the back of mine, ever so gently. There weren’t very many ways to take that. Just one, really. He said, “Can we get out of here?”
Unsettling and self aggrandizing on his part, no? As their relationship continues, the man imposes rules around physical acts between them (felt a little Mormon), and dictates when they meet and communicate. Later, it is revealed that he’s had a history of being weird and invasive with another older woman, which started when he was supposed to be cat-sitting for her. From her POV (emphasis mine):
One day I got home from work and he was still there and he was watching an old VHS tape of mine. It was racy. In it I’m basically nude except for a little tuxedo collar and belt, a black leather belt … He was laughing. He should have felt caught, guilty, you know? But he still had that slightly cruel side—they get that from their buddies at school. Mean whenever someone is vulnerable. He was laughing as he got his stuff, his backpack, and I was furious now, ashamed … The next day when I get home he’s still there. He’s waiting for me. And he’s so sorry. It’s like he’s been entirely reformed, he’s woken up. I’m reassuring him that I’m fine, it’s not a big deal, but he’s nervous, ranging all around the house, looking at everything. … He’s standing outside my closet, peering in. ‘Lots of dresses,’ he says. I start to explain that they aren’t all dresses, there’s a blouse section and a skirt rack—but he interrupts me, he’s holding up a black leather belt. ‘Is this the belt?’ he says. It takes me a second to realize which belt he means. And I just stand there, holding the cat. I’m thunderstruck. He’s not apologetic, I had completely misread the situation. He’s on fire. He’s been thinking about the video nonstop and he’s back to have me. Or something.
The women in Babygirl and All Fours are not blameless, not victims exactly, they also behave inappropriately and unreasonably, their decisions deserving of criticism. And yet, there is something despairing in seeing that these women, with their age and the status and success that has come with it, have not been spared from the prevailing gender roles and men who exercise dominion over them, doomed to this fate of having their boundaries violated by some guy 10+ years their junior. Even in fiction!
Because that’s the thread I kept spotting and pulling on, those instances the younger men pushed their will onto these older women who acquiesce, who should in theory hold power over them, if age does indeed confer power. Instead, the older woman is depicted as confused, spiraling, fractured, emotionally in need, while the younger man is dominant and sure of himself. The relationship doesn’t create the fracture within the older woman, but accelerates it, the younger man an assertive agent of chaos, destabilizing the older woman, who yearns and yields. She seems completely unable to articulate her desires.
These stories seem to show that men will behave inappropriately, even if there are theoretically imbalances in authority that should theoretically keep them in check, while the women are somehow stunned into muteness. She’s portrayed as reactive, almost childlike. Instead of the older woman being empowered, the younger man is in control of and directs what happens and what doesn’t, showing as the aggressor rather than acting with caution or deference. I couldn’t help interpreting a clear winner and loser out of each interaction, with the man always winning, both within the relationship and after – it is all consuming and devastating for the woman, and for the man, something he easily disentangles himself from.
If age is supposed to grant people more clarity, power, agency, why do we keep seeing older women in these positions?
In another book I read as part of this project, Vladimir by Julia May Jonas, I was struck by this line:
so he had rationalized the situation so that he was in control of it—in control of the experience, of the part he was playing. Well, naturally he had that ability, it was the ability of the successful: to reseat themselves, no matter where they were, in a place of power.
Aptly, the quote is the older woman narrator referring to a younger man that she is interested in. While she refers to this as an ability of the successful, I read it more broadly, as an ability of men. The ability of men to take the upper hand, to reseat themselves in a place of power.
The pattern across media, personal anecdotes, suggests that gender often overrides age as the primary axis of power. Age does confer power, yes, but this is superseded by the privilege of being a man. (Of course, there are exceptions to this — see footnote1 — but in the stories we live and tell, they feel like exceptions). And so, in relationships between men and women, in fiction and in reality, it often ends up being not age that confers power, but the fact of being a man.
This conclusion is both surprising, and utterly unsurprising. I’ve spent the past two months thinking and writing about this, but struggled to press “publish” simply because it didn’t seem like new information. We live in a patriarchal society. Didn’t we already know this?
To answer that question, I go back to my friend. When she first told me about her experience with that 20 year old, I instinctively understood why it so deeply impacted her. She walked into the date assuming that her age would protect her, an advantage she was conscious to wield with care. We were disturbed not just by what happened and what it revealed — that her age, the perceived advantage, hadn’t insulated her from a man’s disrespectful behaviour, or stopped her from shrinking in response, that the advantage fell away so quickly. The lesson was that age doesn’t protect you; and we can learn it, proceed with caution next time.
But there’s something else in this story, the recognition moment felt a sort of deja vu. I’ve had realizations like this before, discovering the fragility of a perceived immunity in the presence of men. I think maybe this is the other thing that so compelled me to write this — how women seem fated to learn the same thing, how gender has a way of flattening all other kinds of advantage — over and over again. Somehow, you’re still surprised when it happens the next time. It’s the mundane horror, and the quiet resignation, in which women endure these kinds of interactions, confront the same truth. And maybe that’s why my friend’s story shook me too, another proofpoint in the string of our collective experiences. Age this time, I wonder what’s to come.
Appendix
1. A list of the age gap stories I read and watched
All happened to be released within the last 3 years (2022-2025), and have female authors or directors.
2. Other notable quotes and themes from the books
On fame and success
Why did I think this young man was hanging around me? Because I was such a great beauty? So magnetic and witty? He knew exactly who I was. He was a fan. I could be ninety and he’d be eager to sit across from me. This is what fame had bought me: a disciple. But not the kind famous men had, not a young woman eager to suck the wisdom out of my dick. My fame neutered me. [all fours]
However ridiculous it was for an older woman like me to lust after him, the force of my talent, the brilliance of my work, would blur my lines and firm my skin [vladimir]
On age + desire to be a peer + begrudging mentorship
Naturally it followed that any desire that Vlad had for me (if he had any, and wasn’t simply acting out some inscrutable, self-destructive urge) belonged to a taxonomy that placed me in the category of pervy older-woman teacher and him in the category of a fresh-faced, innocent youth. I was a camp act for him. Some corny old fantasy from his adolescence. And—this was the most embarrassing—I realized my fantasy had relied upon me being a sexy colleague, an attractive peer. I had imagined passion, something wordless and animal and back-brained. My feelings for Vladimir were beyond thought, and certainly beyond scenario. I had wanted him to allow me to forget who I was. I began to cry with disappointment, then laughed at myself for my tears. I had kidnapped him, essentially, I had drugged and deceived him, all because I wanted to satisfy my desire, and now I was finding fault with his perception of me. As if men who took advantage of women ever thought about how those women perceived them. [vladimir]
I was powerful and interesting, perhaps funny and unique; I took him seriously in a way he wasn’t used to—but he was not jerking off to me. Just a few years earlier, at forty or forty-two, I would have been a contender, but now it was too late. And he was just the first one. From now on this would be the norm. And not just with men younger than me, but with all men. I would never get what I wanted anymore, man-wise. [all fours]
This was my first experience of being too old. I had not always gotten exactly what I had wanted—men had been unwilling to leave their wives for me or to do more than flirt—but even in these humbling cases I hadn’t questioned my right to feel desire. Now suddenly my lust was uncouth, inappropriate [all fours]
And as I looked in the bathroom mirror at the webbing around my eyes, my frowning jowls, and the shriveled space between my clavicles, I felt desperation at the idea that I would never captivate anyone ever again. A man might make a concession for me based on mutual agreeability, shared crinkliness, but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, be in my thrall. [vladimir]
“... a kind of unresolvable ache,” I said, giving in to knowing more than him. [emphasis mine] [all fours]
I did worry that something about the afternoon had made us appear parental to him. … Had Vlad’s wife been there, we would have been two couples, peers, fellow academics and coworkers. But because she was gone, we seemed to take on the role of an august mentor couple. [vladimir]
The appeal
Every story the woman told and gesture she made felt to Mallory as if it was unlocking another latch to the door to her own life. When she thought about the woman, she thought thrillingly about her own self and what she could be. [we do what we do in the dark]
something inside Mallory cracked open. She wanted to tell the woman how grateful she was, how the woman’s desire for her allayed a lifetime of feeling ugly, how euphoric it was to be seen by a woman like her. [we do what we do in the dark]
Were my acts selfless, or was this the price I was willing to pay for my own eternal youth—to always be the younger woman? After all, I suspected that my Shangri-la would vanish upon his death and I would become old overnight. [consent: a memoir]
I didn’t yet know how to explain to the group that his age was my aphrodisiac, that I needed to be desired by someone older and important so that I could feel special [consent: a memoir]
3. Related but unrelated reading
On race in romantic relationships: I've Seen Some of the Best Minds of My Generation Taken Down By a White Partner, anti wmaf wmaf club
On aging: I Am So Fucking Tired of Listening To Women My Age Complain About Being Old and Washed
On feminism and iran: to bomb iran, feminist-ly?, The Dirty Work of Feminism in Justifying Terrorizing the East
4. Questions
I had many questions in mind while reading and watching, and this piece obviously doesn’t address them all. So I’m curious your thoughts on these, and if there’s any key piece of media you would recommend I check out!
How do people (my generation, my social circle) feel about these age gap relationships? How do I? Is age such an issue between consenting adults if there is no other position of power involved?
How does this impact the younger person?
How are they portrayed, the older and younger person?
How do other privileges and power dynamics play out here? What weight do they have?
What’s the appeal for both people, is the age gap an important point of attraction?
Of course, women can be predators too. Your gender doesn’t disqualify you from bad or criminal behavior. And not every story I consumed featured scary coercive men – Lonely Planet (ugh but I hated that movie) follows the romcom formula, and We Do What We Do in the Dark featured an unhealthy age-gap relationship between an older and younger woman. In Vladimir, the actions of the older woman actually end up very unhinged, totally indefensible. And the relationship between French president Macron and his wife is baffling to me, and the clip that went viral last month of her shoving him in the face. But, I wanted to focus this essay on the thing that was depicted and most surprised and disturbed me in the stories I’d consumed, and in the stories most prominent in pop culture.
love this deep dive! I really liked All Fours and Babygirl and they got me thinking a lot about age gap relationships too, but I came out of both feeling more positively than you did. I found the tension of the power shifting back and forth (especially in Babygirl) really fascinating, and thought that both protagonists came out of the situation understanding themselves and their own desires more completely. am v interested to check out some of the other books on your list!