Why I Stopped Policing My Own Desire
A friend of mine suddenly brought up age‑gap relationships last night. It felt like a curveball. We were talking about a dozen other things, and then that topic landed in the middle of the field. He’s an openly gay man, a few years younger than me. I just turned 40 in January. You can do the math.
I know plenty of people who married someone a decade older or younger, and I’ve been in those dynamics myself. In my early twenties, especially around the time I came out, I dated older women. Not because I was chasing them; they were chasing me. And I was absolutely interested. The women I was drawn to, carried themselves with a kind of grounded intelligence: well‑versed, educated, assertive women who knew what they wanted and weren’t shy about taking it. With them, there was no such thing as the word “crush.” If they wanted me, they moved with intention. Some of them devoured me, but in a savoring way.
That’s why I always say slow burns are often just hesitation wrapped in fear. I wrote about that in another blog. We create rules for ourselves that are really just armor.
When I look back now, I can see the power dynamics more clearly. Those older women had more resources and more life experience, yes, but I had power over their inner world. They were insecure about their age, their bodies, their place in life. They feared I’d eventually want someone younger, someone “more appropriate,” someone fictional they imagined would take me away. They projected a future onto me where I was vain, disloyal, and incapable of choosing my own partner. They decided who I would become without ever asking who I actually was.
That insecurity gave me power, not because I wanted it, but because it existed.
And they tried to soothe my pain back then with what they did have: money, resources, protection, and gestures meant to make my life easier. But eventually, I stepped out of that pattern. I dated women my own age. I had a four‑year relationship. Later on, a six‑year on‑and‑off relationship with someone three years younger.
But last night, I admitted something deeper, something I noticed during the cracks in that relationship. I realized I was attracted to women much younger than me. Not teenagers, and definitely not early twenties. However, in my mid-30s I started paying attention to women ten years younger than me. And now that I'm 40, I notice women in their late twenties and early thirties. Women who carry themselves well. I'm talking about an old‑soul energy trapped in younger bodies. Women who have insight, a broader worldview, and a presence that makes it hard not to notice them. And even back then I noticed young women who struggled to hide their crush on me because they knew I was married.
Just to be clear... I’m not attracted to looks alone. I can acknowledge beauty without wanting someone. What draws me in is how a woman moves through the world. Her mind. Her soul. What is embedded deep in her heart. Those are the qualities that attract me.
However...
Still, I created a rule for myself: no one more than eight years younger. I enforced that rule hard, but only in one direction. I didn’t place the same restriction on older women.
I have a lesbian friend who does the opposite. She refuses to date anyone younger than her, even by three years. She prefers older women and ends up with partners in their forties and fifties. She’s 38.
So, when I told my friend about my self‑imposed law, he asked, “Why are you limiting yourself?” And his counterargument was so stark that I had to sit with it. But I'm not going to mention the example he used to have me sit with how I was creating these rules. Why was I policing myself only on the younger end? Why was my fear masquerading around as morality?
We also talked about how society disguises predatory behavior, how sometimes both parties use each other, and how sometimes people genuinely thrive in age‑gap relationships. A forty‑year gap is extreme, two generations apart, but ten or twelve years? That’s not inherently predatory. It depends on the people involved. But I have a bit of sense to me to not date women under 25, because of the things I've learned throughout my experience and I how I felt and dealt with life under 25.
I brought up Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor. Sarah is a perfect example of someone who is, internally, an old soul in a younger woman’s body. Their relationship works because their inner worlds resonate even though they 32 years apart.
And then, of course, there are the darker portrayals, like Life is Strange, where Mark Jefferson’s fixation on adolescent girls is explicitly predatory and violent. That’s exploitation. Those are the situations that need to be punished because adolescence is still growing, and their minds haven't biologically matured yet. That means they can easily be manipulated and used by someone older than them. Especially by someone in their 30s or 40s.
Or how about the vampire dynamics in Interview with the Vampire. Lestat had money, status, and privilege of a white man, but Louis had emotional power. Lestat’s insecurity, jealousy, and desperation to please Louis reveal how power can invert itself. I’ve lived that inversion. I’ve seen how someone with resources can still be emotionally fragile, lonely, and deeply affected by the younger partner’s presence.
Power is rarely one‑sided. It shifts. It balances. It hides in insecurity.
But no one should ever be trapped in a dynamic where they feel controlled or desperate. Life is unfair when it comes to resources, and that unfairness creates imbalances. Still, I believe in love and compatibility. And I’ve decided to remove that rule of denying my attraction to women younger than me by 10 to 12 years. I don’t want to limit myself out of fear.
Take that as you will.
