Gen Z Is Particularly Weird About Relationship Age Gaps. Here’s Why.
7th October 2024
Huffington Post. (Yeah, I know, but I’m trying to make a point here.)
Is a five-year age gap in a relationship a little untoward? What about a three-year gap?
On social media, Gen Zers–at least those who are chronically online–are constantly debating the ethics of age gaps. Even if some relationships are perfectly legal, that doesn’t necessarily make them ethical, many say.
“Untoward” and “Ethical” are the new “I don’t like it so you have to quit doing it”.
It’s little wonder then that age-disparate relationships are cause for so much conversation: Having grown up alongside the #MeToo movement, Generation Z is well versed in unbalanced power dynamics and the language of consent. And lately, there’s been plenty of celebrity pairings to interrogate.
“Power dynamics.” “Language of consent.” “Interrogate”. Let’s see how much Woke pseudo-intellectual jargon we can cram into one sentence, shall we?
There’s the obviously icky examples, like the recent, short-lived romance between Aoki Lee Simmons — Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons’ 21-year-old daughter — and restaurateur Vittorio Assaf, 65. Earlier this month, viral photos showed the pair flouncing around on vacation in St. Barts.
“Icky” is the new “unethical”. Whatever it actually is cannot withstand how somebody feels about it. It’s all about the feels. A 21-year-old obviously has no agency; she has to be protected from herself by Older And Wiser Heads (excepting Vittorio; he’s TOO old). (Of course, it doesn’t count how “icky” a transgender weirdo might be; your feels must Get With The Woke Agenda.)
Yes, they’re both consenting adults, but it was still unseemly, critics said.
“Unseemly.” It’s all about how critics feel; your choices must bend to their prescriptions. (Of course, these are the first people to celebrate Cardi B and Miley Cyrus being “unseemly” in public; You Go Girl trumps everything.)
So the discomfort around these types of relationships isn’t anything new. What is new, according to Lehmiller, is how comfortable Gen Z feels about publicly and vocally disapproving of these relationships ? even on people’s personal Instagram pages. (Aaron and Sam Taylor-Johnson recently spoke out against the “bizarre” online judgment they’ve received. Eilish and Rutherford brushed off the criticism from overly concerned fans by dressing up as a baby and an old man one Halloween.)
“To some in Gen Z, age-gap relationships read as being inherently exploitative because they perceive age discrepancies as necessarily creating a power imbalance that favors the older partner,” Lehmiller told HuffPost.
Here is the actual reason: Sexual Market Value.
Men reach their peak Sexual Market Value in their mid 30s; women in their early 20s. Women are evolutionarily wired to prefer older men, who have more experience with life, more confidence, more charm (“rizz”), and more financial resources. Evolutionary psychologists like David Buss have been documenting this FACT for years.
Most of the hate thrown on age-gap relationships comes from women who are past their peak SMV and discover that the men they want, who are their own age or greater, are passing them by in favor of younger women who are still around their peak SMV.
Here’s the sad truth:
More here.