THE LAST TABOO
Niamh Horan on age-gap relationships
IN a recent piece for GQ magazine, rock profiler Tony Parsons recalled how he never really noticed the age gap between him and his much younger wife, until an 1980s rock star came for tea.
It was the 1990s and he had recently married Yuriko, who was still in her 20s and 15 years his junior.
Parsons was upstairs getting ready for his visitor when his new wife shouted up: “There is an old man coming up the path.”
Confused, Parsons looked out the window.
It was Morrissey.
It’s rare to come across a light-hearted tale on the joys of age-gap relationships.
The commentary is boringly predictable: snide, self-righteous and cynical. A world away from the times we live in where we hold parades for people’s right to live their personal choices without shame or vitriol.
We now welcome all sexual identities (bisexuality, cisgender, agender, drag kings, drag queens, gender binary, non-binary, pansexual, transgender, cishet, transsexual, gender fluid) and relationships (civil unions, inter-racial couples, domestic partnerships and ‘‘it’s complicated’’) because the message is clear: love is love — and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
And yet for one status — the May-December relationship — it’s open season.
Last week Keanu Reeves (55) confirmed the ‘‘age-gap romance’’ is close to becoming cancelled when he went public with Alexandra Grant (46).
Media outlets around the world lauded Reeves for a love they called “age-appropriate”. Implying anything that falls outside this bracket is improper.
Social media lit up.
“Of course Keanu Reeves has an ‘age appropriate relationship’. He is a good man,” one woman said, receiving almost 50,000 ‘‘likes’’.
All the while, men who dare step out with younger women are publicly shamed.
Dennis Quaid, 65, recently drew controversy with his engagement to Laura Savoie, a 26-year-old doctoral student.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, 44 has been torn from a height by female commentators in recent months for choosing a partner younger than 25.
Forget that DiCaprio appears happy with his 22-yearold girlfriend, frolicking on the beach, enjoying quiet lunch dates and curled up in the sun, the union has been met with a wall of passive aggressive barbs.
“She was born after the release of Titanic,” one female commentator noted. Does it matter?
Someone even went to the trouble of mapping a graph to illustrate the average age of his girlfriends.
But what is really strange is that when you flip the gender roles, attitudes change.
In the same week that Reeves was high-fived for not dating a younger woman, Helena Bonham Carter was lionised for dating 32-year-old Rye Dag Holmboe — 21 years her junior.
The news ran under headlines that the actress looked “blissfully happy” having found love with a “toy boy”.
Can you imagine what would happen if respected media outlets reduced a woman to a ‘‘toy’’ without a hint of irony? It’s double standards and hypocrisy.
Many age-gap relationships have stood the test of time — and perhaps should be given even more respect because they have survived against the odds.
Harrison Ford started dating Calista Flockhart the year she turned 38 and he turned 60. Michael Douglas was 56 when he married Catherine Zeta-Jones, then 31. George and Amal Clooney have a 16-year age gap. Rod Stewart is 26 years older than Penny Lancaster.
And although, in the postMe Too age, it’s only right that power imbalances are discussed, why are people so eager to assume that the man in the pairing automatically has more power because he is older and/or wealthier?
Why do people automatically presume sexual attractiveness and youth hold less sway than money and maturity when all the evidence tells us otherwise?
Try telling Bill Clinton, for example, that he had more power when Monica Lewinsky once she walked into the Oval office. Try telling John Profumo what all his power and medals amounted to when he met doe-eyed 19-yearold Christine Keeler.
Or try explaining to former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook what power his $1.35m a year salary held in preventing him from throwing it all away over a “mistake” with a female colleague.
Since time began, governments, nations and the world’s biggest companies have been thrown into chaos because someone, somewhere — despite all their money, ambition and aspiration — couldn’t resist the potency of a young woman. It’s called life.
What’s also life is people falling for one another for a multitude of reasons which don’t boil down to the number on a bank balance or a person’s birth cert.
But even in an age where women are well-educated and financially self-supporting, we find it hard to believe.
Surely a man couldn’t have success, happiness, and a girl who likes him for who he is, not what he has? Then life would be really unfair. It’s better to tell ourselves otherwise.
In the end though, there are few people who have the right to tell consensual adults what is ‘‘age appropriate’’ for them.
And they are the ones in that relationship.
‘Commentary is boringly predictable and cynical’