Serial toyboy dater Gaynor, 57: ‘Why I only date men under 30!’
At 57, glam grandma and double divorcee Gaynor Evans isn’t ready for cocoa, knitting and slippers just yet. Instead, she’s having the time of her life dating younger men after reinventing herself as ‘Britain’s most prolific cougar’…
Going through menopause can be a difficult time for women, with many losing interest in sex thanks to a flagging libido and a host of hormonal changes.
But that’s not the case for London-based businesswoman Gaynor Evans, who, at the age of 57, is having the time of her life with a string of handsome younger men – some younger than her own sons!
‘I’m not ready for my knitting and cocoa yet,’ vivacious bubbly blonde Gaynor smiles.
‘I’ve seen my mum, dad and brother pass away, so I know life is not a dress rehearsal and I want to make the most of it while I can still kick a leg!’
Gaynor, also a blogger and author, is a complete convert to the joys of dating toyboys – so much so, she hasn’t dated men her own age for decades. In fact, she’s become rather famous – or should that be notorious? – for it, with one newspaper dubbing her ‘Britain’s most prolific cougar’.
Cougars are, of course, older women who date younger men – and Gaynor is a founder member of the club.
Her youngest lover was 20 to her 48 – and she isn’t interested in dating anyone over 30. In all she admits to having dated more than 200 toyboys – she finds them via the website toyboywarehouse.com – although only a few of these dates have developed into anything sexual. When, it does, she admits, it’s explosive…
‘I thought I’d had good sex while I was married but I have had some amazing sex since at a whole different level,’ she openly admits. ‘It is so erotically charged!
‘I didn’t expect, at the age of 57, to be having such mindblowing sex.’
But it hasn’t always been this way. Growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, Gaynor was the archetypal ‘good girl’ in an age where many women were still learning about sexual liberation.
‘Many of my friends were much more sexually aware than me,’ she admits.
‘I’d never played the field as a young woman, or even in my marriages as I was faithful to both of my husbands.
‘My family, like most back then, were quite strict and we didn’t talk about sex. A member of my family got pregnant before she was married and it was a terrible scandal.’
By 1980, before she turned 20, Gaynor got married.
‘I’d always known I’d liked sex, but there was still a
stigma back then for women to be open about enjoying it. Things have come a long way since then,’ she says.
Gaynor’s first marriage lasted 10 years and she had three children with her first husband – Laura, 41, Kate, 39 and Rory, 37. She was a single mum-of-three when she met her second husband, who was 10 years younger than her and she says: ‘That much of an age gap was unusual when we met in the Eighties, even though it didn’t seem a big age difference to us at the time.’
They had a son, Jack, now 28, but the marriage, like Gaynor’s first, ended when she discovered her husband cheating on her. Both were huge emotional blows, especially the second divorce, when she discovered her husband had been having a five-year affair with her best friend and neighbour.
‘I was mortified,’ she says of that double betrayal – and it’s hard not to wonder if the legacy of that emotional devastation is playing out with her fun, no-strings love life today.
There’s no doubt that getting divorced from an unfaithful husband yet again was a life-changer: ‘Being single in my late 40s was a shock, and I decided I had to change the way I thought about things.
‘I had to pick myself up, dust myself down and get on with my life. I was terrified and as an older woman I struggled with my confidence so I reinvented myself.
‘I lost weight, started going to the gym, bought new clothes and updated my hair and make-up. When it came to socialising, all my female contemporaries were either coupled up or didn’t want to know. So I ended up going out with my daughters.’
She adds: ‘I noticed I started getting approaches from younger guys while I was out. Initially I thought they were just being polite – but then I realised they were interested.
‘It was an eye-opener - I couldn’t believe they were flirting with me. Eventually, I went for it with a 23-year-old.
‘Being intimate with him was a very uplifting experience – he was very adoring and flattering.
‘That spurred me on and I went from strength to strength.’
It’s not just about sex, though. Gaynor has had longterm relationships with her younger beaux – one, whom she affectionately refers to as ‘Danny Boy’ went on for years, and she says: ‘I got involved with someone 20 years younger – we got too attached to each other, but what could we do? It wasn’t a workable model of a relationship.
‘To do this, you need to be very emotionally mature in order to protect yourself from getting too involved. You also need to keep a very fluid mindset. I always think, with younger men, you don’t get to marry them – you just borrow them.’
So why, at an age where most women are expected to be swapping late nights and sexy stilettos for comfy slippers and nights in front of the telly, is she still doing this?
‘Sex makes you feel more alive,’ she says, putting her healthy libido down to her hormone replacement therapy, which includes a small dose of testosterone.
‘Sex is a great anti-ager and also a brilliant way of switching off from work and life stresses,’ Gaynor insists.
‘Older men tend to go after younger women, but younger men like older women and want to please you and seduce you. They don’t want mothering – it’s older men who want looking after. Younger men make me feel in touch with the world.
‘My aim is to make older women-younger men age gaps acceptable.
‘Sexual attraction is about whatever turns you on and it’s time people turned their thinking around by not treating women who like younger men as sexual pariahs.’
Gaynor’s book, Sex and the Signposts, is available on Amazon. And check out sexandthesignposts.com