Do you have a thing for Justin Bieber, or the floppy-haired nymphs from One Direction? You are not alone. LML takes a closer look at the age of the tween boy crush and asks, are we perverts?
A few weeks ago I was sat on my sofa with a friend watching X Factor, not a usual position for LML to be in but I figured if I didn’t want to remain a perpetual social outcast I should try and engage with the cultural zeitgeist. I did in fact, rather enjoy it, and I wasn’t the only one. “Oh my god, I love Harry Styles, he is so fit!” panted my friend next to me. Really? Even though his legs are the size of tree stumps and he drinks Smirnoff Ice through a straw? Is it just me who wants to give him a quart of milk and a cookie before affectionately ruffling his curls and tucking him up with the latest Tin Tin?
My friend is just one of an increasing number of twenty-something women harbouring a crush on a much younger man. Where once women lusted after the likes of distinguished older gentlemen like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford, now we’re going for a new, younger brand of sex appeal: Robert Pattinson, the boys from Skins, even Harry Potter has an element of geek chic. They’re young, talented and gorgeous with none of the emotional baggage of the older generation. Who wants to fantasize about a 48 year old with a dodgy beard going through a mid-life crisis?
Another friend recently embarked on a rather ill-advised, romantic tryst with a 17 year old with braces (and no not the jaunty fashion statement kind favoured by ageing history professors, the other kind). Her justification was “well, he’s legal.” Isn’t that the same thing 30 year old men say to themselves when they’re prowling bars on the look out for impressionable young women?! To be fair to her I get the impression he was wise beyond his years, and most importantly, a very enthusiastic participant in said trysting.
Admittedly I am somewhat biased in the old vs. young debate given I have a penchant for old(er) men, mostly for entirely superficial reasons. LML is not ashamed to admit to adhering to the life philosophy that the older your boyfriend, the younger you look. The same goes for boyfriends who are curvy / tall, making you appear slim / petite. It’s illusory dating, and before you all throw your hands up in mock horror (‘me? superficial? I SO go for personality…’Whatever love, I saw you out with that Calvin Klein model with the reading level of a 3 year old) just remember that all these old, chubby, tall boyfriends are gaining some serious cool credentials by dating comparatively skinny, young, short girlfriends. It’s win-win!
LML believes that unless there are serious mitigating factors (yacht ownership, for example) if a man has significantly less wrinkles than you then he’s a no-go. Do you really want to look all pruney and haggard next to the taut creaminess of your lover’s youthful visage? Enough respect to Madonna for nailing bonafide hottie Jesus, if I have a tenth of her chutzpah and devil-may-care irreverence when I’m her age I’ll be a very happy woman, but doesn’t she ever stop and think “I’m actually dating a toddler”?
On balance, I suspect that we are not perverts. Most women might harbour a secret crush for the likes of Harry and co but if actually confronted with the possibility of a little extra-curricular activity behind the bike sheds I suspect most would gracefully decline. After all, real life so rarely lives up to the wistful fantasies we construct in our heads. I remember what a 16 year old kiss felt like and I think I can best describe it thus: Imagine being whipped round the back of the knees with a soggy skipping rope. Then imagine that in your mouth, over and over and over again whilst your neck tilted to one side gets increasingly sore and you wonder wearily when this slimy ordeal will be over so you can race back to your friends and boast about how amazing your first kiss was. You’d forgotten, hadn’t you? Reliving the moment? Relieved it’s all over? Exactly.
After all hard liquor, broad shoulders and a steamy, knee-buckling kiss is what sorts the men from the boys. Sorry Justin.
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