The new romantic comedy, The Idea of You, based of the popular book of the same title, explores the beauty of age-gap relationships—specifically when an older woman dates a younger man. In this case, a 40-year-old single mom (played by Anne Hathaway) finds an unexpected romance with a 24-year-old boy band singer (Nicholas Galitzine).
These types of relationships have appeared in the spotlight with what seems like more frequency in recent years. Take, for example, Kristin Cavallari, 37, who is newly dating 24-year-old TikTokker Mark Estes.
Women are reaping the benefits of these relationships, too. According to a 2024 poll, 57 percent of women who date younger are more likely to rate their relationship “good to excellent” in the sexual satisfaction and fulfillment category. And 74 percent of older women dating younger men with an age gap of 10 years or more reported a “good to excellent” physical connection.
“We tend to have all kinds of assumptions about why people get into relationships with much younger people,” says Sarah E. Hill, PhD, a women’s sexual research psychologist and author of This Is Your Brain On Birth Control. However, the number-one thing this poll highlighted was these relationships were “the result of an organic connection between a couple of people who didn’t let age get in the way,” she explains.
Ahead, relationship experts weigh in on why it’s becoming more common for older women to date younger men—and what makes these types of relationships so satisfying.
More and more people are realizing that age is just a number.
Back in colonial times, it was pretty common for older men to marry younger women, in part because “there were more men than there were women, and that pushed the age of first marriage[s] for women down because there weren’t enough of them,” says Nicholas L. Syrett, PhD, a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas.
But in the present day, age isn’t even a deciding factor for many modern daters, according to a 2023 study conducted by Bumble. It found that 59 percent of women are specifically open to dating someone younger than them.
Plus, research has shown that the older you become, the less you care what others think. Approximately 23 percent of those between the ages of 18 to 34 are afraid of judgment from age-gap dating, while only seven percent of Americans ages 55 and up are concerned about societal opinion on their relationship.
A 2019 study in Gender and Society also busted the “cougar” stereotype that older women are typically the ones pursuing young men instead of the other way around. In a series of interviews with 55 women ages 30 to 60 who dated younger men, most women said they weren’t the initiators of the relationship—and that trend was even more pronounced among women interviewed over 40.
Meanwhile, older women are also often desexualized as they age. “We tend to, as a society, look at older women as a dwindling flame in life,” says Kate Balestrieri, PhD, a licensed psychologist, certified sex therapist, and founder of Modern Intimacy based in Los Angeles. “We really can minimize how vibrant and dynamic their 40s, 50s, 60s, and above can be.”
Older women find relationships with younger men satisfying for a variety of reasons.
Women are often very intentional, and the wisdom that comes with age plays into who they choose to date, Balestrieri and Engle say. “A lot of women are conditioned to make their sexual pleasure secondary to their partners,” Balestrieri says.
So, if the woman has spent the majority of her life raising children or has come out of a marriage, being with a younger man is “very exciting and very tempting as a relational prospect,” Engle says. Older women know their bodies significantly better than they did in their youth, and they’re ready to focus on their own exploration with a partner who prioritizes their pleasure equally—especially if they’ve been with the same person for decades, she adds.
What makes younger men so appealing to be with is that they’re generally more eager to learn, plus, they’re adventurous in terms of travel and life goals, Balestrieri adds. This eagerness translates to the bedroom, where a younger partner might be “anxious to please” and offer sexual stamina and gratification that an older woman may not have experienced in past relationships, Hill adds. (For example, in a previous marriage, the partners might have been set in their ways emotionally and sexually, Hill says.)
Anecdotally, many older women speak of feeling enthusiastic “about not only the reception they get with younger men, but about mutuality and pleasure and really diving into exploration,” and “also just physiologically, they feel more equally met,” Balestrieri notes.
Additionally, youthful men have a shorter refractory period, with the ability to have more frequent erections and a “quicker turnaround time for sexual activity” if that’s what’s desired, Balestrieri says. They also tend not to have erection problems, such as erectile dysfunction, Engle adds.
Same-sex relationships play by different rules.
Same-sex age-gap relationships are a bit different than heterosexual ones, due to the fact that age differences are much more normalized in the LGBTQ+ community. Take celeb couples Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor (32 years apart), Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi (15 years apart), and Elton John and David Furnish (15 years apart) as examples.
One reason for this is that queer communities have “had to make their own rules about relationships because in a lot of ways, they’re not following the traditional relationship script anyway,” says Hill. People who identify as LGBTQ+ have typically explored their sexuality more than the average straight person, according to Engle and Balestrieri.
So, while heterosexual relationships can easily have innate power imbalances—a.k.a., the “man of the house” stereotype, for example—those in the LGBTQ+ community aren’t as affected. Because they’ve often had to endure judgment from peers, loved ones, and society at large, they’re generally “more intentional around communication” in terms of power imbalances and other factors related to identity (especially being a public figure), wealth, and social status, Balestrieri adds.
The bottom line: When you combine the “sexual prowess and vitality of a younger man” with an older woman’s wisdom and readiness to explore herself, it can be a truly satisfying combination, Engle explains. The younger man’s open-mindedness and free-spiritedness resonates with women as they age and care less about what society thinks, according to Hill. Thinking about pursuing something with a younger individual? Go. For. It.
Meet the Experts: Nicholas L. Syrett, PhD, is a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas. Sarah E. Hill, PhD, is a women’s sexual research psychologist, and author of This Is Your Brain On Birth Control based in Texas. Gigi Engle is a certified sex educator and the author of All The F*cking Mistakes: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life. Kate Balestrieri, PhD, a licensed psychologist, certified sex therapist, and founder of Modern Intimacy based in Los Angeles.
Olivia is a writer, content creator, and podcast host passionate about food, lifestyle, and shopping with a B.A. in Communications and Political Science. When Olivia isn’t typing away or reading Barnes & Noble’s latest psychological thriller, she can be found lying on the beach, working up a sweat at a kickboxing class, or sitting on a flight headed to her next travel destination. Her work has been seen in Glamour, Refinery29, Biography, Stylecaster and more.
