Friday, Jul 25, 2008
Biologically, it makes more sense for older women to have sex with younger men -- unless they want to talk afterward.
Oct 16, 2002 | I can't seem to get away from news about cross-generational relationships. Some of the stories, thank goodness, are about older women and younger men. There's the always-juicy gossip about actress Joan Collins' marriage to a husband 32 years younger than she is; iVillage has a special "younger men" section; and then there's Marissa Monteilh's book "May December Souls." Even Bollywood, the Indian film industry in Bombay that has thrived on stories of men romancing women a quarter their age, is suddenly releasing four films with leading actresses exploring their sexuality with much younger men.
However, the recent Hollywood film "The Man From Elysian Fields" returns the subject to its more traditional view: rich older man married to young, attractive woman. And then there's the VIP Life dating service in New York, which takes supreme advantage of horny, wealthy men by making sure they part with at least $10,000 to get a chance at landing sexy arm candy.
If I weren't happily married, maybe I could have a date with one of these tycoons. I meet VIP matchmaker Lisa Clampitt's standards: I'm attractive (she actually says the standard is beautiful, but with Photoshop that's just an airbrush or two away); I'm thin (112 on a 5-foot-7 frame, which might be a heifer compared to Kate Moss, but I'm a famine survivor by American, McDonald's-loving standards); and I have an artistic side (being silly enough to pay my bills by writing for a living qualifies as artistic or nuts). So far, so good. Uh-oh. I just saw the last requirement. Clampitt looks for women in their 20s and early 30s so the men can experience "five years of fun and then have kids." Damn. I'm 51, old enough to be the mother of most of the girls. No kids for this post-menopausal woman.
But don't worry, girls; don't let it get you down. If anything, once you know just a touch about the biology of aging, you might be glad you aren't in the clutches of some older man. These older man-younger woman relationships don't make a lot of sense, at least in bed.
It's pretty simple. A man's testosterone peaks around 21. By the time a man reaches his late 30s, his testosterone levels have dropped by half. My favorite little stat to scare any overly macho man is that almost 80 percent of men over age 42 have some degree of impotency. The testosterone loss also means they lose muscle tone and bone mass (pec implants look good in photos but feel like rubber, so forget the surgery, fellows), have foggier memories, suffer bouts of fatigue and depression, and -- most critical for most men -- lose their sex drive. Also, higher levels of testosterone in middle age tend to cause baldness, so the men who keep their levels fairly high often pay the price with hair loss. Welcome to a midlife crisis, fellows.
On top of the falloff in testosterone, men experience drops in other hormones such as DHEA (it stands for Dehydroepiandrosterone, which will tell you why everyone abbreviates it), which is only a couple of steps removed from testosterone. As DHEA drops, the body is more susceptible to illness, fat replaces muscle and, again, sex drive declines. Cortisol, often dubbed the "stress hormone," is manufactured by the adrenal glands, and its production also diminishes in middle age. That means less energy. And to top it off, human growth hormone, which helps everything from muscle tone to skin firmness, starts plummeting through the 30s and 40s. It's not a pretty sight. These drops exacerbate every bad effect of the testosterone dive. In severe cases, doctors describe the condition as "andropause," the male equivalent of menopause.
No wonder golf becomes a popular pastime for many middle-aged men. And none of this physical meltdown signifies high-octane performance in bed. While plenty of over-the-counter supplements of DHEA and pills promising to promote the production of growth hormone and testosterone are sold in health food stores and over the Internet, no one is quite sure what the right dosage is, whether the pills really work, and if there are any long-term side effects from trying to artificially restore the hormones that mother nature has taken away.
Sure, Viagra helps. That drug at least will guarantee an erection, which is half the battle for the testosterone-starved older man. But Viagra can cause side effects, from relatively mild ones like headaches, stomach upset, flushed skin and urinary tract infections, to serious problems like heart attacks. Some researchers have tied more than 500 deaths to Viagra, while Viagra boosters contest the link.
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