OF MAY AND DECEMBER

     The other day, I was perusing a site on the Blogroll which deals with relationships. A commenter there was relating a story, and one sentence really caught my attention; mostly because I hear far too much of this kind of thing aimed at men. He writes: "It was different with my wife. I’m 9 years older than she is. One co-worker described me as a 'cradle-robbing son-of-a bitch.'" I have to confess that if some guy had said something like to me, the bandages on his nose afterwards would have taught him to mind his tongue in the future, not to mention minding his own business. 

    Unfortunately, we here in the Anglosphere live in zeitgeist where people are conditioned not to mind their own business---especially where sexuality and relationships are concerned. This works out fine for people in so-called alternative lifestyles because such people crave public attention. For the rest of us, not so much. 

   At some point during the last generation, age differences in romantic relationships became socially taboo (at least among heterosexuals). Nobody seems to know why they should be taboo: one would think that in a culture as emasculated as ours would respect a man who was still sexually functional at middle age or beyond. But---as with most postmodern social prohibitions---it's something that people just accept (and become infuriated about) without knowing or caring why.

   To illustrate this point, let us take a hypothetical example. Suppose I was involved in a relationship with a woman 5, 10, or even 20 or more years my junior. How exactly does that effect you? How exactly does it effect our community, our nation, our culture, or our civilization?

    If most denizens of the Anglosphere were struck with a sudden and involuntary spasm of Reason, they might question why glorifying Lesbianism 24/7 to a young woman is harmless, but an older man showing normal romantic interest in her is somehow a grave threat to her innocence and purity. I suspect that this social attitude is driven by three fundamental causes:

   1. Widespread subconscious guilt over failed parenting. 

   2. Sexual Jealousy. 

   3. Cultural contempt for Privacy Rights in general. 

   The first of these is especially pronounced among a certain class of men who have young daughters. Inevitably, they're the loudest ones about how protective they are of their own (and everybody else's) daughters---even though it typically turns out that their extent of fatherhood was getting Visitation Rights on weekends and holidays, and paying Child Support. These types invariably project their own attitudes towards women on any romantic interest their daughter might develop, and the closer her love interest is to her father's age, the worse the projection gets. Her love for another man closer to her father's age is an obvious threat to a failed father's ego.

  Sexual jealousy needs very little explanation: it's particularly pronounced among both male and female Feminists as well as among latent and open homosexuals. Since Envy has been elevated to more or less of a virtue in Postmodern society, those who for whatever reason fail in relationships feel justified in attacking and denigrating whatever relationship others have that they desire. 

  This type of Envy isn't restricted however to the sociopolitical Left: it's fairly deeply entrenched among many on the Right. The Manosphere, especially among the Game/PUA cultists, is filled with the same sort of malicious hatred. Their accusing fingers typically point at the woman instead of the man; but the Envy motivating them is fairly obvious. 

   The third centers on our systemic suspicion of Privacy, which incidentally effects heterosexual relationships in general today. We see this especially in the generations who've grown up post-9/11. Part of intimacy is sharing our deepest selves exclusively with another person. Younger people have been conditioned reflexively to fear anything that isn't open to public exposure and criticism. Degenerate academics and media perverts---alongside the terrible examples set by their Boomer/Gen X parents---has also implanted a deep sexual negativity among younger people. They've largely been educated to see heterosexuality as something shameful, dirty, and even perverse: in their eyes, it's a dark world full of unknown risks, exploitation, abuse, and worst of all (to them), social disapproval. 

   Along with the erosion of Privacy, there has also arisen within our culture an unhealthy aspect of voyeurism, of which our first two points also play a prominent role. This is obvious from our media coverage of sex scandals and sex crimes. To put it bluntly, we've become a nation of Peeping Toms and most of these news stories, documentaries, and analyses are little more than soft-core pornography for the sexually frustrated to weave lurid fantasies around. 

  So, my advice to the commenter would be this: understand what is motivating your critics, and that you are grounded in Reality and they are not. Also, outside of your relationship, build a new network of friends and associates who are also grounded in Reality. We're not living in normal times, so one must act accordingly without compromising what one believes in and stands for.