by There is no greater gift one can give another than the bloom of their youth in its prime sexual and creative fertility.
The risk in the offering of youth is that fertility is attracted to
power — and power, by the very notion of its being — subsumes all
tenders and youth quickly becomes creaky and fertility dries barren as
its hollows are left to fallow.
We see this folly in evidence every day as successful older men pluck
ripe girls.
We feel it as athletes are rotted in their prime by awful teams.
We know children are beholden to parents who may not adore them.
We hear muffled screams as unions swallow their young.
We
realize it as kids are put off to their killing in war where they find
mortality before promise.
Power is not interested in experience or insight or wrinkles — all
signs of maturity and introspection — because those trinkets of
humanity are indices of wisdom and thought and learning and they are
all dangerous to power vacuums which require the unrequited
relinquishing of that which can never be recaptured or recreated.
How do you explain older women and younger men? Is is the same exchange or something different?
My feeling, Anne, is the reverse is unsustainable geographically and geriatrically and I’ll tell you why.
What do young men have to offer older women other than the guttural? They may offer the possibility fertility, but to what end other than mere pleasure?
Few women of any age lack for willing partners when it comes to the free offering of sexual pleasure.
The likelihood of reproduction between an older woman and a younger man is slimmer than the reverse I argue in my article because the power older men seek in “ripe girls” is the capacity to reproduce — even if not acted upon — in the ability to propagate their gene pool in evolutionary progression.
Without that incentive of continuing on related genes in the exchange of fertility for power between an older woman and a younger man, the barter itself is false and powerless and barren except for a rudimentary playfulness that I find lacking in the grander human dimension.
Is that why many more women than men get plastic surgery do you think?
Yes, Anne, I think that’s it. Those women want to regain their youth and fertility by faking out those in power who they hope will seek their ripeness.
They do that by changing their face from wrinkled to expressionless and by plumping the lips and enlarging the breasts to provide the semiotic of a body younger than it really is…
That’s a funny link, Nicola!
What is your take on the matter of today’s article? Are youth and fertility fruitfully exchange for power and access or not?
I would hazard a guess that the powerful have always had their pick of the most beautiful and the most fertile. Simply because they have been able too. The most powerful warrior in the pack will always have had the pick of the most beautiful and fertile women.
What is interesting to me is how the perception of power is changing. It started off as pure brute strength, then intelligence has been added into the mix , followed by money, connections and even these days *celebrity status* . Power has almost morphed into *fame*.
That’s an interesting comment, Nicola!
My experience shows — in the ordinary, ugly, people — that the old need the young to recapture their youth and the price they pay is sharing their power.
The problem is that the youth is wasted on the selfish and not shared in kind with other fertile bodies where differences can matter in future propagation.
The Trophy Wife phenomenon runs only one way in the scheme of evolution.
I would hate to have been a trophy wife – the risk of being traded in is very high I should think.
How prevalent amongst the ordinary people is the trophy wife syndrome? I am wracking my brains – going through the people I know to see if any fit the bill.
As to reversing it around – one extraordinary example comes to mind – Barbara Cartland and her toy boys – well into her advanced years .
Nicola!
I think the definition of “Trophy Wife” may be in the eyes of the beholder. In my eyes, any older man with a younger woman is part of the syndrome because there is no other earthly reason for them to be together unless there has been an exchange agreement for the provocation of youth and beauty and money and power. You know they aren’t arm-in-arm and hand-in-pocket to create a new family unless a lot of guaranteed commerce has already been exchanged behind the scenes.
I think the limit for “Trophy Wifedom” is around 30 years — or at least a doubling of the wife’s age if she is truly a girl.
In the Midwest wealthy farmers — millionaires — have “acquired” very young girls as their “new wife” in exchange for taking care of her family. It’s sort of common to see the weathered and the tender young in some parts of the Great Plains and it’s always a shocker.
Oh, I’m sure there are cougars and barracudas out there — awful terms, aren’t they? — where older women are predators for young, male, flesh, but does the exchange do anything of permanence for the pretty young boys they conquer?
The example you give is almost akin to the arranged marriages of the Victorian days in the UK and those that still occur in other religions.
I haven’t personally encountered such large and obvious gaps in age – probably just as well as that kind of age difference makes me feel uncomfortable.
It does sound like an arranged marriage, Nicola. They are quite fascinating and generally humiliating.
I know young Indian women — smart, successful, educated, excellent jobs with outstanding futures as MDs — who are tethered back to their families who find them unfit and unattractive because they are “getting too old” for them to marry off. Marriage is everything, money and status are nothing if earned by the daughter. It is the man who must come to define her…
I suppose the brightest and bleariest warning we have against the Trophy Wife Syndrome is Anna Nicole Smith and Howard Marshall:
http://estb.msn.com/i/81/F811CA66AA66CDEAC424F1A62277F.jpg
Ick!
I was thinking of Anna Nicole Smith – didn’t do either of them much good in the long run.
Exactly!
It was DOOMED from the start. He wanted her breasts — as Anna told us many times — and she wanted his money. A fair enough exchange, I suppose, as long as both partners are willing, but don’t tell us it’s true love and that they’re in it for the children they plan to create…
Hi David,
I guess, with the rapid advancement of technology, I guess pregnancy after 35/40 is not that big a deal – it’s possible but yes, risky.
The reason for older people chossing young girls serve both purposes – the old gets the “trophy” and the young gets the money – it’s purely business.
It’s sad but the but the first thing I thought of was the storyline in Coronation Street when the character of Danny Baldwin left his wife for his son’s girlfriend. At first they were only seeing each other on a lark but then it turned serious – even more interesting is that his wife used to be their babysitter – so this wasn’t the first time he went for a younger woman. Here it really was a matter of wanting to feel young by going for someone younger. It also was about power and getting what he wanted regardless of the cost – he lost his son, basically.
Hi Katha!
I agree that dyad is about money and pleasure and rarely about starting a new family! 😀
That’s a good lesson, Gordon, thanks!
I know a lot of older men who ruin their families to chase the young body and, in the end, it ends in a bad way for both of them as the “girl” ages into a wiser woman. She bolts from the control and power that initially attracted her.
Harrison Ford married Calista Flockhart. She’s 22 years younger. Clint Eastwood is 34 years older than his wife. Some say men of that stature, power and age want a “nurse” and not a wife. They want someone to take care of their health, not have sex with them.
Thanks for directing me here David!
It’s as though the old, rich and powerful exact a price on youth.
Thankfully not all youth is for sale.
The best one can do is become successful by their own merit and throw away those schemes!
PS: Funny what you said about the placebo effect 😀
iris!
Glad you made it here! 😀
I’m happy you realize your fertile youth is incredibly attractive to negative elements out there that would not think twice about squeezing you up and spitting you out after they’ve sucked you dry.
The placebo effect has kept many a man’s dignity intact. 😉