(Source: DOI 10.1080/19419899.2024.2321149)
Age is an important dimension of sexual attraction. For most men, bodies in late adolescence and early adulthood are the most attractive, but there are also minorities for whom middle age (
mesophilia) and old age (
gerontophilia) are the most attractive. So there’s no need to worry. Of course, there are also people who have no age preferences and base their preferences solely on other characteristics.
Tony Silva: An intimate look at gay and bisexual daddies and their younger partners (NYU Press 2023, 248 pp.)
“There were three main reasons younger men enjoyed pairing with older men. The first reason involves desirable characteristics of older men:
emotional maturity,
stability, and
nonsexual experience. The second reason involves
feeling better connection or compatibility with older men compared to men their own age. Younger men discussed sharing similar life goals and perspectives; feeling comforted, cared for, or protected around older men; enjoyment of mentorship and nurturance; and distinct interpersonal dynamics that were difficult to explain.’ The third theme involves
physicality and sex. Younger adult men, unsurprisingly, reported
physical attraction to older men. Many also reported that they had
better sex with older men and noticed unique and enjoyable sexual dynamics not present when they had sex with men around their own age. Some younger adult men also wanted to be sexually dominated by older men as part of a consensual sexual dynamic.
Many themes overlap and are interconnected.
It is not merely happenstance that younger adult men paired with older men, nor were these pairings driven primarily by older men.
Most younger men actively sought older-younger pairings. In contrast to stereotypes, most younger men did not report issues with their biological fathers that made older men more appealing. Instead, they desired older men for a variety of reasons that had little to do with younger men’s personal backgrounds.” (p. 92)
That’s just how it goes.
Jesse Singal: Being Into Middle-Aged People Is Probably a Sexual Orientation
“If you haven’t heard the above term “
mesophilia” before, that’s because Seto created it to to refer to people who are attracted to middle-aged individuals. “I think nobody has studied mesophilia yet because it’s not seen as a pressing need clinically,” Seto explained. In other words — and this is a point he makes in his paper as well — if a mesophile goes about searching for sexual gratification by casing the local Target for dads who are down, it doesn’t put anyone at risk of harm (homewrecking aside) or lead to lawbreaking in the way a pedophile searching for victims does. So because of the lack of research interest in mesophilia, Seto is inferring the existence of this orientation rather than pointing to an established literature on it.”
But logically, it’s extremely likely mesophilia is real. One compelling reason to believe in it is that there is clinical evidence to suggest sexual orientations directed toward every other age range, from nepiophilia all the way up to gerontophilia (though for the aforementioned reasons researchers have exhibited far more interest in pedophilia than gerontophilia). Why would there be a gap for middle-aged people? Another piece of evidence is — ahem — pornography. While ever-popular MILF and DILF videos tend to focus on men and women who are actually in their 30s and therefore not in the preferred age range of mesophilia, Seto writes, so-called “granny” videos and their ilk, on the other hand, do tend to feature performers in their 40s and 50s. The fact that a lot of these videos get made suggests there is a market for them, which adds some weight to the case for mesophilia (though people with one orientation can certainly dabble in pornography or sexual activities associated with another).”
Source
| B is Δ years or x% older than A | | | | | | | |
|---|
A (Younger) | Δ=4 | Δ=8 | Δ=12 | Δ=16 | Δ=20 | Δ=24 | Δ=28 | Δ=32 |
|---|
| 18 | 22.2 % | 44.4 % | 66.7 % | 88.9 % | 111.1 % | 133.3 % | 155.6 % | 177.8 % |
| 22 | 18.2 % | 36.4 % | 54.5 % | 72.7 % | 90.9 % | 109.1 % | 127.3 % | 145.5 % |
| 26 | 15.4 % | 30.8 % | 46.2 % | 61.5 % | 76.9 % | 92.3 % | 107.7 % | 123.1 % |
| 30 | 13.3 % | 26.7 % | 40.0 % | 53.3 % | 66.7 % | 80.0 % | 93.3 % | 106.7 % |
| 34 | 11.8 % | 23.5 % | 35.3 % | 47.1 % | 58.8 % | 70.6 % | 82.4 % | 94.1 % |
| 38 | 10.5 % | 21.1 % | 31.6 % | 42.1 % | 52.6 % | 63.2 % | 73.7 % | 84.2 % |
| 42 | 9.5 % | 19.0 % | 28.6 % | 38.1 % | 47.6 % | 57.1 % | 66.7 % | 76.2 % |
| 46 | 8.7 % | 17.4 % | 26.1 % | 34.8 % | 43.5 % | 52.2 % | 60.9 % | 69.6 % |
| 50 | 8.0 % | 16.0 % | 24.0 % | 32.0 % | 40.0 % | 48.0 % | 56.0 % | 64.0 % |
