By: ultrahedonist

ultrahedonist — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 06:53:45 +0000

I for one am not swayed
I don’t think it’s unethical for a man to have a sexual preference for significantly younger women, although I do think pursuing this preference in the world is likely to be ethically and practically complicated.
For example, I think that if a man is only sexually attracted to young bodies he has an obligation to disclose to any young woman he gets into a relationship with that he is fairly likely to lose sexual interest in her as she ages, and that if/when this happens, he’s likely to end the relationship and seek a younger partner. This is important because it allows the woman in question to consider whether that risk is something she’s willing to take before proceeding.
I also think the detail of how the man in this scenario feels and acts is relevant. Is he cold-heartedly discarding his sexual partners without any regard for their feelings? Or does it pain him that he’s no longer sexually attracted to them? Has he done his best to end the relationship in the kindest possible way, or has he ridiculed his partner’s looks and rejected her cruelly?
If an older man attracted only to substantially younger women manages to go through life having a series of such relationships while a) being careful not to sexually harass, scare or intimidate the young women he’s interested in b) honestly disclosing this preference and its likely implications, c) having regard for the well-being of his potential partners (for example, only pursuing relationships with women who seem emotionally strong and self-assured enough to survive more or less in tact) d) treating his partners well during relationships, and e) ending the relationships in the kindest way possible, then I honestly see no ethical problem. I realize that few men in the actual world would meet all these conditions, but even so, I think it’s this – rather than the aesthetic/sexual preference in and of itself – that is unethical.
While I won’t morally judge this hypothetical man I do feel a bit sorry for him, because he’s going to struggle to have a fulfilling and sustainable romantic/sexual life. Few young women will reciprocate his sexual attraction in the first place (unless he’s extraordinarily attractive). Even those that do will mostly be unwilling to get involved with him once he tells them that he will probably no longer be attracted to them when they’re older. And even if they do agree to proceed on this basis, he’s probably going to feel a lot of guilt and anguish over the impact his preferences can have on others’ feelings. So for practical reasons alone I would advise him to give changing his preferences a shot!

By: Max

Max — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:37:30 +0000

Neil: Great post. You might think that the notion of exploitation comes into play when older men date younger women whereas it doesn’t when talking about people only dating a certain “type”, and that this explains our intuitions (although, it might not justify them). It seems plausible that our intuitions against older men dating younger women are caused by a belief to the effect of “One ought not have sexual interactions with someone much less intellectually capable than him/herself because doing so is a type of exploitation.” This might be (at least one of) the principles which accounts for intuitions against pedophilia or sexual interactions between mentally high functioning adults and the severely mentally handicapped (that is, if it is in fact the case that we think older people are typically more intellectually capable than younger people). Of course, the common intuition might simply be a product of our evolution in one way or another, suggesting that it is unjustified.

Comments on: More on Types: A Puzzle

By: ultrahedonist

By: Max