Female Supremacy Articles - Page 18

Screen 26 of 36

But is that really the case? Does the age gap matter? And why are more women choosing younger partners?

There is, of course, a very obvious answer. Much like Mrs Merton's query to Debbie McGee about what it was that "attracted her to the millionaire Paul Daniels", the decision to go with a more youthful, limber, smouldering man is not hard to understand.

On the woman's side, a partner enjoying his sexual prime will always be more attractive than an ageing husband whose sex drive is on the downturn. And, for a younger man, the experience and confidence of a woman in her thirties can deliver the eroticism which may be lacking from a less worldly and mature woman who is just beginning their romantic life.

"Sex may certainly be a factor," says Phillip Hodson, a fellow at the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. "Men do reach their sexual peak at around 19, whereas women do so much later, around 38 years old. But, more importantly, our views of female sexuality have changed in recent decades. Women are no longer viewed with a peasant mentality - that they are attractive in their breeding years and not thereafter. We have moved away from that prejudice and, now, just as men are fertile until they die, we have acknowledged that women are sexual until they die."