Lookout!
Young starlets, watch out! Powerful Hollywood women are breaking traditional barriers.
Back in the 1970s, people were incredulous when Burt Reynolds, then a major sex symbol, had a four-year romance with singer and TV-show host Dinah Shore, who was 20 years older. Heartthrob John Travolta, then 22, similarly raised eyebrows when he proclaimed his love for actress Diana Hyland, 18 years his senior. After all, the thinking went, men that hot could have any young starlet they wanted. Today, few people would look twice at such romances, especially when they involve high-profile Hollywood women who date down in age. "These actresses aren't just beautiful -- they have money! And power!" Fisher notes. Goldie Hawn, 56, has happily cohabited with Kurt Russell, half a decade her junior, for 19 years. Geena Davis, 46, is wed to 31-year-old surgeon Reza Jarrahy. Julianne Moore, 41, has settled down with director Bart Freundlich, 32. Even Madonna, 44, the Material Girl herself, appears to have been tamed by 34-year-old director Guy Ritchie. "We all benefit from celebrity women breaking these barriers," says Susan Winter, coauthor of Older Women, Younger Men: New Options for Love and Romance. "Eventually our society may accept that you don't have to be young to have a man attracted to you." In fact, older women with younger men is a trend that's gaining mainstream momentum: The most recent U.S. Census Bureau figures show that in the year 2000, 12 percent of all marriages were between older women and younger men. Online dating services are also seeing the change: A recent poll conducted by the personals Website Match.com showed a majority of male clients were willing to date up in age. Of course, if an older woman is past her childbearing years, she and her younger man may miss out on being parents. And yet, in many ways, these pairings make biological sense: Women live longer than men and reach their sexual peak later. What's more, they often become financially successful as they get older. And with money comes freedom. "A woman who's financially secure can acquire whatever kind of partner she wants," Fisher says. In some cases, a younger man represents the chance for a woman to make better choices than she did earlier on, says Jane Greer, Ph.D., a marriage and sex therapist and author of How Could You Do This to Me? Learning to Trust After Betrayal. "Most women in their 30s or 40s have usually been with the so-called Mr. Right," Greer says, "only to find out that he wasn't ultimately right for them. These women go on to have a much clearer sense of what they are looking for in a partner, and they don't get discouraged if they find those qualities in a man who's younger." Fisher agrees: "We're seeing more of what are called 'peer marriages,' in which partners are marrying for companionship rather than for the traditional reproductive or economic reasons." As for an older woman's fear that a younger man will leave her, Winter says that the couples she interviewed had been together an average of 13 years. "If you ask me, you're more likely to be dumped if you're a trophy wife, because then you'll be traded in for an even shinier trophy," cracks Winter, who at 47 is herself involved with a man 16 years her junior. Greer puts it differently: "If you find somebody intriguing and he seems equally intrigued by you, don't automatically say no just because of a number."
