Likes older women vs. Likes older men

The trope "Christmas Cake" was recently renamed to "Likes Older Women" and while that is fine, the other issue is that during the rename, or possibly before it the examples of this trope genderflipped or "Likes Older Men" types were deleted and a line stating that it's not this trope if younger girl's were after older men despite "Likes Older Men" still being a redirect straight to the trope in question.

So my question is: Why wouldn't genderflipped examples go on that page as well? Or at the very least the page be split for examples from both sides, like many other "Type A" "Type B" kinds of tropes?

edited 31st Jul '14 10:22:14 AM by AlzariEmperor

Discussion tab leading to this thread.

Part of the reason a younger man preferring older women is its own trope, but a younger woman preferring older men isn't, is that socially, older men are often treated as still sexually attractive, in a way that older women generally are not (see Silver Fox), or desirable for some other reason — generally status or money: (Golddigger, Trophy Wife). A woman older than a certain age (probably about mid-thirties, sometimes younger) is seen as "past her prime" (Christmas Cake, Old Maid) and if she's involved with a younger man, the relationship is often presumed to be one that was instigated by her rather than by him, and is predatory to a degree (see Cougar/Mrs. Robinson).

Finally, not every trope has or needs an inverse or genderflipped version.

edited 31st Jul '14 2:01:36 PM by Madrugada

But Silver Fox states that it's a case of "some, not all, men can really pull off the older look." Aside from that the trope isn't about the man, it'd be about the younger character interested in them instead of the boys their own age. Middle aged is past the prime of both sexes stereotypically, hence the "fat-balding grumpy old guy" image for men, and the "Wrinkly old lady that can't get married" thing for women. For older men being seen as still sexually attractive, that's the point of the Likes Older Women trope. To show that someone is interested in them, A boy into older women could say: "I don't like girl's my age. I'm only interested in real women." and a girl into older men could say: "I don't like boys. I prefer men." It's the same thing. The issue with status or money is the same either way: [[Golddigger Golddiggers]] and Trophy Wife Trophy Spouses]] exist all the time in both genders.

As for the last point, I agree we don't need to use another page, but saying it's gender exclusive when there's no real divide except that doesn't seem all that useful.

edited 31st Jul '14 10:32:32 PM by AlzariEmperor

Although, men who repeatedly/exclusively date younger women is probably a trope, too.

Likes Older Women is gender-exclusive because young men preferring older women and pursuing them by choice over younger women is generally treated differently than younger women liking older men in fiction.

While one stereotype of middle aged men is "fat grumpy and balding", it's not the only one, and men past their mid-thirties are not generally presented as sexually unattractive and unmarriageable simply because of their age.

We deal in storytelling here, which may reflect the reality, but doesn't always. And tropes don't have to be universal to be tropes.

edited 31st Jul '14 10:36:53 PM by Madrugada

In what way would is it treated differently? Some characters respond with "Yeah, I see what you mean." Some with "Eww, but they're so much older." some with "Whatever." etc.etc. The usual "Attractive older man" in fiction is usually portrayed as the "Fresh out of college" type, whether as a teacher or whatever-have-you.

If, for example, the show normally has a cast of "fresh-out-of-highschool" female characters and one of them never dates the "Immature party animal" guys her age and focuses her attention on her teachers, wouldn't that be an example of Likes Older Men because it's the same trope genderflipped. Additionally, the "Unattractive and unmarrigable" part is no longer part of the trope anyway since the rename from Cake Eater and created a distance from Christmas Cake. Now the description only explains it as "A male character interested in female characters over his age range." There is no reason for it to be exclusively "Young man Older Woman."

edited 1st Aug '14 12:19:03 PM by AlzariEmperor

Traditionally, youth is seen as a highly desirable trait in women in a way that it wasn't in men. For a long time in Western civilization, men in their late twenties or thirties marrying women who were still teenagers was normal and commonplace, and that still informs modern culture to a certain extent.

Basically, whether or not it has basis in reality, in the world of fiction, women who like/don't mind dating older men may be a case of People Sit On Chairs: just not remarkable enough to be tropeworthy.

That said, I do think we could definitely create some tropes about men and women who repeatedly seek out much younger lovers, usually in an effort to make themselves feel young.

I agree that the first point is a good point, it would also work as a good "Real Life" entry of note on the page.

As for the People Sit On Chairs part I have to disagree. The idea of a teenage girl, for example, being attracted to her fresh out of college history teacher, or her Science teacher's assistant, or even just the HS Seniors while she's a freshman is pretty much this trope genderswapped. Freshman boy likes exclusively Senior Girls? Likes Older Women. Highschool Boy likes Mature Teachers? Likes Older Women.

Now just swap the genders, it's the same trope. The only real difference is some really old reasoning that seems more like trying to dredge up excuses to why it should stay "Only boys liking their women well developed, and more mature is notable. Girl's liking their men more mature is People Sit On Chairs"

edited 1st Aug '14 12:31:52 PM by AlzariEmperor

No, a teenaged girl being attracted to a college aged guy or a young teacher is not this trope.

The core of this trope is that the women is old enough that society deems her too old to still be attractive or desirable. Not simply that there's an age difference. Changing the name from Cake Eater didn't change that. It simply did away with the connotation that this is a Japanese trope.

Except the trope itself doesn't say any of that, like at all.

"A character who proudly and often loudly proclaims their preference for an older female romantic partner. The woman may not be a real Christmas Cake, but she's obviously older. The exact reasons can be anything from liking a more intellectual woman to simply wanting someone with a bigger cup size. This preference is most obvious in shonen and seinen, which otherwise tend to concentrate on women of a younger age bracket."

So it could be a 14 year old and a 21 year old and still qualify for this trope, hardly a "Christmas cake" and even the Playing With page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PlayingWith/LikesOlderWomen doesn't say anything about "society" or anything like that.

The trope is, as described by the page's Laconic: He Likes Older Women. Nothing about society, just that. Why, in keeping with the description of the trope, is She Likes Older Men, not part of this trope?

Oh and there is a trope for that, you're thinking of Mrs. Robinson, which has the same weird gender divide this one does, but let's focus on this one first.

edited 1st Aug '14 2:28:52 PM by AlzariEmperor

Weird thing is, the Mrs. Robinson page says the male version of the trope is Dirty Old Man, but Dirty Old Man is really the male version of Dirty Old Woman. Unlike those tropes, the Mrs. Robinson can be legitimate Casanova, just one whose predilection is for those much younger than herself. There doesn't seem to be a male version of that.

Which is what I meant by "Weird Gender divide," though I would rather we fix this issue with Likes Older Women before going after the next.

edited 1st Aug '14 3:27:09 PM by AlzariEmperor

You haven't established that there's an issue with Likes Older Women for anyone but you, and this is not TRS. We aren't going be making any changes based on this thread.

There's no need to mod up I'm aware we're not going to be making changes without taking it to trope repair shop, and that Trope Talk isn't where decisions like that are made.

I suppose it just bugs me that there's not really any justification for claiming one half is a trope but the other isn't, especially with the description given on the trope page. Meanwhile, every reason for why is from another trope page or from old history.

It's like, take Kenji from Persona 3. He likes older women. A lot. He regularly says that girl's his age aren't his thing. He constantly raves about how great the teachers are. He's a textbook example. But according to this, if Kenji was a girl talking about boys and men like that, it wouldn't count anymore because of "Old social reasons not on the trope."

Why?

Well, sire, people have explained in @3, @6 and @8 why this trope doesn't cover "Likes older men".

That said, the trope page doesn't mention at all why the trope doesn't cover "likes older men" save for an unexplained "Please stick to examples where the older character is female. Preference for older men is not this trope." tag. Someone needs to add the info here to the page or the Analysis/ tab - I am currently not up for that.

It still seems like a bunch of arbitrary and sometimes unsatisfactory reasons that were dredged up for the sake of not allowing certain examples, but if the trope page is updated then I guess I can't complain because it's actually pointed out.

Just thinkkng out loud, but the Likes Older Men redirect should probably be removed as well if it doesn't apply to the trope, and there are at least 8 pages that link to it under that name, so shouldn't those examples be removed as well?

edited 2nd Aug '14 8:12:23 AM by alzariemperor

There is an assumption in our society that the older a woman is, the less attractive she becomes. Therefore, a man who prefers older women is seen as rare and noteworthy. Society also assumes that women aren't terribly interested in how men look, but more interested in qualities like experience, wealth, and (emotional) maturity, which men usually acquire with age. Therefore, a woman who prefers older men is seen as perfectly normal and not worth commenting on.

I'm not saying those things are true, but those are the cultural assumptions behind the creation of this trope.

That said, I do think Likes Older Men should be a trope. If Buxom Is Better doesn't violate the People Sit On Chairs rule, then I don't see how this one does.

edited 2nd Aug '14 2:13:14 PM by RavenWilder

Buxom Is Better requires that "the female character needs to be seen as more attractive in-universe because of her larger breasts. Her breasts should at least be referenced in dialogue if not an integral part of the character." It's not simply "big breasts = attractive" which would mostly be Chairs..

edited 2nd Aug '14 2:17:18 PM by Madrugada

Buxom Is Better means that a character refers to a woman as being more attractive because of her larger breasts. Likes Older Men would be about a character finding older men more attractive because of their greater age. What's the difference?

Pretty much everything Wilder said in (18) is pretty much reasons why a Girl could be into older men that would make it notable. Additionally, I would also like to point out that while in the old days it was pretty normal, nowadays a girl going after a man ten years older than her, like say her teacher is seen as odd by today's standards. Sort of an evolution of the mindset.

That sounds like a trope indeed. You ought to put it through YKTTW and perhaps reuse Likes Older Men for it.

I'd recommend that you make it limited to cases where someone actually comments on a character's fondness for older men in-universe. If the character is involved with one or more older men, but no one in the story suggests this is a particular fetish of theirs, it'd probably just be May–December Romance.

Alright, going to start on that. Haven't actually added anything to YKTTW so it should be a learning experience.

I was thinking that. I was also thinking to post it if it's implied in universe by recursion. A few examples on the "Related to..." has a few examples where the character simply shows repeated interest into men above their normal age range.

edited 3rd Aug '14 8:32:30 AM by alzariemperor

^^ And where there's no other motive for her to be interested solely in older men — that is, she's not a golddigger or looking to become a Trophy Wife.