Apparently, as a single, straight, 40-something woman, what I really need in my life is a man in his 20s. Or so suggests an interview with Sienna Miller in Vogue’s Winter 2024 issue. She’s been dating Oli Green, a fellow actor 14 years her junior, since the pandemic, and as proof of just how well not minding the dating age gap is working out for her, she appears on the magazine’s cover against a rugged seascape, lensed by Annie Leibovitz and pairing chunky knitwear with a resplendent baby bump.
History and pop culture are of course studded with examples of women who’ve taken younger lovers, from Catherine the Great and Elizabeth I to Madonna, Sam Taylor-Wood and Priyanka Chopra. Even so, they’re exceptions to an enduring double-standard encoded by biology and propped up by centuries of misogyny. The #MeToo movement may have turbo-charged feminism’s progress in the bedroom but, while men dating down in age is simply a fact of life, there’s a lingering vibe of mockery and salacious scandal when the gender roles are flipped. The older woman has tended to be either fetishised and objectified as a cougar or a MILF, or else her desires are minimised and made safe with references to toyboys (yes, that word is apparently still in use). Even when women tell their own stories – the press seem to print one every few months or so – they can’t help making a burlesque of their erotic yearnings, enthusing about their partner’s stamina while harping on their inability to decode the youthful jargon of his sexts.
