Obnoxious, Condescending, Sexist Esquire Editorial by 50-Something Year Old Man, Tom Junod: “In Praise of 42 Year Old Women” – Condescendingly Reassures 40 Something Women He’d Sex Them Up
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WARNING: This post contains the “F” word in it a lot, mostly by other people who I am quoting. I am not going to sit here and edit out all the “F” words. Proceed at your own risk if naughty words make you blush
Edit. There is a follow up to this post on this blog here:
(Link): Follow Up – Reactions by Other Writers to Sexist, Condescending 50 Something Men Who Think They Are Final Arbiters of If Women Are Attractive Past Age of 40 (Re: Esquire Editorial by Junod)
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I do acknowledge that there is a lot of sexism and ageism in our culture. Women are thought to have “sell by” dates – and I notice this age varies.
(By the way, the same thing has caught up to men now. See for instance: (Link): Men Become ‘Invisible’ And Lose Sex Appeal At 39 – Article from Daily Caller)
This attitude about women and women’s ages varies from person to person, and from decade to decade.
I remember when I was a kid, age 40 was thought to be a little on the “old” side – not by me personally, but by the wider culture, the TV shows, magazines, newspapers, people in their 20s and maybe 30s at the time.
(Starting when I was around age eight, I began reading the newspaper almost daily, even the front section, that had the political and cultural news, and I watched the evening news with my father every night. That’s how I can say with confidence I’m pretty well attuned to how people viewed things back then.)
In the last few years, sexist PUA and MRA guys have said a woman’s expiration date is age 25, while others of them say no, it’s 30, while others might say 35. Of course, all of them overlook the fact that women do not even have an expiration date to start with.
That none of these males can agree with each other on when a woman supposedly loses her hotness testifies to the truth that it’s all bogus.
Even in the sub-heading of this nauseating editorial, it is stated from the out-set,
- In our occasional ranking of the ages, we found that this year’s most alluring is not what you’d expect. It’s not 27 (honored in 1999) or 39 (2008) or 86 (1937 and 1983). No, this year it’s 42. Because it’s not what it used to be.
You might be tempted to think, well, if that is so, if this magazine is honoring 40 something women, wouldn’t you be thrilled that a magazine is writing an editorial saying that 40 something women are no longer considered old, past their prime, or old hags? No, not entirely.
Because the editorial is condescending, and the author, Tom Junod, says insulting things, such as, a woman’s beauty is fading when she is in her 40s (no, it’s not).
This reminds me of an editorial at a Christian site, by a married man, who tried to reassure adult singles that we are fine dandy dan just they way we are.
I appreciate that the Christian author was trying to be helpful or compassionate to older singles, but the condescending attitude was more of a put down (read that page here: (Link): Oh geeze. Another married Christian condescendingly patting single Christians on the head, reassuring them they are dandy as-is, and to remember they have the fictional Gift of Singleness)
It’s the same thing with this editorial. The male author, who is 55 or 56 years old, says he would gladly have sex with a 42 year old woman.
I saw photos of this guy at Gawker, and I find him terribly unattractive. I am in my early 40s, fit, attractive, and I would not give him the time of day. What on earth makes him think I’d want to do him, out of gratitude that he says he finds women of my age still attractive? No, no, no. That is condescending.
As an author at Gawker summarized the Esquire editorial:
(Link): Esquire Writers: We’re Willing to Fuck Early Middle-Aged Ladies, (from Gawker)
The original ed is here:
(Link): IN PRAISE OF 42-YEAR-OLD WOMEN, by Tom Junod (on Esquire’s site)
Yeah, see, I don’t need a dude more than ten years my age reassuring me I’m fine as I am. I already know I’m fine as I am.
Here’s the intro:
- by Tom Junod
Published in the August 2014 issue
Let’s face it: There used to be something tragic about even the most beautiful forty-two-year-old woman.
With half her life still ahead of her, she was deemed to be at the end of something—namely, everything society valued in her, other than her success as a mother.
If she remained sexual, she was either predatory or desperate; if she remained beautiful, what gave her beauty force was the fact of its fading. And if she remained alone… well, then God help her.
From the Gawker author’s take on Junod’s editorial:
- Esquire magazine (Motto: “The Inactive Ingredients of Erection Pills, in Magazine Form”) has a very important message to all the 42-year-old women out there: Esquire writer at large Tom Junod might like to fuck you.
That’s right, ladies of a certain age (42). Tom Junod has decided you may still be hot.
This was not always the case. Once upon a time, 42-year-old women were not really worth wanting to fuck, or if Tom Junod did want to fuck one, it made him sad.
[snip Juno intro]
Now, though? Now 42 is awesome. Tom Junod can name several famous women who are 42 who he would be willing to fuck. Right in their 42-year-old vaginas. Cameron Diaz. Sofia Vergara. Leslie Mann. Amy Poehler.
He would fuck these women, despite their age, and even share a joke with them, because the 42-year-old woman, she is a person, or at least a person-like idea:
- [Gawker author quoting Junod]:
It is no accident that every woman mentioned here has comic as well as carnal appeal, and entices with the promise of lust with laughs.
But it’s not all easy. Being sexually attractive to Tom Junod at the age of 42 is a real job:
- [Gawker author quoting Junod]:
Of course, they have to work for their advantage; they have armored themselves with yoga and Pilates even as they joke about the spectacle.
Still, what has made them figures of fantasy is not that they have redefined the ideals of female strength but rather their own vulnerabilities.
Go to a party: There is simply no one as unclothed as a forty-two-year-old woman in a summer dress. For all her toughness, and humor, and smarts, you know exactly what she looks like, without the advantage of knowing who she is.
Were you afraid you might go to a summer party, as a 42-year-old woman, and not have a magazine writer mentally appraise what you would look like without your clothing on? Fear not (as long as you’ve been doing yoga and Pilates)—Tom Junod is so thoroughly prepared to undress you with his mind, you’re already naked.
What accounts for society’s and Esquire’s sudden tolerance of women of this age, 42? Tom Junod, according to Wikipedia, was born in the Eisenhower Administration, and is currently either 55 or 56 years old. Nevertheless, Tom Junod is gracious enough to admit he’s capable of wanting to fuck women who are within 13 or 14 years of his own age.
I, myself, by coincidence, am 42 years old right now. But I am male. As such, I would like to follow Tom Junod’s lead and reassure all the 28-year-old women of the world that I do not believe their advanced years should render them sexually unattractive to me.
Or maybe he’s using a percentage, rather than a spread of years. Tom Junod is willing to entertain the thought of intimate relations with women all the way up to 75 percent of his own age.
Tom Junod, age 21, cruises into the high school parking lot to tell the 15-year-olds they’re still OK. (He shakes his head at Sweet Sixteen parties, though.)
Tom Junod, age 30, is ready to consider dating a summer intern in his office, even if she has already finished college. Tom Junod, age 85, tells a 63-year-old woman not to worry, she’s still got a little something going on, in his eyes.
It boils down to feminism, you see:
- [Gawker author quoting Junod]:
A few generations ago, a woman turning forty-two was expected to voluntarily accept the shackles of biology and convention; now it seems there is no one in our society quite so determined to be free.
Conservatives still attack feminism with the absurd notion that it makes its adherents less attractive to men; in truth, it is feminism that has made forty-two-year-old women so desirable.
This is what it was all about, ladies.
But Tom Junod is, after all, only one man. You may be asking yourselves: Do other men also want to fuck 42-year-old women? Do they ever!
There’s a double feature playing at the Esquire Drive-In, and the second show is by Stephen Marche, who is not quite even 40 yet. Guess what?
- [Gawker author quoting Marche]:
Women who are 42 are grown-ups, they are in control of their own lives, or as in control of their own lives as they are going to be anyway, and it is altogether good that American men desire women in this state. Desirability and self-possession should go together.
Marche, though, is not sure this is so nice. He is writing to express the fact that he is uncomfortable about the use of the term “MILF,” when applied to these 42-year-old targets of male desire.
Why? Possibly because it is a porn indexing term, inherently and exclusively used to objectify women? Well, yes, but no. The fact that “MILF” is a popular pornographic search term, to Marche, indicates not that it is a constructed concept, which is shaping men’s sexual expectations, but the opposite—that it reflects some deeper or prior impulse.
You can ((( click here ))) to read the rest.
No, I don’t find it flattering or reassuring that a wrinkly looking 55 year old writes an editorial telling women of my age he’d still like to boink me.
The guy who wrote this travesty apparently thinks this is a one way street, where only men are visual and only men care about what a person looks like. Wrong! Women are visual and care about when men look like.
I find that condescending on so many different levels, that for one, he assumes I’d find him handsome or charming enough to want to boink back (and the answer to both is no, I don’t).
I don’t need anyone reassuring me it’s okay to be 40-something. I already know that. Trying to convince me it’s okay is actually insulting in a way.
Here are a few of the reader comments from Gawker that were underneath this article:
by NoLackawannaTom Scocca
Yesterday 8:04pm
I find it sadly comical that men— aging, fat, balding— always think they can attract women half their age. (Actually, they often can—if they’re rich or famous or both.)
I wonder if they ever considered that some hot, beautiful women ten years older than them would drink battery acid before they would fuck them.
by baddoggy
Thursday 2:05pm
This is fucking jaw dropping.
It takes a lot to get a rise out of me but this Tom Junod guy has hit a spot I didn’t know was there. I’m a 40 year old male and this sickens me.
This guy is disgusting.
I couldn’t even finish the article.
The parts I did read made me puke in my mouth a little bit. He’s what? 55 or 56? So who in the hell is he lusting after in real life? What age is the lady he’s dating or married to? Jeez.
by courtneys_keyboard
Thursday 1:58pm
What the shit is this shit.
This is nauseating to men and women. The idea that women have a sell by date is ludicrous, and the idea that men should determine who to sleep with based on chronology is moronic.
The truth is that people will sleep with almost anyone. People (mostly in Florida) will have sex with relatives, with animals, with warm soup.
The attempt to make yourself feel more successful by only copulating with what the Esquire staff considers acceptable is pretty pathetic. Fuck who you want, provided they also want you, and shut up about it.
comment by lunchcoma
Yesterday 1:56pm
Oh, Tom Junod, women didn’t need to read your article to learn that men – even ones who seemingly bring little to a relationship other than a nasty sense of entitlement – expect to date women who are 10 or 15 years younger and consider themselves rather saintly for passing on the opportunity to creep out teenage girls. We have OkCupid for that, and it comes with some nifty quizzes too. Your article could do with some nifty quizzes.
comment by Ratz
That is exactly what happened to me when I hit 40. Young men coming out of the woodwork, and the older men that I just didn’t find attractive at all. Impossible to find someone in their late 30s. I’m 52 now, and it is still true. There is an endless supply of young men out there who appreciate older women.
La Recepcionista
Thursday 3:17pm
56 yr old lady here, and i had a FWB thing with a guy a year older than my daughters. Bragging? Indeed!
by Sweet Sorrow
I’m 35, and I’ve got kids in their early twenties still giving me the eye. I still get cat calls. Some dudes like chicks with long black hair and tattoos I recon. I’m guessing some of these men would feel differently if they knew how “old” I was….
audenEasttoMidwest
Thursday 4:33pm
Isn’t it odd? I was on OKCupid for a while last year. I rarely got messages or responses from men around my own age. I did get 2 25 year olds, despite my decrepitude (I was 39 at the time).
Plus lots of men in other states and countries, despite my profile stating that I was looking for men “near me” for dating.
I’m in San Francisco; if you can’t figure out that Chicago, Florida, Maryland and Australia are not near me, there’s not much to be going on with.
sunshineonthebay1lunchcoma
7/10/14 4:43pm
From the time I was 29 through 39 every guy I met in his 30s thought I was just dying to marry him, including the guys I rejected. Once I turned 40 they all figured I’m done wanting to have their children so suddenly I was a hot commodity. The stupidity is hilarious.
justanothersmithieEasttoMidwest
Sure, but then you might deal with my current “in my 30’s issue” if you’ve never been married, then it’s a red-flag, even to the divorcees. My brother (divorced around age 30) informed me of this when I was 29- that I would be a red flag to him because I hadn’t been married yet. So not sure how helpful waiting on the first round of divorces is going to be to my strategy.
EasttoMidwestjustanothersmithie
Thursday 5:26pm
Hm. I got married for the first time at 39 and had boyfriends before that, so I don’t think that’s really true. Especially if you’re in an urban environment where it’s more typical to marry later. BUT I will say — assuming someone is looking to settle down — I would be wary of someone who’s never been in a long term relationship/lived with someone, etc. Maybe wary is too strong a word.
Sbagliando S’imparaEasttoMidwest
This happened to me as well! As I approached the mid-30 mark, suddenly several older men were pursuing me quite persistently (some with nearly 20 years on me), as well as a few 20-somethings who were marvelous for flings. Now I am 39 and my husband is almost five years younger — and looks young already — though I am far more self-conscious about that gap than he is.
T-ROEasttoMidwest
yup. can’t find a guy my own age, but anyone way older or way young is game. sexism at work.
comment by Thidrekr
Most 42 year-old men aren’t exactly prizes themselves unless they put in a lot of work too, so I’d like to think this superficiality should go both ways.
by AbbaWhoThidrekr
Yesterday 1:59pm
One of the great media myths is that men don’t age badly. This is simply not true.
Of course, media is dominated by men who think their young wives love them for themselves. By perpetuating the idea that men look “distinguished” and women just look old when they age, rich old men can delude themselves.
(to a poster who said if a man has enough money, a woman won’t care what he looks like or what his age is)
by SarahJaneMay
Thursday 2:03pm
It’s unfortunate that you think that way… there are plenty of women out there that put no bearing on a man’s bank account, but I suppose they’re not ‘hot’ or ‘young’ enough for the men looking.
whirlaway
Thursday 2:16pm
42 year olds include ALL of these gorgeous fuckable beauties born in 1972. Age is a number. The idea that women have an expiration date is patriarchal bullshit to keep them ‘in their place’.
[snip list of photos of attractive, famous women in their 40s]
Let-them-eat-fake AbbaWho
Thursday 2:51pm
Exactly..these men have themselves fooled. It’s like they don’t see how they really look! They are not exactly Brad Pitt themselves
Let-them-eat-fake obvioushuh16
Thursday 2:54pm
Correction…no 21 yr old is going to specifically go after a 42 yr old when there are hot 21 and 30 yr old men about. I don’t care how much men want to kid themselves. Yes some 21 yr old women want 42 yr old men. But most younger women think these men are pathetic.
Tyranno-thesaurusobvioushuh16
Thursday 4:02pm
I remember being a 21-year-old woman and thinking that 42-year-old men who thought they could get me were pathetic.
sunshineonthebay1MisterHippity
Thursday 4:03pm
As a 43-year old female who has never skipped a workout in 20 years I would not screw a 56-year old regardless of his wallet unless he also looked like a poor-man’s Clooney, pun intended.
PearlieMaywhirlaway
Thursday 4:07pm
The idea that fuckability-as-decreed-by-men is something aspiration worthy and in fact vital to make a woman worthwhile is patriarchal bullshit to keep women in their place.
comment by Betj
Tom Junod is a sexist fckwit – who at 55 looks 65+.
As a women approaching that ‘unfckable’ age according to this idiot – I have never been hit on more and not by old farts like him.
I think someone is having performance issues and is projecting….
Nancy
Yesterday 12:17pm
Male entitlement says only women age unattractively. See “evolutionary psychology” for the pseudo-scientific justification. They actually believe that male pattern baldness was selected FOR.
(to another poster)
by Nancy
It’s just a matter of time until that changes [older men dating younger women] – cultural conventions change slowly and women still make less money than men. But keep telling yourself that it’s “nature” for women to want rich old men.
Grim3 in reply to obvioushuh16
Perhaps more, but both are pretty rare. When I was in my early 20s, none of my friends were dating guys in their forties. Now that I am in my late 30s and my husband is 40, I don’t know any of our male or female friends who are dating 21 year olds.
comment by AbbaWho
Really? He [author of sexist editorial who says he would have sex with 40 yo women] looks like a skeevy photographer at a JC Penney studio.
comment by T-ROimeldasnarkos
sorry, no. as a 41 year old woman who can still have sex with incredibly hot 25 and 30 years olds, I don’t plan on dating men in their 50s until I’m at least 55. Sorry, no.
DurrrridaEasttoMidwest
He [Junod] looks like that creepy dude from The Warriors.
Apt-ZeroEasttoMidwest
Would not even let him [Junod] blow me at a truck stop, and my standards are pretty low for that.
anotherburnburnbabyimeldasnarkos
0/10 [Junod’s attractiveness, zero out of ten]. Would not bang.
Blanketimeldasnarkos
He looks kind of creepy to me. Like, Ted Bundy creepy.
franceshodgsonburner
I’d checked him out, too; hoping he’d resemble John Major. Though it is something that only younger/emotionally daft or green women would be with a man as smugly-wugly and pleased with himself as he.
comment by Zucchiniisforever
[Junod has] Too many wrinkles.
Zucchiniisforever
It’s the old guys who want younger women, to hide from themselves the fact that they are aging. Younger men are all, let’s go.
by floyd75imeldasnarkos
He [Junod] looks like Sally Field with bushy eyebrows. Any woman can do better than this condescending piece of shit, regardless of her age.
I love how women are supposed to feel flattered or relieved that men still find them attractive when they’re in their 40s.
Yeah, because that’s what propels us to take care of ourselves as we get older: male validation. Fuck off.
by HarvestMoonEasttoMidwest
Oh I get it now! We’re allowed to go out in public till age 42, as long as we look 25. Which means the author is going to need botox and hair dye.
Oh wait, only women have to look 25? Now I’m confused again…
by Tyranno-thesaurusEasttoMidwest
(Junod) Looks like a pervy uncle, complete in just-released-from-lockup orange.
by Let-them-eat-fake
Right. That’s why I get tired of their bullshit. All these requirements for us [women] to be hot all the time. But they [men] can look a hot as mess and still expect to fuck supermodels. GTFOHWTBS
womansuesT
Right? I’m mid-40’s and no thanks. I’ll stick to my age and younger. Men in their 50’s are the worst douchebags if they’re still single.
by samarkandLet-them-eat-fake
Yeah, not really feeling all the “look at these pictures of totally bangable 50-year-old actresses!” in here as some sort of rapier-like refutation of these articles.
No dudes, the point is that women’s bangability has no bearing whatsoever on anything, expending the effort to look hot all the time so that your stiffy doesn’t get the sadz is not my fucking responsibility and the world really did not need any ink spilled to discuss the topic of how sometimes women who have won the genetic and class lottery might still get dudes hard if they play their cards right and work real hard at it.
It fucks me off so much I’m not even going to do anything about that run-on sentence.
MahlersFifthEast
No, thank you.
Fuck you never,
This 42-year old
by T-RO
Let me correct that for you: Men in their ___30s, 40s, 50s, ____ are the worst douchebags if they are still single.
by julieinduvall
I’ve always been fond of intelligence, humor and thoughtfulness with the “hot”. Tom Junod doesn’t fit any of those criteria.
by Sharon
he’s just basically unattractive to me. i wouldn’t be so hard, but he’s shown himself to be an idiot. ugly soul to match his features.
by Rooo sez BISH PLZ
It’s the personality that makes him ugly.
Plus, there are plenty of other hotties around his age that are much much nicer on the … rest of the system, shall we say.
For instance – did you know that both Brad Pitt and Benjamin Bratt will turn 50 this year?
Mm-hmm. 🙂
by boogsimeldasnarkos
I am 46. This guy is NOT hot. He looks like my grandpa. He appears to have his dentures removed. Gross.
Why are we always hearing about the men who are willing to fuck us?
I have guys at the bar who are HALF MY AGE hitting on me.
I don’t give any fucks what old men want to do with me. Gross.
Additionally, the comment he makes about women needing pilates and yoga to desperately cling to youth… dude, guys age like crap and it’s the ones who lift weights AND run who look younger.
“Oh, how sad it is to see these 30/40/50 year old men sadly and desperately clinging to their youth by working out!” Gimme a break.
This is drivel written by a misogynist.
What’s sad is the mindset of our society is forwarded by douchebags in hollywood who are the most creepy and superficial perverts on earth. Why do we give any fucks about which age women they will fuck.
NEWS ALERT TO MEN: YOUR BODIES GO TO SHIT ABOUT THE SAME RATE AS OURS. I’VE SEEN YOU NAKED AND NONE OF YOU LOOK LIKE YOU DID IN YOUR 20S. IT’S KIND OF GROSS. I HAVE TO FANTASIZE ABOUT YOUNG MEN WHEN I’M WITH YOUR OLD ASSES.
by boogs
WHY DO MEN ALWAYS ASSUME ALL WOMEN ARE DESPERATELY CLINGING TO YOUTH BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT MEN VALUE IN US? IT’S SO MYOPIC. ENTER INTO THE MIND OF A TRUE MISOGYNIST.
This poor guy thought he was writing some pro-woman shit by declaring he would fuck women in their 40s, but really the whole article was incredible short-sighted, narrow-minded, and offensive.
And let’s really get to the point:
All of you men in your 40s who think you’re so hot…how many of you actually date young chicks? Almost none of you because, guess what, girls in their 20s think you are gross and old.
I was in my 20s once. I thought men over 30 were totally gross and old. GAWD! The thought of gray pubic hair then. Yuck.
Or bald heads? Only in hollywood does this really happen and those men happen to be rich. OH! A CLUE!
katgyrlimeldasnarkos
Thursday 9:34pm
compared to other photos i’ve seen of him, this is the best of the bunch. he’s considerably older and more corpsey looking. maybe this photo is a few years old. all i know is, he’s far too old for me and i’m 53. could not possibly imagine being with a man this haggard looking, so i married a 23 year old. this guy? wouldn’t even sit next to him on the bus, lol.
by nachotacoEasttoMidwest
He looks like some guy I wouldn’t make eye contact with on a elevator.
comment by MarmaladeTeardrops
Fifty-five, my ass. Dude looks like he’s shaved 10 years off his age.
Men can be so vain…..
by Sharon
exactly. i’m going on 51 and a couple of years ago was chased by a 28 year old and still get hit on by teenagers and other 20-somethings. if i’m gonna cougar, i’m gonna do it up right, y’all.
by TypingpersonT-RO
Agreed. I’m mid-40s and he’s way too old for me. I date a lot younger and sexier.
by dorothyparkourEasttoMidwest
1st caption: Nevermind what these 42-year old ladies think of themselves, what do I think about them and how can I make the story more about me?”
2nd caption: You’ve become less feminine as you’ve learned to speak up and think for yourself but I’d still do you.
Molly’sStillSoPrettyInPink in reply to Tom Scocca
Considering that you aren’t writing about women “of a certain age” and telling them they should be fucking thankfuk that a douche bag at Esquire thinks they’re sex-worthy, I’d say you have more credentials than that pos will ever possess.
by Mikey Likes It (in reply to another poster)
I think the point Tom Scocca was trying to make is that the writer was justifying turning these women into sexual objects merely because he wanted to have sex with them, as if being the object of his desire is the entirety of their purpose, that they would be fulfilled by reading the article.
by IWASBlasted
I’m thinking a mid 50’s creeper like Tom “Sentinent Mid-Life Crisis” Junod would find 42 year old women might not be as charitable as him, bless his greasy little heart.
by dariady
The cutoff is where these guys tell women in their 40s that they ‘still find them attractive’ and get laughed at. This kind of nonsense can only be taken seriously in a men’s magazine.
by Trough of Luxury
Yesterday 1:56pm
I get the self-satisfied fuckery that makes a man write 2500+ words on what makes his dick hard, but who is the audience out there clamoring for a monthly periodical updating what makes various old-man-dicks hard? This keeps Esquire afloat?
by lunchcoma
Presumably the owners old-man-dicks, particularly the ones who like their dick updates covered with a thin veneer of journalism.
by weirwoodtreehugger2
It’s astounding how many men think everyone cares about their boners.
by samarkand
Thursday 2:31pm
Hear ye, hear ye: Feminism deemed okay because it makes women more fuckable!
Phew! Glad we got that all cleared up.
by weirwoodtreehugger
Thursday 3:25pm
Feminism was created so men could get laid. Everyone knows that! Judging from what Nice Guys and incels [involuntary celibates, MRA/PUA type jargon] say we still have a ways to go in our mission. We will not rest until every man has an 8.5 or higher to fuck.
by sunshineonthebay1BasedMS
Thursday 4:18pm
Also this fucktard thinks us women consider his attraction to us an “advantage”
by minxymaxx1
7/10/14 2:08pm
I’m plus sized so I get to hear what makes their boners sad and happy a lot. My response was “But what do I do if I don’t want to attract guys like you?” They act like no one has ever not wanted to bone them.
by SarahJaneMayminxymaxx1
Thursday 2:15pm
I’m super tall (6’2) and not thin. I’m not attractive to the vast, vast majority of men so they think by giving me this ‘compliment’ that I’ll bow down to their weiners. That I will be soooo grateful that they are willing to fuck me and obviously no other man ever would that I will immediately jump into bed with them.
by anotherburnburnbaby
Thursday 2:23pm
If men REALLY want to be honest about it, Fuckability is quite a low bar. Cause, let’s face it, they will fuck almost anything #notallmen #butprobablyTomJunodeventhoughhewon’tadmitit
by weirwoodtreehugger2
One time a man at a bus stop asked me if my breasts were real and declared that if they were real he’d be so impressed he’d give me his address, home phone and cell phone numbers. Because I care so much if some random bus stop creeper is impressed by my boobs. That’s my whole purpose for living.
by minxymaxx1weirwoodtreehugger2
Ew! This bus stop creeper told my bff “You’re beautiful! Do you have sex for money?”. YUK.
by SarahJaneMayminxymaxx1
Thursday 4:50pm
Yeah, it’s very odd. It’s like I reject them (because I adore and love my wonderful boyfriend) so they have to find something to be ‘better’ than my bf. I just smile, bat my eyelashes and say ‘He’s 6’4 and gorgeous’ and walk away 😉
by sunshineonthebay1
Thursday 4:21pm
It’s not just the old dudes. I had this 26-year old (I’m 43) tell me he wanted to take me home because his fantasy is to be with a 40+ woman. Apparently he figured it was a foregone conclusion that I would want to sleep with him!
by SarahJaneMay in reply to baddoggy
I’ve known a few guys like him, and they’re just full of hot air. They bitch and complain about how only young, hot women are desirable and that they’re purposely rejecting women around their own age when in reality they’re getting rejected constantly by the women they’re lusting after.
It’s a defense mechanism. They still see women as a status symbol and therefore destroy any chance of actually being happy to chase after young tail.
by TeenaBurnerbaddoggy
7/10/14 6:25pm
Guys like this…. usually flirt inappropriately with early 20s service workers, date women that are between 25-35, provide emotional support, horrible advice, and occasional FWB lays that are a product of the first two for anxious, single late 30s female friends and pat themselves on the back for it.
Their browser histories are full of 18-20 year olds with pigtails being “naughty.”
pdiddywha
[photo of author] Here you go 42-year old ladies! Here’s your prize… oh, you’ll pass? Understood.
by raincoasterTom Scocca
Thursday 7:19pm
I don’t know where this guy has been for the last, uh, forty years, but he must have missed that series Policewoman. You know, the one that made Angie Dickinson even more of a household name than she had been before. The series she didn’t get until she was in her forties.
Growing up, that was my ideal of womanhood. That’s who I wanted to be. And other than a couple of references to her not being married yet, I can’t recall any ageism on that show, and that was back in the 70’s. Surely it didn’t spring from nothing.
by snow (quoting Gawker author):
Being sexually attractive to Tom Junod at the age of 42 is a real job.
Judging by this piece, being sexually attracted to Tom Junod at any age seems even more like a real job.
by snarkylicious
wow. I can’t feel as honoured as I suppose this should make me. But I do feel like saying maybe middle-aged broads don’t want you.
by EasttoMidwestooohsaracuda
Thursday 2:06pm
Oh, when we can expect the perfect age for men issue?
SarahJaneMayooohsaracuda
Thursday 2:11pm
It was nice to know I was already over the hill before I got my first boyfriend. Huzzah!
by underscored2
Thursday 1:52pm
It’s pretty amazing that someone actually got paid to write that piece of shit article.
Hopefully Tom Junod will compose a list of 42 year old women that would fuck him. My estimate is rounded up to zero.
by samarkandTom Scocca
Thursday 2:01pm
My midlife epiphany has been my former insecurity turning in to positive glee that I make these assholes’ boners sad by not being pilates-and-yoga’d-and-manipedi’d into an appropriate size and shape for an M they’d L to F. I didn’t live 40 years and create goddamn life to be appraised like a Cabernet.
by oldbiddybadger2
Thursday 2:16pm
Me too. Somewhere around age 40 I realized that the guys who were the pickiest were likely suffering from a partial lack of interest in sex and were blaming it on women rather than accepting the fact that they were getting older.
by sunshineonthebay1
Thursday 4:31pm
This. The real reason loser men don’t want women their own age is because we call them out on their shit.
by ZucchiniisforeverTom Scocca
Thursday 2:44pm
Speaking as a middle-aged woman who is also an athlete, I don’t go out with magazine writers. Too flabby, in general.
And I’m not in good shape because I “armor” myself. I’m in good shape because 30 years of athletics shows.
by Suffersfoolsgladly
Thursday 9:29pm
Sorry Tom, your’e too old for me..I had an eighteen year old all over my ass when I was fifty. He stayed for seven years, too.
by Let-them-eat-fake
Thursday 2:50pm
And why should women be concerned with what a 56 year old man thinks of them? The entitlement that men seem to think they have to judge a woman’s attractiveness and fuckability is astounding.
Let’s be honest fellas. You’re a gentleman 40+ dating a youngish woman 20’s if your in your 40’s and anyone younger than 40 if you’re in the 50+ range.
She wants your money. You are not attractive.
Most older men are not attractive. With your loose, parchment paper like skin, flaccid penis. Having to pops pill to get that little dick up. Then lasting for 5 minutes.
You are gross and unless you have money, you’re useless to younger women. Thanks to viagra your old wrinkled asses like to think you are really doing something…but again.
You’re old men.
You are the source of countless hilarious convos at tables in nightclubs everywhere as you try and fail to be cool and relevant and convince young women to go out with you. Face it.
Young men have you beat.
You are worthless. –
Now fellas do you like how that sounds? This is basically what you are saying to women of a certain age.
Doesn’t feel so good when it’s being said about you does it? Men everywhere.. do yourselves a favour and shut the fuck up about women’s bodies, or age, or looks. We are tired of your shit.
Lady Evelyn NapierTom Scocca
Thursday 2:19pm
I had planned to be euthanized before I turned 42 due to my inevitable unfuckability, but you’re telling me this prize would maybe still fuck me (assuming I do yoga and Pilates)?
[snip photo of an old and haggard looking Junod]
by trlergrlTom Scocca
Thursday 3:48pm
I have been doing boxing training for a while now and I train right alongside girls and guys half my age. We were sitting around discussing this article just now, and one of the trainers, who is a single 25 year old guy, said that he wouldn’t hesitate to ask out a woman in her 40’s because there is no games and bullshit being played and he specifically said that all the women he’s met who are that age have a confidence about them that 20 somethings don’t have.
There are exceptions to every rule of course, but I know for certainlty I would not want to be in my 20’s again. I turned 42 last month and I am pretty happy with myself for the first time in my life because I know what I feel like dealing with, and what I don’t feel like dealing with.
by RuthLiz
[photo of author] Who would even let him hit it? Ewwwww! Douchebag.
Cam/ronRuthliz1980
That face just whispers, “Have you ever heard of analingus?”
by DuhsvilleRuthliz1980
Thursday 2:14pm
I always feel like these old farts constantly write/talk about who they want to fuck b/c they know good and goddamn well that nobody’s looking at them that way anymore, and they need to assert their maledom.
Also, they know full well that a lot of women are dating men who are younger and it bugs them because they don’t like being put out to pasture.
PS. My BF is 8 years younger than I am.
weirwoodtreehugger in reply toHoneyTongue
Thursday 3:57pm
No idiot, you’re still making feminism all about men’s boner feels. Believe it or not, women have other things on their minds besides worrying about whether or not an Esquire writer wants to fuck us. If that’s a side effect of it, fine. But that wasn’t the point of it and it’s very creepy for him to have appropriated feminism to give us a boner update.
by finnyd420Tom Scocca
Thursday 2:06pm
41 year old woman and I’m currently fucking a young man who just turned 25. Screw you Junod
by houseofnerds113Tom Scocca
Thursday 2:22pm
Somehow, the thought of being lusted after by Tom Junod makes me want to never turn 42.
by Archaeyopterix MajorusTom Scocca
Thursday 2:44pm
My opinion of this piece of meat capable of spurting out text in-partial-to-near-cogent sentences called Tom Junod is on par with the dried piss underneath the seat in a co-ed dorm bathroom.
Women of all ages are beautiful; women over 40 are particularly beautifuller because they (hopefully) are matured and have ‘dealt’ with their shit (we all have that shit to deal with).
I can’t even process the statement,
“What gave her beauty force was the fact of its fading.”
What gives her beauty force is that she’s been that beautiful her whole life, and now the experience of joy and sadness has left evidence of its history on her face with wonderful laugh lines, little creases around her eyes because when she smiles, she does so with her whole body and her eyes smile most.
She still has half a life, or more, left to live and now she is more certain, more confident, unshakeable and bolder than when she was but a child, and this experiential habituation to the ups and downs of life has left her ready for whatever it has, and eager to experience more with an outlook and readiness that is similar to, and as beautiful as, the Grand Canyon.
The joy and pain she’s felt is like unto the Colorado River, it has uniquely molded and shaped her into a singular expression of beauty, strength, and wisdom. Tom Junod is a fucking fool.
by beccamariebTom Scocca
Thursday 2:01pm
It is with the utmost respect and deference that I invite Tom Junod to go fuck himself.
by SharonTom Scocca
Thursday 5:31pm
men are going to have to understand this is a new day, a new age. men who put certain restrictions on women will have those same restrictions placed on them.
if he requires women to look around 20, well then we require that he appear the same.
from the pics of him in the comments, he fails to do that.
by VeeDeeisFree123Tom Scocca
Thursday 2:29pm
Maybe it’s a generational thing, but I never understood the idea of 40-something women being less desirable than a babbling 20 year old. Of course, how well one ages is a factor, but that’s true of any human.
I’m in my mid-to-low 30s and when I hooked up with a woman who was precisely 42, it was fucking awesome. She looked (and probably still looks) great and was not shy about being herself, which was nice.
by Bart Mann
Quick list of hot women who are 40+, and “date-able” in any Goddamn generation you can think of, back to when people lived in caves:
– Penélope Cruz
– Cameron Diaz
– Salma Hayek
– Naomi Watts
– Jennifer Aniston
– Liz Hurley
– Julianna Margulies
– Heather Graham
– Mariska Hargitay
– Rebecca Romijn
– Alyssa Milano
– That Colombian chick from Modern Family
This guy is an idiot.
by TwoCents
Thursday 5:04pm
Hmmm. I wonder how Tom would feel about the fact that my 31yr old husband loves to fuck me, his 43yr old wife. Guess, it was good that I met him at 39, a few years before my cutoff.
by aldsaurTom Scocca
Yesterday 9:22am
It sounds like Tom Junod’s article is an attempt to give men permission to find 42 year old women attractive.
Do men need permission in who they find attractive? That is the sad part here.
I don’t know any women who will care about this article, it is so beyond sense.
But that Esquire thinks men need fashion guidance on who they find attractive! Maybe they should assume that dudes have their own balls. 🙂
by infodelik
Thursday 2:02pm
Older women are incredibly sexy, but for fuck’s sake, did they have to put the model in the recycling bin [photo that was used to illustrate the Esquire article]? What better way to reinforce the concept that women are things? Turrible.
by Selena MacIntosh
Thursday 2:48pm
The advantage is that most 42 year old women who meet Mr. Junod’s particular standards would reply to his love letter with a “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, no.”
——————-
Related posts, this blog:
(Link): Stop Telling Women Their Most Valuable Asset Is Their Youth (From Time)
(Link): Men Become ‘Invisible’ And Lose Sex Appeal At 39 – Article from Daily Caller
(Link): Stop telling single women they’re fabulous! by S. Eckel
(Link): The Annoying, Weird, Sexist Preoccupation by Christian Males with Female Looks and Sexuality
Christian Pundit 