Recently, Hugo Schwyzer invoked Johnny Depp’s new girlfriend – 23 years his junior – to criticize men who date younger women:
It’s hard not to conclude that much of the appeal is about the hope of finding someone less demanding. A man in his 40s who wants to date women in their 20s is making the same calculation as the man who pursues a “mail-order bride” from a country with less egalitarian values. It’s about the mistaken assumption that younger women will be more malleable. Men who chase younger women aren’t eroticizing firmer flesh as much as they are a pre-feminist fantasy of a partner who is endlessly starry-eyed and appreciative. … One of the basic rules of tennis applies here: If you want to improve your skills, you need to play someone who is (at a minimum) at your own level.
Christopher Ryan doesn’t buy it:
So here’s the moral of the story: Old losers like Johnny Depp are too weak-willed to pick on someone their own age, so they chase younger women who will put up with their bullsh*t because the poor young things don’t know any better and couldn’t do anything about if they did. Ha! A quick perusal of Amber Heard’s Wikipedia page suggests that if old Johnny’s expecting malleable, starry-eyed, and appreciative, he’s got another thing coming. Turns out, Miss Heard is a big fan of Ayn Rand, guns, and [dating female photographer Tasya van Ree for four years]. Schwyzer’s attempt to shame consenting adults out of what he considers to be inappropriate relationships strikes me as quite the opposite of an informed feminist perspective. If anyone’s suffering from a “pre-feminist fantasy” in this situation, it would appear to be Mr. Schwyzer, who thinks a smart, successful 27 year-old woman is necessarily disempowered by her youth and beauty.
The Dish 