I'm kind of looking for an excuse to post because I don't want the opportunity to slip away (I don't know how long the site will be accessible).
What do they even have in common?'
This is one I've never really understood. Firstly, because a man in his 80s can relate to an 8-year-old boy in some ways just as a human being. You should be able to relate to people who are different than you in at least some ways and age (whether we're talking about the cognitive differences between age groups or the differences in terms of 'life experience') is just one difference between people. In some ways, some 80-year-olds can relate more to some teenagers than they can to people in their own age group. Parents are expected to emotionally bond with their children despite the age difference so I don't know why it would be different in terms of romantic interest. If a man can bond with his dog, I don't see why he can't feel affection for and bond with a woman who's decades younger than him. In fact, it's never seemed like a totally honest objection to me because, unlike friendship, I don't think 'romantic love' is built much on relating or finding common ground to begin with. I think the difference between older adults and younger adults is largely exaggerated (I think many young people assume that because older people look differently on the outside, if they've started to visibly age, that they're totally different on the inside in contrast with their younger selves, or they might project their parents on to them because many of us are conditioned to view our parents in a very one-dimensional role as authority figures rather than three-dimensional human beings we can relate to in many regards), even when people are very different than their younger selves I don't think they necessarily change in fundamental 'core' ways.
She's too young for him! He's taking advantage of her.
This has never really meant anything to me either. He is literally taking advantage of her, people generally don't enter into romantic relationships for altruistic reasons, but not necessarily without considering her welfare. If you can 'take advantage' of someone without causing them pain or depriving them of happiness I don't see the issue.
Maybe, has anyone stopped to think that a man isn't always attracted to his peers?
On top of a million other issues (erectile dysfunction, being conventionally unattractive and struggling with intolerable body dysphoria/self-consciousness, only being able to trust or emotionally connect with fantasy women, ) this is a predicament I find myself in. My preferred age group is around 12/13-39 and I'll be 40 in just over two months. I would choose to be into middle-aged women if I could, and there are some I'm at least relatively attracted to, but again; I can only see myself being strongly attracted to girls and women in the approximate 12/13-39 age range. I'm sure older people are often dishonest in downplaying their attraction to younger people but it does seem to me that different people, around 40 and up, are more or less attracted to their peers (i.e. they have a stronger or weaker age preference. I am just one of those people who would strongly prefer a relatively young partner. I think it's much better to be the kind of person who has no age preference, in the same way that it might be really beneficial to be bisexual, but it's out of my control).
There are definitely a lot of people that hate age gap relationships because it makes them feel unwanted when an average or attractive person prefers to go for people younger than them.
That might be part of it, for some people. I was thinking the other day that some of the men who are so hostile to the idea of men their age dating or being with younger people might oppose age-gap relationships because they're trying to protect young women or at least uphold conventional moral standards but some of them might just be trying to save face as well. If I prefer younger women, women might prefer younger men. Denying that I'm attracted to Jane Doe means she can't harshly reject me, it helps to lessen her power over me.
Older males with younger females is completely logical and natural, and I'm tired of people pretending it isn't. Younger individuals are shorter, more feminine, and attractive, while older individuals are typically taller, more masculine, and unattractive, which in turn makes the ideal stage for a male to be older and the female to be younger
I think many women prefer young men, more than some men would like to think, even straight women and gay men who prefer conventionally 'masculine' men are often turned off by older partners.
That said, it's interesting to note that the quality of male sperm apparently peaks between 30 and 34 before declining at 35 (although sperm motility begins to decline as early as 25) and the best time for women to have a baby is in their teens/early twenties (the chances of miscarriage or various issues begins to rise as early as 25), so you could argue that a man in his early thirties with a partner in her teens/early twenties might be optimal in terms of producing healthy offspring (I say 'teens' but I mean post-pubescent teens, I vaguely remember reading that pregnancy under 15 is riskier. I'm assuming that's because the average girl starts thelarche at 10, has her first period at 12 and has stable, consistent periods by 15 and it's pregnancy before one finishes puberty and not 15 per se that is risky. Thelarche prior to 8 is considered premature and delayed if it hasn't occurred by 13 so the average 15-year-old girl is post-pubescent but even a late bloomer, unless she's late to the point of it implying a medical abnormality, will be post-pubecent by the time she turns 17. I was planning on starting a thread related to this but, even though it's off-topic, I'll mention it here instead- is this why 18 is considered the start of legal adulthood? Because boys normally go through puberty between 9 and 17? I've been thinking lately that as much as I don't like treating people differently based on gender/statistcal norms related to gender the age of adulthood is already based on generalizations so I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with making it 17 for girls and 18 for boys).
It took a while for me to write this and the page still came up so it looks as though the site is back for good.