Age-old question

Another question posed on a message board I read, another question I found myself thinking about today and trying to come up with an articulate response to …

Does the age of the person you are submitting to matter to you?

If this question was asked of me ten years ago, my answer would have been absolutely yes.

Ask me today, and the answer is different. “Age is immaterial. Making me *want to submit to them is not.”

(Before I go any further, let me explain “want to submit”. There is a difference for me between submitting reactively, and submitting pro-actively. Reactively means – yes, I’d submit to them if they came up behind me, grabbed my hair and pushed me to my knees. Pro-actively suggests more that I would offer it to them.)

Over my last several posts, I’ve used C, M and R to represent the three men who’ve had the most impact in my life over the last ten years. For the purpose of this post, I will add a J to that list.

My first husband (who’s initial doesn’t appear on the list above) was 14 months older than I am. M is ten years older than me. C is 2 and a half years younger. R is 11 years older. J (who I wrote “The Tease” for, and with whom I had an odd semi-sorta relationship with) is 11 years younger than I am.

So basically, I’ve tried all the flavors *grin.

And to be honest, I have to say, as far as a relationship goes; there isn’t a hell of a lot of difference where age is concerned. As a matter of fact, it seems that those younger than I am (with the exception of R, who is almost always an exception) seem to be closer to what I would consider contemporaries.

This is not to say that I was not, or am not, attracted to men my own age (*gasp) or men who are slightly or more significantly older than myself – or, that I am *more attracted to men younger than myself. Again, age really seems to be no sort of boundary for me. It’s just that as far as my experience is concerned, age has never been *the issue, or even *a big issue.

Now this -- “Age is immaterial. Making me *want to submit to them is not.” – was my answer to the post in question. I posted it. And then I continued to consider it while I was eating dinner.

I have never “looked my age”. When I was 16, I passed for 19 (the legal drinking age in Iowa at the time.) When I was 19, I passed for 25. When I was 30, I passed for 21. And now, I can easily pass for 32-35 if I’m dressed appropriate to that age range. I am thankful for this, and as I have nothing to do with it (good genes I guess), I can only smile when someone guesses my age wrong. And if I put on “soccer mom” clothes, I can pass for my own age occasionally, too /wink.

Maybe this is why age matters so little to me. I certainly never feel my age. And I’ve known some younger men who’ve seemed to be my age or older in wisdom and/or personality. Chronological age has so little to do with who and what we *are. It only has to do with how long our bodies have been on this planet.