So much is said about men and young girls. We women get truly incensed about it. We feel that the men are ungrateful, yes, delusional and more than a little egocentric, but what about women and their dalliances? Is it acceptable for women to have toy boys? Is it tit for tat?

Those of us who are into equal opportunity believe that women should be able to express themselves without inhibition, like the men. Just as society embraces a man's right to fool around, society conversely looks down on women who are seen or perceived to be parading town with younger men.

Of course, when an older man is seen squiring "young girls" around town it is 'acceptable'. It is not uncommon to see men with women thirty years their junior.

People will gather in groups and discuss this. Most men will admire it and think, that he must be getting a little help on the side, whether it is with the little blue pill or a younger man, but there is no denying that men in that position are not in a natural relationship. Trust me. Even if they think they are God's gift to women, age has this uncanny way of catching up with them.

I was hearing a story the other day about a wife whose husband was having a little challenge in maintaining his callisthenics in the bedroom. She dared to suggest that he take Viagra. He was quite affronted. How could she suggest that he had a problem? He had never, ever had a problem before!

The effrontery of it all! Of course, he didn't know that she knew about his outside woman.
No problem, wifey took matters into her hands (for, after all, desperate times called for desperate measures) and slipped some Viagra into his food.

Bingo, our boy performed to his heart's content and quipped afterwards, "And you had the nerve to suggest that I needed Viagra!" The wife smiled smugly as she realised that his outside woman had probably long discovered that trick! The point, however, is that age has a way of catching up with us. It has to.

A woman with a younger man, a toy boy, is something to consider, simply because it happens. Many women have toy boys. They may do it from boredom and frustration. They fool around with men not only younger than they are but also often below their station; that way, they think they are in control.

These younger men, like their younger counterparts, are in it for what they can get. Apart from the obvious physical pleasure, they usually have a better life, dependent on how well-off the woman is.

Apparently, some upper middle class and upper class women are very busy with their gardeners, gym instructors or simple clerks, because their mates are doing the same thing and either don't have the time or are simply disinterested in having sex with them.

This way, everybody is happy, and everybody is happy once he/she is getting what he/she wants - the powerful husband is raking in the dough, playing with his toy girl, the desperate housewife is spending his money and pampering her toy boy.

And even though men and women do this, it appears that society frowns more on the women. Why? Because we live in a male-dominated world. It is the world according to the male specie and it is not only the males who frown on it. The women do it too, and most vociferously.

Honestly, do we believe that age doesn't matter in the sex department? It does and it must. That is why we have an age of consent.

Apart from that, it looks ridiculous, no matter the sex. Chronological age must count because, let us not fool ourselves, some things we did when we were younger, get decidedly harder when we are older.

Apart from that, call me a prude, but it is hard to maintain an adult conversation with some men in your own age group much less with a teeny bopper! My question is this, after the sex, what is there that these people have in common? If you don't believe me, you only need to look at how these younger men and women can't wait to be with their peers.

Just as the men are delusional, the women are also. Just as there is an obvious generation gap between parents and children, there must be between a younger man and an older woman. Our life experiences define us.

We don't expect our son to understand how we think so we shouldn't expect a man our son's age to. If, however, sex is your only game, more power to you!

Joy Crawford is an attorney-at-law.

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