In an age-gap relationship, you’re trading in different currencies, but each holds its own value. But there’s also an undeniable eroticism to youth (duh), hence why the schoolgirl/boy gets its own chapter in the book of pervy cliches.
And yet, it’s not an accident that the teacher is a sexual archetype: Power, and the transmission of knowledge, are inherently erotic. People raise their eyebrows at relationships with a significant age gap: If you’re the older guy, you’re creepy and exploitative if you’re the older woman, you’re both of those things plus delusional about your shelf life. The Older Man was also my editor, which added a power imbalance to the mix-a dynamic we all know can be equal parts problematic and irresistible. Before the Older Man, I’d never been in a relationship with someone of a significantly different age-older or younger-but I had spent my adolescence fantasizing about my teachers bending me over my lab station, so in a way this felt long overdue. When I was 25, I spent a year dating a man 20 years older than me.
