Sydnee Paige's "Dating Up (&Older)": The Best Ways to Date Older Men for Teens 18 & Up

On the "Dating Up (&Older)" episode of Sydnee Paige's Syndee in the Sheets podcast (Feb 3, 2020), Paige spoke about, “The best ways to date out of your age range, and how to check off the boxes for a perfect partner.” Because as Paige shared: 

“When you’re with the right person, age isn’t really a factor - it’s not something you think about or even feel. You’re with the person and not the number.”

However, unsurprisingly, this podcast is littered with contradictions. Initially, Paige said that older men date younger women because: 

• Older men like the power imbalance 
• Older men feel that younger women "are deserving of less commitment"
• Older men feel "entitled to younger women"

Which one is it? It is all three? Does it depend on the man? #rhetoricalquestion Then, seemingly contradicting the power imbalance theory, Paige gave three reasons men date younger:

• Older men feel that younger women have more "value"
• Older men are typically obsessed with younger women
• Older men are typically invested in the pleasure of younger women

Paige said:

"From my experience [...] these men don't date younger because women their own age won't, they date younger, because they like the power imbalance. They don't want to date women their own age [...] For a lot of these [older] men they feel that they are entitled to younger women. They have this insanely fucked up idea that younger women have more value."

"Dating older is not this glamorous thing. There can be glamorous moments, but it's quite literally like regular dating but with a huge power imbalance."

“They’re seeking out younger girls, because they feel like they owe them less. They’re picking you, because they think that you are deserving of less commitment.”

“You deserve a meaningful commitment, and you should not have to settle for less.”

“I think that the other problem with dating older men when you’re younger, especially when you’re female identifying, is that you do become the target of obsession super easily.”

However, it appears that the beginning and the very end of the episode, where Paige dissuaded nymphets under 18 from having age-gap affairs, were cancel culture prevention disclaimers, because the bulk of the podcast was pro age-gap relationships. 

Sydnee Paige

Paige shared that "Tom", her very first boyfriend, was 12 years older. They met shortly after Paige's 18th birthday; thus, "Tom" was 30, and he inspired Paige to grow intellectually and sexually. "Tom", whom Paige was "crazy" about, taught teen Paige how to masturbate, which she shared was "hot", and he even purchased Paige's first teen sex toys. 

“My first boyfriend was 12 years older than me. The next was 5 years. And then 8 and so on. You get the picture. I don’t even think I’ve kissed anyone within five years of my age since I’ve become a legal adult.”

"Tom was truly my first love. He taught me everything I know sexually [...] He really, like, inspired me to grow. But he was a lot older than me. And when I met him I felt so fucking cool. I was like, “Wow, this super good looking, very well off accomplished guy is into me [...]”

However, Paige and "Tom" broke up, because "Tom" didn’t want to fully commit. Wait, does that mean that Paige wanted to fully commit? (FYI: "Tom" doesn't date older women, because he feels pressured to get married.")

Most recently, 20-year-old Paige went out with a guy who’s 35, whom she had "great" sex with - on. the. first. date. Paige shared a touching moment from the date:

“[...] he told me what year he graduated college and I remembered that I was 7. That was a weird moment. But he was so sweet though. Also, he was great in bed.”

In addition to "Tom" and the 35-year-old, Paige dated, among other older men, retired NBA players and movie producers.

“Sugar Daddy Central”

Approvingly, Paige gave some age-gap dating advice to budding teleiophiles. She advised young women to frequent Cipriani Downtown, which she referred to as “sugar daddy central”. And she advised downloading Hinge. Although, Paige met a(n) (obsessed) 32-year-old Manhattan based physician on Seeking Arrangements, she doesn't advise using the service. Lastly, she advised young women to ignore negative opinions about age-gap relationships.

“If you are dating older, people are bound to have [negative] opinions about it. You don’t have to listen to them. But they’re gonna talk and try to figure out why you’re with that person. Even if they’re the most perfect person in the world for you.”

In addition, Paige (inadvertently) gave some age-gap relationship advice to men. She said that men should take control, take the lead, be stable and, simply, be old(er).

“I think leadership is the sexiest thing ever. So, when I’m dating older people it feels more like a natural situation to let them take the lead.” 

“People have more stability with age [...] which I really crave."

“The added level of age is also a turn on. Like I mentioned. I know I shouldn’t say it but like someone needs to be honest about that shit.”

Teen Vanessa Bayer "Lusts" for Older Men

 

In Samantha Rollins' Bustle piece, "At 14, Vanessa Bayer Was Bad At Sports & Lusting Over Jared Leto", Rollins asked Bayer, "Did you have a celebrity crush at 14?" 

Bayer replied: "Well, yes. I loved [23-year-old] Jared Leto from My So-Called Life. And [26-year-old] Scott Wolf from Party of Five."

In the piece, among other aspects of her life, Bayer shared a lot about her childhood illness, her stint on SNL, and I Love That for You - her new Showtime streamer. 

14-year-old Vanessa Bayer

However, taking advantage of the allure of a nymphet, Bustle choose to highlight Bayer's 14-year-old "lust" for 23-year-old Leto. Wait, Bayer said she had a "crush" on Leto - not that she was lusting after the actor. #clickbait

Jared Leto & Olivia Rodrigo
@ the 64th Annual Grammy Awards

Interestingly, Ashley Gale reported for Newsweek that "Jared Leto Misconduct Allegations Resurface After Photo With Olivia Rodrigo" (4/4/22) And what are these "misconduct allegations"? In Chris Wilson's post for The Post, "HEY, ‘LETO’ GIRL – JARED SHOWS HE’S A TEEN PLAY" (September 12, 2005), Wilson wrote that, after Leto booked a suite the Maritime Hotel in Manhattan, Leto (allegedly) called and texted nymphet models to invite him to his show:

Leto, who booked a suite at the Meatpacking District hotspot while he was in town with his rock band, 30 Seconds to Mars, has become infamous for calling and texting some of his underage objects of desire several times a day, reports one in-the-know snitch.

“He’s been approaching all the girls and inviting them to his shows,” snickers the source.

“Girls from IMG, Elite, Next and Women are staying there, and Jared has been hitting on all of them. He’s a serial texter. He is constantly texting these 16- and 17-year-old girls. It’s really kind of creepy.”

Lastly and unsurprisingly, like Bayer, Rodrigo has a celebrity crush. Per Teen Vogue, Rodrigo proclaimed that 28-year-old Pete Davidson is her "biggest celebrity crush". And apparently, her crush began when she was (at least) 17.

Manguso's VERY COLD PEOPLE: New England Incest, Nude Teens & Student-Teacher Sex

In Sarah Manguso's Very Cold People, which is set in a New England town, Ruthie's mother "glared" at Ruthie for not being boy crazy like Amber - Ruthie's elementary school classmate. (Amber's older brother liked to tickle Amber: "[...] until she dropped her towel.") And Ruthie's mother was "furious", because Ruthie wouldn't make herself: "[...] sexy for people to look at, to convince them I was already grown up." However, after a cashier told Ruthie, "I like your body. It’s slim and trim, like I like." Ruthie's mother smiled at her and said, "Mmmm."

At a party that Bee, who still took showers with her father, held for Ruthie and Charlie: "Bee's towel slipped [in the hot tub], and everyone saw the tiny creased dumpling of her vulva." Subsequently, the (very) young party goers watched a "little dirty" movie about two girls whom: "[...] raced to lose their virginity by the end of the summer."

Ruthie wore T-shirts over her swimsuits, which made it appear that she might be "naked underneath". Consequently, her grandfather told her that she had: "[...] to stop walking about like that."

Amber's niece, a fellow 6th grader, shared with Bee that she looked older than her age (i.e., 13), but the way she said it gave Ruthie the impression that Amber's niece had been told by a number of men that she looked mature. 

“Amber’s niece went to school with us for part of that year. When she introduced herself to Bee she said, I’m still thirteen. I know, I don’t look it, and the way she said it told us that she’d heard it so many times from so many men that it seemed as deeply a part of her as her own name.”

Ruthie, still in middle school and a budding teleiophile, related that she was "in love with Amber's older brother" and that she: “[...] was lit from the inside with a desire that fastened itself to any boy in the vicinity of my body.” And Ruthie “[...] imagined that Winifred’s husband was handsome, dark in a way that none of the boarding school boys were.”

In (high school) study hall, Bee shared with Ruthie, via a note, that she had gone to a boy's house and "bit the big one" but that "milkshake came out instead of pee!" Subsequently, Bee got pregnant, but it was bittersweet, because: "[...] her father wouldn't want to go near her anymore."

Ruthie's middle school gym teacher put his hand on her: [...] ass, moved it around as if trying to get the dimensions of it, to quickly memorize its shape in the full light of the gym [...]" 

Ruthie found her gym teacher's carassing "old-fashioned" and "almost tender". She referred to his feeling as a "so-called molestation" that she admitted was "wrong". But her first thought was that it was "sweet", and she shared:  "I knew that, on some level, he liked me.”

In 9th grade, Charlie, Ruthie's wealthy friend, was: "[...] picked up by a cop. She had been running through the field at school, screaming. And she was naked. Just screaming.” By high school, the nymphet exhibitionist, had a student-teacher affair with her tennis coach. After practice, Charlie and her coach would have sex in his car. Interestingly, Charlie liked to keep him inside her after. But, like Ben Kalmen (Michael Douglas) in Solitary Man, the coach became needy. 

In high school Charlie joined the tennis team and almost immediately started sleeping with the coach. Charlie’s mother often chatted on the phone with me if I called when Charlie was at an imaginary tennis practice, having sex with the coach in his car, down by the brook.

Charlie had said that she liked to keep the tennis coach inside her for as long as possible afterward so that she could still feel him. 

Charlie despised the tennis coach for being in love with her. She told me that she’d stopped sleeping with the tennis coach long before she actually stopped, if she ever had stopped.

And in another example of the shadowy side of nympholepsy, Uncle Roger raped Debbie, his daughter,: "[...] for fourteen years, starting when she was two." And Ruthie observed Uncle Roger seducing Brett - his granddaughter:

At the other end of the table Uncle Roger tickled Brett, [his granddaughter] his fingers in her ear like a lover’s. Wrapping her hair around his fingers, kissing her neck, whispering in her ear. She beamed. She was eight or nine years old, in hair ribbons.

Alexandra Jacobs' wrote in her New York Times review of Very Cold People, that Manguso: 

"[...] shows how feminine identity in America can be built up with material objects — dolls, Girl Scout insignia, barrettes, makeup [...] — and then torn down by violation, sexual and otherwise. A gym teacher’s inappropriate touch; a shoe salesman’s remark; a friend’s creepy dad; frottage on the commuter rail. All these things happen, in an era when such events were often considered not reportable offenses but just a part of growing up — character-building, even."

Very Cold People and Jacobs' "just a part of growing up" reminds me of a colleague whom shared with me in Manhattan that incest slash sexual abuse was rampant back in her suburban middle class neighborhood near Chicago. And it's safe to surmise that due to the allure of nymphets, but the disregard for even legal age gap relationships, incest slash sexual abuse is still rampant in my old colleague's neighborhood and in neighborhoods around the world. 

CRUSH (2020): GIRLS GONE WILD and/or Teen Lipstick Lesbian Liaison

Here's the (vague) Movie Info for Hulu's Crush (2022) from Rotten Tomatoes:

When a young artist is forced to join her high school track team, she uses it as a chance to pursue the girl for whom she's been harboring a crush. But she finds herself falling for an unexpected teammate and discovering what real love feels like.

To put it more bluntly, Crush is about a love triangle between three Miller High School bi-sexual classmates. Paige, an 11th grade artsy type, is initially attracted to Gabby - a lipstick lesbian in a hot pink spandex bottom and midriff baring tee. (Paige's attraction to Gabby began in middle school.) However, Paige becomes more attracted to AJ - an artsy type and Gabby's twin sister. 

Angie, Paige's mother, fully condoned Paige's teen sexuality to the point that Angie purchased Paige (oral sex) dental dams. Angie washed Paige's sex toy - in the dishwasher. And Angie opined that the teen sex toy was too small:

"[I got you] [g]low in the dark dental dams. They make your puss kind of glow. It's so pretty."

"Paige, I took the liberty of washing your sex toy. By the way, this is very small. It could totally get lost up there."

Interestingly, Crush reminded us, like Amazon's I Love Dick (s01e03), that the Daddy Thing isn't limited to teleiophiles.

Paige: "Do I at least look like a top?"
Dillon: "Total bottom. Maybe a power bottom."
Stacey: "Like, you call her daddy, and she calls you her sweet little prince."

There's an unwritten rule that when a film contains a lipstick lesbian affair, there's at least one age-gap affair in the film as well. In Crush, Paige's mom shared that when she was a nymphet, after a rager, she entertained the lead singer of a cover band in the back of band's van.

"When I was a teenager, I went to this rager, and I ended up in the back of a van with the lead singer of an Aerosmith cover band."

In the end, due to the multiple teen girl-on-girl kissing scenes, we opine that Crush, an American High film, is more like a Girl Gones Wild CD, accompanied by a storyline, than anything else.  

Brooke Shields' Calvins Return to Sexualize Teen?

In Vogue's YouTube channel video, "Brooke Shields Tells the Story Behind Her 80's Calvin Klein Jeans Campaign" (Oct 28, 2021), Brooke Shields shared that she was naive about the sexual nature of the "Nothing Comes Between Me & My Calvins" advertisement:

"I was naive. I didn't think anything of it. I didn't think it was - [it] had to do with underwear. I didn't think it was sexual in nature [...] I was a kid. And where I was - I was naive. I was a very protected, sequestered kind of young woman [...]"

Although, Shields claims that she was naive at 15, is it safe to assume that Shields' mother was in on the sexual innuendo? #rhetoricalquestion 

However, now at middle-age, Shields appears to condone the Calvin advertisements by admitting that (teen) sex sells:

"Yeah, at 56, I can go back and look at the camera, and say, "Oh well it's zooming in. And yeah, it's sort of on my crotch area. And then it comes to my face." Like, okay, but sex has sold since the dawn of time." 

Shields even admitted that, due to the allure appeal of nymphets, her Calvin campaign was "extremely successful", she admitted that Richard Avedon, the photographer, and Klein "knew exactly what they were doing", and she shared that her Calvin campaign was life changing for her and Klein. #intherightplaceattherightime

"The campaign was extremely successful."

"There's an appeal to it that is so undeniable. And they tapped right into it. You know, they knew exactly what they were doing."

"[...] he [Calvin Klein] said it changed his entire career and life. And it put Calvin on the map [...] which was what I think they had hoped for it."

"He said, 'You know, you changed the course of my life and my career.' And I said, 'Well, you did mine too.' We were in the right place at the right time." 

Survival of the Fittest (2022)
Source: Louis K Meisel 

Thus, it's no surprise that Shields shared with Katie White in the artnet news interview "[...] Brooke Shields on Why She [...] Volunteered to Model for Her Latest Work" (Wed Apr 27 2022) that not only does Shields still have the, what White referred as "iconic", Calvins from the infamous (sexualized teen) advertisement but Shields gave the Calvins to Grier - her 15-year-old daughter (to volunteer) to pose in two Tara Lewis paintings.

Grier modeling for Tara Lewis

Shields: I even went into the archives and pulled out my very original Calvins. 

White: Oh, wow, the Calvins you wore in the famous ad?

Shields: Yes! I don’t fit in them anymore, but my 15-year-old does so she’s wearing them in one [sic] [two] of Tara’s paintings, recreating a pose from that shoot. 

 Family Jean (2022)
Source: Louis K. Meisel

In the Balthus like paintings, we can only imagine how Nicholas Fox Weber would describe Lewis' paintings of Shields' 15-year-old with the nymphet's peek of (bare) midriff and proposing posterior. 

Unsurprisingly, Survival of the Fittest 2021 has sold. But surprisingly, Family Jeans 2022 is available, which will be on view at the aptly named “Role Modeling” exhibit at Louis K. Meisel Gallery in SoHo starting May 4, 2022.

Rowan modeling for Hell Yes (2022)

And Rowan, another teen daughter of Shields, modeled for Tara Lewis. In Hell Yes (2022), Rowan stares seductively at you with the words Hell Yes exclaiming from her bosom between her pigtails that drape her fountains. 

Shields has come to condone her Calvin advertisements so much so that the exhibit even includes a, sort of, shrine of Shields' (sexualized) teen magazine covers with a Calvin centerfold spread - front and center.

Richard Prince's Spiritual America (1983)

White wrote that Shields: "[...] has famously played muse for photographers, from Richard Avedon to Bruce Weber, and artists, including the painter Eric Fischl." But White failed to mention Richard Prince’s Spiritual America exhibit at the Guggenheim where a photograph of a nude 10-year-old Shields was on display. Interestingly,  Shields' mothers reportedly sold the photograph to Playboy Press for a whopping $450.

Nor did White mention Shields' 13-year-old "womanly" bikini pose in Life magazine that was written about in the Vanity Fair piece "The Photo That Changed My Life". 

Pretty Baby (1978)

But maybe it wasn't relevant for White to mention Shields' role as a pre-teen prostitute in Pretty Baby (1978), where her virginity was sold for a whopping $400.