Weiting Jeanne and Josh negotiating a relationship in Gaia's Hands is harder than I thought. I'm getting hung up on the age difference, although it intrigued me years ago when I was in the middle of a hypomanic episode.
May-December marriages happen all the time when the man is older than the woman. Although a minority thinks it's unnatural, society in general accepts it. If the woman is younger, has less education, is just getting settled in life, we have some questions but leave well-enough alone if they look happily married.
Older women/younger men pairings, especially when there's that much distance between the two (30 years) tend to be dismissed as "gross". Sociobiologists say this is only natural because men look for older women because of their fertility and women look for protectors -- just look at chimps with their harems. The problem is that the primate closest to us, bonobos (miniature chimps) tend to have sex with pretty much everyone and don't make a big deal of age. Sociobiology has its limits, which is that most practitioners are men and select for what they (as men) want to see that establishes the status quo.
And what if we're evolving from that exchange of babies for protection? In the US, most women work in the marketplace. Childbearing is held off to later ages, and many choose not to have children. Jeanne is 50 years old and has a steady job and income -- Why would he need to be a breadwinner immediately? Why couldn't she help him through grad school?
But oh my God, what about sex? How could he possibly find her saggy body sexy? Art studios have enlisted the bodies of saggy women for ages, because they're more interesting to draw. And Josh finds her fascinating because he's had visions of her in a garden that looks like the Garden of Eden. And Josh, with his slender build and shorter stature, hardly looks like Hollywood material himself.
I have to find the realism and paint them as outsiders at the same time, and this is -- well, difficult.
Wish me luck.
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