Josh Young, my male protagonist in Gaia's Hands, is my worthy adversary.
He scares me because he is a younger man in love with an older woman (He's 25, she's 45). It's still taboo in this day and age, more so than an older man with a younger woman. In the latter case, people turn their heads away with distaste (and, for older men, envy). For women who would date younger men, the outrage raises to a pitchfork-wielding pitch.
A lot of this is based on outdated gender roles. According to these, men aren't even marriageable till 30, when they're well on their way to conquering the world, according to dominant culture and romance novels. Women, on the other hand, can't be as accomplished as the men and their basic commodity is their youth and childbearing ability. Relationships are based on this exchange, which is hypothesized to result from the biological imperative of reproduction of the species.
But at the same time people adhere to the cynical, commoditized view of the above paragraph, we believe in a true love that transcends all barriers. And people write romance about transcending those barriers. Except for an older woman and a younger man.
The barriers assume that all twenty-something males are the same, that they are at a specific (and one may say arrested) state of development that includes a societally-endorsed mix of partying with the guys, living in apartments crawling in garbage and dirty dishes until their mother comes and cleans up the place, and gaming unbathed for days on their PlayStation.
I want to assume differently. Josh Young is 25, with a Masters in Fine Arts and a job as instructor at his alma mater. He has a best friend who he met years ago at aikido lessons, and he himself is ranked 2nd Dan in aikido. Because this is a fantasy novel, he keeps a secret -- visions that guide his life, and one of his visions brings him to the side of a woman twenty years older. And he resists, not because she's too old, but because he's too young.
I'm bathed enough in dominant culture that this is hard to write, but at the same time I'm compelled to write him as significantly younger, if a bit wiser for his age than typical.
Wish me luck.
PS: There are apparently older woman/younger man romance novels. Maybe I can pull this off!
PPS: Apparently there is a whole genre of Korean drama that features older women/younger men. Woo hoo!
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