The bitchy Alexis Carrington from the American TV series Dynasty always had an eventful love life: Over the course of nine series, Alexis entered into numerous marriages and divorces with men she often used merely for her wily schemes. In real life, Joan Collins, who played Alexis Carrington, was also extremely active. The English actress, who is now 80 years old, differs from her on-screen role by having a preference for younger men.
She currently lives with husband number 5, Peruvian actor Percy Gibson who is 35 years younger than her. The Mail Online reports that Joan has no problem at all with spouses being considerably different in age: “I cannot understand why people are obsessed with age. After all, 90 is the new 70, 70 is the new 50 and 50 the new 40.” Nevertheless, it gave some journalists the excuse to gossip about married couples fairly different in age and to insinuate rashly that they have “financial” and calculating motives.
It’s a “traditional” attitude to assume that couples very different in age would be together for “financial” reasons rather than two people of the same age. Financial reasons also play a role in relations between peers – a 16 year-old boy from a rich family is “cooler” for girls of the same age as his poor classmate and when girls date him and have sex with him it often won’t be so much about “love” than social recognition from their girlfriends. All primates are driven by the “sex for social recognition” impulse.
We should be glad that after decades of struggle, the sexual liberation movement of the 1968 generation means that gays, lesbians, transgender people and others can now openly live out their sexual preferences, previously perceived by the majority as “abnormal”, as long as they do not hurt anyone else. We should resist any attempts from people with a different mind-set to force people into having new “standardized” sex lives: There is no “proper” age difference – people fall in love with partners who fulfill their emotional needs, whatever these may be. When choosing a partner, the age difference is just one factor amongst many. A bigger age difference has many advantages, because each person should bring something different into the relationship and “youth versus life experience” is also a “traditional” model, having been tried and trusted for millions of years.
Joan Collins still looks great at the age of 80 and optically she is a good match for her partner, who is 35 years younger than she is. As one of my blog readers, you know that plastic surgery and Botox do not determine whether a man or woman over 50 is found attractive by the opposite sex. The decisive factor is an adequately high level of the most important hormones. All those men and women over 50, who still have an attractive sexual aura, have good hormone levels. Sometimes these are real and sometimes assisted. Like many Hollywood stars, the Denver Clan schemer probably gets a little help from Hormonal Regeneration® (Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy, BHRT). Facial treatment with autologous stem cells from fat has helped many actresses to have more vital, younger faces. It is worth mentioning that many stars from the USA have their treatment carried out in Europe, where more experience has been made in this field.
In any case, we should be protecting the gains made by the 1968ers and vigorously resisting any new attempts to “standardize” our love lives, regardless of the guise they appear in, and whether they are against relationships between more mature women and younger men or mature men with younger women. In exemplary fashion, Joan Collins shows us that our love lives are a private matter between ourselves and our partners. And that’s the way it should stay!
DDr. Heinrich, MD