You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about. On Monday, the ninth of September, I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm mea Friedman.
And I'm Jesse Stevens and on.
The show today why women all over the world are sharing one very disturbing story, also a leaked fake breakup agreement and a stream of very public PDA. Travis and Taylor's updated PR strategy and every zeitgeistee show and movie right now features a divorced mum and a younger man. But that's not the age gap relationship we're seeing all over the Venice Film Festival red carpet. But first, Mia Freed. In case you missed.
It, Border control has a new enemy, the glam passport photo. Across social media, women across the world have been complaining that the unrecognizably hot photos in their travel documents are causing them to get delayed when they're trying to get through passport control. When they're traveling, officials are noticing that they're looking very different in real life and questioning their identity, or they are failing the facial recognition scans.
This is not at all an issue for me. I saw mine, my most recent one, because the lighting's never good. It's from above, it's not front on. So every fine line I looked at mine and I went, I need botox immediately, like I had an existential crisis. And every time I go through any security and they look at my passport photo and let me through, I want to stay the revolt because that's not even a double take. It's like, oh, yeah, this ugly bitch is this Oh this.
Is what you're meant to do. So a travel agent called Denise and Brusco Maida who has a travel agency called Travel Brilliant. She reacted to this trend of influencers saying it's so terrible I'm being delayed through customs. She made her own TikTok video and she said it's a reminder not to do hot girl makeup few passport photos. I purposely take my passport photo to look like a swamp rat.
That's how you look at the end of a long, whole flo.
It's true, she said. Her advice is to think about what you might look like after you've been on a flight for fifteen hours overnight in a middle seat, and take a photo that looks like that whole situation instead.
That's awesome because I didn't know that's what I was doing, but that's what I was doing.
Yeah.
You know how often when you go back and look at a picture of yourself when you were young and you hated it then, and you look back and you go, oh, no, I was I looked great when I was young. Not with passport pictures. Pictures.
I'm like, but why would you want a hot one? Because the thing about a passport photo is it's just between you and maybe you're very close travel partner and a border officer. It's not like you're putting it on the internet, So why does it need to be hot?
Well, Mama Mia out loud. Guest host em Vernon had this exact problem. She's not like us. She didn't want to look like a swamp rat. Here's what happened recently when she had to renew her passport.
So I had to get my passport photo redone, and my friend was like, no, you have to go to this place. Look at my passport photo and I looked at her passport photo. She looked amazing. So I was like, okay, I'm going to go to this place. It cost me twenty dollars, and I thought it was just a place I did really good passport photos. But then she took my photo to her computer and started like touching up my face in front of like everyone in the store.
So everyone in the store was watching this.
And it looked so good.
I looked really good in it.
I didn't look different to myself, but I just looked a better version of myself. I did ask her if she could photoshop about my double chin, to which she said no, But yeah, I paid twenty dollars to have my passport photo retouched.
She may regret that.
Oh my god, I'm just saying, you're not even allowed to smile in your passport picture. That's how much like yourself you have to look. I think AM's gonna be in trouble.
The story we're about to discuss is the French rape case, and if you've heard about it, you'll know how confronting some of the details are. So this is just a warning. If you've not heard about it, or if you have little ears around, then perhaps skip and you can come back later. There's a tweet going viral this week by doctor Charlotte Proudman that reads, not all men but Gizelle Pelico's husband, who reportedly drugged and raped her for over
ten years. Not all men but ninety plus male strangers, mostly living within one kilometer of her home. Not all men, but men with STDs and HIV who didn't use condoms. Not all men but her polite neighbor. The tweet refers to what is considered one of the worst abuse trials in France's history and the collective despair felt by women all over the world. Gizelle Pellico married a man named Dominique Pellico, and together they had three kids, then seven grandchildren.
They lived in a province in southeastern France. In twenty twenty, local French police invited Gizelle to speak to them after her husband of fifty years was arrested for filming up women's skirts in their local town. While in this interview, investigators presented her with an image of herself unconscious in her bedroom. She was being raped by a man who was not her husband. This image was just the beginning.
There were dozens of videos involving dozens and dozens of men found on Dominique's computer under a file named abuse. It was only then that Gizelle realized she had been subjected to a decade of sexual abuse, orchestrated and filmed by her husband, who drugged her with a cocktail of medication before inviting men into their home. The trial started last week, and Gizelle has waived her right to anonymity.
On the stand, she gave evidence for nineteen minutes explaining how she thought she had Alzheimer's after years of memory lapses and unexplained health problems. Dominique has admitted to the charges against him. If this were a simpler story, we would dismiss him as a monster a psychopath. But what makes this crime more sinister is the willing of these seemingly ordinary men, a polite neighbor, a local counselor, a nurse, a former police officer, a firefighter, to perpetrate a violent
crime when invited to do so. So far, fourteen of the defendants have confessed to aggravated rate, and not one of these men, even those who walked away and did not perpetrate abuse, made a phone call to police. This is a story about bystanders and a network of men, most sourced from the internet, who committed these depraved acts with such apparent ease. Holly, what do you think this story tells us.
I've been turning away from it for days because it is just so upsetting. I think one of the reasons why women are sharing this story so much. Obviously, it's extreme and it's shocking, and it's not something you read all the time, so there's a factor of it of just like, oh gosh, I hadn't heard about this, But women are sharing this because it feels to me least.
I know.
There are a lot of men who really smart at the idea that one depraved man's actions at anything other than one depraved man's actions, and they're like, it's sort of victim blaming to cast all men with any kind of smear about men being violent, because men are violent against men as well, and that's true, right, But this story, as you've said, is so much about bystanderds and it's not actually only about bystanders. It's about a whole system.
Because the place where her husband, Dominic Pellico, went to source these guys who wanted to come and have sex with his unconscious wife, come and rape his unconscious wife. Was a chat room on a social media platform called Coco that's been closed down since then, but there was a specific chat within that that was called something that
translates as without their knowledge. So we can imagine that this wasn't the only particular incident of this that was circulating on that chat room, and we can also imagine that there are other platforms and other chat rooms that
exist where this kind of content is being shared. And it makes women feel so unsafe because we're already being told every day that we're imagining it that all men are violent, and we're imagining it that all men would condone this kind of behavior, and of course they wouldn't. But the fact that this is her loving husband. She is on record as saying that they were married for fifty years and she thought they had a perfect marriage.
Not just the people around them, but she did, and her loving husband was doing this to her for more than a decade, and now it seems that he may well have also been taking pictures of his daughter, his daughter in law.
We have no.
Idea how wide these tentacles stretch. And I think the reason that we've been are passing this story around. There's also been some other really horrendous, high profile stories this week. There was a woman that we all watched run a marathon in Paris just a few weeks ago, who was murdered by her partner just a few days ago. She's a marathon runner called Rebecca Cheptege, and she was murdered
by her partner in the most horrific circumstances. Couple those with the relentless barrage we get week after week about a violent incident, and women are just feeling we're feeling crazy, like it's not the right word. I know it's not the right word, but this story is the kind of story that makes you feel crazy because you're like, it's not just one guy, as you've said, it was a
whole community of guys. I've read the mayor of this town, who obviously doesn't want the stench of this to stick to his town, saying, we had no idea, we didn't really know him. They'd moved to it quite recently, and it's not like anybody died. He said, ah, you know, there's a possible pass there and a translation slip, but he said, this is not like anybody died or a
child was murdered. This is a woman's rape. And if that kind of context in a world where it feels like our safety is not something we can guarantee, our rights are not something we can guarantee. That's why this story is resonating so hard. As well as the extraordinary bravery of this woman.
That's why her testimony is so important. I don't think anyone can quite grasp the strength of someone to sit there for ninety minutes and talk about what happened to her. And of course the way that a courtroom will unfold we've seen this in Australia is that the only way to defend any of these people is to suggest that there was some kind of open marriage where she was
a willing participant, and that's been brought up. So she has to sit in a courtroom where they're saying that, where the other side is referring to it as you know, consensual sex. But she has said some version of I will never be okay like this. This has absolutely broken me and I a will her children no. And oh she described when she told her daughter and the sound that her daughter made, she just screamed. She was so horrified. It's the story of a wolf in sheep's clothing, because
this isn't you know. We know this and we know about the monster myth, but this is a grandfather. This is just an ordinary man who was able to get on the Internet. And I think that this is the other part of the story is that it reveals how sinister unchecked online forums are that this was allowed to. France has a cultural they're very sexually liberal and they don't like to shut down.
It's not just a French thing, no, you know. One of the reasons why the CEO of Telegram has been arrested in France very recently is because there are a lot of questions about all kinds of platforms that are being very strictly defended under free speech legislation, and not just legislation, but it's kind of the owners of them are saying, but free speech, but free speech, we don't have to show you what's on there that people know are being used for terrorism activity, drug sexual assaults.
These are also not just underground websites. We know that child sexual abuse material is being shared and connections being made on Facebook, on Instagram, on x on all of these places and these are crimes. To be clear, this is not free speech, and this idea that it's free speech. Free speech does not cover crimes. You know you said before Hole it makes us feel crazy. Let's just go back to Giselle here, because she talked about how she
would go to her gynecologist she was having. Can you imagine the gynecological problems that she was having, including she got STDs and her husband said, have you been cheating on me?
Oh?
And I accused her of that? And her hair was falling out, she was losing weight. You can only imagine what she's had to process. And when they say that it's from ten years ago, that's when he started filming it. Who knows how long this has been going on. And a few months ago in Samantha Murphy was murdered in Victoria. When she went for a run, women were like, we can't even go for a run. It's not about walking
home late at night or what you're wearing. We can't even go for a run near our house in the early morning. And now it's like we can't even sleep in our own bed, inside our own marriage, inside our own house and be safe.
It's that idea this might be a really naive thing to say, but the idea that there are enough men who want to do that, right, like who want to have sex with an unconscious woman and use her like a posable doll in this horrific fashion. You know, I'm a grown woman is seeing a lot of things. It still absolutely shocks me. And I was talking about this case to my partner. I know not all men, but I was like, what is wrong with you?
Lot?
What is wrong with you?
And I know it's not him, but it's when a case like this cuts through and you have to read this and I feel like when a woman is as brave as Giselle is being in waiving her anonymity, her daughter's written a book. They're trying to do a few different things. They're trying to change laws around these kind of platforms, and they're trying to obviously expose their husband slash father as the monster that.
He is, and also alert women to the fact that this is We think about date rape drugs as something that happens in bars and nightclass the idea that it could happen over a long period of time in your
own home. She also wants people to know if you're having gynecological issues that you don't understand, or if you're forgetting things or falling asleep at the table, and his kids would say, because he's got two adult sons as well who've been with their mother along with her daughter, they'd be sitting at the table having dinner and she'd fall asleep at the table, and the dad would say, sometimes this happens, it's better if I just carry her
to bed. And they are tortured that the fact this was happening under their.
Nose, the bravery of her, and the fact that this has because I did see some posts earlier in the week that were like, this should be front page news. Everybody should know about this, and it is right. It is a story that has broken through and gone around the world as it should. I don't think men are talking about but they're not exactly This is what I mean when I was talking to my partner about it.
I'm not seeing men talk about it, and I understand it's horrific, but I also I don't know, Like I say, you just get to a point with these stories where it makes you want to I don't.
Know what the word is.
I want to build a wall, like I want them away, like I just.
It's the details. It's what you say is that you see the headlines, but then there are just these details which reveals something. And this is what a lot of the analysis in France is saying, is that this is about French culture. But although I think it's much broader than that, doing some soul searching about how this happened, because there are details about her meeting this man who was a friend of her husband's and they talked about cycling, and then she went to the bakery and said ow
low to him. He was one of the men. Yeah, so a completely ordinary guy. And the difference with the Internet, I would say, is that the Internet gives you a playbook and you know it's whistleblowing on the fact that if this was some kind of sick, sadistic thing you wanted to do, well, you know, he learned this from somewhere.
He also taught it. He's also been charged Dominic Pelico with doing this to another man's wife, and this other man is one of Gisel Pellico's rapists accused rapists as well, and so clearly this is more widespread, this fantasy that so many men have that we didn't realize not just willing to keep it as fantasy, but that so many men were willing to act on it, and had he not been stopped, he was still going. He was still
doing it out loud. As This is a very heavy story and we want you to know that there is help always available. We have links to resources in the show notes hell, because I can do it with the book again.
Taylor Swift has spent the last five days doing very public PDA filled patworks with her boyfriend Travis Kelcey, and I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that last week a rumor flew around the world that their relationship is in fact on tractual agreement. But I do need to check this with Mia first some context. Swift is having a little break from world domination at
the moment. The Era's taught, which started in March last year twenty twenty three, will finish in December this year.
My god, that woman works hard.
She's spent the northern summer in Europe and now she's on a very well earned break until October when she starts her last run of shows in Canada and the US. So you wouldn't blame the woman for wanting to have a little bit of fun. And these past few days she's been watching her boyfriend Travis Kelsey play football in Missouri. She went to a wedding in Manhattan, she went to the US Open final in Flushing Meadows, and on a fancy color coordinated dinner date with Travis, also in New
York City. Every occasion there have been pictures of arrivals and departures, and there have been really cute couple dressing moments, and they've been passionate up all.
Over the place.
And if you can be sure of anything, it's that if Taylor Swift was j LO, my friend Mia would have a lot of thoughts about just how public all this is. And if you're thinking, but isn't a woman allowed to go out with her boyfriend, yes, yes they are, you'd be one hundred percent right. But the very visible strategy is extra intriguing to people with no life like myself, because last week the couple denied the veracity of a contract circulating about their relationship on the letterhead of Kelsey's
PR firm, Full Scope Public Relations. This document appeared to provide the wording for an official announcement for the news of the couple split, which, to be honest, any of us could have written. It was like, after careful consideration, please respect their privacy.
Blah blah blah.
It was a whole content strategy. Doc I went really do keep going back like I think it's real.
It was like when the announcement would happen after the split, and there were rumors that there was a date of their split, which was September the twenty eighth, which is almost exactly a year since they first went public with their dating. Blah blah blah. They have, of course denied that it was real. The PR company came out and said it is absolutely not real. It's fake news. But Mia, what is going on in Travison Taylor world.
I just want to light a little candle for Tree Payne, who is someone I admire a lot. That's Taylor Swift's publicist. She's having quite the time at the moment because.
She would never get her document leaked, never to regard that with her life not.
An arabt by her document.
I have to work with these amateurs.
I'm still waiting for the bio pic of Tree Payne's life that will definitely win another Oscar for amistone. Now, look, there's been a lot going on because also in Taylor's orbit so much for her downtime. The squad has been conspicuously absent. So when she's been at games in previous last season, she was always had her posse with her. There was Brittany Mahomes, who is the wife of Travis's teammate Patrick Mahomes, and there's been Black Lively. There's been a whole crew, but.
Even a little bit controversy.
Correct, all of those people were at Taylor's house after she finished the tour for a little bit of a holiday, but they haven't been by her side because they are both a bit controversial. Blake Lively is currently in the cancelation cycle because of her movie This Ends with Us and the way she apparently was not respectful enough to
domestic violence victims. And Brittany Mahomes has been everywhere because she endorsed a whole bunch of posts by Donald Trump and has outed herself as a Trump voter.
Denell, just can I get to the bottom of this because I read she just liked a few posts by Trump. She did, but more than one, quite a few oay, has she said the words I am voting for Donald Trump.
I don't think so.
She hasn't, But then she did one of those notes at posts about or posted an Instagram title about isn't it important to be able to disagree with people that we still love them? And abuse and of course all of these things. But given that just a few weeks ago, Donald Trump retweeted some more fake shots. God, it would be hard to be tree Paint. I mean, hard to be Taylor, hard as to treat.
It's hard to be you, who's across all the tailors.
It's so hard to me anyway. So there's a lot going on, right So what's interesting about these papwalks? I personally, if I was Taylor Swift, after going around the world for as long as she has been and she's still not finished, and having the spotlight on me that much, I would want to retreat and be in a dark room. But that's not how she wants to be. And I'm
not judging that. I'm just saying it's something that I struggle to understand because the public nature of all of this, and she's spoken about it before and so has he in terms of they show up to support each other at work and work for them. It's not just going to the office Christmas party of your partner. It's going to football games and concerts and where there are a lot of paparazzi.
I'm trying to understand this because it is every day there's new shots, going out to dinner, you know, watching the US Open. All seem like very fun activities. But I'm like, what's the strategy behind this sudden like how conspicuous they are. Is it possible that it has anything to do with the VMAs that are this week?
Right?
So the VMAs are about to come up.
And I've been non for I think twelve wars.
Yeah, she's been nominated for a thousand and.
Oh that means more couple shots.
It means more couple shots, and it's going to be very competitive because, as we talked about last week, there are a lot of really impressive solo female artists. VMA's a voted. Is it possible that she does need to continue to court a bit of attention? She's tell us.
On the World Domination Tour.
Like, yeah, she's very she doesn't leave anything on the field. Though, to use a sporting analogy, she you're right in the same way she didn't need to release all those extra special versions of her album to Shoulder out Chapel Roan and Charlie XCX from the charts when they released their albums. But she does because she's incredibly ambitious. She really likes records,
she likes objective measures of success. And what I think is interesting this is the first boyfriend she's ever had that we know of, in a really long time who's been secure enough and who's enjoyed the.
That's one way of looking at it.
These secure enough, But the more cynical way of looking at it is that he loves it, and I love the appeal for him, and like she, of course she needs to go and watch him play football, and out louders, let's just raise a flag. We know this is all silly nonsense, and that what's really going on between them we don't know, but speculating is fun, right, Yes, she goes watching play football, but going to watch him play football,
and I've been to lots of football games. Right in a denim corset, hotpants and thigh high latext boots says take my picture, It says, take my picture, and I am here looking extra hot to support my extra hot boyfriend, and she is, of course italientitled to do that, but I think he loves it and she does it for him.
What it's not is very demure.
It's not that demure, but.
She's not mindful of CUTI but do you know what it says today? And I thought that.
She'll get sick of She'll get sick of that neediness.
One reading of this is that she wants everyone to look at her. Another reading of this is that she's a woman who's having really great sex and she's really feeling herself but you don't, and is really enjoying dressing like that and feeling it's also comfortable.
To me, she needs to get her very supportive of all that. It's you who's normally telling the women to get their clothes back on, but apparently those rules don't apply to our princess.
I mean nothing if not inconsistent.
But totally here for all that. She can have her hot girl as much as she wants and wear what she wants. But my suspicion is, as you always say, about the fact that she's always gone for these guys who are obsessed with privacy, and now she's got exactly the opposite and that will become as tiresome in time.
As the guys who are always obsessed with privacy.
Because she might just want to land the couch in her trackies, and she's been out for dinner five times in the last five days.
I think she has agency, and I think she probably spends plenty of time lying at home in her trackies. And even though for us it seems like she's been so public and everywhere, she's actually just been at work. So when you're on tour as we have been, the time that you're dates massively public. But then, particularly with everything that's gone down in Europe and with what happened in Vienna and having to cancel it and the terrorism,
she's locked down on this tour. It's not like she's been doing this for the last year and a half. So she wants to go out for di she's home. She lives in New York, she's got a house there, she's back with her boyfriend for two months. She doesn't have to be in tour mode, where she says when she's touring and she's performing, she doesn't drink because she says, I never want to know what it's like to do that show, to hang over, so she's essentially been working
back to back for a long time. I think it's her time to shine.
Fair enough, and we love her and she can do what she wants. What I need to know from you is what you thought about the leaked document.
I thought that everybody's got a plan, and it's not out of the realms of possibility to have a breakup announcement plan, right like, I'm sure they've got a engagement plan. And she is pregnant. Guess what, I'm having his baby that guess what I'm lying.
As someone who does understand this stuff, it seems so obvious now, but it's not something that I assumed existed. So what I spent my weekend doing was zooming in on all the details of the content plan.
But Jesse, it's like us preparing o bits for famous people who are near death. You just got to be prepared. What were some of the details that stood out to you.
I'm just obsessed, all right. So the plan gives an example statement of what he's going to say and the whole point of the content strategy in case you're wondering, And this is like a work document, this is what's fascinating. He retains a positive public image, minimizes negative media portrayal, and continues to build his personal and professional brand. He's only allowed to talk to ESPN, Vanity Fair, and People magazine.
And if you're wondering what he's talking points are, don't know what he's talking points are because he has to actually see the tracks.
This is a good plan.
They have to conduct some mock interviews with him so that he's prepared, but he has to say that he has respect for Taylor Swift and their mutual decision to part ways. Yeah, they had social media where the tile was going to be posted. Okay, obviously they look very much together at the moment. But this document, if it was real. The thing I can't make sense of is the date.
Yeah, that's the flag, because I think that it would be very sensible and perhaps reckless not to have this document. But it doesn't mean that the relationship's fake. I think that the date implied that it could. Maybe they were just going say it's on this date, how would we react? But I think that what the whole subtext of this was, and waver and got very excited, was the idea that it was a fake relationship. And I think that while parts of the document might be real and the content
plan might be real, is it a fake what? I can see why he would need it, She doesn't really need it. I just don't think they could be bothered, to be honest, But I could be wrong. It's almost a bit exciting if I was wrong, because it would be quite exciting to think that this whole thing would.
See the validation that would be the motivation for this relationship to be fake, because, as we've just discussed, Taylor Swift Will, being very ambitious and successful, does not need the publicity like she is in charge of the world. Whether she's dating Travis Kelsey or not. Well, it's good for him. He's got a lot more to gain from it than she does. Why would she be in a fake relationship.
Because it's upended the trope of Taylor Swift childless cat lady, can't get a man. No one's saying that about her, you know, can't hold a relationship or choose through all these guys to show her with someone who's her.
Equal, wholesome, all American. If you think about the ven diagram, as we talked about, it's a whole new the Super Bowl audience, I mean that moment with something written for a movie, and in terms of Travis Kelsey.
Like it's not her equal. I'm sorry, but he.
At the moment has his acting yield. He has his acting debut coming up, He's hosting something on an Amazon game show. His career is skyrocketing.
He gives me the ick.
Out loud as if you want to listen to us every day of the week, and why wouldn't you. You can get access to exclusive segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays by becoming a Mom and Mere subscriber. Follow the link in the show notes to subscribe, and a big thank you to all our current subscribers. Are you last?
Supher's Mom?
I no, no, not, it's just you know I taken the tour.
Twenty twenty four seems to be the year of the milf in Hollywood, with a series of movies and streaming series about older women who are having relationships with younger men, and many of them start a Cole Kidman, such as A Family Affair on Netflix where Nicole Kidman, who is fifty eight, has a relationship with zac Efron's character and
he is thirty six in real life. Then there was her movie which she's just one best actress for at the Venice Film Festival called Baby Girl, where she has a relationship with an intern at her law firm or wherever as she was, and that actor is twenty eight. His name's Harris Dickinson. And then, of course a few months ago there was the idea of you with Anne Hathaway, who is forty one, who was having a relationship with a boy band guy. Nick Gallantine played that character and
he's twenty nine. So you can see a bit of a pattern forming in Hollywood because more women are dating younger men in real life. So Hollywood's obviously following the money by meeting this audience appetite from women to see these kinds of relationships depicted on screen. However, you would not know this by looking at the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival. That's where a bunch of new and old relationships have premiered this week, highlighting a tale
as old as time. Older men like younger women. Oh press pause, write that down in case you forget. And it seems that the more status the men have, the bigger the age gap. Some of the couples on the red carpet. This week include Brad pitt Age sixty with his girlfriend Ines de Ramon, who is thirty four. That's a twenty six.
Year she's my age.
You could be, George, imagine that for a minute, because I know you're all for the age cut relationships. Imagine dating a sixty year old. How would you feel about that?
Yeah, no, that's my dad.
I was about to say you'd feel rich, but that is also your dad, which is weird. George Clooney sixty three was on the Red Carpet with his wife Ama Glooney. She's forty six. That is a seventeen year gap. Richard Gear, remember Richard Gear, pretty woman, Richard Gear seventy five now and he's with his I don't know, third fourth wife. Her name's Alejandra Silver and she's forty one, so they have a thirty four year age gap. Remember Jennifer Aniston's
ex husband, Justinirs and the cousin. He's fifty three. Jennifer Aniston had been what fifty five fifty seven by now he's with his new fiance, she's thirty. They have a twenty three year age gap, and this was interesting. Emma Corn twenty eight is dating Rami Mark who is forty three. They've got a fifteen year age gap. Anyway, it made me feel angry and depressed. I mean, not angry.
Because I might be imagining it, but I'm sensing a bit of snart. I'm sensing so much a sense from both of you.
From please it comes from insecurity now, it does comes from the idea that society tells us. And oh look, it's kind of true that older women are not desirable, are not worthy of being with men their own age, and that all men, really, when they've got the power and the money and the status, will trade in their old partner for a much younger maman.
Is this new or surprising? Like that desire is socially constructed? Like, are we angry?
I think your Clooney.
Or brad pet would choose a younger woman.
As you get older. It feels very personal.
I see, I don't agree.
I also roll my eyes so high of sprender Corney are over these relationships, like it is so boring and so predictable, and it makes you almost like ridiculously grateful for couples who actually like are both of a certain age.
You know, Keanu Reeves was out with his girlfriend and she had gray hair and.
We were like that man is our hero, or like, you know, that's why everybody loves Kevin Bacon and Caia Sedgwick on TikTok and stuff, because they're like grown ups who date each other like they're to get Like people were so grateful because this is so boring. But I don't agree with you. It doesn't make me feel insecure and unattractive, because let's be honest, I never really thought that the brad Pitts of the world were going for me.
Anyway.
It makes me think less of them. It makes me think and I know I've sounded a bit man bashi in different ways in this episode, but it makes me think, how sad for you?
You know what I mean?
Not that I think those women aren't interesting, smart, engaging women.
I wouldn't been adding too many candles for George Clooney at this point, but.
I just feel like, well, no, George Kline, I feel slightly different about why is that? But anyway, I feel like it's because.
I think it's because of how established, amal.
And amazing she is. But I'm sure that all these other women are also amazing in their own ways. They might not be human rights lawyers saving the world. But I'm sure they've got their own stuff going on. But it's just so predictable and boring because it speaks to me of their insecurity. Like dating younger women is a thing that middle aged men do to make them feel young. We're all as we get to a certain age, grappling with our relevancy, our attractiveness in different ways, not only sexually.
But are we still relevant in the workplace? Are we still worthy of attention? And will people still listen to us when we talk like Women are wrestling with that all the time, and so are men in a different way. And one of the things that makes them feel young and vibrant is the idea that a young woman still wants to have sex with them, right. It makes them feel good. And so when I look at your Brad Pitts and I think you couldn't handle a grown up
woman like it makes me single. It makes me feel like he must be having a midlife.
I don't have a single feeling about it.
You know.
I looked through these pictures and I just shrugged, and I thought, let them, like let them.
But yeah, of course, let them. No one's suggesting I'm gonna do what Meha always says to me. No one's suggesting that they should be arrested or like forcibly broken up, or we should be handing them contracts like their breakup announcement.
They should be in prison.
But I think that the age thing is that we've seen it so many times for so long that we find it hard to swallow. Just the idea that this one person who was perfect for you in the world just happened to still be in her thirties when you were in your sixties is like harder than ever.
I was doing some research and some studies find that the relationship satisfaction reported by age gap couples, which is defined as more than ten years, is higher. And the biggest thing that they face is like this social judgment is that they feel like everyone's judging them, and especially women. Younger women get it a lot from other women who are very judgmental of I don't really.
Have feelings about the women. I only have feelings about the man.
That's interesting well, that the idea is that the women either have daddy issues or their gold diggers and that's not fair.
Exploited, or they don't have agency. There's a great quote by down Savage. He says, we are status obsessed, power obsessed primates, always jockeying for control socially and also in our interpersonal relationships. There's no interpersonal relationship without power differentials, without advantages or disadvantages. And if you want to correct for that or eliminate that, you have to eliminate human relationships. And that's how I feel about this stuff. It happens
in every country. It's not a Western world thing, happens in every country in the world.
That of course it does Jesse because women are valued for their youth and their fertility. Like it happens only one way, though, and that's why these movies are such outlies. Like imagine if I listed all the movies and TVs shows that had age gaps the usual way, I can
see that there's a lot of satisfaction. And I've got a lot of friends who've dated much younger guys, particularly after their divorces, and I can see why that works because often the guys aren't ready to have kids yet, and the women have had their kids, they don't want anything too serious, and it's been good and it's been interesting and satisfying for them both for a time, sometimes for a long time and sometimes for a shorter time. It's as taylor as old as time, as I said,
And it feels personally insulting. And I feel attacked by this red carpet. I feel attacked by the men that are on it with they're young women. I feel attacked, I think, and I will.
Kind of go, go no offense to these people, right, but they're on a red carpet. They're celebrities.
I know.
To suggest that these people care about things such as power and money and fame and status is hardly surprising to me. I do not mean that any of these people, like, yes, we see it now everyday lives. But I don't think that every man is sitting there wishing that he was with someone twenty years younger.
Yes, I think that when you get older, without wanting to sound condescending, that thing about you can't be what you can't see, which is not true, because you can be it. In this instance, it's just can be hard to feel good about it. When you don't see any of your famous male contemporaries dating women of your age of their age, you do start to feel a bit like you're going crazy.
We were talking about this recently. What were we watching when we were like, oh, Hollywood's really old now the logis Oh it.
Was the logis.
So that wasn't even Hollywood, that was just Australian television. But my point being that there are a lot of incredible women in their fifties in Hollywood, right, A lot of incredible women in their fifties, and they're not really on this red carpet with their partners. I know, we're looking specifically Jesus, but they're mostly they're by themselves.
Yes they are, and I think that's Hones and your Jolays, which is.
Ironic considering Brad Pitt was their common denominator. Very often there by themselves or they've had late life divorces. And I'm not saying that because I don't think anybody wants to be with them, because of course they do, like they're incredibly gorgeous, attractive and accomplished people, but they are sick of this bullshit.
I would suggest, right, why would.
You want to be with a guy who only thinks that attractiveness exists under the age of thirty?
Like Leonardo DiCaprio.
You're so right that there's nothing surprising about it, and that's why it's worthy of comment, really, is that this needle doesn't shift. This trope hasn't moved, as women have got a lot more power in a lot more areas of life that are actually way more important, of course than red carpet relationships. This aspirational trope of the kind of woman, a rich, successful man in his fifties or sixties or seventies, in Richard Gears case, once in their
arms will not shift is interesting. It's depressing, but it's interesting.
Out loaders, We've talked about a lot of things today, and you might just want to keep listening to our voices. Well, you can keep listening to mine. We've all got other podcasts that you can listen to. But there is an episode of No Filter I'd really like to recommend this week that will just put a smile on your dial. It's a mother and daughter talking about age gaps and the mother she offered to carry the daughter's child baby.
And it got me once you listen, out louders, if you listened all the way to the end, I do talk a little bit at the end about volunteering my services to you.
I don't just being pregnant okay.
And I loved it. I would be honored. Thank you for asking me. Out Louders. We'll put a link in the show notes and we will live stream. It's a scoop the birth of Jesse's baby out of my vagina.
A massive thank you to all of you out louders who stuck with us through that, particularly that last part. We appreciate you as always, and thank you, of course to our wonderful team for putting this show together. We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Bye. Shout out to any Muma Mea subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Momma Mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description.