Why are age-gap relationships everywhere right now?

There’s a lot of sex in Rivals, the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1988 fun, frothy romance novel: the very first scene features a woman being fucked in the bathroom of the Concorde, climaxing at the precise moment the aircraft breaks the sound barrier, which basically sets the tone for the rest of the show. But despite all the sex, one of the most erotic relationships in the series is between two characters who never actually do it: ex-showjumper, MP, and recovering fuckboy Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and aspiring chef Taggie O’Hara (Bella Maclean).

The pair spend the series gazing at each other across parties and sharing snatches of privacy laden with sexual tension. Why do they never have sex? Partly because early on in their relationship Rupert gropes Taggie, aggressively shoving his hand up her skirt at a dinner party. She’s angry and repulsed – but she eventually forgives him and the story moves on. The even bigger problem, the narrative suggests, is that Taggie is roughly two decades Rupert’s junior.

But the age difference isn’t seriously portrayed as something problematic. Their burgeoning relationship is taboo and there’s clearly a stark power imbalance (exacerbated by the fact Rupert is also an immeasurably wealthy aristocrat), but it’s precisely this dynamic which makes the chemistry between them so electric. On TikTok, edits of the pair are going viral among young fans of the series: one clip, viewed over 4.6 million times, sees Rupert biting down on his knuckle while looking at Taggie, lust glazing over his eyes. “I want someone to look at me like that,” reads one comment.

Romance narratives have arguably become more moral in the post-MeToo era, more concerned with unearthing the latent power imbalances in relationships and how these can pave the way to abuse. It goes without saying that discussions about consent and power are vital, and it’s also true that people (normally women) can often end up manipulated by partners (normally men) with more money, status, or, yes, life experience.

But in recent years, it seems as though all nuance has been lost when it comes to conversations about abuse, to such a degree that it’s now assumed that lopsided relationships are inherently exploitative. Perhaps it’s for this reason that age-gap relationships have been conspicuously absent from both the screen and page: it’s been difficult to conceptualise a relationship that is imbalanced without being predatory.

However, it seems as though there’s a burgeoning pushback against the proliferation of uncomplicated, sanitised portrayals of sex. Rivals explores this in a more traditional way, portraying an older man with a younger woman, but the majority of recent cultural releases are subverting the trope. Films like The Idea of You, Lonely Planet and A Family Affair have all featured age-gap relationships between an older woman and a younger man (Babygirl, I Want Your Sex, and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy scheduled for release next year). In terms of novels, Miranda July’s All Fours follows an unnamed 45-year-old narrator as they embark on an emotional affair with a 31-year-old man, while Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo features two pairs of inter-generational relationships.

Ivan and Margaret are one of the two central couples in Intermezzo. Margaret is 36 and separated from her alcoholic husband when she meets Ivan, a 22-year-old chess prodigy competing in a tournament at the arts centre where she works. They bond, have sex, and before she knows it she’s falling in love with him. At one point she reflects on the difficult situation she finds herself in, racked with worry over what people will say about her relationship: “You have come to care too passionately, too fully and completely, for an unsuitable person [...] It is not possible to tear away the constraints and simply carry on a senseless existence.”

But, Rooney suggests, perhaps it is possible. Later in the novel, after the pair have resolved to stay together, Margaret ponders how their relationship will pan out. They might break up, she figures, and then she’ll have to deal with “the pain, the embarrassment”. Or it could go well. “In ten years’ time, against the odds, they might look back and laugh together. Maybe. Sense of all the windows and doors of her life flung open. Everything exposed to the light and air.” Rooney isn’t naïve about the potential pitfalls of age-gap relationships – Margaret considers the possibility that Ivan will one day leave her for someone “young and slender” who is able to have children with him. But she’s evidently optimistic about love’s ability to challenge our preconceptions about what makes a person “suitable”.

Maybe that’s idealistic. But isn’t the point of romance stories to be idealistic? Evidently readers and audiences are crying out for stories where passion is allowed to triumph over reason. Post-MeToo, women have been encouraged to be hyper-vigilant when it comes to sex and relationships: we’re never meant to lead with our hearts; we’re never meant to get carried away. Dating apps, relatedly, have encouraged us to be rigid and inflexible when it comes to the kind of person we’d like our future partners to be, with their brutal filters allowing us to casually disregard potential matches for the most arbitrary of reasons. Following stories about age-gap relationships – like Taggie and Rupert’s or Ivan and Margaret’s – reminds us that sometimes love doesn’t make sense, or breaks convention, and that’s OK.

The proliferation of age-gap relationships in fiction is ultimately part of a pushback against this culture which frames dating as a sort of clinical box-ticking exercise, where everybody only ever wants what’s good for them. But we all know that’s not true to life. Who hasn’t overlooked a red flag or two? Who hasn’t surrendered to their desires against their better judgment? Who hasn’t wanted the ‘wrong’ person? Besides: sometimes, as these age-gap stories demonstrate, the excitement of venturing into a grey area is often part of the appeal.