It Doesn’t Matter If Leonardo DiCaprio Only Dates Young Women

Some people prefer short-term love over the ‘until death’ kind

Leornardo DiCaprio recently dumped his latest girlfriend, model Camila Morrone, after a four-year relationship, and social media went a bit crazy.

Morrone turned 25 years old this year, and as some have observed, the 47-year-old actor has never dated any woman past age 25. According to Deseret News, “That could send a negative message about older women.”

Since I just wrote a whole book about the negative messages women face as they age, it would not be the first!

The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi wonders if DiCaprio is becoming a “creepy old man.”

“While Leo’s Law has sparked a lot of jokes, it’s not actually that funny to watch a middle-aged man refuse to date anyone old enough to rent a car without paying an underage driver’s fee. It’s just a bit gross. To be clear: I’m not saying that large age gaps in relationships are automatically problematic or predatory. It’s perfectly possible for two consenting adults to have a healthy and equitable relationship despite a significant age gap. However, it feels like a major flag if a man consistently dates women half his age. One suspects that person isn’t actually looking for a partner, but an admirer.”

And author and lawyer Jill Filipovic, while also acknowledging that not all huge age-gap relationships are “gross or predatory,” believes there’s more of a potential for manipulative or abusive behavior on the older person’s part, as well a chance that he’s a “really pathetic person.”

“Men who serially date significantly younger women are not looking for equal partners. This is especially true when they women they date are less successful, less wealthy, or less independent — which tends to be the case with early-20-somethings, who are typically just beginning their adult lives, while men in their 30s, 40s, and beyond are well into them; the inequities are baked in, and that’s the point. These men are indeed looking for someone who will admire them, who they can mold, and who will make them feel sophisticated and important.”

It reminds me of the kerfluffle when then 50-year-old French film director and writer Yann Moix told Maire Claire that women his age are “invisible” to him.

“Come on now, let’s not exaggerate! That’s not possible… too, too old. I prefer younger women’s bodies, that’s all. Full stop. The body of a 25-year-old woman is extraordinary. The body of a woman of 50 is not extraordinary at all.”

As I wrote at the time, while I find his comments ageist and sexist, he’s entitled to have them. As he says,

“We’re not responsible for our tastes and our inclinations… I like who I like and I don’t have to answer to a taste tribunal.”

Actually, we are responsible for “our tastes and our inclinations,” as men who try to have sex with children or collect child pornography know all too well. Those inclinations are not OK.

Still, don’t Moix and DiCaprio have a right to decide for themselves what they’re attracted to?

They do.

I have the same right and so do you. And I don’t want anyone telling me that my right is “wrong.”

But the bigger problem with the arguments by Mahdawi and Filipovic is that they are assuming that DiCaprio actually wants a partner for the long term, when having an equal partner may — but not always — matter. Does having an equal partner matter if you’re dating someone and you have no plans or intention to “settle down”?

People don’t always date for some sort of end goal; sometimes, they just date for companionship and sex.

DiCaprio hasn’t exactly spoken desperately about wanting to get married (and I don’t blame him). Most of his comments in recent years are versions of, “It’s just going to happen when it happens” and, “You can’t plan it.”

Maybe marriage or even a long-term partnership is not his thing. Maybe he’s a fan of lebensabschnittsgefährte — the German word for a periodic life partner. Maybe he’s more of a believer in short-term love than in the until-death-do-we-part kind of love.

Not every love is meant to last forever.

As philosopher Alain de Botton says,

“If it was meant to last forever, every ending will by necessity have to be described as a horrifying failure. But if we allow imaginative space for short-term love, then an ending may signal a deeper loyalty, not to setting up of a home and domestic routines, but to a deep appreciation and admiration one felt for someone for a time.”

What’s wrong with deep appreciation and admiration for however long it lasts? Nothing.

And their arguments assume that he “wants” something from his 20-something lovers — presumably their youth, beauty and admiration — and not what his girlfriends may want from him, presumably money and power.

If it’s a “red flag” that DiCaprio consistently dates women half his age, it appears as if the women are happily ignoring that flag.

Morrone is worth about $2 million — nowhere near DiCaprio’s wealth. But even if she was worth more, say 100 times that amount, she might be seen as a gold digger, even if she were closer to his age.

At least that’s been the narrative around Salma Hayek and her husband, François-Henri Pinault. There’s no huge age gap between them — they’re both in their 50s — but Pinault’s worth about $7 billion and Hayek “only” has about $200 million, not a meager amount! And yet she still gets portrayed as a gold digger.

Let’s say DiCaprio proposed to Morrone, and she said yes. Guess what people would be saying about her?

Yep. Gold digger.

The narrative is that if a woman marries a man who has more power than she does — either because he’s older or richer or both — then she is only marrying him because she wants something from him. There’s hardly any discussion or judgment about what he might want from her.

But if a powerful man is just dating a young thing and putting a ring on it, well, then the problem is with him — he’s obviously a “really pathetic person.”

I don’t have a problem with men who date much-younger women — they’re most likely not my kind of men. I prefer to date men around my age who want to date women around my age, but I’m certainly not against dating younger men; it’s actually a much more equal partnership… if that’s what you’re looking for, especially if you want a long-term relationship.

But not everyone does. Sometimes, you just want a lebensabschnittsgefährte. And that’s OK.

Hey, I’ve written a book on changing the narrative about aging as a woman, “Not Too Old For That: How Women Are Changing the Story of Aging” (April 2022). Order it here and follow me on Medium, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you want to support my work and have unlimited access to my writing and the writing of all Medium writers, please become a member here. And if you’re interested in individualizing your marriage, please check out the book I co-authored, The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels. You can support your local indie bookstore (please do) or order it on Amazon. We’re also on Audible.