Trophy Husbands.

[MANICHAEAN]

Trophy Husbands.

Since when did “toy boys” become “trophy husbands?"

It’s all becoming terribly confusing in my dotage. I’m beginning to feel like David Cameron thinking that LOL stands for lots of love!

I presume that a toy boy is a young male appendage on the arm of a successful woman; there to cheer her up, whereas the trophy husband is the full Monty with the same attributes, but brought and paid for.

It’s all a bit unnerving actually. I’m comfortable with trophy wives like Rupert Murdoch’s ex who was classy, with more than a touch of the exotic orient, yet street wise enough to punch out the opposition in her husband’s London trail. Now that’s what I call a good investment.

But to be a trophy husband turns all the old sexist clichés on their head. Who now uses the phrases like “I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you?” or “Please be gentle with me?”

One TH that I’ve heard mentioned is George Clooney married to Amal Alamuddin, a top lawyer. Can’t really see it myself. George has made a fortune in his own right looking pretty, and has been quite happy as a bachelor for years, but perhaps with the prospect of his looks fading, he is seeking some security for his old age.

So, what’s the next development? The main point about being a trophy is looking hot. Will this lead to further male insecurity and the need for bottom tucks and Botox injections? It was so much simpler in the old days.

[Clopin]

Trophy husbands aren't really very common. Can you really find me ten examples of older, wealthier, more powerful (yet not very attractive) women with twenty something year old modelesque boy-toy husbands? Probably not right? While power, status and money are clearly attractive to women (Donald Trump bangs models, frankly grotesque men like Hulk Hogan can pick up a teenage trophy girl, and members of the Rolling Stones will still have a lineup outside their hotel room), these things just do not turn men on in the same way, at least not usually.

[papayahed]

My head hurts reading this. Ever heard the phrase what's good for the goose is good for the gander?

[Clopin]

Sure I have, but I don't agree with it.

I don't even think your average high powered female exec actually wants a hot young man to be subservient to her.

[papayahed]

Why wouldn't they? Some women expend a lot of time and energy at work and sometimes it is nice to spend time with some one uncomplicated, someone that doesn't need something from her.


erm...so I've heard.:leaving:

[Clopin]

Haha, I'm sure some women do want that but I really think male and female sexuality sharply differ in this respect. Take the huge industry for pornography and tell me how much of it is aimed at men and why that might be? Women are stereotypically attracted to doctors and such while men tend to go for looks; of course this isn't always true, but I think it's true often enough. My challenge still stands. Find me a bunch of women with high status careers and elevated incomes, who are somewhat advanced in age (as well as unattractive) and who are either married to, or routinely 'engage' with, much youger men. I don't think it will be easy to find even ten examples.

Also I'm not trying to suggest that women don't find sexy men attractive, that they don't care what men look like, or about a mans musculature (I've seen the covers of romance novels) because i know that they do, I just think that they tend to place a higher premium on other qualities. Think about your average romantic comedy, certainly it will tend to feature a strikingly attractive male lead as the object of the female protagonists desire, but rarely is this man going to be significantly younger, inexperienced or subservient to her.

[MANICHAEAN]

Too many pre-qualifications Clopin! Give a lad a fighting chance! Older, wealthier, more powerful women fine, but where did the; not attractive women and 20 years old, model type men come from?

Apparently the magazine Fortune tried to research this some time ago regards high flying successful well-educated corporate women but they found it very much a closet subject.

But if I might quote;
“Now,” says Doreen Toben, CFO at Verizon, "almost all the senior women [here] have husbands at home."
So do many women at Sun Microsystems. Of the 187 participants at Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Business Summit last spring, 30% had househusbands. And of the 50 women on this year's list, more than one-third have a husband at home either full- or part-time.

As for examples:

1. Where would Kevin Rudd be without his wife's brains?
2. Tony Abbott's wife - another successful woman in her own right.
3. Edward Norton, who is married to successful film producer Shauna Robertson.
4. James Righton, whose wife is Keira Knightly
5. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch, and Sophie Hunter, (a theatre and opera director / once won the Samuel Beckett Award for writing and directing.)
6. Eddie Redmayne, who's married to Hannah Bagshawe, a public relations executive who used to be the Global Head of PR at the financial company Mergermarket Ltd.
7. George Clooney already mentioned.
8. Demi Moore, 40 year old mother and Ashton Kutcher aged 25.
9. Difficult to judge if it was trophy wife or trophy husband in the case of Anna Nicole Smith and former oil billionaire Howard Marshall?
10. Samora Michele and Nelson Mandela.

[Clopin]

I dunno, I don't know that Ashton Kutcher was a trophy when Demi was plenty attractive herself. I think the prequalifiers have to be more stringent than just an age disparity. Unattractive older man with wealth and status partnered with a beautiful much younger girl is the typically understood model for what constitutes a 'trophy wife' in the general sense of the term; so that's the model I would apply, but in reverse. Anna Nicole Smith being precisely an example of this, while Clooney's wife, being successul and attractive herself does not fit the mould.

That's Trumps daughter on the left and his then girlfriend on the right. This is what a trophy partnership looks like and I just don't see it acted out with 'older wealthier female' and 'twenty something male model' playing the partnership roles very often (I believe Madonna is one exception, but she's also not entirely without physical appeal as Trump is).

http://www1.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/2004+Entertainment+Pictures+Year+jDYwnMYXIY7l.jpg

And here is Trumps current wife.

http://www2.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Melania+Trump+American+Ballet+Theatre+68th+iupsqTP YU9il.jpg

Meanwhile this is John Righton and Kiera Knightley. Two good looking people, around the same age, not a trophy partnership.

http://static1.purepeople.com/articles/8/13/41/98/@/1345108-james-righton-and-keira-knightley-950x0-1.jpg

Here's Tony and Margaret Abbot. Two people of around the same age, both successful in their fields and who probably have a lot in common, not a trophy partnership. Now if you were to either replace Margaret with a stacked twenty four year old model, or Tony with a ripped, shirtless, thirty year old beach boy you would have a partnership that fits my defintion of a 'trophy' partnersip.

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2013/03/29/1226609/191575-tony-and-margie-abbott.jpg

Carla Bruni and Sarkozy, what I would consider a trophy partnership. And I would be very surprised to see, say, Merkel with a young stud trophy husband.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/30/article-1196573-0570B0CB000005DC-879_468x697.jpg

[MANICHAEAN]

Great pictures. Trump's latest wife is something else, while Carla has always had a wonderful naturalness about her.

I wonder where Sir Mick Jagger would fit in? He is certainly rich, old (71), has status, but although not your classical beau, still has his looks.

Then there are his ex-wives Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall; well off, educated, successful and in the latter's case can still turn heads Would they qualify to take trophy husbands?

[Clopin]

Sure, but will they? Probably not. Mick (older than Bianca) is still laying women in their 20's while I doubt Bianca is doing the same, or even wants to do the same, which is, I think, a difference between men and women generally.

[Clopin]

Only a 44 year age difference...

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/35/590x/secondary/170304.jpg

So yeah, basically what I need to see are ancient, famous, wealthy, etc, women who are still sleeping with hundreds of young men before I'll be willing to believe there's any sort of gender equality on this subject.

[Pompey Bum]

Some women expend a lot of time and energy at work and sometimes it is nice to spend time with some one uncomplicated, someone that doesn't need something from her.

You really do have a thing for Mr. Data, don't you? :)

[Ecurb]

Perhaps men should follow the well-known advice of Benjamin Franklin rather than the example of Donald Trump. Here it is:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/51-fra.html

[papayahed]

You really do have a thing for Mr. Data, don't you? :)

I do.

[Pompey Bum]

You know, it's just occurring to me that black widow spiders have trophic husbands.

[YesNo]

A drone honey bee doesn't get much respect either.

I wonder if Mick Jagger's wife could consider him her trophy husband? Admittedly the direction of the age difference is inverted.

[Pompey Bum]

My wife considers me a loafy husband.

[MANICHAEAN]

Is that what you would term a lazy limey?

Just asking.

[Pompey Bum]

Well, I think we've had some personnel go over the wall since those days, so no, it looks like I'm back to being a wanky Yankee. :)

[Calidore]

Is it just me, or does Jagger's wife look remarkably like Cher?

http://nex1.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/cher14.jpg

[free]

Nobody can judge a married couple from 'outside'. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...' :)