Everything Is Content - Age Gap Relationships - a deep dive

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Bonjour - we’ve gone international! Oenone has moved to Paris for the spring (oooh la la!) so we’re coming to you from both sides of the channel today. We’ve got something a (tiny) bit different for you in this episode - the internet was set on fire last week by The Cut who published a personal essay about an age gap relationship, so we've decided to go DEEP diving into both the article itself, and our general perception of age gaps in relationships. We also celebrate on behalf of our US listeners - who have had Sex and The City drop in full on their Netflix this week. What are some of the most iconic moments and does the show have a Gen Z equivalent? We think it’s about time that we read another book together - so let us know on Instagram @everythingiscontentpod if you’d be up for reading Middlesex with us - or drop us a suggestion if there’s anything else you want us to read as a group! —GQ: Hunter Schafer on Art, Love, Ambition—and Life Beyond EuphoriaCHANNEL 4: Married At First Sight Australia NETFLIX: The Parisian Agency JEFFREY EUGENIDES: The Marriage Plot JEFFREY EUGENIDES: MiddlesexTHE CUT: The Case For Marrying An Older ManTHE INDEPENDENT: There’s a reason we love to talk about age-gap relationshipsROLLING STONE: Aaron Taylor-Johnson: Britain’s next leading man BBC: What will Gen Z make of Sex And The City, now it's on Netflix?VARIETY: Sex and the City’ on Netflix: What the Ultimate Period Piece Might Mean to a Gen Z Audience—Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---Everything Is Content is produced by Faye Lawrence for We Are GrapeExec Producer: James Norman-FyfeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My WhatsApp went off. I'm really sorry. My phone's not made a noise since 2001. I'm Beth. I'm Richera. And I'm Anoni. This is Everything Is Content. Big news this week, we have gone international. Anony has entered her French era. Bonjour, I have moved to Paris for the spring.

So for the next few weeks, we will be coming to you from both sides of the channel. But of course, we'll still be delivering the same weekly dose of content and discourse dissection as always. This podcast is like biting the top of your baguette on your walk home from the content boulangerie. So this week, we're going to do something a little bit different and we'll be deep diving into age gap relationships and also taking a look back at sex in the city 20 years on. Let's start with what we've been loving this week. Richera, any highlights? I've got a non-culture highlight that I want to bring up. Have you seen the news about Hunter Schaefer and Rosalia having dated?

No. Yes. I'm seeing shock faces from you both. No, actually, maybe Anoni Beth, had you heard of this before? That was a knowing look. I've heard about it maybe the same time as you. Okay. So Hunter Schaefer did a GQ interview.

Among the really interesting tidbits in the interview, the main thing that's kind of gone most viral is her admission that her and Rosalia dated for five months. And yeah, the internet's kind of gone in a tizzy about it. Rosalia's getting the fittest people. Hunter's absolutely gorge. Gorgeous. What's White Bear's face name?

Jeremy Allen White. The one, that's the one. So that is an amazing list of suitors she's got going for her I know I know and I think it was very much the internet being like my two faves having been together at some point minds blown galaxy brain just so much love for it also fun how they managed to keep it secret it's pretty impressive I think also in the profile she mentioned the fact that whilst they were going on dates, she wasn't even sure that they were dating. So it was just like these ambiguous situations. I feel like you have to say Rosalia. I've never listened to a song of hers, but I feel like I count myself as a stan, which is the most ridiculous thing ever.

How have you never listened to her music? I actually do not know. I don't have an answer for you. That is so funny because I do think you can be a stan of the concept of someone. There are famous people that I've just decided that I like them knowing literally nothing about them or their art precisely I agree I saw someone say that Camilla Cabello's new stuff like her video seemed like very reminiscent of Rosalia I as like a non-stan is why I can't confirm yes so I saw her new music video and it does seem like more artsy and kind of like alternative pop. I saw quite a few people online saying really doesn't feel like her, her in general and like definitely feels like a new step in a direction. I'm still listening to the same like crusty, crusty old bands from like the 80s. So I'll have to take your word for it.

What have you been loving this week, Beth? So this week I have been watching and loving this amazing documentary series. It's quite highbrow. It's called Married at First Sight Australia. And I promised myself I wasn't going to watch this new series of it because I've had problems with it in the past in that like I start watching it

and I don't leave the house. But I've started watching it and I love it it's been out since end of Feb so I've got like 20 episodes to watch um and all today I've been like oh god just like get through the day and then I remembered we've got plans later and I was like but I want to stay in and watch my beloved Married at First Sight um so I've just had like a very Australian heavy few days like Like I dreamt in Australian last night. I love that.

Do you guys watch this show or do you know what I'm talking about? I've watched it years ago, maybe when I was at uni, but I haven't watched it for a while. I have watched it. I'm actually confused whether I've caught up with the series you're mentioning, but I have watched the last few religiously

and it's a sickness. The way it takes over your brain, it's a plague in your brain like I thought about it constantly for weeks so I completely understand what you're saying yeah that that sounds like that sounds like what I've got um this latest series is it's great it's got all like all the things you want from it how far along are you and what are the kind of dynamics that are coming up already I'm maybe four four episodes in, so I'm just watching the ceremonies. Everyone's being very sweet to each other.

And then obviously in a few episodes, they'll all be at each other's throats. But there's some very sweet couples and obviously some couples made in hell. And they're all just very Australian. And Australian people, I've never been there, but to my understanding from the show, they're all like really smooth and well-groomed

and really earnest. And I'm just so fond of them. So I have no idea if this one's going to be good but I think it probably will be also the thing I love about maths Australia is I think they were the first of like the whole franchise to do the dinner parties where all the couples meet each other so then that obviously becomes just like a cesspit of drama where like someone starts like nabbing somebody else's husband or like wife whatever it's just it's so ridiculously dramatic it's so juicy um and so if anyone needs me in the next few weeks I will be glued to the Australian maths out of office and only what have you been loving can I give you I've been loving two things

and they both sort of can relate to yours one of them because one of them is a reality tv show and one of them is a book about sort of about marriage so the reality tv show i'm afraid so you guys can't watch because it's only in netflix france but it's called i don't remember that's how you say it but it's basically selling sunset paris but it's a family so this is like a husband and wife with four sons who all work for this now they have this like amazing realtor business and they just sell beautiful homes in paris and i'm i'm saying i'm watching it to help me learn french because i have the subtitles on but obviously i'm just watching it for the houses hello it's anoni here from the future because

past me lied and i'm very sorry um the show is on Netflix in the UK it's just called the Parisian Agency. Au revoir. The second thing I'm loving was based on well last week Rituya mentioned the virgin suicides and I was looking at my bookshelf before I came to Paris and I saw that I had a copy of the marriage plot by the same author whose name I never want to say because I'm worried I'm going to butcher it Jeffrey Eugenides yeah is that yeah is that what you think it is and it's basically about these three characters at Brown University in the 80s and it follows them during their first year post-grad and it's really literary the the character because it kind of at the minute I'm reading it from the main character madeline's point of view and she's like an english major and it's so bookish and literary but it's really good and then another random link to things we've been saying is um i was reading about the

book and people were saying how some of it is autobiographical but also how lots of people had been debating whether one of the characters is based on a different author but they say that like eugenides wasn't friends with him but he was really good friends with jonathan franzen as was this other author and i was like oh my god it's all like tying up in a neat little bow we did get a message from someone on our instagram saying please choose a second book for the everything is content book club which i don't know when we're going to do that if we're going to do that again but could this be a contender a little jeffrey eugenides maybe that's true I mean we could all read have you read

Middlesex Richira no I don't think so because I almost wonder if that was his most famous one weirdly I never I've heard of that yeah that won a Pulitzer Prize the book is a bestseller more than four made unless we read that Middlesex I can read Middles sex yeah yeah i'm down if well if you guys i tell you what i'm on this very interesting website called um yk ped aya and i'm just looking up about the book oh my gosh that took me way too long to work out what was going on i'm so dumb so um from said website it says primarily a coming of age story and family saga the 21st century gender novel chronicles the effect of a mutated gene on three generations of a greek family causing momentous changes in the protagonist's life according to scholars the novel's

main themes are nature versus nurture rebirth and the differing experiences of what society constructs as polar opposites such as those found between men and women. I mean, it sounds like it could be a pretty juicy one for it, especially because it's from 2002. Oh, well, I'm in. How about everyone contact us on at everything is content pod. If that's what you want to read, we're up for it. If not, we can maybe do a little question box again.

Yeah, let's do that. I got so many good recommendations last time. Yeah, me too okay gullies the discourse has been discoursing this week and i'm really pleased to say that we had a listener message on instagram from aditi She asked if we could talk about the cut article, which I, I mean, I'm pleased as punch to be asked to talk about it because it's all I can talk about and it's all I have been talking about.

It's basically about a man, a woman who marries a man who's 10 years older than her and why she's made the best choice out of all women who exist. Have you read the piece? Do you know what I'm talking about? Are you buzzing to get deep into the cut? Yes, so I you read the piece do you know what I'm talking about are you buzzing to get deep into the cut yes so I have read the piece and I am titillated to talk about it I am also very excited to talk about it I have some really strong opinions about this and I I feel like this

piece came out last week or whenever and I'm glad we've had this bit of distance because it made me quite cross um and now I feel a lot more calm about it I think if we talked about it the day it came out I would have maybe said some things that were quite mean I don't know interesting okay so for the listeners who don't know the article was by Grazy Sophia Christie and it was a personal essay discussing her marriage to a man who's 10 years older than her and it is about an age gap 10 years in general I wouldn't say is a lot but she was 20 when she met him and I do think when you're under 25 age gaps kind of hold more weight than they do say if it was like a 30 year old and a 40 year old I almost think that wouldn't even be worth discussing

in in terms of like age gaps and I I loved reading it as a piece I actually thought it was like fascinatingly written and she's very compelling but it was very confusing tonally in terms of the fact she's basically talking about how she she married this man as a decision to further herself her life she kind of used it as a jump ahead in terms of she had more financial freedom she could do things that her friends couldn't do it gave her access to write and work in a way that she wouldn't be able to had she dated someone her own age and gone through the process of you know being in your 20s and being at being young and free and probably a bit broke she was like I basically bypassed all that I married this older man which in the context of someone who's 30 as well thinking about 30 year old man I found it very funny how she's talking about him because it made it out like he was some like really wise 45 year old millionaire

like I don't know I don't know any men my age that seem as accomplished as she made him out to be maybe when I was 20 I would have thought that would you say that's a good plot it's synopsis did you guys have any more to add for context yeah I think that's really good I think also she reveals a bit about the the way she kind of deliberately saw an older man out slash a wealthy man out to foster the kind of life she wants. She also speaks about her youth as a superpower. And she's confused why other women don't, I guess, utilize that quote unquote superpower for themselves by forging a life that allows them to have more creative pursuits because they have somebody funding it

who's older. that bit was so depressing when she does talk about power um and she sort of says the burdens of womanhood are so great but you know we have the benefits the i think she says we have a tragically short window of power e.g when we're um still marriable because of our attractiveness and that kind of framing of it is powerlessness for someone who's 27 which she is now I thought that was so depressing that she considers herself so far in her through her window of power I just kind of wanted to shake her and give her a hug no I completely agree and lots of people said that as well they were like on the one hand yes I guess youth is a superpower but it's not because everyone

is youthful at some point so youth on its own it's not like it's not some anomaly like you aren't the first person to be young um there's a reason why I think marriage and people getting into this relationship has become pushed back and that's because with the knowledge of of years of understanding how the world works we've realized that actually tying yourself someone at too young of it an age especially as a woman maybe isn't a good thing so it's just interesting reading her quite confusing I felt like it was almost like she was trying to convince herself in the piece herself I felt that as well I saw somebody make the point which I completely agree with it's if you position your superpower as your beauty and your youth and that's the kind of exchange that you're providing for somebody marrying you who

has all this wealth and you know allows you to have the lifestyle you want the problem is you're just openly admitting that once you lose that they are most likely going to exchange you and refund you for something else surely totally that's something that's so interesting it's like she sees so much power in youth and it's like but if you're with someone that you think thinks that why would you not think that in 10 years time he's just going to get another 20 year old I think it's she's she's sort of like outsourced the building of her life and she's kind of positioning it as what a relief I don't I'm so bored by these like you know duties of life and I don't get I don't have to do that now like I'm basically on holiday I can I have access to this culture and this wealth but actually

I think that's quite a shame because as someone who muddled through the, you know, from 20 to 30, I think there's, there is value in building a life. There's that brilliant Joan Didion essay about self-respect and it's basically just says, you know, take a responsibility for your own life is the root of self-respect. I mean, I butchered that. But I do think she's kind of forfeited that for um money and access and an easy life which I'm not going to say that's kind of morally inferior but you do lose something by doing that and I think she doesn't really touch on that I think what's so interesting about the piece is like it's quite compelling and I think it's like I don't think she's wrong but I think what's confusing is she's tried to dress it up as though it's like basically what it is to me is it's sort of like having a sugar daddy

which I don't see any judgment in there's a bit and I'm going to quote a bit from the article she says I don't fool myself my marriage has its cons there are only so many times one can say thank you for splendid scenes fine dinners before the phrase starts to grate I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which i can never be angry with him he doesn't hold it over my head it just floats there complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction like you aren't being supportive lately occasionally i find myself in some fabulous country at some fabulous party and i think what a long way i've traveled like a lucky cloud and it's frightening to think of oneself as

vapor and in that bit you're thinking god she's so self-aware and also that's that to me sounds like she she says shapes the freedom and it's like what you've just described surely as control is living in a controlled environment the whole thing's positioned as the case for marrying an older man so it's very much like arguing for that offering some kind of empowerment um and I just found the whole thing deeply terrifying and it just made me feel so just like anxious in my stomach because none of it felt empowering to me which is one thing like obviously I have that reaction but just in general I find the conversation around age gaps really bizarre especially when she's writing this about a guy who's in his 30s

she's in her 20s so it's not really like the age gap isn't the thing that's empowering her it's his wealth that's the thing that's giving her all of this ability to live her life but also like you say Beth she's kind of pushed aside that like sticky period of like self-growth and like push that away in favor of just having somebody like tell her what to do basically is what she's saying and that that isn't empowering so it's not really a defense of freedom and empowerment it's kind of a bit of the opposite I think and I do think she's at the point I mean at 27 when you've been married for four years not you know that's still an achievement so you know it's not a short relationship, not a short marriage, but you're still in the unfolding part. You know, she isn't

in the old age that she seems to fear. She doesn't have, they don't have children together. You know, she isn't the older woman yet. And to have all that ahead, thinking that way about aging, I think that that makes the future seem kind of quite scary instead of what it should be, which is, you know, time to unwind and time to kind of bask in instead of what it should be which is you know time to unwind and time to kind of bask in the spoils of the things you've earned I think instead wouldn't you just be on high alert all the time thinking well I'm getting older I'm a person who values youth so much this is going to be hell I don't know it just reads a kind of like very antiquated when she talks about her high breasts and her flush ponytail it was like a kind of manual for

like a 1950s debutante that's actually what it reminded me of it reminded me of our conversation of trad wives and how we spoke about in this economy obviously there is something really alluring about just somebody kind of like fixing you down and you're just making cakes every day and like kind of minimizing all the pressures in your life it kind of reminded me of that a lot the way she was talking about this what else is interesting is she talks about she sounds really jaded when she says like the other thing is if you date a young man basically you're going to give them all these tools then they'll break up with you and date someone else and I know this to be like all of me and my friends always say this every time you have a boyfriend you'll kind of teach them how to do something, you'll break up and then you'll see them doing

that thing with their new girlfriend. And it, but in a jokey way, because I think that is true. But on the reverse, like I've had boyfriends teach me about my finances or teach me how to do certain things. Like I feel that everyone in a relationship, it's an exchange of knowledge and care and cultivating each other. So obviously, hopefully everyone grows through every relationship but she was so certain that she didn't want to be a part of

teaching a man how to do anything she wants to meet them kind of fully formed and shaped by all the women they've already dated but again like you say the irony being she's only 27 now which to me is still the age of like the younger woman in butter commas I don't know where she's at 20 it seems so young to be so jaded to be so deflated and so sure that there aren't any good men left in butter commas you know because it is kind of a marriage of financial it was a marriage of financial unequals I would quite like to to kind of hear her take on it because it's not really at this point 27 37 it's not an interesting age gap like you said Anoni I would quite like to hear about um the other imbalances like the the kind of money the kind of um the fact that they come from different countries I think that's

more at this point more of an interesting dynamic to mine and to kind of Plum than 27 37 at that point I think that's quite dull a dull gap. I just wouldn't even notice it. You know what I was really interested by, and it might just be kind of navel gazey, but there was a line where she talks about having that imbalance of money and him being able to support her means that she takes really low paid writing gigs and spends unlimited amount of hours working on them. And just spending all the time I guess just being able to take creative projects that she wants and I was listening to a podcast this week I can't remember the name so forgive me but they were talking about every nepo baby that we know of does a creative

thing and what that kind of reveals is if we all had the money to do what we want we'd most likely do something creatively and not have the fear of like making an income from it and I think that's so true think about like the history of male like especially men who were writers years ago like poets and stuff just sitting in their little opium dens taking themselves away for months while they had like cooks and chefs and wives and whatever kind of following them around and all of that creativity and true genius as it was called back then literally came from the fact that they weren't working in the sense that we see it now to like sustain themselves they were creating which is a completely different kind of train of thought and act if your kind of livelihood doesn't depend on it I was just like I don't know I I wasn't jealous about much of it

just because I feel like we come from different viewpoints of what a relationship means to us. But that one bit I was like, oh, I'm really jealous of that, that ability to be creative without pressure and confinement. It does kind of seem a bit navel gazing that maybe with years and years of kind of not having to prop yourself up in that way, that you do end up just marvelling about your own circumstances. Like it was, I think it was an interesting essay because I found it so disagreeable. But I don't think she said anything that was really new or original or empowering or that interesting.

Yeah. I'm not trying to be like kind of unkind, but I just think objectively as a piece of writing, it was very insular. So like Beth, like you just said, nothing she said was that groundbreaking and it was very navel-gazy and it was quite solipsistic and introspective.

But what is it about this person I say that has gripped people so much? I mean, the vitriol that I've seen online and kind of actually quite cruel reactions to it and sort of picking her apart like vultures picking a dead animal on the side of the road. What do you think has caused that? Like, why is this piece really struck a chord with so many people? So I'm going to have a stab at this. I feel like the voice that she's taken in the essay is very much, I figured this out. How come you guys just haven't figured this out? Like, am I the only

smart one who's realized we could all be doing this? So I think there is that kind of slightly smug, slightly holier-than-thou perspective on I've figured out how to make life work and nobody else has realized this and they're kind of stupid and I wouldn't agree with this because I think at 27 she's still finding her voice and and and there's so there is so much flair in the article I think it's quite overwritten but with a good copy editor um that would be taken down a notch and people have been criticizing how it's written criticizing the amount of commas she's using. So I think some of the critique has been from, you know, feminists saying, we've thought about this and this kind of is exactly what we've been trying to avoid.

Women arriving at the point that they want to make themselves into commodities, but some people have just been taking aim at really anything. I don't think it is a poorly written piece. So, you know, I think that has been quite unfair maybe. I don't't love the writing in all honesty I do think it's quite flowery and it felt quite Jane Austen but I don't I don't to be super clear I don't feel like anyone deserves the amount of vitriol she's gotten I just think it's that stuff's kind of like catnip online where people see that and then they're just like incensed by it I post it on my Instagram story and loads of

my followers are like I love the way this is written I think if you're not a writer because the things people were being pernickety about are as you said stuff that Beth stuff that could be picked up in a copy edit it was like the misuse of of commas or semicolons or sort of like lists that didn't need to be lists or phrasing kind of a bit out of whack but people can write like that all sorts of writers like you wouldn't believe how much gets copy edited so that seemed weird that the cut hadn't done that but also I wonder how much of this is like um sorry because I actually did quite like how it was written I did actually find it quite compelling and I wonder how much of this how do we not know that she's just this young 27 year old writer who said I've got an idea then was just kind of getting carried away in her own law.

So decided to write this like really long piece and was really pleased with it and thought it was quite interesting and fun. And for all, you know, it was like, she doesn't think that highly of herself. She was just getting, because I sometimes, I don't know if you guys ever get this way,

you're just sort of, you're getting carried away with the act of the writing. You're not even, you don't necessarily mean what you're saying. You're just having fun creating. Born from that is this monster that she's inadvertently made. And I'm sure that the people at the cut even you don't necessarily mean what you're saying you're just having fun creating yeah born from that is this monster that she's inadvertently made and I'm sure that the people at the cut that commissioned the piece were like this is great you've done it great like they obviously

haven't edited it enough to like a standard that you'd expect and then she's been thrown to the wolves um we've spoken about personal essays before but like this was my fear with the last piece we spoke about where it's like is it ever worth it to write these big personal essays like you're gonna have to have such thick skin to deal with the kind of level of abuse she's getting online people are really going for it they're tearing apart like what she looks like they're trying to get into her like personal instagram and talking about in a way that i don't think she's put her head on the chopping board as much as that's not a phrase i don't think but i totally get what you mean i think i think you have to be quite savvy if you are going to do something like this if she did

have you know skin that was made out of steel she could probably get a book deal out of how viral this has gone and done you know like really utilize this if that if she is able to weather this insane shit storm but the average person also me would probably crumble and doing something like this even though you know a la Caroline Calloway any kind of fame is fame you can use if you want to I just wouldn't be able to do that I would probably just disintegrate dealing with something like this no I agree and actually I will call it now I think even now that I think if she's willing to plumb her marriage if she's willing to like really go that I can imagine there being a kind of book off the back of this but I was really surprised when I read it that it wasn't anonymous when I heard about the piece I thought oh you know someone won't put their name

to this and the fact she had talking about her real husband her real family his family kind of criticizing her brother I think you kind of do have to have thick skin because if I did that about my family I know that I'd be getting you know you're potentially severing um kind of real relationships to for your art so maybe she takes it even more seriously than than the rest of us I don't know okay I know we could talk about this cut piece for ages but i also think because the the piece was about age gaps even though we've all decided it's not it's more about a wealth gap should we talk about some other big age gaps in society and celebrity culture which i think are pretty striking the one that comes to mind first is a Taylor-Johnson and Sam Taylor-Johnson

this has kind of been coming up lately in the news because people were saying perhaps he was going to play the next James Bond and then he was interviewed saying you know there's always been a bit of a query over their relationship because it's a 24 year age gap I believe and he was 17 18 when they got together and he was quoted as saying, I don't think it's weird. I was just doing what everyone else did in their 20s when I was 13. It's not that weird, which has spurred a big online discourse. So I think age gaps like that to me is fascinating.

Have you seen the kind of resurgence of conversation around Aaron's and Sam Taylor Johnson's relationships online? Absolutely. I feel like it's gone back up again on the timeline is it's just everywhere. I get a lot of people kind of quote, retweeting and saying like free him, a certain portion of the internet has decided based on kind of the facts of the relationship when they got together, things they've said in interviews and speculation that, you know, it is an imbalance and that, you know, there a an imbalance and that you know there's just

something quite off about it um I remember seeing the same thing for um Macron it's often when it's an older woman we kind of have a special revulsion for that I know we joke about the Leo thing but it doesn't have the same it doesn't hold the same kind of revulsion people just joke about him having you know girlfriends that are 25 and under I guess what's different with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emmanuel Macron and I'm sorry I can't remember his wife's name but she was she was his teacher when he was 14 15 is that right and then Aaron Taylor-Johnson was being directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson in both of these cases the relationship began um when they were adults but it's that kind of crossover of when you are a much older adult, what draws you to someone who's younger?

Why is it that we kind of do feel that revulsion when it's a woman? Like we think women should know better and not have that kind of draw to maybe like pretty young things. I don't, because I feel it as well. We can't discount the patriarchy and the way society has normalized older men,

kind of, you know, fancying younger women and all that kind of stuff and we're kind of like working out the levels again so I think we I don't know and also us being women as well I think we can feel that if that happened to us we would feel in danger so I probably think we have that level of sympathy towards that situation as well I think the online discourse around age gaps has gone completely, it's gone to an absurd place. But I think where it begins is women, especially warning other women, because we have that muscle memory of being a teenager being either in a relationship with someone who was who was inappropriately old, or who was a creep and not realizing it until later, I think it's quite easy then to just want to carte blanche,

warn other young women. And I think that's where it comes from. But the discourse has gone to a place of all relationships where there is an age gap, it's predatory. Power and balance is always indicative of coercive control. And I think we've kind of lost the thread of it a little bit. And it's not just these extreme cases where it is, you know, a quarter of a century. It's sometimes a decade. It's sometimes, you know, someone at one end of the 20s and the other saying, well, this is so inappropriate. And I just think we don't get anywhere kind of sensible when we do that. It reminds me of Florence Pugh getting really frustrated about people's response to her and Zach Braff.

And to be honest, I don't really have an opinion on their relationship i don't i honestly don't really care but so there was a 21 year age gap between them he would have been in his 40s and she would have been early mid-20s and she said post breakup the essentially the response online to them being together was just really really irritating and really frustrating and she felt like people were basically disempowering her from having made a decision to be in a relationship by saying that she was being groomed and all that kind of stuff I think it's so tricky because my natural gut reaction is also to be um danger danger warning much older man like I do have that fear of like I remember when she was dating him and I think she was in her early 20s and I just saw her probably wrongly as a vulnerable young woman

with so much of the world to see and explore and like old expired not that I genuinely think not man's old but in the context I'm like older man so much more experienced I almost feel like they're acting like a thief of her youth and I don't know if this is my conditioning I don't know if it's like what you guys saying before just about us feeling those warning signals having you know felt the fear ourselves um I have to actually really challenge myself to be like no people obviously have agency I do agree because I do have that knee jerk and then I have to talk to myself because I think we can lean towards being quite puritanical which then does disempower disempower um and it's quite patronizing because it's even with like a perfect understanding of power dynamics um we still feel chemistry and attraction and kind of compatibility with the people that we find you know sexy and sometimes that is because they're

older and more powerful um it's not a wrong dynamic it might just be a different dynamic than than the one that we are kind of used to and i think talking about it helps prevent or being more aware of like coercive control and genuinely um you know what the signs of abuse are that's all very helpful but just to say okay there's an age gap that must mean that there's something untoward going on i think that is where we get to the point where people on Twitter just can't they're like foaming at the mouths when they see you know a man or a woman with a relationship with someone who's also an adult but is like two decades younger friend of the podcast and my friend Olivia Petter wrote a really good piece uh in the independent about this cut article but also just generally she said there's a reason we love to talk about

age gap relationships and she says the piece went viral because there's something about a younger woman having agency in an age gap relationship with a man that completely subverts the prevailing social and cultural narrative about this dynamic when a younger woman dates an older man the stereotypes tell us there is exploitation at play the kind that might serve the woman but ultimately favors the man this doesn't seem to be the case in christie's essay in fact the husband is barely mentioned leaving the reader knowing almost nothing about him aside from his nationality i think what's interesting about that take and also about this conversation we've just been having about florence pew is we don't actually

know how to talk about this or act on this because especially in a post-me too world where we're i think we're fiercely in protection mode and fiercely trying to be feminist in our movements and and the way that we speak about female agency and you know what is the the right or done thing it can throw us off kilter when someone does something which feels like it's going against those arguments even if it's obviously inherently fine it's like oh shit where do we go how does this fit into our little situation that we've labeled i saw a call out once about sarah paulson and her partner holland taylor and they got together when sarah paulson was 41 and holland taylor was 30 or so years older and they were calling kind of Holland Taylor a predator.

And like, this was completely earnest. This is someone that I sort of knew in real life. If there's ever been like a symbol for the discourse discoursing, it was calling a 41 year old woman a victim of a predator who was 73. If you haven't read that piece in the cut, it is the long read of the year so far, I'd say. Personal essay on heat. Do go and read it. And the other piece by Livvy in The Independent

will both be in the show notes. So in thrilling news for our American listeners, Sex and the City has made its way onto Netflix this week. Unfortunately for people in the UK, we are in prison to Now TV. I'm just joking. I love Now TV. But with the full back catalogue of the iconic show hitting the platform 20 years later after the last episode aired in 2004, by the way, we just wanted to dive into what exactly does Gen Z have in terms of their version of Sex in the City? We know that eight years after Sex in the City, Lena Dunham dropped The Iconic Girls, another show that kind of, you know, synonymized millennial women making it in New York. And that was kind of, I guess, our version, our iteration of Sex in the City. What do you guys think is the equivalent, the Gen Z equivalent to Sex and the City?

Do we even have one right now? So if you don't know, Sex and the City follows the group Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, a group of four besties as they navigate life and relationships in New York. Eight years exactly after that, Lena Dunham dropped Girls, which has a similar format. It follows four characters, Marnie, Hannah, which is Lena Dunham, Girls which has a similar format it follows four characters Marnie Hannah which is Lena Dunham Shoshana and Jessa and is another depiction of the female experience at that time and is more kind of Brooklyn vibes rather than Manhattan like Sex and the City isn't it funny how they're all like in their 30s and 40s Sex and the City they're all kind of like

financially solvent like they're making terrible decisions but like they've got there's an affluence there whereas what millennials get is kind of broke women in their mid-20s relying on the bank of mom and dad like i think it's so interesting that that is the mirror that we most easily see ourselves in and like thinking of what gen z have like what what is their like unique pain point like is it wildly dissimilar to us or like do they just need like a girl's 2.0 yeah so the girl's first episode the iconic drop it ends with Hannah getting cut off from her parents financially she's an aspiring writer and unlike Carrie who's like literally got a column

in the Daily Star I believe Hannah is like struggling and failing to make it work. I think what you said, Victoria, about how glossy Sex and the City is, is so interesting because it's so true. Like I'm thinking now of Broad City, for example, where it's sort of like you got these women who are not self infantilizing, but that that line that I love that it's like, get married at 27, Lincoln, what am I, a child bride? Whereas like, and that sentiment is sort of in Sex and the City because they are all single in their 30s, which I think is very chic and great representation, but they are wearing monologuonic shoes,

they're living in gorgeous apartments. And whereas Broad City is very much like living with a housemate who's leaving like beans and the end of like a spliff on the side of a sofa, that kind of grottier living I wonder if there's it it's time to bring back that veil of glossiness or maybe like you said maybe that is what Emily in Paris does I don't know I feel like we need an escape that especially right now maybe something that's unattainable is quite alluring maybe maybe gen z will love it for that value because it feels so estranged from the reality that we're living in i think i have a really specific point of view on this where i've literally just completed my fourth rewatch of

girls and i also love the sex in the city and that will probably be my next rewatch but i do really love the grottiness of that and i love love the fact that the show, you know, quite literally had boobs out, sex normalized on screen. Was Hannah taking coke for the first time? Was just all of these things that broke barriers at the time. Obviously now that stuff is like on every HBO show that we see. But at the time, that grottiness and that willingness to go there and just be really gross and icky was really revolutionary and I think what Gen Z and what we were missing at the time but didn't realize is a version of that that you know has more queer representation has a trans character in there that does it justice and that representation more diversity POC you know voices

in there I think I love the glossy stuff but I also love the like real icky shit that like feels like oh I live that too I love that you want to be seen yes I want to be seen have you seen the tweets from millennials mostly saying uh-oh Gen Z are gonna you know finally get to meet Carrie you know they're gonna to be kind of too woke for for the character of Sex and the City which I think has been quite patronizing I don't know if this has kind of come up for you guys but I've seen a few tweets just kind of acting as though Gen Z are going to be scandalized by Sex and the City as though one they haven't already seen it and two they're going to be shocked because also there's this there's an idea this is i think this literally exists on x i don't know

if this is like anywhere else but that gen z hate sex they want all sex scenes taken out tv shows they're very puritanical they hate smoking they don't really drink um how much of this is sort of like cause and effect of living through a cost of living crisis where people can't afford to go out and drink or how much of it is because of whatever factors we don't know but there is definitely that dialogue online that I see with this millennial Gen Z divide where the Gen Z is sort of as you said very puritanical and so I think that's where this idea that they're going to hate sex and cities come from yeah they call them the puritans or like zoomers to like to say that they're like generation Z boomers which which, yeah, it's so heavily online,

I don't think it actually reflects who they are. I think it's quite funny. And I think a lot of them can take the joke. But I'd say like a part of digital literacy, which Generation Z or Gen Z have is watching a 25 year old show and obviously expecting there's going to be like, imperfect moments, off colour moments, you know, lack of diversity, outright, like transphobia and racism, people expecting a puritanical puritanical backlash are going to be quite disappointed. I think that young people like sex in the city. Yeah, I feel like, do you remember the reclaiming of Charlotte that happened in the last few years? I feel like that can't just have been all of us because we watched her for ages. I feel like some of that must have been led by Gen Z, Gen Zed, watching it and just thinking,

oh, of all the characters spouting like absolute nonsense, Charlotte saying a few sage words now and again. Woke Charlotte. Yeah. I just remember it being such a thing and everyone would also like rewrite all of the things that like the characters could have said if they were living in a woke world.

You're right. I don't know if that would have been millennials doing that. When I rewatched it, like the last five years, that never stuck out to me as like, oh, Charlotte's being quite impressive in this scene. So it definitely wasn't coming from me or any of my friends because we never had those discussions. Do you know what needs to never make a comeback is the Sex and the City, not the first movie, but the second movie, which is just absolute tripe. It's like genuinely racist. Yeah. It's just genuinely so offensive offensive it needs to be struck from history so don't let the teens get their hands on that yeah people don't count that in the canon do they they just go straight to and

just like that one thing i do want to know is what are some of your fave iconic moments from sex and the city so i don't know when this was in the series but it's samantha who is and it's been so long since i did a watch of this um she's sticking up the posters because she walks in on on the guy who's actually a really good match for her going down on another woman and the police officer who i think is played by bailey from grey's anatomy it's like ma'am you can't do that and then samantha explains and she's allowed to do it because you know like girl code um i just remember watching that and being like god it is a very sacred thing to think you've met a man who goes down like that only on you and then to discover not the case I think one of my favorite

Samantha moments is when and this has been memed to hell now but when the guy rings her and he's like Samantha I've told my wife it's over and she's like who is this that's really iconic and also the episode I think it's called the baby shower or it's when Carrie goes to her friend's baby shower and she takes off her monolos and they get stolen and that's this whole monologue because the friend's like oh we'll just get another pair of shoes and then Carrie kind of reels off how much she's spent on friends baby showers and weddings and buying presents to them and she's like all I have is this pair of shoes so you should not all I have but as a woman that's like not had those milestone in verticals achievements that people lord so that having a baby or getting married maybe it's time that people spend a bit

of money on her and I think that that speech is uh rings true for a lot of people to this day and I think that's the kind of power of sex and city a lot of the messages are evergreen yeah completely your chair what's yours so I've got two one of them is do you remember when aiden and steve become friends and miranda and carrie i think they're having brunch or maybe they're just walking past they spot them together and they both basically have a panic attack and they both look at each other like when did our exes become friends with each other what the fuck um i have a real life this happened to me moment where it happened with me and Annie Annie Lord and we were like this one scene literally was that example

and it just was so horrifying to live breathe through that um and then my other one is it's it's a bit of a downer but do you remember when Carrie turns up to big's apartment with mcdonald's and he's moving to paris she thinks she's being really cute and she's like i bought um la mcdonald's for you and it's gonna be so sweet and she wears a beret and he's like don't move for me it's nothing to do with me if you move you're moving for yourself and it's just like that wishy-washy commitment the classic big response where he just doesn't want to take her her feelings into account at all she has a breakdown and like throws the mcdonald's at him and she's like why do you do this you always do this and it's oh gives me chills every time is she wearing like little

like lederhosen or like a little outfit she's like dressed up to be his maid is it that one no i think that's a different one oh when she brings him candy yes and then he's ill yeah he has he has a heart transplant and then she comes to be his like candy made whatever and then yes he basically like she makes the joke about him growing a heart because he's really kind for a night and then once he's better he reverts back to the old big I do think you're not supposed to dress up when someone's had a heart transplant in a sexual outfit. I feel like the doctors would not suggest that. So if you're in the UK and you are gagging for a rewatch, you can watch Sex and the City and also Girls on Now TV. And if you're watching this, either it's a rewatch or your first watch or you're Gen Z and you have thoughts, do let us know at Everything's Content Pod because we do want to hear from you.

And if you're in America and you have Netflix, then enjoy it. We'll be back this time next week. But in the meantime, you can chat to us, and please do, on Instagram, at everythingiscontentpod. Please leave a review and tell your friends if you love the podcast. It really helps us out. We'll see you next week. Bye! if you love the podcast it really helps us out we'll see you next week bye

everything is content is a great original podcast and we are part of the acas creator network this podcast was created devised and presented by us beth mccall richira sharma and anoni the producer is faye lawrence and the executive producer is james norman fife