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I noticed it in a previous relationship I was in. Women my age (late-20s) were unhappy to see me dating a girl six years younger. I think they were unhappy to see a guy from their cohort with a younger women, since that norm (if tolerated) would allow the men they were interested in to date younger. That would fit your assumption about mate competition.
This study suggests that people disapprove of both older man and older woman relationships, but that the power imbalance assumption only holds for the older man relationships. That suggests to me that there's an 'ew gross' effect for both types of relationship, but the women are wonderful/female hypoagency effect makes the participants assume that a younger woman is being exploited, whereas there is no such concern for a young man in the same situation.
We'd really need to see which people (or realistically, women) are trying to enforce this taboo. My gut would say that it is most strongly enforced by women from 25-35, who have noticed that the beauty they took for granted in their early 20s is starting to decline and who are looking for husbands. Younger women are probably too confident in their looks to care, and older women are having to look at increasingly older men themselves to have a realistic shot in the marriage/dating market.
That's surprising. Honestly, I think you'd get a lot more social approval than disapproval.
For men, the number one reason to have a hot girlfriend is the social status. It gets old eventually. As they say "Show me 10 and I'll show you a guy who's bored of fucking her".
The clucks of old prudes aren't moving the needle here. They might not like Leonardo DiCaprio dating women 20 years his junior, but his status isn't affected in the slightest.
I'm pretty sure that the number one reason to have a hot girlfriend is to have a hot girlfriend. It's an end in and of itself. Rich men have attractive mistresses in spite of the fact that they absolutely can't show them off to their peers.
The social disapproval I got wasn't from men, it was from women. Honestly, I didn't really get any reaction from men, positive or negative.
When I see a guy with a smokin' hot girlfriend I definitely wonder what his story is. Same when I see a decent looking guy with an ugly girlfriend.
I don't think I'm especially shallow.
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