Letters to the Editor
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what's the problem? go for it
My advice would be find a quiet time when you and your stepson are both alone in the house, put on some music you both like, open a bottle a wine and offer him a glass, then confess your feelings to him. Life's short and you only go around once.
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Prey drive
Yesterday, I took a walk with my dog. The daytime vision of canines is not much better than people's, plus they lack judgment. My dog saw an object skittering across the street and was instantly on full alert. He tried to pick up the pace of our walk and was totally focused upon the object, which I soon discerned was a plastic bag. He was still excited. However, he knows he is not supposed to chase things when he is at heel (usually this would be cats). The erratic movement of the plastic bad in the wind had him completely fixated. After we got closer, he too figured out that it was not a living breathing thing and that it probably would not give a delightful squeal when he clamped his jaws upon it. He settled down and we enjoyed the rest of our walk. He has needed lots of training because he is a breed with a high prey drive.
What does this have to do with the LW?
I used to lunch with a female friend who had penchant for noticing every hot young fella who walked by. Half the time, I never noticed them. She would say "Oooooh! Look at that ass!" I would come alive from whatever contemplative stupor I was lost in and note what she was noting. Usually, I was not nearly as excited as she was. I guess you could say that she had a high prey drive for a visual stimulous of attractive younger men. At no point, in all our years of lunching, did she ever reach out and grab the cheek of a passerby and squeeze. I am really glad that she did not.
We all (well most of us) notice when others are attractive, be they young or old or male or female or kin or not. Perhaps for some people such an attraction will always have a sexual component. NORMAL people control their impulses. If I can train my dog not to chase cats, squirrels, and plastic bags, most people can train themselves not to sexually aggress against much younger people.
If they cannot, then they have a whole lot more wrong with them than can be cured by an advice column. Thoughts are not actions.
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Lost in a Romance Novel
From the letter:
"How will I respond in a way that acknowledges and expresses appreciation for his feelings (and even mine)"
That's the part that got me, the breathless nature of that "and even mine." That sounds like a schoolgirl crush talking, or the fantasy swooning of someone who's read too many Harlequins, not someone wrestling with the repugnant realization that she's attracted to her stepson. Like someone who's already lost sight of reality and is ready to cross the line if she gets the opportunity.
I think lustful fantasies, while fun, can really run away with us, and if the object of our obsession is a living, breathing human, we might even act on the fantasy ... and then be in for a rude awakening when things don't play out the way they did in our heads.
I do believe the son is probably attracted to this woman, part mother-figure, but still not his own mom - as others have said, it feels safe to him, an area where he can experiment and flirt, but with the (perhaps subconscious) certainty that she would NEVER reciprocate. That's part of what makes it exciting, and makes her attractive - that she is unattainable. I think her stock would go way down if she put the moves on him, and that he'd be horribly freaked out and repulsed.
LW, I don't think you're a perv for noticing his attractiveness. It happens. Heck, over in the Harry Potter thread someone is counting celebrating the approach of "almost legal" Daniel Radcliffe's birthday (presumably not his stepmom, of course). But please, please, see it for what it is, and not some twisted, soft-focus version of a "hot for teacher" afterschool special. This isn't the heart wanting what it wants (another quote that illustrates the falsely romanticized nature of this obsession), it's the loins. It's not bad to get turned on by the forbidden, but for god's sake, work it out with some good erotica, not your stepson!
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The Forum for this query?
I REALLY think bits of these paragraphs were in the opening segment of a Penthouse Forum I had behind the bathrrom radiator my senior year in high school, and (under the bed) freshman year in college.
However, now I am confused as to whether the writer was my step-mother.
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Great answer Cary
Eloquent and to the point.
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Let's get the right ball rolling here.
Hey, I have an idea, LW. Don't talk to your stepson about your hots for him, tell your husband instead. That will freak him out enough to push this empty shell of a marriage to its logical conclusion, you'll divorce, never see the step-son again, and finally you'll be set free to find a yummy, strong, experienced 25-year-old. Your husband can go on to the single life of videogames or computer porn or whatever the hell has killed off his libido, your step-son will have a nice, normal adolescence, and you'll spare your little daughter the insecurity and insanity that is surely being felt as we speak.
Happy ending for all!
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Young men are looking for maturity *snicker*
"In terms of the older women, younger men construct, we have many successful examples in pop culture to show that it works well; in addition, as I become one of those older women myself, I find that younger men truly are attracted to the maturity (I look better than I ever have in my life) and experience I can bring to the table."
--Morgaine16
Riiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggght.
A dose of reality would suit horny old neofeminists like you well.
PLEASE, the betrayal and illegality of LW's fantasies aside, teenage boys and handsome young men everywhere are not sitting around pining for grandma.
No amount of self delusion will change that. Leave that unrealistic fantasy to tripe such as Sex and The City.
I distinctly remember being 22; "maturity" and "experience" we're most assuredly not high on the list of what I was seeking, nor are they, I suspect, what todays' young men are getting all hot and bothered about.