Confidence Luring Younger Men

But what about the everyday relationships outside of Hollywood? More magazine found out and reports its findings in an article titled, "Mad About the Boy."

"Women are catching up to men," Peggy Northrop, More magazine editor-in-chief, tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler. "Now we have all of this economic independence. There's a kind of confidence that comes when you're in your 40s and 50s, and men find that incredibly attractive."

That is what happened to 33-year-old Bronson Picket when he met the woman of his dreams, 47-year-old Lynn Snowden. (She later married him and took his name.)

"Confidence makes all the difference in the world," he says about his wife. "As women get older, they do tend to get more confidence, even more so, I think, than men, and a lot of sexiness comes out of confidence."

Northrop notes it is not that older women are on the prowl for younger men, but younger men are interested in them.

She explains, "Because these women feel so good about where they are, and they have economic independence, they can make these choices."

It was love at first for the Pickets. "I didn't know very much about him at all," Lynn Picket says. But she hoped he was older than the man she had just broken up with.

"I had just been with a guy who was 24, and that lasted about a year and we had broken up," Lynn Picket says. So why the interest in younger men?

"I was going for people who were more in sync with what I like to do," she says, "I don't want a guy who's in a rut, going to look at my CD collection and go: Wow, you like this band? That's a little crazy. I wanted somebody who was active, athletic, who wanted to go out, who had fun."

Being in sync is important. Branson Picket says, "One of great things about a couple in sync is that despite the age disparity, when you are so in touch with one another, the disparity disappears."

And though there are pitfalls in a pairing like this, Northrop notes there are pitfalls in any relationship.

"Look at the divorce rate. In fact, it's women over 40 who are driving the divorce rate. That's the only place where the divorce rate is going up," Northrop says. "What I hear from our readers is that women, until their 40s, are with men who are about their age, and they're really on the trajectory of feeling ever more confident and more adventurous, and the guys become more and more in that rut you were talking about. Somebody said to me once: Find a guy in a rut, and he'll lie down in it."

Lynn Picket notes she got a lot of flak from men her age for dating younger men.

"They don't like to think that a fancy car and a big salary at a boring old job will not impress," she says, "They like to think that will lure in anyone they choose. Interestingly enough, I know they wouldn't consider me as dating material, because I'm too old, but they don't want to hear that someone they don't want to date is dating someone younger. That means, oh, my gosh. Looks count? And you know, it's just not the norm."

Also in this day and age, fertility issues are not a problem any more, Northrop says. Now that the Pickets have been married for five years, they say they are looking to adopt.

As for the sex, answering in a nice way for morning television, Lynn Picket says it is great.