Sela and her team also hypothesised that one of the reasons people feel morally dubious about age-discrepant relationships is that they view them as being based on the exchange of desired resources – namely, money and sex – rather than genuine affection for one another.

This sounds controversial, but you only have to glance at the way age-gap relationships are routinely treated in the media to see that there’s likely a grain of truth in it. Younger women who date older men are regularly painted as gold diggers – and while this is often a sexist stereotype with no basis in reality, the fact remains that it is what many people believe.

To investigate this prejudice further, the researchers asked the study participants how they felt about an extreme example of an exchange-based relationship: the one between sex workers and their clients. They found that men of all ages were more likely to approve of sex work than women, and that younger women were more likely to approve of it than older women.

In addition, they found that the more people believed sex work was acceptable, the more strongly they also approved of relationships with a big age gap. A correlation was also identified between women’s disapproval of sex work and their condemnation of age-gap relationships.

This suggests that if a woman has a problem with sex work, she is more likely to be suspicious of relationships where she suspects – rightly or wrongly – that a younger woman is using sex to access financial support in a more informal way.

Of course, it’s important to point out that there is a huge, huge difference between a relationship between a younger woman and an older man and the dynamic between a sex worker and her client, and by investigating these beliefs, Sela and her team were not endorsing them.

And ultimately, it’s really none of our business who, why or how other people choose to date. As long as a relationship is legal, compassionate and enjoyable for everyone involved, we say – you do you.

Images: Getty Images

Why do people judge relationships where the man is much older than the woman?