PJ Media

There is a simple reason why boy/woman relations feel different from man/girl relations. In male/female relations, the male is almost always dominant: physically, socially, legally, economically. Man/girl relations feel like an exploitive exaggeration of this typical dominance. Boy/woman relations cut against the grain; they seem less exploitive.

Also note that people are more comfortable with an older man/younger woman marriage than the reverse: exactly the opposite of the reaction toward affairs. Of course as affairs become longer or produce children they are viewed like marriages.