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The General Synod’s recent decisions bring me joy, as a Church of England priest, while also leaving me utterly frustrated that I can’t yet perform same-sex marriages in my church. As a biology graduate and a straight, married, Bible-believing Christian, I have sought to be an ally to the equality of my LGBTQ+ siblings and I rejoice in the diversity of creation. Your editorial ignores the harm that the Church of England’s leadership wreaked during the equal marriage debate a decade ago. After 20 years working as a church musician, I left the C of E in 2013 in protest at the priority that it placed on a false concept of church unity, at the expense of LGBTQ+ people’s lives. My husband and I did marry, but not in church – despite decades of service. I, and countless others, will not return to church life. Shamyra Howard, a licensed clinical social worker and AASECT-certified sex therapist, realized that it was her kinkier clients who tended to discuss and plan their sexual encounters, even though scheduling sex is commonly seen as a marker of a stale sex life, and that this made having sex easier and better. Re your editorial, a few crumbs thrown at gay people is not enough, and never will be. I have been a Christian all my life and have made a generous contribution to church life. But two years ago I decided to stop going as I felt angry when attending church. Why? Because I realised, after 58 years, that I was always going to be a second-class Christian. Jesus said nothing on this subject. So it’s plain prejudice and homophobia. I will only return when I am equal. So they probably have 25 years or thereabouts. After that, maybe I will see them in heaven. Some couples might just engage in sexual play or a kink rather than any sex acts during this scheduled time, Howard said, which allows them to be intimate without the pressure of sex and helps "to keep each other warm, until it's time to heat each other all the way up."

The reactions to the actor’s dating habits embody the contentious views surrounding age-gap relationships – for some, they are a source of admiration, while for others, there is something inherently unsettling about coupling up with a much younger person. Yet despite these factors nudging us towards partners of the same age, socio-economic circumstances can sometimes counteract evolutionary urges. In 1900, the average age-gap between couples was about double the gap in 2000; historically people (particularly those in the middle- and upper-classes) would have been much more likely to marry someone far older or younger than them. I believe the church can have useful things to say about the ethics of what one does with the contents of one’s pants, but I don’t believe that anyone is defined by that shape – by me or by God. Those who find DiCaprio’s dating habits distasteful aren’t without good reason. Aversions to age-gap relationships are very common and, like most taboos, they stem from thousands of years of evolution as well as more recent social and cultural cues. As women have gained greater economic power, however, the appeal of a much-older spouse has fallen, making age-gap relationships less common – and often more taboo.

Scheduling time for sex

For both men and women, fertility tends to decline after the age of about 35, and though women lose their ability to conceive much more rapidly, it makes sense that we’ve evolved to be attracted to people who are similarly aged. Although there is relatively little data on age in LGBTQ+ relationships, we know that age-gaps among same-sex couples are much more common, perhaps reflecting how much the ability to biologically conceive together influences how we approach finding a partner. Your editorial ( 17 November) on the Church of England’s General Synod vote to allow standalone services for gay and lesbian couples after marriage elsewhere refers to “blessings”. While the prayers to be offered are requests for blessing, they are not a proclamation of blessing as in the marriage service. The bishops and liturgists have repeatedly told us they are not, and we should believe them. The bishops demand no rings, no naming of the legal relationship that the couple have begun, and no other gestures or hints of the reality of the marriage formed are to be allowed. If scheduling sex sounds too formal, Howard previously told Insider that " erotic time zones" are a less rigid way of letting your partner know when you might be up for sex. Practicing aftercare You might think that kinky sex is as spontaneous as it is unconventional. But a sexologist told Insider that her kinky clients do a lot more planning than those who are more vanilla when it comes to sex, and that groundwork pays off in a way that we could all benefit from.

Our views around age-gap relationships are shaped by thousands of years of evolutionary psychology, and generations of social and cultural norms. Within the last hundred years, economic shifts and increased gender equalities have changed what is considered a ‘normal’ age-gap, and recent social justice movements have increased scrutiny of power dynamics in mixed-age relationships. Couples with large age gaps often face judgement, and while some experts believe that this could be about to change, others argue that young people could be becoming more disapproving of mixed-age love than ever before. A viral chart from 2019 keeps popping up on social media: a graph detailing Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating history. A Reddit user had spotted a trend – although the actor was 44 at the time, he seemingly only dated women aged 25 or younger, always breaking up with partners before they reached their 26th birthday. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.Touroni says as more kinds of relationships are normalised, she hopes that people will respect the choices of those in age-gap relationships. “We are living in an era of more freedom and flexibility, so I would like to think that over time we will become significantly less judgemental about other people’s relationship choices, whether that’s age-gaps or anything else.” In recent years, that vocabulary has been expanded to include relationships in which women are the significantly older partner; words like ‘cougars’ and ‘toyboys’ reflect the rise in this kind of relationship. Statistics show that in 1963 just 15% of UK brides were older than their grooms. By 1998, this had risen to 26%, and findings from one 2011 study suggested that the number of women married or cohabiting with a man five years or younger had almost tripled since the 1970s. Women who choose to date younger men seem to face a disproportionate amount of judgement. “Us humans are judgemental, and if what our neighbour is doing is misaligned with what we expect, we put a spotlight on it,” says Lordan. “Women who match with younger men go most against the grain when it comes to our narrative of marriage, and so suffer the most judgement.” The reasons for this are both biological and economic. If a 50-year-old man wants to have children, it is not in his interest to couple up with a similarly-aged woman who is much less likely to still be fertile. In a patriarchal society in which men have the economic power, the choice to pair up with a much younger woman would be more likely to be available to him.