May December?

No, you may not

First, the news broke that supermodel Christie Brinkley's marriage had blown up over her husband's affair with a teenager. Minutes later, I got a call from my friend Gina Barreca. Gina, an expert on feminist theory, seemed a little upset.

Gina: This is every middle-aged woman's fear. If Christie Brinkley at 52 can't hold on to her husband, the rest of us can just hang it up. No married woman can ever feel safe again.

Gene: But . . .

Gina: . . . Every time we try to convince ourselves that the human male cannot possibly be as shallow as we fear he is, something like this happens. When this guy met the girl, she was 17. When he bedded her, she was 18. I strongly suspect this was not a relationship based on mutual intellectual stimulation. When an interviewer asked her what she said when Christie's husband first propositioned her, her answer was, and I am quoting directly from the transcript: "I was like, 'Uh, I dunno.'"

That's what you guys want?

Gene: Can we discuss this in a reasonable, dispassionate manner?

Gina: We can.

Gene: Don't you think a case can be made that this was not entirely the husband's fault?

Gina: I beg your pardon?

Gene: When a man marries a woman, and then she gets older, she is physically no longer the woman he married. I mean, you expected one thing, you entered into a legal covenant for one thing, and then a few years down the pike you find yourself with something quite different. In a sense, isn't this a little like . . . bait and switch?

Gina: WHAT?

Gene: Kidding, kidding. I just wanted to see how large the typeface was going to be.