What Women Really Want: A Man of ‘Beekeeping Age’

Dating a middle-aged man? That’s boring, cliche. What young women want today is someone old enough to be their grandfather. The type of guy who’s about ready to start drawing from his 401k without penalty. A man, as TikTok would say, who has entered “beekeeping age.”

There’s nothing new about some women desiring older men, but that interest has grown increasingly visible on social media lately thanks to a new name—and, interestingly, the men have gotten even older. Searching “beekeeping age” on TikTok will fill your screen with girls pining after men two or three times their age. Celebrities like Mads Mikkelson or Jeff Goldblum regularly make the cut, but so do average, everyday men who happen to participate in videos taken by their daughters, wives, and girlfriends. 

The term “beekeeping age” comes from a Rick and Morty segment. Often used as TikTok audio, it features a teenager watching her friend’s dad taking care of his bees, slowly discovering her attraction to him and rationalizing it at the same time. “It’s kind of cute, like, your dad keeps bees. How old is your dad? He’s obviously beekeeping age,” she says. Anyone could keep bees, but it probably takes an older man—perhaps one already enjoying the freedom of retirement—to take it up as a serious hobby. At least, he has the leisure time usually afforded to those with more expendable income and no small children. 

In some ways, this is all just a reformulation of the classic case of teenagers being attracted to their friend’s hot dad. But now, under this new term and the spotlight TikTok provides, an otherwise niche crush has become a trend—one that perhaps reveals a bit about our current cultural desires. 

The men called “beekeeping age” are, obviously, still very conventionally attractive. Most are even youthful looking, save for streaks of gray hair or some slightly rugged wrinkles on their foreheads. They are clean-cut and well-dressed, looking as though they are likely of a high tax bracket. I don’t think these young women are gold-diggers, but perhaps they want to be cared for in myriad ways. Maybe that’s financial, but it could also be through the perceived experience and wisdom these men provide. Maybe these men are unlike the younger generations, be it through more traditional values or more gentlemanly behaviors. Even if this is all fully a fantasy, young women might see these older men as being able to treat them better than men closer to them in age. 

In lots of cases, the guy in question may well be only in his late 30s or early 40s, but people also seem increasingly interested in older men. Evidence of this interest (or maybe even the cause of some of the interest itself) is the forthcoming season of The Golden Bachelor, a new offering from The Bachelor franchise. The premise of the show is the same as the usual version—an eligible bachelor is paired up with over 20 women in hopes of narrowing it down to one lasting relationship—but in the Golden edition, our bachelor is a senior citizen. ABC announced the man earlier this summer, 71-year-old restaurateur Gerry Turner. It’s unclear what age range of women the show will feature as his potential companions. 

Like the other men subjected to the beekeeping label, Turner is not really defying any norms of attraction besides his age. He’s handsome, nicely dressed, and successful. He’s even got the perfect reason to be back on the dating market: His high school sweetheart, to whom he was married for 34 years, died suddenly in 2017. He’s not some old creep who never settled down or has a history of messy divorces, but a sensitive widower hoping to find love once again. The show will likely cast age-appropriate women for his dating pool, but that hasn’t stopped people of all ages from thirsting after him online. One site even ranked him as the fifth hottest bachelor to ever appear on the franchise. 

Behind all of this, there must be some element of internet performativity. And, again, it’s not strange at all to find these men attractive—they are attractive. But it feels somewhat transgressive to post about it online. Like talking about kinks, professing yourself as someone who loves much older men is a way to stand out on social media. It’s almost bait to younger men, too, as though a woman is saying she’s too good for guys of her age. Whether genuine or not, saying that you want a grandzaddy signals that you want to be taken care of. Like thinking these men are attractive, this, too, is perfectly normal.