When an older man dates a younger woman, nobody blinks. Yet not too long ago, if a woman dated a man just 3-5 years younger than herself, she faced disgust and outrage. Back then, she'd have been called a 'cradle robber.' Why does this double standard exist? Why is there such animosity towards women?
I really think it has to do with who's losing ground in this whole thing.

When you look at news articles in the online media referring to some new celebrity who's going out with a younger man, you get a lot of really unpleasant aggressive comments from men because they're the ones who are going to be left out.

They've had it their own way for so long; they've always been able to play the field with women their own age or younger.

For women, it's been very restricting and socially unacceptable until fairly recently -- although I do think it's been going on longer in a more secretive way for women to date younger men.

And I don't mean to be racist about this, but it tends to be older white men that are upset.

More and more women are acknowledging their sexuality which before they had to keep in a closed closet. And older white men don't like the kind of freedom that women have been gaining because they don't have so much power anymore. Unfortunately they're the ones who tend to run the whole establishment and their views have been the predominant views.

Women are becoming more powerful in more and more areas, including business and in their choice of partners. Men are going to have to accept the fact that they're going to lose ground but that it's going to be better for all of us in the end.

What do you think younger men appreciate about older women?

Older women, younger women -- that's all relative too. I've got younger women signing up on ToyboyWarehouse who are 30 years old. It's the type of women they are. They're independent; they've got great jobs; they aren't looking for a man as a meal ticket because they can take care of themselves.

Instead, they're looking for a man to have a connection with. It could be a purely physical connection; it could be a mental and physical connection (which is obviously the best); but they're not looking to be dependent on a man.

I think that is what the men absolutely love.

Older women tend not to have the ticking clock young women have who are looking for husband material. Older women tend to take the relationship as it comes and see how it develops.

Most 'cougar' dating websites treat women as if we're simply sexual toys; they don't take the whole woman into account. That's not the case with your website. What did you want to create in ToyboyWarehouse that you had not found on other existing sites?

I've had feedback from other women that confirmed my own bad experiences with online dating. I was 46 when tried it for the first time in the summer of 2006. On the mainstream sites I found that a woman over 40 would tend to get messages from rather boring older men. I'd always dated younger men and I just wasn't interested in the type of men I was 'meeting.'

Although I'd never done anything in the dating industry, I thought, well it can't be too difficult to create the kind of site that I would actually like to be on.

The very name ToyboyWarehouse is humorous and witty, and that's an essential part of attraction. The idea was to be fun and playful -- it's from a woman's point of view. It evokes the image of a woman going around with a shopping cart and saying, "That one looks nice on the shelf. I'll have that one."

When the site went live in 2007 there was literally nothing out there for women in their late 30s or older who wanted something a little more exciting than a pipe-and-slippers man whose highlight of the week was probably watching his car in his drive. That was what was missing for me.