The pros and cons of going young

The old proverb says you are only as old as the man you feel, which seems like a pretty good reason for taking a youngster on as a lover. Dr Lisa Matthewman, a psychologist at the University of Westminster, says many of the benefits of having a toyboy are to do with the self esteem gained from being chosen by a man younger than you.

"A younger man will offer a certain sexual affirmation to an older woman," she explains. "She will feel more confident, sexy, youthful. It will reawaken her libido, her vitality, her sexual energy - it's a kind of HRT replacement!"

When you are a woman in your 20s, you are naturally bursting with confidence about your appeal to men, safe in the knowledge the opposite sex finds you attractive because of your youthfulness. As you grow older, those qualities tend to disappear, but having a young boyfriend will help you regain some of those feelings, Matthewman says.

"There's also a number of psychological needs that are being met," she adds. "The need to be loved, wanted and desired by a man, and especially a younger man, is quite an accolade and an ego-boost."

However, Matthewman advises not to go into the relationship thinking that it's going to last forever. She says that partnerships between younger men and older women work better in the short term because sex is often central to the bond between the couple and may be the only common area of interest.

"Ideally relationships work when there are similarities in age, education, values and family background," she explains. "There has to be some overlap of interests and some complementarity between the two people. So, for an older woman and younger man, unless they've got some hobbies in common, it could just be a short-term sexual fling."