'Maggie May' expresses the ambivalence and contradictory emotions of a schoolboy involved in a relationship with an older woman. Rod described the story told in the song as being a true episode in his own earlier life. Although he changed the name of the woman to 'Maggie May' ( a name he stole from an old Liverpuddiler song about a prostitute ), the woman in the song represented the first woman he had sex with when at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in 1961.
It is not so unnatural for adolescents and young men to become sexually attracted to the older and more experienced woman. It was a natural part of my own late-teen development whereby the fantasy happening first occurs in the mind of an infatuated schoolboy with a sensually attractive teacher. For the vast majority of romantic dreamers, 'in the mind' is where the image stays, but for some young men, the infatuation materialises into a real event; if not with the teacher, then with another much older woman. I have known a couple of such relationships with a wide disparity of age crash and burn immediately after emotional take off, and yet there is one relationship I knew of where the relationship was fruitful and lasted through marriage for over twenty years before having run its course and ending in divorce/separation. The woman of the relationship once told me when speaking about her toyboy, 'He's half my ex-husband's age, but twice as energetic when we have sex.....and twice as grateful afterwards!” (He seemingly always bought her a new dress after a satisfactory sexual session).
I liked older women in my late teens because they seemed to have more knowledge of the world; their minds seemed better stored with wiser observations, and their conversation proved generally more improving. I am also of the view that because too much store is placed on a woman's looks, when they cease to be physically attractive, they study to be good for men in other ways. In order to maintain their influence over the man in their life, they exchange their diminution of outward physical beauty by the augmentation of utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable; a reason why there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old woman who is not a good woman. Women are a hundred times more capable of getting one over on their physically besotted partners through their wily ways than any man's brain would ever be capable of working out, and that is why I have always held a healthy respect for women of all ages. When it comes to the young male competing with the cougar knowledge of the much older woman, he will always lose out.
Relationships between a younger man with older women are often seen by the male as being safer, there being less hazard of children being unintentionally being produced. Older women conducting such relationships also tend to be more discreet in conducting an intrigue to avoid suspicion and unwanted talk. If I was 100 % honest, I'd have to admit that this was probably always a most welcome feature of any such 'intriguing relationships' I ever held.
The predominant attractions for each party become clearer to me the older I get. The younger man and the older woman relationship and the older man and the younger woman relationship is mostly driven by a sexual desire that requires satisfying. It is also more usual for the younger person of the relationship to appreciate being in the presence of a wiser and more intelligent person who stimulates their sensibilities and enables them to feel more adult and important. And not overlooking the point that the older person is usually more financially independent.
So, aware of the fact that age is but a number I would advise the avoidance of relationships between all younger males and older women until the man is sufficiently emotionally developed to cope with the aftermath and consequences of a future dissolution of that relationship. To press, I have personally known of two occasions where the younger man of a relationship with an older woman that was developed during their school years, committed suicide. Such a sad loss for someone who feels unable to easily mix within their own age and peer group. Love and peace. Bill xxx