Excellent article. Age should not matter unless having babies is part of the plan. Leaving kids in their youth without a parent is not fair to the kids. But with no kids, or adult kids, age shouldn't matter.

It is not just women in their 20s preferring men in their 40s.

A woman in her late 40s or early 50s is very appealing to a man 20 years her senior, for all the same reasons you so eloquently state.

To an older man, a middle-aged woman is seen as a younger woman. Hot, sexy, alive, vital, youthful, etc.

BTW, the word is "perish" as in to stop living, to die, to be killed.

Parish is a designation used by the Catholic Church for the smallest unit of organization in the church. The local parish.

Neither word works.

I think the word you were searching for in that sentence and context was "pale". As a verb, means to seem less impressive or important.

"all else pales by comparison"