I understand that:

When I was 29, I was seeing a 68-year-old man, but he really felt like an old grandpa—especially when he took his clothes off. The man I’m seeing now is 70, but he’s incredibly youthful. His skin and his body both look young. My former papa was about 40 years older than me, while my current papa is about 20 years older. But if you put the two of them side by side, my current papa definitely looks younger. There’s also a 63-year-old papa I know, and even to me, being with him feels like grandpa-katsu. He says we look like a married couple, but please spare me! Anyway, I think it’s less about age and more about the man’s appearance—and the difference between his looks and the woman’s. Marika

As far as appearances go, I don’t think the actual age difference matters. Even real parent-and-child pairs can look more like a grandfather and granddaughter, for example. From the woman’s perspective, regardless of his actual age, if he looks the part, she probably expects him to behave accordingly.

If we’re matching the term papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), then it should be “grandpa-katsu.” Would “bro-katsu” work for older-brother dating? If we want it to match jiji-katsu, maybe “toto-katsu” or “nini-katsu”? The terminology isn’t very consistent. It’s not elegant Japanese usage.

There’s a little over a 40-year age gap between me and my partner, so it feels a bit like papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), which makes me smile, haha.

Wouldn’t it make sense to think about it in terms of the age gap? Broadly speaking, one generation is about 30 years, so papa-katsu means dating someone around 30 years older, while jiji-katsu means someone around 60 years older. If a woman in her 20s is looking for men in their 80s through a dating club or app, you could probably call that jiji-katsu. And if you’re in your 40s, your jiji-katsu partner would be over 100! There used to be a man named Chiyo Izumi who made it into the Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest person and lived to be 120. Apparently, when someone asked him, “What kind of woman do you like?” he replied, “An older woman.” (Laughs.) I love that story. By the way, when I Googled “jiji,” Gigi Hadid came up. She was 28 when she dated DiCaprio, and apparently she was recently arrested for marijuana. The man who was Mayweather’s bodyguard and fought Koji in RIZIN last year is also called Gigi. Gigi Hadid is spelled “Gigi,” but this jiji is spelled “Jizzy,” so I guess he’s the real one. A jiji fighting in the ring! You probably don’t know this, but Kanpei Hazama has a song called “Jijy.” The lyrics go, “Old man, old man, all the wrinkles you’ve collected over the years~♫” I’m terribly sorry for once again holding my little trivia festival tonight! Taro