COMMITMENTS : Love Through the Ages : As growing numbers of women find themselves financially secure and physically fit, some are discovering another option in the mating game: younger men.

Kate Dennis never used to date younger men.

But when she was 27, the executive secretary from Los Feliz met a young Marine who was visiting a friend in her apartment building. He was 27, too, he said, and during a week of dinners and dancing they discovered many shared interests.

After he went home to North Carolina, Dennis was chatting with her neighbor and learned that her beau had kept an important secret from her.

No, he wasn’t married.

But he was only 18.

“I couldn’t believe it,” says Dennis, a quarter-century later. “I was raised in a very conservative family in the Midwest and if I had known that, I would never have gone out with him.”

But the experience opened her eyes. Now she dates younger men almost exclusively.

Like many women in her situation, Dennis says she doesn’t go looking specifically for younger men. It just happens. Often, they seek her out.

“I like their energy, and I like the way they treat me on a more equal basis,” says Dennis. “Many of them were raised by liberated mothers so they’re more open with their feelings, more honest. They don’t have any baggage, any ex-wives. Mentally, emotionally and physically, we seem more on the same wavelength.”

An increasing number of women are choosing relationships with younger men. It’s not just fun and frolic either: The National Center for Health Statistics says 23.5% of American brides now marry younger men. For women aged 35 to 44, the figure jumps to 41%.

There are many reasons for this. From a biological standpoint, women reach their sexual peak in their late 30s or early 40s, while men are more sexually driven at a younger age. Women also outlive men, so marrying down in age evens the chronological playing field.

Cultural and demographic changes have also made such relationships easier. More women have careers and are financially independent today and don’t need to marry for security, which in the past usually meant an older, more established man.

And today’s women are in much better shape than their mothers or grandmothers were, and toned bodies and good health are attractive at any age.

Additionally, as society evolves, the taboos against such relationships also erode, much the way inter-racial and inter-denominational relationships have become more common and more widely accepted.

Lastly, many women in their 40s and older say the pool of available men in their age group is just too small. Besides, some of those men can be, well, standoffish and stodgy.

“Men my age are just not interested in women my age,” sighs Dennis, who is 52 but looks at least 12 years younger thanks to good bones and smooth Italian skin. “They’re either old hippies who are into noncommitment or they’re into dating much younger women. The only ones who really flirt with me are younger men.”

Dennis, who lives in Silver Lake and works in TV, says her last relationship, with a man 21 years her junior, flourished for two years but eventually foundered over the issue of children. He wanted them; she was past that stage in life. Now she has sworn off men more than 10 years her junior and is dating a 46-year-old.

For those who are interested, there are plenty of younger men out there, says Doe Gentry. The 52-year-old Los Angeles resident runs a dating service that matches younger men with older women. She has a databank with 6,000 clients, about 70% of whom are men.

“A lot of younger men are more in tune with women emotionally,” says Gentry, whose boyfriend is 40. “They know what women want, and they’re attracted to the self-confidence and power that older women project. Power is always an elixir.”

Take Bryan McKenzie. A 36-year-old TV editor who lives in Los Angeles, McKenzie says older women bring a clarity and assuredness to relationships that he finds appealing. They know what they want, have a strong sense of themselves and can relate to him as an equal.

Sure, older women can get insecure about crow’s feet or weight gain. However, “I know just as many 22-year-old women who are insecure about their looks,” McKenzie says. Besides, “I don’t think all men have Playboy Playmate tastes in women, although women think men do.”

It’s not only stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and Tina Turner who are choosing younger men. Common folk say that, paradoxically enough, a generation gap can bring older women and younger men together.

Says McKenzie: “Men who are 45 and up come from a generation where men ran things, and they often don’t understand the concept of treating a woman as an equal, whereas for men my age, there’s no other way.”

Barbara DeAngelis, a best-selling author and educator whose infomercial is titled “Making Love Work,” agrees. But she says those considering such relationships should also look out for common pitfalls.

One is playing Pygmalion.

“Let’s say he’s 27 and you’re 41 and not only does he have the potential, but from your position you know exactly how he can unfold it in 20 steps and you want to show him how, become his mentor.”

Stop right there, DeAngelis says. One of the most common challenges for older women is realizing they need to accept their man as he is, let him make his mistakes and find his own way in life.

Gentry, who has observed many May-December relationships, says families are another concern. She urges women and men who want children to discuss the issue before they get involved, “because otherwise they can get their heart broken.”

Judy Shell, a therapist in Sherman Oaks who specializes in relationships, says that no matter what the age difference, people need to feel free to develop both individually and as a couple.

“Whenever one person holds the position of power, whether it’s social clout, money, power or position, you have a breeding ground where people aren’t going to grow and develop,” Shell says.

David Dahl admits that thought crossed his mind when he met an attractive woman named Tina. At 25, he was just out of college. But Tina, who was 30, was charging into a career as director of print services for the National Football League.

“I was afraid her friends would look on me as not being mature enough professionally and emotionally, but it was my insecurities more than anything else,” recalls Dahl, who now runs his own thriving furniture-design business in Ladera Heights. “So I tried to show my own identity and get to know them so they knew I wasn’t just Tina’s little love doll.”

Now married “six blissful years,” both say their common interests and ideas have made the age difference almost irrelevant. The only time Tina Dahl says she even thinks about it is occasionally when she looks in the mirror.

“It helps that I don’t look 40,” she says. “But sometimes when I see the effects of my body aging and David’s body isn’t, that’s the only time I feel insecure. . . .”

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For reassurance, the Dahls have only to turn to world literature and history, where older woman/younger man relationships have a long and hallowed tradition. In Europe, and especially in 19th-Century French literature, the aging woman is considered not only wise but very sexual. Gustav Flaubert explored the topic in “A Sentimental Education,” as did Stendahl, Balzac and even stuffy old Henry James.

“It’s a major theme in world literature,” says Lois Banner, a professor of history at USC whose 1992 book “In Full Flower” (Knopf) focuses on the positive nature of aging. Banner, who is 55, had a seven-year-relationship with a man 18 years her junior and says age had little or nothing to do with their breakup.

Yet insecurity springs eternal. Some women involved with younger men cringe at the thought they might be mistaken for their lover’s mother. Others say they still encounter subtle discrimination from friends who wonder what they see in each other. Gentry says she has received obscene phone calls from older men who feel threatened by her dating service.

That’s because American society still doesn’t readily accept the idea of older women as sexual beings. After 40, women are supposed to be moms, not Isabella Rossellini. But that is changing.

Victoria Houston, who wrote “Loving a Younger Man” (Pocket Books, 1987), calls it “a tired, silly taboo. Men worry about the age difference for about 30 seconds,” she says. “Women worry about it for about three years.”

But in a culture that worships the fountain of youth, can you fault women for feeling a bit insecure?

“The most important thing is confidence, because everyone finds that attractive,” Gentry says. “An older woman should be confident about her body, be the best that she can be and not focus on her wrinkles, because believe me, he’s not looking at them.”