If the 48 year old woman is someone I'm already married to and has stuck with me through thick and thin, of course I'm picking her. Every single time.
But if I'm 48, single, and capable of dating 19 year old women: what makes it any more likely that a 48 year old woman will give me "real love and companionship and faithfulness" than a 19 year old? Why is a relationship with a 48 year old woman *to whom I am not already married* inherently less transactional? If I'm not hot/charming/interesting as a 48 year old man, and my selling point is just that I'm rich, then that's still my same selling point to the either the 19 year old or the 48 year old.
I'm more trad than anyone here. The ideal relationship is to get married young to your first, to save your sexuality for that person alone, and to explore that sexuality mutually for exciting decades ahead. Most long-married guys here, if they're being honest, can attest to the existence of wife goggles: to some extent, you see your wife today as you saw her when you first began dating. It's very cool. The 48 year old you love still looks 22!
This approach works. The other approach is: sexual liberation, what matters is autonomy maximization and preference seeking, you're a chud if you're clinging to the antiquated notions of blahblahblah. THAT approach is not optimal, but if you're gonna go with it....go with it. One can't cheer on sexual liberation and drawn-out serial monogamy & soft rotational polygamy on the one hand and then, on the other, start berating someone for continuing to maximize his own autonomy just because options haven't dwindled. Pick a lane. The problem with sex-positive pop feminism (and that's all that exists anymore lol) is that it has no lane.