Do many young women in their early 20s find themselves attracted to older men in their late 40's, and WHY?

Over the years, a number of very attractive, secure and seemingly normal women in their early 20s have admitted to me that at one time in their young lives they all were physically attracted to and quite smitten with a man who was much older than them and usually in his late 40s/early 50's. They also maintained that they would never admit this publicly or even reveal it secretly to any other woman. This seems rather odd to me. Why would any beautiful young girl, with so much going on for her, be infatuated with a man old enough to be her father? Equally surprising to me was how secretive they were about these desires. One girl went so far to say that she'd bet almost no women would ever admit it, but she reckoned it is far more common than most women are willing to admit publicly. Do you agree with this statement? It seems creepy to me, but maybe its a mother nature or human evolutionary thing playing its part, I don't know. What is the attraction of a 47 year old man to a 22 year old woman? As a yong guy, I don't get it. What are your thoughts on this?