The woman who sat opposite me was beautiful in the classical sense. In her early 50s, she had long silvering hair, a good rounded figure and still beautiful blue eyes. She had come to meet me through a mutual friend and ask me if she should continue with her affair or not – an affair with a man 30 years her junior. Now I'm in my later 40's and anyone that knows me by now, will understand I feel that sex is important and age has nothing to do with it. With that said, younger is rarely a good answer for better in the bedroom. At my age I can't see myself being with anyone younger than say 28.
When I was 44 I had a two week fling with a wonderful young man just that age though. I knew it was fling then, and he made me feel young but old at the same time. It was difficult to move the day along because we had so little in common and the nights where nothing more than fun sex with what felt more like toy for me. A penis that's very hard, gets hard fast, and stays hard forever was fun but it was never lost on me that this was sex only.
This women sat there and told me “He’s out shopping at the moment,” she said. “I brought him to the city for the weekend so that we could have some time together. It’s hard at home – we don’t feel we can go out in public.”
I was staggered to hear her dilemma. Typical of people my age but very unlike me. I was at first secretly taken back by the thought of an older woman having a robust sex life with a kid maybe 23 years old.
“What I want to know is if I should break it off,” she said to me.
It turned out she was married. She didn't think her husband would ever find out, but she did realize she was betraying him.
“It will have to end sooner or later,” I said. “Maybe you should end it sooner and get it over with.”
She looked down at her hands.
“The problem is,” she said. “I’m not ready to give up sex, and the sex is good."
Her husband, more than a decade older, was in poor health and her role as wife was slowly morphing into a role as nurse. Naturally, this meant their sex life was dead – and it had been over for a long time she said. She told me her love for her husband was still there but they had not had sex in nearly five years. I realized that women in their 50s still had love lives, and that they could still long for hot, passionate sex, so this dilemma was not as easy at it sounded.
Having recently crossed the boundary into mid life myself, I feel like smacking my smug, self – especially since I claimed to be an ardent feminist at times. for some women, hot sex may not be possible until they have their child bearing and general life responsibilities out of the way, never occurred to me until then. Or that guys might really get off on sleeping with uninhibited older women, who have learnt to be comfortable in their own skins – or even that the guys might have something to learn.
I’m not sure that we’ve progressed all that far since then. I see there is suddenly a lot of media about ‘cougars’ – a term for older women who go out with younger men. There are, in the US anyway, the inevitable reality television programs about them. The women featured, are of the expensively-botoxed type, rather than the ordinary, middle-aged variety. And even when they’re as beautiful as the women on Desperate Housewives, there is something slightly seedy and derisive about the way the phenomenon is described – older women who sleep with younger men are still being laughed at.
Which is very much an Anglophone phenomenon. Whenever I visit France, in particular, or the European Mediterranean countries in general, I’m struck by how many glamorous older women there are around, who remain elegant, despite their wrinkles – and who are treated as though they matter and are near royalty. In Europe an older women is a wise, sexy lover with the ability to tame and satisfy any cock you please and have them coming back with it in there hands for more.
“Don’t break it off,” I said. “For as long as it’s bringing you joy, go ahead and have fun" I told her. I just very clearly reminded her not to get lost doing it, and never forget this is about a natural physical desire. I also reminded her to pay close attention to her husband and make sure his needs do not change or that he needs this back in his life. Be willing to walk away is the last thing I told her.
And if the guy one day dumped her?
“Find yourself another one.”
After my divorce I realized younger men pleased me in bed and men my age made better friends. I'm in my mid 40's and I have had the best sex since I was in my 20s with men who are in there 20s. But I don't try and pretend I'm going to get married to one of these men.
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