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February 9, 2006

Still Sexy At Eighty

The BBC on my NPR station just had a short piece on an artist whom they described as "still sexy at eighty." Of course, they say that as though it's both shocking and slightly silly. That really bugs me.

One of my pet peeves has always been people who put an age-limit on sexiness. There's this giant pervasive myth that everyone stops having sex at the age of fifty, but I guess I've always known enough grown-ups well enough to know that's not the case. My favorite fiction author Susan Howatch deals brilliantly with this topic. Her characters are getting themselves into sex messes well up into their eighties.
That more accurately reflects real life than the media representations of people in their twenties having all the sex while their parents jealously and disapprovingly look on.

At some point in my teens, as I lamented the utter patheticness of the boys available for dating, my mother said to me, "Men don't even start to ripen until thirty-five." When I first got out of college, one of the most exciting things about going out into the world was that after one is a college graduate, it suddenly becomes socially acceptable to date actual adults. I swore off men my age until they got old enough to be worth talking to. My love life improved.

Now finally as I am in my thirties, some of the men my age have become worth looking at. MR just hit the minimum age of ripeness, and I look forward to watching him hit all the truly great ages for men: 41, 47, 55, 65, and why stop there? Between CR and the inevitable advances in biotech, he's going to be sexy and gorgeous for a very, very long time. It has always struck me as a tragedy that the body starts to fail as soon as the mind gets enough experience to give the body anything much to talk about. I mean, have you ever met a man in his twenties? With very few exceptions (such as my CR Little Brother Matt who is obviously wise beyond his years!) men in their twenties are only good for carrying heavy boxes around. I was already working, and working really hard, in my twenties. I didn't have to find myself. I was too busy organizing nurses and figuring out how to pay the bills on my then-meager union organizer's salary to spend time or money going out drinking and clubbing. No wonder I only dated men in their late thirties and forties! (except for one exception, which all who were there would describe as a disaster, mostly because he was too immature!)

Women in their twenties are smarter than men at the same age (as a rule), but women get the worst of society's discrimination as we age. My mother often talks about how as a woman over sixty, she is invisible. She actually considers it a neat trick, to be able to be ignored, and I trust she isn't using it to become an art thief or some such thing. It's clearly absurd that such a large and wise part of the population receive media messages that they don't exist. We've theorized that it's because grown-up women, who have raised their children, built their careers and learned how to pay their own bills are not considered as attractive as sweet young things who are willing to do anything for a man.

Most of the nurses I work with are at this magic age, somewhere in their mid to late forties, where much of the fear that has held them back their entire lives starts to disappear. Their children are grown or nearly so (most of these women had babies early) and they are so experienced as nurses that they can mop the floor with the snotty residents who populate teaching hospitals. They know who they are, and they're proud of their achievements. They are, sometimes, finally ready to stand up for themselves. And when their patients are threatened by unsafe staffing, they turn into these beautiful tigresses who are ready to rip hospital administrators to pieces with their well-manicured claws. I hang out with a lot of nurses who have been nurses longer than I have been alive. After a day of meeting with the ones who just plain get it, I feel like I've had a long and intense shoulder massage. Women standing up for what they deserve and what is right: it's better than a day at the spa.

The media messages that people over sixty aren't sexy, combined with the pressure to eat gak that makes one feel about as sexy as a dead fish, is enough to convince a lot of young people that there is no sex once you become a grown-up. I remember a friend lamenting that she was in her late twenties, so she was almost all washed up and had better get married while there was still time. "29!" I would say, "We're just getting started!" I never bought those myths about sexiness ending at any particular age. And with CR and biotech, the possibilities are endless. People who have lived long enough to have know better will be able to get themselves into sex messes well into their nineties, to the horror of their grandchildren. Movie stars we had crushes on when we were children will still be sexually available once we're grown up enough to do something about it! Lingerie models will start to look like adult women -- some will even have grey hair!

I wish grown-ups (by which I mean people over sixty) would talk more about sex. It's so cute to watch people into their sixties and seventies cuddle up with their partners just like those of us who are young and in love do. If one is healthy in body and brain, why not sit on one's partner's lap? By the age of eighty, one should be making out in the produce aisle of the local Whole Foods store early in the morning while all those young folks are too hung over from their nights out to be up. And why do their kids totally freak out? Aren't grown-ups allowed to have sex? I guess since my parents have been divorced as long as I can remember, I never had this weird thing about parents having sex. When my father was dating my step-mother twenty-two years ago, they would go to elaborate lengths to sleep in different beds while I was visiting. They meant well, being appropriate in front of the children, but I thought the whole thing was rather silly. I loved my soon to be step-mother, and thought she was beautiful and cool (she still is!) Grown-up couples are supposed to sleep together, thought I, just like children are supposed to sleep with large numbers of stuffed animals. Even then I didn't put much stock in whether or not people were married. Even now I sleep with large numbers of stuffed animals while MR is away.

I'm not saying that everyone over sixty has the moral obligation to make out in public. Some folks find that they're not so interested in dating or being partnered. That's fine with me... not everyone has to be as sex-obsessed as I am. But for all of you out there who are having sex with someone or multiple people well into your sixties and seventies, can you help me with this project to dispel the myth that there is no sex for grown-ups? At least once a week, go somewhere where other people will see you. Then kiss a lot, sit on your partner's lap, hold hands everywhere you go, make out at a restaurant or in the grocery store. Just see what people do. If young people look agahst (no doubt playing out their own stupid Freudian problems with their parents) just smile condescendingly at them and let them wonder if they'll be nearly as happy when they're your age.

Posted by april at February 9, 2006 7:04 AM

Comments

Posted by: stirred_apart at February 9, 2006 5:23 AM

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Posted by: Timothy W. at February 9, 2006 3:33 PM

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