I find the sheer shallowness of this stuff depressing. How have we reduced everything to the purely transactional?
With any personality at all, most people manage a few lovers before settling down. One night stands can be fun and, these days, the score may even confer some social status, but they soon pall as meaningful interactions with other people.
My old lady knows what I like, I know what she likes, and we have a lot of fun. I can fantasise about whatever, but the reality of repeatedly renegotiating the landscape of these intimate moments, with an endless queue of casual acquaintances, sounds like hell to me.
Totally agree. And rather typically, these people who laud these transactional relationships usually trivialise family and companionship – as this writer does in casually referring to the bloke who has left his daughters.
I think memories and experiences, and the sharing of these, define your life; and wrenching yourself away from a partner and a family when a relationship breaks down would require extreme circumstances, miles and miles beyond the ‘value’ of better sexual transactions, for me to warrant going down that path.
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Well I’m 50, perimenopausal and feel about as sexual as a tree trunk at the moment. I hope this article is a glimpse of some sexual utopia just waiting for me at the other end…
“Eye contact” being a kink for some might be the saddest thing I’ve read all year..
But it not just being standard behaviour makes sense for a generation that seem to have grown close to autistic traits because of technology.. if you don’t learn human body language through personal interactions eye contact is probably difficult, even in intimate situations. And this probably won’t get better by the next generation growing up completely devoid of facial features because of masks.
Last edited 2 years ago by Mathilda Eklund
David Morley
2 years ago
Rana, a 47-year-old who tells men up front that she is only interested in having lovers, and will never again embrace monogamy, says that every last one of them has joyously accepted her terms.
Crikey – men saying yes to no strings, no fee sex – now there’s a shocker. How the world has changed.
David Morley
2 years ago
I’ve heard about a bit of this, through female friends, and what a desperate and cynical substitute it is for loving and being loved.
One woman I heard of, having invited her “lover” to a party, found out afterwards that he’d spent the evening asking her friends for their phone numbers. Others are desperately lonely, but making the most of the crumbs they get thrown by married men.
And regardless of age, the difficult thing for a woman isn’t getting a man to sleep with her, it’s getting him to stick around afterwards. And when he leaves, she knows in her heart who was using whom.
There’s an awful lot of rather desperate self deception going on here.
Last edited 2 years ago by David Morley
Alan Hawkes
2 years ago
I can understand all this for the divorced, or widowed, but is there no pride left in fidelity for the married?
Bruno Lucy
2 years ago
The day had started well despite depressing Parisian weather…….and then I read this.
I understand why I keep watching these YouTube videos showing owners cuddling with their Golden retrievers.
David Morley
2 years ago
The men might have been lovely people, but the way they presented themselves romantically was alien and didactic
Not really, it’s just transactional. If all you are looking for is someone to use for your own satisfaction, why beat about the bush.
I’m guessing that most of these men would use younger prostitutes if they could afford it. Perhaps they do that as well. But for a cheap, easy alternative, why not make use of late middle age women desperate for validation.
David Morley
2 years ago
“As you get older — it’s sort of an Eastern idea — you sort of think, all you’ve got is now, which is much more valuable than a future I really think,” says Sietzke. This one had me laughing out loud. I didn’t realise that sad old birds desperately reliving their twenties in their sixties was a central idea of Buddhism.
To be honest, men and women. You’d think, after all those years, they’d be embarrassed to return to behaving like (less intelligent) teenagers in their fifties and sixties.
I’m no puritan. If people fall in love, and make love, at that age I think it’s fantastic. But to spend those years taking a last few spins on the c-ck carousel before you snuff it is pretty degrading.
Oh yeah I’m all for people falling in love, and getting it on if they wish, no matter what age. But why the need to talk to journalists about it? It destroys eroticism and just makes them look like sad old desperate slags.
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
‘A historian of intimacy’. I rest my case.
Gerard Delahunty
2 years ago
Utter baloney. What % of women have at least one child under the age of 25? Well 99% of those women have zero interest in sex, neither with their ‘partner’ nor anyone else.
a.youngserf
2 years ago
Cope.
William Shaw
2 years ago
“the quest for a partner is also a strategy for accruing financial stability and property – and a basis for having children”
Certainly true for women. Less so for men.
I find the sheer shallowness of this stuff depressing. How have we reduced everything to the purely transactional?
With any personality at all, most people manage a few lovers before settling down. One night stands can be fun and, these days, the score may even confer some social status, but they soon pall as meaningful interactions with other people.
My old lady knows what I like, I know what she likes, and we have a lot of fun. I can fantasise about whatever, but the reality of repeatedly renegotiating the landscape of these intimate moments, with an endless queue of casual acquaintances, sounds like hell to me.
Totally agree. And rather typically, these people who laud these transactional relationships usually trivialise family and companionship – as this writer does in casually referring to the bloke who has left his daughters.
I think memories and experiences, and the sharing of these, define your life; and wrenching yourself away from a partner and a family when a relationship breaks down would require extreme circumstances, miles and miles beyond the ‘value’ of better sexual transactions, for me to warrant going down that path.
Well I’m 50, perimenopausal and feel about as sexual as a tree trunk at the moment. I hope this article is a glimpse of some sexual utopia just waiting for me at the other end…
At either end, according to the article.
A tree trunk. That’s pretty funny. I’m still chuckling.
Knotty but nice.
Ha!
A tree trunk, you say? Might I suggest the 1973 horror anthology Tales that Witness Madness? Should provide some food for thought 🙂
LOL thanks guys 🙂
It must still be there subconsciously.
All that wood!
For a woman, the 40s are the best!
“Eye contact” being a kink for some might be the saddest thing I’ve read all year..
But it not just being standard behaviour makes sense for a generation that seem to have grown close to autistic traits because of technology.. if you don’t learn human body language through personal interactions eye contact is probably difficult, even in intimate situations. And this probably won’t get better by the next generation growing up completely devoid of facial features because of masks.
Crikey – men saying yes to no strings, no fee sex – now there’s a shocker. How the world has changed.
I’ve heard about a bit of this, through female friends, and what a desperate and cynical substitute it is for loving and being loved.
One woman I heard of, having invited her “lover” to a party, found out afterwards that he’d spent the evening asking her friends for their phone numbers. Others are desperately lonely, but making the most of the crumbs they get thrown by married men.
And regardless of age, the difficult thing for a woman isn’t getting a man to sleep with her, it’s getting him to stick around afterwards. And when he leaves, she knows in her heart who was using whom.
There’s an awful lot of rather desperate self deception going on here.
I can understand all this for the divorced, or widowed, but is there no pride left in fidelity for the married?
The day had started well despite depressing Parisian weather…….and then I read this.
I understand why I keep watching these YouTube videos showing owners cuddling with their Golden retrievers.
Not really, it’s just transactional. If all you are looking for is someone to use for your own satisfaction, why beat about the bush.
I’m guessing that most of these men would use younger prostitutes if they could afford it. Perhaps they do that as well. But for a cheap, easy alternative, why not make use of late middle age women desperate for validation.
“As you get older — it’s sort of an Eastern idea — you sort of think, all you’ve got is now, which is much more valuable than a future I really think,” says Sietzke.
This one had me laughing out loud. I didn’t realise that sad old birds desperately reliving their twenties in their sixties was a central idea of Buddhism.
Dear oh dear, oh dear… (sigh).
Maybe there’s cause for optimism yet.
Or at least a kind of muted, desperate pessimism.
The richer the middle-class get, the more like the nobility they become.
Would be interesting to see Strimpel debate Mary Harrington.
And the less noble.
My god. Can people, particularly middle aged women, please just have some dignity.
To be honest, men and women. You’d think, after all those years, they’d be embarrassed to return to behaving like (less intelligent) teenagers in their fifties and sixties.
I’m no puritan. If people fall in love, and make love, at that age I think it’s fantastic. But to spend those years taking a last few spins on the c-ck carousel before you snuff it is pretty degrading.
Oh yeah I’m all for people falling in love, and getting it on if they wish, no matter what age. But why the need to talk to journalists about it? It destroys eroticism and just makes them look like sad old desperate slags.
‘A historian of intimacy’. I rest my case.
Utter baloney. What % of women have at least one child under the age of 25? Well 99% of those women have zero interest in sex, neither with their ‘partner’ nor anyone else.
Cope.
“the quest for a partner is also a strategy for accruing financial stability and property – and a basis for having children”
Certainly true for women. Less so for men.