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Wouldn't she rather be gardening? Credit: IMDB
“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple,” wrote Jenny Joseph in her poem, “Warning”. “With a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me”.
She describes a dream of growing old disgracefully, as a reward for being well-behaved. For now, we must “pay our rent and not swear in the street / And set a good example for the children”. When the proper age for being respectable is over, though, the poet vows to “go out in my slippers in the rain / And pick flowers in other people’s gardens”.
Though “Warning”, written in 1961, was voted Britain’s most popular postwar poem in one poll, it didn’t drive a surge in merrily misbehaving old matrons — at least not in the style she envisaged. Instead, at least judging by the press, older women get more invisible by the day. The lack of substantial acting roles for older women is so marked that a campaign to change it received Equity backing last year. And many women over 50 complain about feeling pushed aside and pushed out of the workplace.
A widely-trailed movie, out this week, seeks to challenge this narrative. Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is a two-hander in which Emma Thompson plays Nancy, a widowed schoolteacher in her early sixties, who hires handsome young rentboy Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack). The film documents their interactions over a number of meetings, as Nancy sets out to tick off a list of sexual experiences she never enjoyed with her late husband.
In this, it takes aim at a common experience described by older women: that as far as wider social perception is concerned, as women age we’re no longer seen as valuable. There’s some truth in this, at least at the superficial level of who gets ogled on the beach. According to the founder of dating website OKCupid, while women’s view of what’s attractive changes as we age, men of every age tend to rate women in their early twenties as looking the best.
Exceptionally beautiful women must feel this keenly. Paulina Porizkova, once the world’s most highly-paid model, clearly does: she told The Times earlier this year how she just doesn’t seem able to pull any more. “I am now completely invisible,” she says. “I walk into a party, I try to flirt with guys and they will just walk away from me mid-sentence to pursue someone 20 years younger. I’m very single, I’m dressed up, I’ve made an effort — nothing.”
There is, in other words, something robustly consistent about what induces men to stop what they’re doing and stare at a woman. The fact that the age of maximum perceived female hotness coincides with the age of peak fertility strongly implies that it has a material basis, something recognised by writer Ayelet Waldman: “I remember reading some study that men can sense a woman who’s fertile, and they focus their laser beam eyes on a fertile woman,” she said. “Well, as soon as you’re not fertile anymore, it’s like they just skip over you.”
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SubscribeWhen women are young they complain about the ‘male gaze’ and when they are older they complain that men treat them ‘like they are invisible.’ Men really are such a disappointment.
The patriarchy has a surprisingly female centric view, doesn’t it! Men always need to do more for women rather than women needing to do more for themselves.
I also do not believe for a minute that all men want a younger more fertile model, only those who are more concerned with looks rather than good conversation but if that’s all you ever were then I guess you feel it more keenly, Paulina.
A good conversation never takes place in bed
Then you’ve not been in bed with the right person.
Sounds like you go right to sleep after.
Many women, deeply satisfied, go right to sleep and snore contentedly. Never had the experience ?
A good conversation can take place anywhere, as can good sex for that matter!
I vouch for the latter. …..but avoid the beach…..very messy the beach…..this sand can get very tricky.
I struggled underwater. The squid wasn’t in the mood.
. . . . as can a “roll in the hay”
Word.
Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster seemed to enjoy it. God knows we voyeurs did.
In the toilet?
With seat down! Why not? I draw the line at public toilets though, especially the gents, much too smelly!
And here I always sneered at the old excuse that someone had “got an STD on a toilet seat”!
De-rigeur for The Mile High Club. Or so I’m told.
I disagree.
I’m 70, my wife is 68. Our sex is frequent and horny and we have boundryless and free conversations every morning for up to an hour in our bed exercising the ultimate liberty of one’s time being mostly one’s own.
Do I desire younger women?
I’m not dead yet so duh but I’m too busy and happy with the current model to even consider the effort. 🙂
wrong!!…that is where all the good convo’s are…..
Men who want children want the younger more fertile model.
Why do men want children? They don’t seem to like them very much.
Many women don’t want children and sex after the menopause is free of the fear of having them.
That’s a superficial slur on men, typical these days. Most men I’ve ever known want nothing more than to have a family. Sometimes they don’t know it, but that’s because, as our culture demonstrates so vividly, they don’t think about what ‘desire’ is for.
It’s the process, not the end product.
I and many men I know are crazy about kids. We loved having them and are revisiting the pleasure and privilege with our grandchildren.
I was a stay-at-home dad working part time for the important young children phase of our lives and I would not trade this experience for anything…..including a new 20 year-old lover every week.
I don’t think men want to have children either, but evolutionary biology has programmed men to mate with the most fertile women. A man’s sexual preference, therefore, is a function of that biological imperative, not a conscious desire to have children.
Men who want children are usually younger themselves too and yes older women need to reflect on that if they’re trying to pick up younger men. I was talking more about older men who are beyond raising babies because they’ve already done that.
Except these older men like the thought of children but don’t want the actual experience. I have several male acquaintances who have kicked out their wives and taken up with younger women only to find that their golf, mate dates and other leisure pursuits have to be ditched so they can take their children to play dates, ballet lessons and football practice. And guess what, they are all as grumpy as sin. In the meantime, the discarded wives are reinventing themselves and laughing loudly into their prosecco with their friends. Women do not need men when we get older, we simply need good female friends and the freedom to be what we want to be. If we do want a relationship, there are good men, young and old, who appreciate an older, independent woman who has thrown away the baggage
My brother in law was in his forties when he entered fatherhood and complained endlessly about it. My husband and I have been married for 20 years, he hasn’t the patience for younger women and I keep him satisfied so he doesn’t go looking for a more willing model, younger and more fertile would send him running for the hills!
Good post…..but I’m not buying the ending
I do if it means try to sustain a relationship with a 20 yr old….Of course we’d look forward to the sex.
Again, not dead yet.
‘Women do not need men when we get older’ Women do not need men when their younger, either!
Except if they need a bin emptied, a shelf or blinds put up, a fuse or lightbulb changed etc etc…
That attitude is one that makes it easy for men to reignite passion in a woman who gave up on passion. Women see you helping them as foreplay!
That is thanks to feminism. We were made to need each other. If that urge is gone, they may have been traumatized by an ex or father. Or you are speaking to lesbians!
I think you raise a valid point. Once child rearing is out of the way or impossible/unlikely/unwise, heterosexual couples are better off living apart. Plenty of time then for golf, boozy dinner parties, Prosecco or whatever you fancy; and you can still pop round to each other’s houses for nookie, if you’re keen. Might even make your other half more bearable if you’re not in each other’s pockets all the time.
That’s one possible trajectory.
I greatly enjoy the companionship, conversation, playfulness, affection, and yes sexiness of my partner of many years. We laugh and love a lot. Being together is a joy, not a burden. We also do things on our own, but the together time is some of our best.
To each their own; I just wanted to put in a plug for the additional possibility of finding each other positively enjoyable rather than just relatively bearable.
That’s us.
A joy and a privilege.
You have described a fairy tale. You think you are in one of those geezer movies with Diane Keaton. A fantasy that won’t fulfill. The same for men who think they will sow their wild oats. Another fantasy that sounds better than it is.
Fantasy denotes fiction.
Sorry mate. For some of us (hopefully as many as possible), the “fantasy” is real.
If you are good enough for yourself, you don’t “need” anyone but a woman such as my wife who still enjoys male companionship but also enjoys her children, grandchildren and good friends seems to have it all.
We are just lucky, I guess….AND life is 10% how you make it and 90% how you take it.
“Women do not need men when we get older, we simply need good female friends and the freedom to be what we want to be.”
Speak for yourself. I certainly need my husband and the other men in my life (father, brother, friends). I already have the “freedom to be what [I] want to be,” as I have had all almost-fifty years of my life so far.
(And “what I want to be” is not some stereotypical wine-guzzling Lady Who Lunches, either, but YMMV.)
Again, 70 yr old Papa here who does sleepovers with the grandkids sometimes solo and it’s like riding a bike.
Who leave them and skin them. Lucky if they belong to the 50 % who still see their children.
Most men who want children are the same age as the fertile model – and older men generally, like older women, want their independence.
I’m on dating sites for seniors all the time. Men in their 60’s and 70’s want children. Most of the time I skip over those profiles. I am not interested in raising children nor to date someone with children still in the home. I’ve done my time raising children and babysitting. Oh, by the way, older women still get horny.
I thoroughly enjoy my independence ( and it does involve ME deciding when I want to see my grandkids) but I see, bbsit and play with mine often so that must be something I enjoy.
What if the reason that a man wants ‘a younger more fertile model’ is the greater probability that he can have a family of (perhaps several) healthy children with her?
In other words, not principally about looks (for the sake of looks), nor about good conversation. About … babies.
wow ok, so here I was pushing the not all men are shallow and you went straight in there and said no we just want women for their uterus. That makes its so much better (*head in hands)
Please try to be a little more courteous.
I said, or more precisely I asked, whether a man might not be interested in ‘looks (for the sake of looks)’, but … because he is seeking a wife with whom to create and bring up a family.
And you’re right, a woman’s uterus does tend to be involved in that endeavour.
If you’re still wondering why the question of starting a family was in my response to your post: consider your own choice of words ‘a younger more fertile model‘. There’s a clue in there.
There is more to baby creation though than the ability to make them. Studies have shown that its 50% nature and 50% nurture, therefore ensuring that the womb of choice belongs to someone with characteristics you’d like in your children helps, not to mention that children benefit from parents in a stable relationship which itself benefits from building a relationship on more than looks and fertility. Also fostering and adoption are valid options, not all young women or men for that matter are fertile!
Men dig good-looking chicks.
It’s ok so get used to it.
The big wheel keeps on turning.
You’re suggesting the man in his 50s wants children – most people I know decided on kids in their 20s and 30s – therefore both around the same age. If an old man wants kids all of a sudden, you gotta questions his motives!
My posts contain no reference or suggestion as to the man’s age.
Desiring what Mother Nature instructs us to do fulfilling the prime directive (the ONLY reason we exist) is the opposite of shallow.
There is fundamental agency in a uterus and the reason women are worshipped by men who understand this.
Plus women are so interesting. While still being individuals (as we all are) they generally think differently about life.
It is another facet of nature to guarantee the propagation of the species. So much fun!
Who he realises much too late that this kind of life is a bore.
I personally don’t think men want children. They have them because the woman they are with wants them. Not every child turns out to be a rocket scientist or the joy of your old age.
It reminds me of Leo Ferré, a french singer in the 60’s 70 ‘s. When asked why he had children so late in life ( I think he was more than 60 ) his answer was : “ I don’t want to be lying in bed in hospital and see an over 50 bald guy get into my room and calling me Dad”
Men don’t like children, or even less adolescents, they like babies…..and not between 10 pm and 7 am.
I don’t like babies. Men tend to bond with children at an age when they can play with them – around 3 years old.
I do, however respect and understand my wife’s desire for children, as well as society’s need to keep on keepin’ on. So we have 2 children, and no bald guy – my 41 year old son has longish hair – but it is very gratifying to have brought a functioning and astonishingly talented adult into the world. Patience, patience.
I felt a keen sense of protection and care for my newborns. Family guy, I guess.
Men do want children. Else why do they keep having them? Just to please a partner? I think you’re smashing the patriarchy right there!
What a reductive comment. I suspect you can draw a straight line from the man who desires a family back to an intact, well functioning family, an endangered species these days. These generalizations about the sexes motives are not remotely nuanced enough to capture our innate desire for something which transcends our own selfish existence. The modern world has come and placed all kinds of wedges against the proposition, but the man on his deathbed is razor focused on the people that remain when he draws his last breath.
I can only speak for my own experience, but I always wanted children and now that I’m a father my life has a purpose that it lacked before. I’m a better and more motivated man because of it. Of course that’s not every man’s experience, but your suggestion that ‘men don’t like children’ is ridiculous and based on nothing more than your own attitude.
Those studies didn’t reflect what men are looking for in a partner, or even if they were single and looking for someone at all – the men were just asked at what age were women at their most attractive. Pretty much every one of them said 22/23, regardless of their own age.
But anyway, there’s nothing shallow about looking for a younger woman if a man is hoping to find someone with whom he’d wish to have a family. In fact, it’s necessary.
When we refer to a woman as being younger the implication is an age gap, if the guy is in his 20’s then a woman in her 20’s is roughly same age if even if a little younger. I was speaking in terms of the age gap, when he is 40 plus. When women usually feel cast aside for a younger model, I honestly doubt fertility is the deciding factor, Energy levels 100%. I also dispute that all older single men want a younger model, the 20 something might be more attractive physically but intellectually? Personally I don’t even see the attraction of younger men, sure their bodies are firmer but as soon as you start a conversation you feel as old as you are. I not only remember dial up, I remember analogue phones! My taste has matured with me and Im happy for my man to always be a little bit older than me. TBF reading a lot of these comments has me feeling even more appreciative of what I have.
I’m approaching 60, and the sheer thought of being in a serious romantic relationship with a 20 something makes me shiver in fear. I couldn’t get past the constant scrolling on her phone and the inane ramblings about what she reads on that phone.
What a man,old or young, sees with his eyes,is what he wants.
His eyes may be in their 70s but the rest if him is in his teens..nominally
Same goes for some women : )
Your observation is on target. Men who are superficial and lack intellectual depth will care less about seeking a female who is also an intellectual, social and political companion.
Study after study has shown that there is a strong tendency for men to physically prefer nubile young women. Women on the other hand prefer men who are endowed with physical fitness, social standing and wealth, and can thereby provide for their families. There are obvious evolutionary reasons behind this. Of course what people – especially the highly educated – SAY they like may very well differ, because they are aware of current socially acceptable and unacceptable attitudes, ‘everyone is desirable’ etc.
Biology isn’t necessarily destiny, and it is possible to have loving relationships not primarily focused on physical attraction. However we are deluding ourselves if we deny that it often strongly influences our behaviour in ways we are not even aware of. How many people fancy morbidly obese people, or go out of their way to form a relationship with a homeless person? That isn’t ‘fair’ on those groups of course, but life often isn’t fair!
Well stated. I, for one, actually do gaze at the confident, middle aged women who obviously have taken care of themselves over time and were seemingly very romantic in their youth. There’s something very attractive about them. And judging by the naughty/wry smiles I receive in return, it appears that most appreciate the gaze.
Years ago a girlfriend of mine complained to her mother about builders wolf whistling.
“Don’t worry dear” her mother said “It’ll stop.”
Yes, I had the same reaction to a young woman complaining that a man had offered to help with her suitcases, when she could surely handle them herself.
I didn’t say anything, but I thought: wait 5 or 10 years, and you will indeed be handling them yourself.
This idea of womens sexual desire fading is a myth, alongside the idea of of men remaining lustful into old age. Each to his own.
How many women in their 70s and 80s do you know? Most don’t want sex and neither do their male partners. Libido dies and most people are quite happy with the fact. As for this film – women in their 60s – Emma Thompson is fooling no one passing as 55 – would do online dating for companionship and sex and not have a primary desire to give some prostitute a b******b.
I am always glad when a young person offers me a seat on the tube.
Either inadvertent or well done double entendre, given the overall subject matter.
You are right, of course, though wanting what you haven’t got is not confined to the female of the species. For a happy life we should try to enjoy the stage we are at. Personally, ever since the menopause I mentally high five myself when I pass the tampons in the supermarket. All that is over, hooray!
I saw the envy in my daughter’s eyes when I told her how liberating it is not to be hit on any more after a certain age, but, men being what they are, you can generally get it is you want it. Win win situation.
She was possibly envious of your ability to look on the bright side
Think you may misunderstand the meaning of ‘Male gaze’ – being looked up and down upon and someone to f**k is not pleasant, whatever age
File ‘Women-who-complain-about-the-male-gaze’ under ‘You-doth-protest-too-much.’
@Peter Johnson … you hit on something in the movie far more disturbing than an older woman who wants a sexually satisfying sexual experience. I’m a bit baffled by the assumptions presented here, I’ve known and met plenty of older women whose sexual yearnings were obvious and often hinted at. I agree with the author this movie expresses those ideas in a tasteless way… at any rate, back to your point….
the portrayal of men… the white male is replaced by a younger man of color. a persistent theme across neomarxism… the failed white man. it’s a running trope throughout this movie…. her husband, the stereotypical white man… was sexually inadequate. the young man of color is a sexual virtuoso. ladies… dump your frumpy inadequate white men and embrace those sexy hot dark boys. what’s more laughable, if you view this premise against the broader tapestry of the larger culture wars we are immersed in… the singular attribute you can definitely ascribe to darker skinned men is that… they are overwhelmingly from cultures that are largely traditional, and in those cultures… men have escaped emasculation. but let’s not let that little tidbit get in the way of a good commie trope.
I don’t think either situation is worth complaining about.
Unless a man is being rude or threatening, there is nothing wrong with him noticing a pretty young woman.
And there is nothing wrong with being an older woman who is not as appealing as a young woman.
It’s a simple fact that young people are better looking than older people (you’ll notice they didn’t cast a 63 year old man in the role of Leo Grande. The reaction from the female audience would have been: “who would pay for THAT?”)
So well and concisely put.
“The lack of substantial acting roles for older women”
What, like Tilda Swinson, for example ? I get the impression that she’s never been busier. Maybe the ‘problem’ is that ‘some’ actors who primarily, or substantially trade on their looks can’t accept that that’s why they get employed and when ‘it’ loses it’s ‘freshness’, so do they. It’s also a fact that some people just age better than others, they should, instead, just be grateful for having had the opportunity in the first place, either that or make sure, when the beauty fades, there is something more interesting and substantial behind it.
“Paulina Porizkova, once the world’s most highly-paid model, clearly does: she told The Times earlier this year how she just doesn’t seem able to pull any more. “I am now completely invisible,” she says. “I walk into a party, I try to flirt with guys and they will just walk away from me mid-sentence to pursue someone 20 years younger. I’m very single, I’m dressed up, I’ve made an effort — nothing.”
I’d be more than happy for her to “pull” me, but that’s probably half the problem. It isn’t ‘men’ that are the issue, but her opinion of herself and her idea of the men she considers worthy of her company. If men, in whom she is interested, wander away, mid conversation, maybe she should take a hint and ‘lower’ her expectations, or seriously ‘practice’ her chat up lines and work on her personality more, either that or maybe just start trying to date men who are actually interested in something other than the superficiality of looks, she then, just might, find herself happier and more valued as she ‘fades’ into the background. I’m sure she has herself, in the past, crushed the ego of some poor chap, who was neither rich enough, or good looking enough, to merit her.
Oh, and lest I be accused of wandering off topic, If women want to know why men date younger women and have affairs, the clue is in the title to this article “Middle-aged women don’t want sex“ . It really isn’t rocket science !
You nailed it
Poor Paulina. But I’d be happy to help …
Paulina is lovely to look at but when I first heard her talk I was stunned by the sound of her voice…the two didn’t see to go together…maybe looks aren’t everything?
Poor Paulina probably never learned to flirt. It’s timeless connection, a gauntlet thrown down, a marvelous fencing match. If followed by the “hurley-burley of the chaise longue” so much the better. But it’s exciting, and makes life worthwhile. Can’t imagine ever being like those of the female sex who relax into frumpiness. Seems a little selfish, actually, to not want to share happiness with a fellow human being of one’s approximate age. I always thought the point of being retired and empty-nested was being able to frolic all over the house and garden, at any time of day. And flirting, Paulina, is as addictive as casting — quiet concentration, perseverance, deftness, the patience to go for the legendary lurker under the bank, but oh, the thrill when the fly is taken! A master class matinee seems more appealing to me than doing good works in comfortable shoes.
She has come back to the dating game after 30 years of marriage and the death of her husband, so I think we can cut her some slack!
There is also time for reflection though. She was married to the late Ric Ocasek, a wrinkly rock star 20 years her senior. Presumably then, in her time, one of the desirable young women pursued by rich, middle aged men who cut short their conversations with women of the same age. I wish her well, of course.
Dear god the woman married the world’s ugliest man AND stayed faithful and supportive even as he treated her like shite and left her – the mother of his children- out of his will. Your comment reeks of contempt for a person about whom you know nothing – perhaps it stems from
resentment for all the women who didn’t give you what you thought they owed you. Perhaps it’s you who should lower your standard??
I am waiting for an article written by a man, complaining how he couldn’t get woman when he was unemployed and homeless, and how unfair this is. This is basic human nature.
And it is also an increasingly percentage of the male population, since online dating tends to promote “hypergamy”, or more women seeking out the most desirable men. Supposedly 3% of the men are getting 80% of the heterosexual sex.
And 80% of the women think they deserve unlimited, exclusive attention from a man who belongs to the top 3% club.
Not going to end well.
Apparently on dating apps, women consider 80% of the available men on them to be below average attractiveness.
Patriarchy, eh?
It’s just biology.
It’s partly because women of 17 -21 , if they are at least reasonable looking , find they can sleep with almost any one , because men are so promiscuous .
Quite. Aren’t we all a bunch of rotters to not know that the majority of us are below average!!!
It’s actually 1% and 99%. But many of that 1% perish of exhaustion, so that 1% has a high turnover rate.
Why do I have the feeling it was 60 blokes who thumbed up :)))
Hmm, yes. You often see young, glamorous women with old rich men. But for some reason, not with old poor men.
That wouldn’t be analogous to this article, though.
There’s a great deal of truth in this article. Of course not every woman follows the general pattern, nor should they.
As an extension to the article consider the invisibility of old men. Apart from a few old rich powerbrokers/politicians most old men become invisible too – and usually Grandad is subordinate in status terms to Grandma.
Yes, because Grandma can still use her domestic and child care skills, while retired Grandpa just putters around.
In my experience ‘puttering around’ includes stuff like fitting kitchens, carpets, clutches and camomile lawns…especially for those with doted-on daughters who like ‘kind, sensitive, modern…’ men!
Bang on it. My own Grandad was very active into his 80s. Used to take me out fishing in his boat when we visited. Built his own house and could turn his hand to many practical things.
Or takes up a new career… which both sexes can, and often do.
Putters around, quietly fixing the ageing house, quietly keeping the garden under control, quietly ensuring the old car still works and smiling at the children’s play.
A dearly beloved relation of mine “puttered around” like this into his 80s, repairing roofs and so on. Sadly, he fell off a ladder, broke his hip, contracted pneumonia in hospital, and died. If he had done less puttering around, he would still be here.
Arguably a better way to go than a drawn-out illness where he’d lost his ability to do the things he enjoyed and was confined to a chair for a lengthy decline. Sorry for your loss, though – very hard losing someone whatever the circumstances.
My grandma lived to be 103 and was never confined to a chair, she was active until the end and didn’t die of old age, but in a car accident on her way to the dentist. My mom is 87 and still goes to the gym twice a week, walks an hour every day, and does her grocery shopping by bike. Being elderly absolutely does not mean that you just sit there, waiting to die.
.. hunting, fishing, gardening, raising chickens, home remodeling, plumbing, electric, brewing beer..
I don’t have domestic and childcare skills. Sex is far more appealing.
This is one of your best articles lately, Mary.
You were spot on when you described how women in their fifties like to start new, often pro-social careers – each of my aunts did this.
I would also add that “crones” become goddesses when they help with the grandkids. When I needed help with my first baby, my previously boring mother became an angel in my eyes.
Crones are goddesses and don’t need grandchildren to make it so. Older women these days should “feel the fear and do it anyway” as we were told 40 years ago. We are not second class citizens. We could rule the world if we could be bothered!
It’s just disgusting to bring children into the discussion. What have they got to do with women? Don’t you understand that women are all worth it, no matter how old, toxic and childless they may be.
I walk to work every day in ‘comfortable’ clothes and I am utterly invisible to all the pretty girls I see. When I put an expensive suit on and walk around, everything changes quite dramatically. Thousands of years of evolution have dictated our value to eachother and to the species. For women it’s about their fertility first, for men its about being able to provide the means to support and protect a woman having babies. Good genes matter too, but if you don’t have the ability to provide, women will look right past most men. These are not moral choices – these are the features of any species that carries on into the future. Sorry for everyone who thinks all of this is unfair and must be corrected somehow. As humans we can become more than just our evolutionary traits – which is great – but denying nature or complaining that our nature is unfair to one sex or the other is really not particularly insightful.
We do notice men in comfortable clothes. We notice men in their work clothes, even when it is steel toe capped boots and a boilersuit. It is the men inside the clothes we notice. If you walk to work with a smile, you will be noticed. You might think you are being ignored but… We don’t wolf whistle but we might smile back. Even the young pretty girls.
As an elderly man I am often unnerved at the number of young attractive girls that smile at me in passing. I say unnerved because I am not very good at remembering faces and I often have the uncomfortable feeling they are smiling because they know me but I have forgotten who they are. However, I think in fact it is simply because most women are inherently agreeable and tend to smile if they receive any sort of attention in passing.
When people started talking about resting b***h face I began making a concerted effort to smile more and it really pays off. Walking through the village is a much more pleasant experience. It really goes to show no-one likes someone with a face like a slapped @rse, even just to say hello to!
It’s all about looking approachable, and just saying hello and getting a smile can help us all to feel that little bit better.
Ah, the power of the narrative…
Yup, and most young men actually believe it. Poor sods!
“If, unlike the Paulina Porizkovas of this world, you’re among the far larger body of women who’ve made something other than looks the focus of your life, you may well find it a blessed relief when the gaze of male strangers begins to skip you in favour of younger, perkier women”.
YES! This!
The first time I noticed the men in the gym were looking to the younger, perkier female specimens in the gym rather than me I just felt relief. I’d always go to the women-only part of the local gym but it was just screened off from the rest rather than in a separate room and it frequently happened that groups of rather uninhibited young men collected to stare at us shamelessly. It was very creepy.
I feel that an increase in age and confidence has given me a double shield against this kind of thing: the age means men just don’t look as often and the increased confidence means I don’t care about it. I find my 40-year-old self FAR better than my 25 year-old-self. And I hope to continue in that vein of acceptance of things as they are right now without reference to how things (my mental state, my body, my career etc.) were in the past.
It is so sad and demoralising that women’s self-worth should still be depicted as being largely dependent on the gaze and judgment of strangers – and measured against the benchmark of something (perhaps happily!) past.
My wife is in her early 60s and still seems, like many women, very driven to do things and say things because they are socially approved. She often complains that I don’t care sufficiently what other people think about my words and actions. To me it seems sensible to consult your own preferences rather than the preferences of strangers, but to her that seems anti-social. I get the impression that many women never manage to cast off the shackles provided by the opinion of strangers..
Physicist Richard Feynman wrote a wonderful little book about ignoring the masses called “What Do You Care What Other People Think”. It has inspired me to disregard what others will say about me.
It is online as a pdf
https://idoc.pub/documents/feynman-richard-what-do-you-care-what-other-people-thinkpdf-34wm5ov5yjl7
Thanks for that. It looks an interesting book.
Everything Richard Feynman has ever done is interesting.
I don’t really need to read that book. I have pretty much always said what I think – except when I have been invited out and the hostess or my wife tell me to ‘behave.’ In those situations I am sweetness and light – and most importantly- don’t challenge any conventional views.
I think you are absolutely right and it is the work of each woman’s life to do the hard yards of getting out of the mental box she has been put in/which she has got herself into – should that be making her unhappy.
It is one’s own responsibility to do that – but you mostly need help from others ladies who have gone before you. Simone de Beauvoir is an idol for a reason! We can look back now and consider her a bourgeois prude even at the end of her life – but considering where she came from & the societal norms that prevailed during her life, the intellectual work she did for herself and for women generally was simply amazing.
My wife’s approach is so ingrained that it doesn’t really make her unhappy more irritated that I have a different approach.
There is, of course, something to be said for social disapproval when it comes to keeping people or their children from making a nuisance of themselves. It is when it spills over to cover matters that don’t concern anyone else that the spirit of conformity can be damaging.
I remember enjoying Simon de Beauvoir’s writing but haven’t looked at anything of hers for half a century.
My wife tells me her best friend and colleague, a very successful psychologist, told her it was her considered opinion that the biggest problem in most women’s life was conquering guilt.
My observation is that she was correct. Guilt is what Katherine’s ‘mental box’ is built of.
Expectations of others and the guilt of not meeting them.
Simone de Beauvoir procured younger women for Sartre – her idolisation by feminists is nothing short of bizarre – if a man had written the second sex he’d been regarded as the worst kind of misogynist. Shere Hite on the other hand truly liberates women’s sexuality – showing it does not and has never depended on penetration.
What did she see in that Communist pillock Jean-Paul Sartre?
Simone de Beauvoir was not a prude in any sense. She was bisexual and had affairs with female students she was later passing on to Sartre or her male lovers. She was also famously involved with the writer Nelson Algren and the much younger filmmaker Claude Lanzmann.
I feel sorry for your wife. What a waste of time to keep up with the jonasses .
She isn’t looking to keep up with the Jones’s it is more a matter of taking into account “what would the neighbours think”. A rather Northern approach from days when your neighbours were often your relatives.
I have never had them to cast off. At 62, I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. My integrity is far more important.
Ah, so that’s your shackle, Caroline.
I care what other people think of me because I own a business. It is a pretty effective governor on my behavior, which might otherwise be a bit erratic. Also, whether my livelihood depended on it or not, I don’t want to be an asshole.
“What other people think” is how we learn what is and is not acceptable social conduct. Always has been.
I am glad you are comfortable enough in your own skin to enjoy “lack of attention” and thankfully, life is great at 40! A lot more economic independence, freedom to try out new hobbies, and better knowledge of who you are and what you want.
The increasingly problematic thing with a lot of young women I see, is a loudly expressed feeling of grievance because of being supposedly “objectified” by the male gaze, while simultaneously being utterly desperate for being the centre of attention. I suppose the men around them must be terribly confused.
Yes, I do sometimes find myself wondering at that too…it indicates an odd sort of refusal to accept the consequences of your own desires.
I recently went through some of my old diaries from my 20s and was shocked at just how hung up I was about men – a big dollop of my self worth was hung up on what they thought of me and whether I was good enough and oh-my-God what is he thinking about right now (probably lunch) blah blah blah…my inner world was really quite tragic in that respect. And I don’t think any of these poor unsuspecting creatures knew a thing about the sheer amount of pressure and expectation they were under inside my brain. If they did, they probably would have been a bit scared.
One the best things about getting older is you are mostly too bloomin’ busy to be having these thoughts. Either you’ve got kids, a job, a relationship, ailing parents or possibly all of these things and thinking and wondering takes a back seat to just GETTING STUFF DONE IN THE REAL WORLD. And that’s what it is for me on most days…apart from today when I have a bit of time to indulge in writing Unherd comments 😉
But does it occur to you it might be the same for young men !! Which sometime turns into tragedy…….John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Forster…….bad choice…..she was gay ……and didn’t need this attention……much less at the cost of a President’s life.
When I was out of a job, penniless, women couldn’t care less about me and kaboom…..everything changed with my first decent check and very good career prospects.
Being single rocks :))
It’s often worth considering what would happen if you reversed sexes. Would a film about a 55-year old widower, who had had a boring sex life with his wife and who was now employing the services of a prostitute, be accepted? No matter how profound the conclusion of the film, it would be critically derided and probably be banned.
It would be a hatecrime.
I always thought that women were more interested in impressing other women.
i don’t know if we want to go back to maidenhood but i personally would like to look as good as i can for my age and i suspect others feel the same.
Yes, that is absolutely my attitude aswell – but the benchmark should always be your own age cohorts and not much younger women. I feel one of the greatest problems with the brand of feminism we were fed growing up (or simply soaked up somehow by osmosis) is that it lacked realism and a pragamtic cost-benefit analysis.
We were led to believe we could have it all (career, kids, great relationship etc.) without paying any price, without it being hard. And that followed through to looks & beauty ideals: of course we’ll age, but with all of these creams and potions and operations, we can stay 25! And now I think – take one look at Madonna and you will realise that this is the way of no good whatsoever. Tina Turner should be the goal – it was always clear she was ageing…but my goodness didn’t she just make being 50/60/70 seem great?
As a woman approaching my 50’s there are lots of things I like about this article and some I disagree with … I totally agree with you though Katharine that I am much better than my 25 year old self. The confidence that comes with age (and in my case divorce from a man society told me was the perfect sort to have) has made a real difference. My objection to this essay and various comments is that this confidence is somewhat less valid if it involves my body image and/or my sex life. I have had 4 children and work hard to have a good body (for my age it’s pretty damn good) but I think a key difference is that I do it for ME. I have rediscovered sex and pleasure but once again I think the big difference that comes with age is that I am doing it for ME. It is here that I have some objection to the essay and it’s perception of the film. I’m not convinced when it says
“The “liberating” message it offers is that even frumpy, wrinkly, saggy middle-aged women who have devoted their lives to public service and their loved ones are not wholly beyond redemption. They, too, can access hedonistic, self-centered gratification, thanks to the sex industry.”
I see the message as more about a discovery that sex can be a wonderful thing when older and that, importantly, it can also be about what WE want. I rather hope that the film and associated discussion puts to bed this notion that as women we walk a path that progresses from sex goddess to obedient wife to baby factory to not interested … this is wrong and leads to such wasted opportunities. I am hoping my late in life discoveries can help me educate my girls.
Good on yah Lisa, though in your fifties I hope you’re far from being ‘late in your life’ late middle perhaps.
Likewise Helen Mirren and Joan Collins, who looked good at any age. But most of us, men or women, are just OK, and can’t “have it all” at the same time. The best we can hope for is different kinds of good things at different times.
Not having it all is a first-world problem.
Frankly I don’t really care. I wear what is comfortable and appropriate to the occasion and don’t look in the mirror for the rest of the day. ‘Looking good’ takes too much time and money so I don’t do it. No hairdresser, no nails, no facials, no makeup, no expensive fashionable clothes. It’s very liberating and saves so much time, which I use to run my business and other activities, and keeping up with friends and family, things I really enjoy doing.
Comfortable, clean and neat is fine. I have embraced cronehood!
Thank you, Mary Harrington, for saying what needed to be said. The fruitless quest for lost youth is a sad spectacle in either sex, and ironically makes the individual concerned look pathetic and deluded. As a society we seem to have lost much of our respect for the old, or even the not-young. But there are compensations and new liberties in getting older, all of them entailing much more dignity than the pretence that one is still fresh and lovely. And which young person wants to feel she’s in competition with her mother for male attention?
The narcissists who produce mass media can’t imagine any desire beyond shallow, hedonistic self-indulgence. We should feel pity for “Hollyweird” not look to them for ethical guidance.
Edit to clarify: I am referring to the source material of the film, the article itself was great.
Beautiful women use their physical attractiveness to advance their careers and social standing, and then complain about men when they age out of “peak attraction”. As men age they are valued more for how rich and powerful they are, not for physical beauty. How else to explain a Weinstein or a Kissinger, who never lacked for an attractive woman on arm.
This article overlooks the fact that men face the same issue. Western culture has placed a ridiculous emphasis on sexual intercourse, when the dirty little secret is that sex with anyone – no matter how “hot” he/she is – becomes routine after 6 months. You either find someone you love deeply for other reasons, regardless of their imperfections, or you spend your life in futile pursuit of the novel and new. Life isn’t perfect. People are not perfect. Get married anyway. Have children anyway. Family is life. Have a life. The big story in the next 10 years will be all those who drank the sexual Kool-Aid, slept around, and ended up utterly alone.
What nonsense. Of course middle aged (and older) women want sex. They just don’t want it with most middle aged men.
The trouble is that (with both sexes, I’d guess) you need to have sex with a person before you realise you didn’t want it that much after all!
Graeme……you wouldn’t happen to be from New Zealand by any chance ? Does skiing in Austria ring a bell ?
As a man I have been interested, like Freud, in “what women want.” And what they want, “experts agree,” is love.
They really don’t want careers, not much. Career, you linguists will know, comes from the French “carrière,” or racetrack. Experts agree that girls start losing interest in sports and racetracks in their mid teens.
Movie producers are different. What they want is Sex. I wonder what that tells us about movie producers. Any ideas, you experts?
We don’t want careers? News to me!
i never really did. my dream was to be samantha on ‘bewitched’. instead i worked in a cube for years dealing with petty office politics. i’m now living close to my dream thanks to my wonderful husband.
How did she do that thing with her nose?
I wanted family first and only once my kids were old enough did I look at going back to work. Being a stay at home mum was hugely satisfying and even now my job involves all those finely honed mum skills. I was fortunate to have a wonderfully supportive husband to allow me to do it.
The news is you’ve been sold a bill of goods. Men, too. It is the exceptional, really, who actually want a ‘career’. What most want is whatever it takes to have a meaningful life. It boils down to necessity. A ‘career’ is much more necessary for a man than for a woman to achieve this. It’s not what they want, it’s what is expected.
Women want love more than respect. Men want respect more than love. But both want both.
No, a career was ALL I wanted, right from the off. I assumed marriage would happen at some point, I never wanted kids. In my mind, the goal was to get a great education, get a good, well-paid job which allowed me financial independence and have the respect and status that went with it.
I imagined that said career would involve going to the office in a snappy expensive suit and being top dog in the office and generally being a sort of Nancy-Drew-crossed-with-Nicola-Horlick kind of ballbreaker.
Well, I tried that and it made me very unhappy so I jacked in what I was doing – but that doesn’t mean that career got any less important. Work and relationships are still the joint top priority for me – but work now has a whole different quality. I don’t have the stereotypical corporate career that is often automatically equated with “success” – but I am doing something I am good at and get respect for and provide my customers with a great service…which I think is far more empowering than running after someone else’s conception of success/power.
The long and short of that is that lots of women do want careers – but we should have more confidence in defining what success means. I have no opinion on the movie/sex issue.
Women make two capital errors when thinking about how good men have it. First, they assume that men naturally get respect and status, which is horribly wrong. Second, they think respect and status make you happy, which is also wrong. But it takes years and many erroneous decisions until this lesson can be learned. This is why modern feminism destroys lives. Young women are fed the opposite of the truth, and are left for themselves to figure out the lie.
We want indepence and the time to do what we want. We want men to take responsibility for their children so we can do all the things fathers/husbands have always done, including working 60 hour weeks if we want. And when our children (should we have them) leave the nest, we want the freedom to play golf, go to the pub, go to the football, the opera, the theatre, without our menfolk moaning about the waste of money that this is.
And if we don’t have children ( either by choice of nature) we want to choose our own careers without critiscism from our male companions. Simply put, we want to make our way in this world on our own terms. We have earned it.
As a bloke in my fifties, I’m very relieved to reach the stage where my sex drive is non- existent. I dont see that as something to be sorry about. I regard it as a blessing.
The world of dating seems to me to be a nightmare that I’m glad I no longer have to partake in.
And here the discussion is talking about nothing but sex again. Frankly it’s boring even when you’re young enough to have some choice in the matter and access to men who actually know where anything is or how it works. I am just delighted to be free of the whole nonsense. And for the record, IMHO women are just as age “inappropriate” as men in their preferences. If we could choose with whom to have sex at any age, it wouldn’t be with some pot-bellied wrinkly old bloke. It would be with a hunky tattooed fireman or ambulance driver. When it comes to sex we are all walking cliches.
Paulina Porizkova, once the world’s most highly-paid model, clearly does: she told The Times earlier this year how she just doesn’t seem able to pull any more.
Stop trying to pull 30somethng blokes, perhaps? AS a 50+ guy, I’d be very flattered if she flirted with me.
I am single, in my sixties. Sure young women look appealing. But at 65 I really prefer one of the many beautiful women in their late 50’s or 60’s. I don’t think introducing myself to a lone woman in a store or restaurant is horny or creepy. In fact most are nice, some flattered but taken, and some are interested. Almost none are rude. So not sure why you think that.
The main thing that struck me after my divorce 7 years ago is that romance, dating, kissing, flirting are every bit as exhilarating as when I was in high school. Our hearts still skip a beat. And the sex is better, and is on a different plane. I haven’t met any women who have thrown in the towel on sex, romance and the hope of finding “the one.” Same for men.
As often is the case Mary presents an excellent article. The older women I know are towers of strength on the volunteering front helping to maintain community institutions.
That said a sex therapist told me a couple of years ago that there has been an enormous rise in STDs among the elderly suggesting that there are plenty of women who have become more sexually adventurous as they age or perhaps have persisted doing what they did before when previously they would have ceased.
“Paulina Porizkova, once the world’s most highly-paid model, clearly does: she told The Times earlier this year how she just doesn’t seem able to pull any more. “I am now completely invisible,” she says. “I walk into a party, I try to flirt with guys and they will just walk away from me mid-sentence to pursue someone 20 years younger. I’m very single, I’m dressed up, I’ve made an effort — nothing.”
I suspect that she might be setting her sights too high. I am sure that there ate thousands of men her age who would be interested in getting to know Ms P but I suspect 99.99% would not meet her standards
Well, I’ve seen the late Ric Ocasek walking hand in hand with her in my old neighborhood, Gramercy Park, and he doesn’t even meet my standards (and I don’t have any). Love is blind. Also deaf and really, really dumb. If she was interested in looks only, there are 30 trainers at Equinox who look better than Ric O. It is to her credit that she picked a scrawny has-been rock star in late middle age.
The key words “rock star”
Dressing for comfort is something for older women? I’m sorry, but no. I’m 22, and whenever I pick clothes, comfort is my number one priority, a principle I learned from my own mother, who prioritised comfort and practicality since before I was born.
Of course, there I do have exceptions in my wardrobe, comprising of two dresses and two pairs of shoes. As you can imagine, these hardly ever get worn. Because I learned the hard way in my late teens that any apparent sex appeal is not worth the enormous discomfort woven into the fabric of some of these clothes. To be honest, I envy the men’s section every time I go into a clothing store – simple T-shirts, stripy blue shirts, jeans that aren’t skin-tight and have decent pockets… why can’t the women’s section be more like that? In the women’s section, there are so many clothes that are too short, half complete, and tight and loose in all the wrong places. It’s made buying clothes a complete pain for me for many years, and I’m sick of it. Is it really too much to ask to be young and comfortable?
I’m a guy in my twenties and where i live all i see are women dressed for comfort, by which i mean leggings and gym gear. Not that I am complaining.
Given the choice of finding a new man at the age of 52 and learning how to make the best of an air fryer a good friend of mine (who I find very alluring) is opting for the air fryer. If only I could crisp her kale chips as efficiently…..
I don’t think to want to see this film. I agree with Mary Harrington. There’s more to life past 50 than lamenting your lost youth and viewing your worth as a human being through the lens of sexuality as prescribed by modern society.
Post to divorce and having had the honour, privelige and pleasure of meeting probably the most lovely and attractive women I have ever met, ALL over 50, in recent times, I can only say that my experience is the diametric opposite to the contents of this piece
Like so many of Mary Harrington’s articles, an excellent analysis showing up yet again, among much else, the very ‘regressive’ attitudes lurking behind so much ‘progressive’ opinion. In this case, the clearly bonkers view that everyone of whatever age has, or rather OUGHT to have the same sex drive, and that this is the single most important part of leading a fulfilling life.
You put that perfectly!
I know it’s not a particularly useful exercise, but I often think about how a film like this would be received if the roles were reversed. A depressed widower in his 60s hires a prostitute to live out the sexual fantasies that his late wife would never agree to. A heartwarming story of empowerment in late middle-age? Nope, sounds like a porno that nobody wants to see. I like Emma Thompson but I think I’ll be giving this one a miss.
It’s really nice to read an article about what Ricky Gervais would call “old fashioned women” without any of that modern nonsense being espoused.
In his last special he used the term “old fashioned women” to describe those females who do not have a p***s. Tells you how fast the times change.
The whole premise of this film is unbelievable. I know many ‘older’ women who want relationships; they do online dating like young people – no desire for an escort or to pay for sex. As for sex itself – what really is the film about? The trailer has her asking to give a b*****b and a 69? Really? Does anyone actually explain either than women’s orgasm come mainly from tribbing? Or is the film so unrealistic it truly believes its all up to the man’s willy? Stereotypical stuff
just like trying to pass for a man with comments like this…
Really good-looking women (of whom there are surprisingly few) seem go through two phases:
Phase one: Men keep hitting on me!
Phase two: I’m invisible!
Plain women (of whom there are surprisingly many) go straight to phase two. That’s because life ain’t fair.
The combination of the author’s sometimes inconsistent assumptions and all-too-consistent predilection for logical equivocation makes for a very confused article. What is her grievance, exactly? Well, she has several… but the extent to which they cohere is debatable. If fewer, and/or qualitatively different, acting roles are available to older women than to younger ones, does this count as evidence that older women have become “invisible,” or less “valuable?” Is this role claim even true? How many young female leads does a typical movie feature: one tends to be the upper limit, yes? Ditto for the young male lead: he’s a set of one as well; yet movies routinely feature older women and men in a wide range of other roles, as parents, teachers, political and business leaders, etc. If movies concern themselves more with the leads than with the support players, isn’t this a shortcoming (if it is a shortcoming) of movies and storytelling in general, rather than evidence of older women’s supposed invisibility in daily life? If it qualifies as such evidence, how could it fail to follow that older men must be invisible and under-valued as well? What, in short, does this sort of observation have to do with women in particular?
One could subject each paragraph in this piece to similar questioning, but it would be tedious (and surely unnecessary) to do so. Readers are quite capable of asking themselves, unprompted, whether it follows from the fact that men rate women in their twenties as the most sexually attractive [*] that men’s tastes in other matters don’t evolve considerably as they age, just as women’s do; or whether one can legitimately infer from this reality that men see women as “fertile first,” and as “people second;” or whether men have the least objection to women either “opening doors to new experiences and wisdom,” or revelling in feeling “horny” and insisting on enjoying “pleasure,” as they see fit and as the spirit moves them. As for the “constraints of biology,” they’re every bit as real for men as for women, and like it or not we’re all obliged to come to terms with them. Older would-be party flirters getting passed over in favour of people “20 years younger” are hardly a uniquely female experience.
Given the tone of this article, it’s hard to fathom what objection the author could possibly have to “art-house” movies. The kind of thoughtful depiction she advocates lends itself most appropriately to art-house treatment, while the article itself clearly hopes to engage an art-house sensibility, though not, in my opinion, sufficiently rigorously to ensure much of a run. The real grievance here seems to be a sociological one: the broad mass of humanity simply doesn’t share the author’s conception of what a mainstream movie should be, or her hierarchy of concerns, and is probably beyond reforming. It’s not clear, though, that men are any more responsible for this state of affairs than women are, or that aging brings fewer tribulations to men than to women.
[*] This is entirely logical as well as, presumably, biologically mandated; and while it’s nice that “writer Ayelet Waldman” has noticed such a universal evolutionary adaptation, she hardly deserves much credit for possessing an insight that’s as old as literature and doubtless preceded recorded history by millennia.
I lost all respect for Emma Thompson for playing that insulting and insanely out of touch role.
Where were all the “woke” people complaining about an old white woman exploiting a young black man? I’d have thought they’d be furious.
There are almost no women my age today (I am 60) who have only had sex with their husbands, never had an orgasm, or who have never had ample opportunity to explore their sexuality with the full support of society.
As usual, so called “progressives” are still fighting battles that were won 50 years ago.
I have a very tender and romantic relationship with my husband, but it is NOTHING like the kinds of sexual relationships we had when we were younger – thank god!
A virile young man like “Leo Grande” would probably break my vagina! It’s old and tired and needs a well earned rest.
I suspect I am far from alone in this.
A brilliant article Mary! Thankyou !!
Fabulous article. The premise of this movie was so quietly enraging that I couldn’t even form sentences to describe how ignorant and revolting it seems. You’ve done a great job. Now to scan and see how many woman-haters are in the comments.
I agree. I think the premise for this film is despicable. If I didn’t know it was written by a woman I’d think it was written by a gay man. It says nothing about female sexuality or desire –
All my life if I tended to to fancy women who were slightly older than me. Especially when I was younger. They tended to know what they wanted and they didn’t mess about and giggle.
I’m now 65, fit, and happily married. A good-looking woman of 60 or 40 appears just as attractive to me as a good-looking woman of 20. The only thing that matters is the shape that we keep ourselves in – both for men and women. If you let yourself go you shouldn’t be too surprised if people look straight through you. If you keep yourself in shape and make an effort, they how much more likely to look at you rather than through you.
There’s nothing shallow about this. Human beings are programmed to assimilate a lot from first looks at another human being. Their physical condition, and how they look after themselves is just as important, in that first look, as anything else about the way that they appear
Two words for you: Monica Bellucci. Now 58, she is glorious. As she herself stated, she stepped down from the modeling scene with grace and also aged with grace. Zero surgeries and a foodie, she now has curves and wrinkles stating she ‘wears with pride as it is a normal part of life’ and she is now ‘enjoying a different stage’. Unlike Porizkova, she is not defined by younger beauty and success.
In my late 20’s, returning from a business trip (London to NYC), I found myself sitting next to what turned out to be a man who claimed he worked for British Intelligence with the US government. We had an interesting discussion about ‘sex appeal’ which he said was a topic researched by intelligence. He asked me what I thought was the the feature of a woman’s body that men were most attracted to…so I went with him on his guessing game, naming the usual suspects – boobs (no), legs (no), eyes (no), figure (no) – it turned out to be ‘skin’. He says ‘skin’ subliminally indicates to the men how fertile a woman is and hence the preferred attraction to younger women. As hormones abate, skin texture changes which men ‘sense’ and this, he claimed, was borne out by research. No facelift, no magic cream – nothing can hide what pronounces to the world that you are aging – than does your ‘skin’ organ.
Very much enjoyed the article because I am an old man, and when men get old their testosterone begins to turn into estrogen. Also, old men lose confidence when young men no longer consider them dangerous. I much rather, at this point in my life, have a good conversation with women that don’t have that striving that communicating when sex is a looming possibility. And I am happy with my aging wife as I discover just how wonderful women are when you are not clashing horns or making stud piles to get the attention of women.
When we make our sexual identity (whatever that is) and our sexual appetites the center of our life….then Leo Grandes happen. Equally, what happens is Jenny Joseph’s ‘old woman wearing slippers in the rain’. Both Nancy, the widowed school teacher now buying sexual performance from a stranger….and the “purpled, perimenopausal crones” leaning into a ‘new career’ are busy defining themselves — either positively or negatively — against the rather twisted notion that our own, personal sexuality (our embrace thereof, or our rejection thereof) is the beating heart of the life we choose to lead.
Of course it’s not.
Rather we are embodied beings — neither separate from the body, seeing it only as some kind of gnostic suit for our higher spiritual selves to wear (sometimes convenient, sometimes not) — nor mired in worship of the body and its appetites (if it feels good — do it). Rather, body & soul, together we are one…and when healthy and whole, we live as one, male & female both.
Emma’s Nancy, though, predictably, has lived her life without a body — engaged in a loveless marriage to an individual, seemingly, equally bodiless & unloving. Their non-embodied selves have gone through the motions of living while divorced from the world they inhabit. In fact, they were those ‘old women wearing slippers’, embracing careers and picking flowers in other people’s gardens, and were, evidently content for a long while…at least until death nudged a disturbance.
But now, at the age of 60 something, given the passing of her ‘partner’ (a far more appropriate word than husband) , she gazes into the mirror and looks at her ‘wrinkled and baggy suit of ‘clothes’ and is dissatisfied with how long they’ve hung in her dusty closet, without ‘adventures’.
And so she buys those adventures, the same way we might buy a Michelin 4-star dinner: never having had one, it’s something to do (before they turn the lights out). “I’ve heard they’re great; I can afford it…so why the hell not?”
And in the end…well, we already know the end. It’s as predictable as the beginning.
But what, really, is the point of this ‘transformation’? To shift from one form of idolatry to another?
To deify appetite rather than non-appetite? To say to the Paulina’s of the world — as per the self-help websites and Cosmo advice columns: all bodies are beautiful and they all can be appropriately and pleasurably tweaked given time & attention & a technical operating manual?
And then what? The music rises, the lights fade, and we see, in the distance, a Hitachi Magic Wand approach?
Where in all of this is Love? Where Eros? Where Agape? Where Transcendence? Where the mystery? All solved, evidently, with the shudder of a passing frisson, I guess. Or perhaps, maybe, a book club?
1) Perhaps Mary should watch a film called “Harold and Maude”
2) Is this not all a consequence of the sexual revolution. That people now feel that they should be having a regular sex life way past 40, when in fact our parents, grandparents and great grandparents would have not been under any pressure to being having sex and in fact it would not have even been thought about?
3) Is companionship not enough, anymore?
4) What is flirting as a 20 something is often off putting in middle age. An over excentuated laugh might be seen as sexy in your 20s but completely of putting in your 50s.
5) I note older women tend to wear flowery dresses as they get older, where they wear plain coloured tops etc when younger – why is that?
At least her character hasn’t flown half-way around the world to warn of the dangers air travel poses to the environment.
Good point. Emma Thompson is a good actress, but her politics are those of a vacuous airhead.
I have no intention of watching this movie. I don’t miss in the slightest the catcalls, leering and groping I experienced in my youth.
There is no uniform type of middle aged woman or of any category of women. Mary Harrington can speak for herself – meanwhile let the writers explore the diversity of human experience .
I very much agree with you, Mary. Spot on.
Marilyn Monroe: “Cursed with great beauty”
I think men tend to underestimate women in photos on dating sites, as well. Part of it is that just a still image of a person does not look appealing in the way a human being who is moving and alive does, especially if it’s not a photogenic person with a professional type photograph. Not everyone who is attractive takes a good photo.
And of course can’t appeal in other ways like a way of moving, an attractive voice, etc. When you interact with a real person there’s a lot more involved in attraction, even at the superficial level. I met a man once who I found really very attractive, but his photo wasn’t especially compelling, it was his voice, and weirdly, his wrists and hands.None of that stuff comes across on a dating profile.
Unheard I appreciate your articles, but the number of incels articles like this draws gives me pause.
1) When my mom got older she felt unattractive. She had gain significant wieght and ha medical problems. However, young hot women felt insecure around her precisely becausemy mom could talk business and politics in ways that excited men and made their girlfriends feel insecure. Men care about more than looks. 2) many of my friends that went through divorces were initially concerned that it would mean no more sex. Instead, these guys that were sometimes in their 50s had no trouble dating extremely attractive girls in their 20s. Sometimes they seriously dated the younger ladies and sometimes they went with an older one that they felt more comfortable with. A big factor was whether they were willing to have more kids. A 23 year old typically wants children, while for a 48 year old that ship has often sailed.
I think the point of the movie was that this woman had basically skipped her “maiden phase” and had not experienced any sexual gratification in her entire life.
She wasn’t like Porizkova, who had previously been hot and desired (and we may suppose had made use of that) and was trying to cling to that in old age. This was a woman who was yearning to experience something that had been denied to her (partly by her own actions and sense of morals at the time, partly by circumstance, partly by a partner who wasn’t interested in satisfying her).
Arguing that it’s unlikely a woman like this would do such a thing feels a bit like arguing that it would be unlikely for redundant steel workers to start a male stripper act. It’s a movie. It’s fiction.
The sooner we humans are replaced by AI controlled robots that have no need for all this silly stuff, the better. Not.
If you want to have good films about over 50 women then you need films that are written by over 50 women. Katy Brand, the writer of Leo Grande, is 43. She apparently keeps her personal life secret, so I can’t say whether she is heterosexual, married, a mother, a widow or anything else relevant to the film. Looking back to earlier life experiences is difficult as life changes; looking forward to future experiences is impossible.
We are animals, our deepest priorities are nature’s. The chatter on top is mostly deluded.
Oh no, that was an unexpected critique. I’d say that the ‘Jungian’ framework of maiden to mother to crone is a very two dimensional model for life. Many middle aged women are highly sexual and confidently sexy. The poem mentioned does capture something about middle age – not caring so much what others think – which is very sexy.
No doubt this film doesn’t capture the complexity of life, very few films manage that, but I see nothing wrong with the basic situation – a retired woman who is sexually very unfulfilled and doesn’t want to die that way. Yes, if we impose this Jungian view we turn it into something that makes real women even more invisible. But that seems convoluted and unfair. A simpler critique is that the picture aims to present a common enough situation – which is itself appalling and worth bringing up. It’s also worth saying how unusual it is to see male sex work in mainstream cinema.
Yes indeed there are lots of worthy important things retired women do for their communities but this one had never had an orgasm and wanted to have one. Good for her! It’s really not a fantasy about returning to maidenhood. That Emma Thomson looks fabulous AND her proper age is also worth saying. If it were a movie about grasping after maidenhood they would have cast someone else and it would have looked much less beautiful, less soulful, less authentic.
No I can’t agree, it’s much more simple. It’s about good sex, which is important, and there is nothing wrong with having it in middle age or beyond.
What disappointed me about the film was that at the end she wouldn’t entertain the idea of hiring him again just for the pleasure of it. The sex worker again redeemed themself by having “a heart of gold” therefore serving as therapist and not a sex worker.
This is brilliant: “The “liberating” message it offers is that even frumpy, wrinkly, saggy middle-aged women who have devoted their lives to public service and their loved ones are not wholly beyond redemption. They, too, can access hedonistic, self-centred gratification, thanks to the sex industry.”
It’s up to young women: stop chasing older men, make them redundant, force them to be interested in women their own age and you do the same. Easy.
Insightful, I like the fact that many of your observations hinge on meaning
“They, too, can access hedonistic, self-centred gratification, thanks to the sex industry.”
This feels unfair. There’s no need to smear the women that do this. If they’re in the minority, are they harmful to society? You say they can steal flowers from other people’s gardens (self-centred, much?), but some fun with a lover is wrong.
Why not just leave them alone? Let the majority move on from this to other things, and a minority have a little more time with a lover/husband, having given so much of their life to their families already.
Aren’t you supposed to ensnare a man and get married while you are young, attractive and fertile?
Men do all the hard, really dirty, dangerous work. Women outlive men by a wide margin. Boo Hoo! In the main, older women don’t want sex anymore . . . fine. Older men do, but are considered disgusting when expressing it, unless they are rich. For men, money is the best makeup, but back to the point.
If a woman has the foresight to save herself for a worthy man, or the intelligence to maneuver herself into his graces, he will almost certainly honor her wishes in their dotage and she will live a happy and fulfilling life. My personal experience.
Here is an interesting thread to pull on. A Jewish friend of mine told me that in the Jewish community, it is common knowledge that a Jewish wife will only give you two children then she is done. This accounts for why the Jewish population has been relative static throughout history. The bible is a good indicator of how Jewish men deferred to their women early on, going back to Eve handing Adam the apple. Limiting families to being small gave Jewish women the time to see to it their offspring would get an education or marry one, and to plan marriages to keep people of similar intellectual levels reproducing. The old meme about “My son is going to be a dactah or a dantist” exists because it is real. This could also account for high Jewish IQs in general.
It is also interesting to note too that most of the women related movements have a large Jewish representation at their inception. Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, et al. spring to mind.
enjoy sex!!, and go for it. … …no enjoyment usually means no satisfaction…..and that is sad….as life without intimacy/sensuality and orgasm would be boring…as hell….you have my sympathy..
Everyone is different, as you grow older everyone becomes even more different, at a time when you despise change
Great article this one I thought.
I can’t think of a more insidious, and contemptuous, way of making us disappear.
As crazy as it sounds that’s what the Hollywood propaganda machine is often designed and set out to do: make us feel small.
It’s good to see articles like this that can help people see through their complete bs
Thank you, Mary for another lovely thoughtful piece. I for one, have learnt to enjoy being invisible. I can be batty, eccentric and quite disruptive – the freedom I now have feels creative. Pity the media don’t see us as a rich resource for their art.
Old women don’t need sex but feminism needs the delusion that you are still desirable to men so young women will continue to hate on men
This is forever and always a power dynamic. In the workplace, weak men target middle aged women because they usually have expertise that is threatening to that type of man (and there are plenty of them). At that stage of life middle aged women are more likely to move on if they have resources but many are dependent on the income. I have seen this happen to countless women. That is a societal issue. On a personal level, lived experience is very different from this superficial reliance on finding identity through men who are nothing to you. Happiness and fulfillment come from within; whatever that is for the individual. I do not personally know any woman who finds anything positive other than being flattered from the gaze lol. In looking for a life partner, women have their criteria too and it rarely includes being leered at though appreciation of individual beauty is nice. In the world of entertainment, beauty drive the day but consider the quality of entertainment and how many stories could be well told that resonate with many and they don’t include sweaty scenes.
Older women are not as bad a choice as they seem. They are usually thankful for the attention, desperate even, and they can’t get pregnant so no protection required. What’s more, there are usually plenty from which to choose.