I’ve yet to talk with an older woman who regardless of how attractive she is has not experienced the disappearing act: Her own.
Imagine this. You’re all dressed up, gorgeous outfit, high heels, perfect hair, flawless makeup. You walk into a restaurant to meet some friends and for the first time, you notice no one is noticing. You have entered a vacuum of attention.
Now some women accept this stage as a consequence of maturity. Other women, Dr Pepper Schwartz among them, say screw that. Pepper is a sexologist and relationship authority. In her recent book, “Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and The Sensual Years,” she explains just how to handle the vacuum. “Live large. Be all of who you are and can be. And if that involves some pain and some loss, so be it.”
In other words, fill up the vacuum with you and all you are, and others are sure to follow. Pepper’s life isn’t just living proof of this principle, it’s inspiration. “I reached new sexual peaks after fifty-five,” she writes, “that I would hate to have missed.”
“All of this,” Pepper continues, “At ages women have been told to be afraid of, ages that have been ignored or lampooned by books and movies, ages that common wisdom has pronounced as sexless and loveless.”
Maybe you’re thinking Pepper’s idea of a new sexual peak is having peppermint tea clothed only in wispy Italian lingerie. Brace yourself. Her book is filled with stories of love, intense arousal, and steamy passion. Often approaching love as an adventure or destination, a worthy end unto itself, she describes how she learned what she wants and who she should be in a relationship. She also describes the joy of finding a new depth of friendship and intimacy with her partner.
Many of her dating and relationship experiences start online. (She discloses she is a relationship expert for PerfectMatch.com.) With humor and bravado, Pepper describes her sexual adventures with an openness that she recognizes may cause some of her academic colleagues to “be embarrassed as hell.” She apologies in advance, adding, “But you kinda knew, didn’t you?”
What does it take to stay “lush,” Pepper’s word for that certain sexy je ne sais quoi some older women possess? According to Pepper, being sexual is the key. “There is a lushness about a body that is enjoying sex,” she writes “…There is no moment I feel more womanly or grateful to be alive than when I am in love or in lust.”
Pepper acknowledges it’s partly a question of priorities and partly about choice. It’s also about recognizing and filtering out our culture’s ambivalence about sex. “The sexually adventurous woman of any age,” she explains, “But especially those who are older, is extremely threatening to male and female traditionalists.”
You can choose to internalize the negatives—fear of dating, of being undesirable, of being too old, of getting too hurt, of looking foolish, or of feeling unattractive. Or you can be open love and passion. If Pepper’s experiences are any indication, the risks are worth the rewards. And the rewards can change everything.
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© 2008 ZANTIUM LLC
BIO:
Everyone knows you only talk about sex in secret. Everyone but me that is. I’m Pamela Tames and you can hear more about my take on sex and the older woman at http://seasonedsex.com. Who’s doing it, how they’re doing it, and what keeps them doing it. Now, for those all thinking, ‘that’s got to be one short website,’ let me respectfully say, ‘oh, so wrong.’ Just see for yourself.
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