Comment about the article: The field?! Don't these sound crazy unsafe? !!?!?! Maybe it's okay for kids / people to not be having sex if this is the kind of sex people were having: the kind they...
Exemplary
Comment about the article:
The date rapes and creepy professors that filled my 1990s were gone [...] the way that I figured out sex was all over the city: in guys’ houses or the field near my high school; in the back office of the boutique where I worked; in nightclubs entered with fake ID. [...] We were expected to figure out these interpersonal dynamics, the general weirdness that is other people, on our own.
The field?! Don't these sound crazy unsafe?
At the time, it mattered less to me that, while fooling around, the guy in question had forced himself into me. That part was unpleasant, but it felt, as an occurrence, normal enough.
!!?!?!
I did not yet much even like sex, but I had a lot of partners, and if something went wrong with a condom, or if another surprise entry occurred, I would go to a clinic and get a morning-after pill or an S.T.D. test, as if I were picking up a particularly terrifying coffee. [...] When I think of sex in those years, “fun” is not the first word that comes to mind.
Maybe it's okay for kids / people to not be having sex if this is the kind of sex people were having: the kind they didn't like, nor want, nor enjoyed. Isn't it far better to be at home alone playing a VR dating sim or an interactive otome? At the risk of sounding quaint: isn't it nicer to wait? Not wait for the legalism of marriage, but for the essence of what marriage could be: wait for kindness, for gentleness, enthusiasm, desire, safety, appreciation and commitment to the mutual enjoyment of each other's companionship and bodies. Maybe it's okay for people to set their sex lives apart from the false perception of being mature or social expectations, set it apart from even sexual release and carnal desire that could be achieved solo with digital assets: sex is set apart as something between people who truly enjoy each other as ends not means, and therefore sacred in the moment.
The message is that the Perennial works when the Perennial works out.
But the movie worked-out Perennials then date/bed younger men, though, right? In "real life", regular looking middle aged women probably have sex with also regular looking middle aged men, with or without round butts. Women might need to reject the notion that they need to look this way before they're worthy to bed another man, but maybe they also need to reject the notion that the men need to be young with tight butts as well. Just...I don't know, enjoy another human being, or don't?
These women enjoy the most beautiful spoils of aging — things like caring less about social standards that they no longer have use for, or being more comfortable in their bodies precisely because they have lived in them for so long. It would be a shame if these benefits turned out to be nothing more than a temporary sweet spot that only one small generation lucked its way into.
:) I'm optimistic that this new space for older women is a real and lasting thing because it's now a thing opened to everybody: that there isn't old people sex separate from young people sex, it's sex finally between two equals who want it vs no/solo/digital sex. And I'm very highly optimistic about that being the world our young people will grow into.
I definitely would advise anyone regardless of gender to not have sex they don't enjoy, but this comment goes well past that into what amounts to moralizing. Do you honestly think that Gen X women...
At the risk of sounding quaint: isn't it nicer to wait? Not wait for the legalism of marriage, but for the essence of what marriage could be: wait for kindness, for gentleness, enthusiasm, desire, safety, appreciation and commitment to the mutual enjoyment of each other's companionship and bodies. Maybe it's okay for people to set their sex lives apart from the false perception of being mature or social expectations, set it apart from even sexual release and carnal desire that could be achieved solo with digital assets: sex is set apart as something between people who truly enjoy each other as ends not means, and therefore sacred in the moment.
I definitely would advise anyone regardless of gender to not have sex they don't enjoy, but this comment goes well past that into what amounts to moralizing. Do you honestly think that Gen X women (or, frankly, women of any age) aren't extremely familiar with the idea of waiting until they're in a committed relationship to have sex? There's no shortage of pressure on women to do so and plenty of stigma against women having casual sex already. I think some of the stuff in this article is weird and would be unenjoyable for me to say the least, but adult women can make their own choices about sex. There is nothing inherently worse about treating sex casually and not ascribing it this reified "sacred" status the way you do -- and I say this despite being someone who personally does not have casual sex.
Also, even as someone who's not sexually adventurous in the slightest, I'm surprised you think sex in a field is remotely shocking, much less dangerous.
Depends on the number of ticks in that field I suppose. Or loose barbed wire. But then, that wouldn't be the teenage sex field (I'm just too old to imagine having field sex.)
Depends on the number of ticks in that field I suppose. Or loose barbed wire. But then, that wouldn't be the teenage sex field (I'm just too old to imagine having field sex.)
Archive link: https://archive.is/g4t2z From the article: This is a cultural critic's take, freighted with all the selection bias, WEIRD bias, and other filters you might expect. Nonetheless, I...
I’ve come to think of this cadre of women as something like hardy garden perennials. Year after year, with the right conditions, perennials continue to flower. Likewise, the sexual Perennial finds herself still well rooted in an erotic life at an age when she may have expected it to fade or wither.
This is all the more remarkable because, for the culture as a whole, physical sex really is withering and fading. Among the most defining ongoing stories about sex in America today has been the drop-off in activity among Gen Z and Millennials. Blame for that decline has generally been placed on the way we live in the 21st century: the atomization of our social lives; the antidepressants that can kill the libido; the phones and social media that provide endless fascination, even on boring evenings when other things could be happening; the always-available porn that offers both problematic expectations of how in-person sex happens and a far less demanding alternative to it. For young parents, the intensity of modern child-rearing shrivels sex lives. For teenagers, a growing obsession with personal and psychological safety, a desire to be immune from discomfort, can flatten eroticism in some of the places it might flourish.
Last year I even saw one survey that, at a glance, seemed to me to suggest that people in their late 40s and early 50s might be having sex more frequently than those between 18 and 24. When I got in touch with the generational researcher Jean Twenge, whose best-selling books (most recently, “Generations”) have done much to explain the differences among birth cohorts, she was skeptical of those findings. But the subtler data she did pull up — mainly using General Social Survey data from 1989 to 2022 — still made a clear case for a kind of maverick sexiness among those currently in middle age.
When you track sexual frequency among age groups, something notable happens around 2007: a downward curve in activity among people 18 to 40 that turns into a sheer nosedive in the decade that follows. Today’s young adults are having sex 30 percent less often than young adults in the early 2000s. Such declines have occurred across the generational spectrum. But one generation, in its middle age, is experiencing a much less pronounced drop from the sexual frequency of its predecessors. Using the same measures, Twenge says, “the drop among Generation X is pretty small.” It’s only 9 percent.
The sexual Perennials of this generation do not fit neatly into any of the well-trodden archetypes of older women, like the cougar or the MILF — these degrading male-gaze notions of women precariously perched on the brink of undesirability. Pop culture is only now beginning to create new symbols of them, while those of the past feel silly or peculiar. (In the 1980s, Blanche Devereaux of “The Golden Girls” was often portrayed as a swooning, silk-draped clown for merely having a libido; at the start of that series she was supposed to be around 53, which is two years younger than Jennifer Lopez is now.) The Perennial’s vibe is not about finding a pocket of succor after the sun of youth has set. It is, rather, a power stance — a matter of caring less and less about such expectations the older you get.
I would love to imagine that this development is a permanent one — that the culture is finding a lasting perch for the sexuality of all older women. But I cannot shake a strong hunch that what we are seeing among middle-aged women is a function of the specific generation currently occupying those years. This is a cohort of women with formative experiences that do not resemble those of the generations surrounding them: a generation that began having sex earlier than any other on record, that stayed on the singles market for years longer than their parents, that is continuing to have sex even amid a broader sexual decline. I do not think it is a coincidence that the women I’ve written about thus far are part of Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980.
Gen X, a small generation compared with relatively larger cohorts like Millennials or Gen Z, “kind of dodged a bullet,” Twenge told me — by which she meant that while our lonely, iPhone-defined century came for everyone’s libido, some were defined by it, while others were merely affected. By the time the 21st century really landed, much of Generation X was already largely formed in terms of sexual habit. And this may be why, in middle age, it is shaping up to be possibly the sexiest generation on record. “You can even make the statement,” Twenge said, “that Gen X is the last sexy generation.”
This is a cultural critic's take, freighted with all the selection bias, WEIRD bias, and other filters you might expect. Nonetheless, I found it personally resonant.
The 1990's were a time of sexual flourishing for cis women and LGBTQ+ people, despite (or perhaps because of) the specter of HIV. Birth control for women was generally reliable and fuss-free, freeing us psychologically from fear of unplanned pregnancy. Nonetheless, we had to talk more about sex, starting with negotiating the mechanics of STD protection. Cheers to us for figuring out how to use that fear and the various cumbersome barriers as part of the excitement. The sex-positive warriors, like Susie Bright, were leading us into a brave new world of body-positivity and ownership of our own pleasure. This helped define today's sexual consent values.
It was a time of both more and less luxury. For the most part, we weren't working three jobs to make rent and pay school loans (funny that the author doesn't mention that burden on millennials and Gen Z, but she's Canadian). Sex could be a time-consuming gourmet undertaking, when we were replete with emotional resources and more deeply in tune with the positive aspects of our emotional lives. Yet there was the drain of a very hostile work life (as the article's author mentioned), and families without resources to understand our newly demanding selves.
So, fellow older female-identified (and female-leaning non-binary, agender, etc.) folks here, if you care to:
Share your thoughts about the impact of age on your sexuality and desire;
Has/have you and your partner(s) discussed your age and its effects on your desires;
Have you changed your practices, added or subtracted partners, given up the whole messy business, or otherwise found an impact of age on your desires and ability to fulfill them?
Have you separated from a spouse or partner(s) for reasons you attribute to incompatible sexual desires, or gotten closer to them?
Do you feel you need, or have you sought, medical intervention for the changes around perimenopause/menopause? [I'll be adding estrogen cream to my routine soon, more for stress incontinence due to tissue thinning than the easily-remedied lack of lubrication. Thanks, body! 💩]
Has what you look for in a prospective sexual partner changed?
Do you feel comfortable thinking of yourself as still sexually attractive to your preferred partners?
If you're part of a queer community, do you think body acceptance in aging is more or less common than in cis culture?
If you're not North American, do you feel these questions apply differently in your cultural milieu, and if so, how?
Given the current right-wing anti-feminist/anti-liberty backlash globally, the reductions in available medical information in the U.S. and elsewhere, the increasing censorship and religious extremism generally, do you feel safe/unsafe discussing on Tildes, and what (if anything) would make you feel better?
Looking forward to the discussion and any other questions people think of...
Disclaimer: Not a woman. I just thought this thread deserved more comments. It's an interesting article/topic and you posted great questions to get things started. For me, and for the...
Disclaimer: Not a woman. I just thought this thread deserved more comments. It's an interesting article/topic and you posted great questions to get things started.
Share your thoughts about the impact of age on your sexuality and desire;
For me, and for the non-representative sample of women I've known, it just keeps getting better. You learn so much about sexuality as you go.
Has/have you and your partner(s) discussed your age and its effects on your desires;
Yes, and there doesn't seem to be a decrease, though that day will no doubt eventually come.
Have you separated from a spouse or partner(s) for reasons you attribute to incompatible sexual desires
Not once. In my experience as long as there's good communication and chemistry sex isn't often the deciding factor in a relationship. Which isn't to say that intimacy isn't a hugely important part of the relationship.
Do you feel you need, or have you sought, medical intervention for the changes around perimenopause/menopause?
Obviously I can't answer this one, both because I'm a dude and because I haven't arrived there with anyone yet. I am curious about it though, what the experience of (for example) hormone therapy is like. Upsides, downsides, caveats and etc..
Has what you look for in a prospective sexual partner changed?
I've always been after romantic relationships rather than just sexual partners, but if I were to be looking for a purely sex partner one of the factors would be self awareness. Sex and communication are inextricably linked and people who know themselves are better at both.
Do you feel comfortable thinking of yourself as still sexually attractive to your preferred partners?
I think this is really important post 30. It's easy to get caught up in western cultural beauty standards and let that convince you you're not sexy anymore and it is so completely not true. For all the obvious reasons that transisition is a lot easier for men... who you weren't talking to in the first place :)
The objectification and co-opting of women's sexuality for marketing is oppressive. Whereas being sexy to someone you trust and respect is empowering.
It's been great to see love, sex and romance among people who aren't 25 depicted more and more often in entertainment and culture. I think we're collectively getting over the idea that these things are mostly for young people. When I was 25 we all understood that older people had sex, probably. But it felt like the cultural norm was that they should be discrete about it because no one wanted to be reminded of it. It's been a big shift.
The recent shift in the way older women's sexuality is depicted has also been great to see. The idea, that felt pervasive not so long ago, that you could have sexy older men but that sexy older women were a compelling but somewhat distasteful anomaly was just dumb.
From a male perspective: As I've aged I've been profoundly grateful to continue to find my peers attractive. The trope of men trading up for younger women because (presumbly) they don't find women their own age attractive anymore doesn't seem be be based on anything other than their own insecurity.
Comment about the article:
The field?! Don't these sound crazy unsafe?
!!?!?!
Maybe it's okay for kids / people to not be having sex if this is the kind of sex people were having: the kind they didn't like, nor want, nor enjoyed. Isn't it far better to be at home alone playing a VR dating sim or an interactive otome? At the risk of sounding quaint: isn't it nicer to wait? Not wait for the legalism of marriage, but for the essence of what marriage could be: wait for kindness, for gentleness, enthusiasm, desire, safety, appreciation and commitment to the mutual enjoyment of each other's companionship and bodies. Maybe it's okay for people to set their sex lives apart from the false perception of being mature or social expectations, set it apart from even sexual release and carnal desire that could be achieved solo with digital assets: sex is set apart as something between people who truly enjoy each other as ends not means, and therefore sacred in the moment.
But the movie worked-out Perennials then date/bed younger men, though, right? In "real life", regular looking middle aged women probably have sex with also regular looking middle aged men, with or without round butts. Women might need to reject the notion that they need to look this way before they're worthy to bed another man, but maybe they also need to reject the notion that the men need to be young with tight butts as well. Just...I don't know, enjoy another human being, or don't?
:) I'm optimistic that this new space for older women is a real and lasting thing because it's now a thing opened to everybody: that there isn't old people sex separate from young people sex, it's sex finally between two equals who want it vs no/solo/digital sex. And I'm very highly optimistic about that being the world our young people will grow into.
I definitely would advise anyone regardless of gender to not have sex they don't enjoy, but this comment goes well past that into what amounts to moralizing. Do you honestly think that Gen X women (or, frankly, women of any age) aren't extremely familiar with the idea of waiting until they're in a committed relationship to have sex? There's no shortage of pressure on women to do so and plenty of stigma against women having casual sex already. I think some of the stuff in this article is weird and would be unenjoyable for me to say the least, but adult women can make their own choices about sex. There is nothing inherently worse about treating sex casually and not ascribing it this reified "sacred" status the way you do -- and I say this despite being someone who personally does not have casual sex.
Also, even as someone who's not sexually adventurous in the slightest, I'm surprised you think sex in a field is remotely shocking, much less dangerous.
Depends on the number of ticks in that field I suppose. Or loose barbed wire. But then, that wouldn't be the teenage sex field (I'm just too old to imagine having field sex.)
Archive link: https://archive.is/g4t2z
From the article:
This is a cultural critic's take, freighted with all the selection bias, WEIRD bias, and other filters you might expect. Nonetheless, I found it personally resonant.
The 1990's were a time of sexual flourishing for cis women and LGBTQ+ people, despite (or perhaps because of) the specter of HIV. Birth control for women was generally reliable and fuss-free, freeing us psychologically from fear of unplanned pregnancy. Nonetheless, we had to talk more about sex, starting with negotiating the mechanics of STD protection. Cheers to us for figuring out how to use that fear and the various cumbersome barriers as part of the excitement. The sex-positive warriors, like Susie Bright, were leading us into a brave new world of body-positivity and ownership of our own pleasure. This helped define today's sexual consent values.
It was a time of both more and less luxury. For the most part, we weren't working three jobs to make rent and pay school loans (funny that the author doesn't mention that burden on millennials and Gen Z, but she's Canadian). Sex could be a time-consuming gourmet undertaking, when we were replete with emotional resources and more deeply in tune with the positive aspects of our emotional lives. Yet there was the drain of a very hostile work life (as the article's author mentioned), and families without resources to understand our newly demanding selves.
So, fellow older female-identified (and female-leaning non-binary, agender, etc.) folks here, if you care to:
Share your thoughts about the impact of age on your sexuality and desire;
Has/have you and your partner(s) discussed your age and its effects on your desires;
Have you changed your practices, added or subtracted partners, given up the whole messy business, or otherwise found an impact of age on your desires and ability to fulfill them?
Have you separated from a spouse or partner(s) for reasons you attribute to incompatible sexual desires, or gotten closer to them?
Do you feel you need, or have you sought, medical intervention for the changes around perimenopause/menopause? [I'll be adding estrogen cream to my routine soon, more for stress incontinence due to tissue thinning than the easily-remedied lack of lubrication. Thanks, body! 💩]
Has what you look for in a prospective sexual partner changed?
Do you feel comfortable thinking of yourself as still sexually attractive to your preferred partners?
If you're part of a queer community, do you think body acceptance in aging is more or less common than in cis culture?
If you're not North American, do you feel these questions apply differently in your cultural milieu, and if so, how?
Given the current right-wing anti-feminist/anti-liberty backlash globally, the reductions in available medical information in the U.S. and elsewhere, the increasing censorship and religious extremism generally, do you feel safe/unsafe discussing on Tildes, and what (if anything) would make you feel better?
Looking forward to the discussion and any other questions people think of...
Disclaimer: Not a woman. I just thought this thread deserved more comments. It's an interesting article/topic and you posted great questions to get things started.
For me, and for the non-representative sample of women I've known, it just keeps getting better. You learn so much about sexuality as you go.
Yes, and there doesn't seem to be a decrease, though that day will no doubt eventually come.
Not once. In my experience as long as there's good communication and chemistry sex isn't often the deciding factor in a relationship. Which isn't to say that intimacy isn't a hugely important part of the relationship.
Obviously I can't answer this one, both because I'm a dude and because I haven't arrived there with anyone yet. I am curious about it though, what the experience of (for example) hormone therapy is like. Upsides, downsides, caveats and etc..
I've always been after romantic relationships rather than just sexual partners, but if I were to be looking for a purely sex partner one of the factors would be self awareness. Sex and communication are inextricably linked and people who know themselves are better at both.
I think this is really important post 30. It's easy to get caught up in western cultural beauty standards and let that convince you you're not sexy anymore and it is so completely not true. For all the obvious reasons that transisition is a lot easier for men... who you weren't talking to in the first place :)
The objectification and co-opting of women's sexuality for marketing is oppressive. Whereas being sexy to someone you trust and respect is empowering.
It's been great to see love, sex and romance among people who aren't 25 depicted more and more often in entertainment and culture. I think we're collectively getting over the idea that these things are mostly for young people. When I was 25 we all understood that older people had sex, probably. But it felt like the cultural norm was that they should be discrete about it because no one wanted to be reminded of it. It's been a big shift.
The recent shift in the way older women's sexuality is depicted has also been great to see. The idea, that felt pervasive not so long ago, that you could have sexy older men but that sexy older women were a compelling but somewhat distasteful anomaly was just dumb.
From a male perspective: As I've aged I've been profoundly grateful to continue to find my peers attractive. The trope of men trading up for younger women because (presumbly) they don't find women their own age attractive anymore doesn't seem be be based on anything other than their own insecurity.