Let’s talk about sex – part 2
This post has been a long time coming (no pun intended). Last year, I posted part 1 about women’s slowly changing attitude to sex despite the continued judgement of society. Now I want to turn the focus on midlifers. Yes, I know that one of the biggest tags in my cloud is “sex”, but I’m not just talking your common-or-garden variety. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, people over the age of 40 seem to be more and more open to “alternative” forms of relationship. But my experience is showing me that they are also open to engaging in sex in ways that might have even horrified them a decade or so ago.
Let’s talk about society and the way it frames our lives and sets up expectations and paths to follow. At a recent book fair, I perused a survival guide for girls entering their teenage years. It wasn’t this one, but it could have been. The thing that struck me, apart from all the really great advice, was how hetero-centric it is. And I don’t mean that it briefly touches on nascent homosexuality; it doesn’t mention it at all! And I always thought that adolescent crushes on members of the same sex were supposed to be ‘completely normal’. In addition, the book I browsed through, unlike the one I linked to above, didn’t even consider being single as an option. It actually exhorted the young reader to close one eye then to open it again and see how much better the world looks through two eyes – voila! that’s just what being part of a couple is like!
While this may be a horrifyingly obvious example, there are certainly many more that are less obvious. The fact is that, from a young age, we are brought up in the Judaeo-Christian tradition that we should find a mate and settle down (read “get married”) to have children. Sex, of course, is a way to procreate. In more permissive times, it is recognized as more but is still primarily seen as a way of holding a couple (read, “heterosexual couple”) together. Sex for the pleasure of sex starts to open a can of worms that includes ‘cheating’…
Let’s try and step outside the paradigm of happily-ever-after. In a world where, say, procreation was taken care of in some other way, and pair-bonding was no longer necessary, don’t you think the focus would be on maximising pleasure? And what exactly would that entail? If you put yourself first, where exactly would you go?
Apart from sex, other major tags in my cloud are self-discovery and acceptance. These are important motivators for midlifers-in-crisis. Additionally, we are at a been-there-done-that stage in our lives as far as marriage and children are concerned, or else we are comfortable that this is no longer in our future. Physically speaking, we may no longer be capable of the same gymnastics we managed in our twenties, or else we’re not getting the same satisfaction from them.
No wonder then that many of us are more open to pushing our boundaries with role play, and even investigating such ‘alternative lifestyles’ as BDSM. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any statistics that corroborate my observations. However, browsing the online dating profiles of sex-positive midlifers quickly reveals a trend that cannot be ignored. It would seem that many men brought up in a post-feminist society that advocates sexual equality and, (rightly so), demonises violence against women, have found it within themselves to readily use a riding crop on a willing feminine backside. And many women of the same era welcome it.
It is said that a desire to dominate is often linked to a general feeling of lack of control, and a desire to submit is born of being overwhelmed by responsibility. Could this be a backlash to post-feminism? There is much sociological debate about how men no longer know their role in society and the family, and women, having claimed the right to have a career, now find themselves doing two full-time jobs inside and outside of the home. It would make sense. It absolutely makes sense to me, personally. How about you? Are your desires different from two decades ago?
