Discovering the silver fox

I know, I know. I’ve been off Facebook for a year, and all of a sudden I’m posting like a mofo but it’s a grey day and I’ve started writing again and I haven’t connected with you all for bloody months. I think you might like this one. I hope so. It’s about sex, and I know there are a few of you who tend to like my sex posts. As usual it’s got some personal stuff, but ties into a larger conversation.

The personal bit… I have a confession to make. I’ve been an ageist for the last couple of decades. You know that stereotype of the middle aged dude perennially seen with younger women? I’m the female version. Guilty. I tend to naturally be attracted to men and women about a decade younger than me. I could list a whole lot of reasons… energy being the main one, (and ah hell, I like ‘em pretty), but recently I had a date fail that made me rethink my prejudices.

I was coming back from the south coast on the motorbike and stopped in to Canberra to visit friends. On dating apps, Canberra is within my distance limit, but I never chase up the Canberra matches because… well, I’d have to go to Canberra (I know, I know… more prejudice). Anyway, I was blowing through, and there was this hot 40-ish man I’d matched with, who was into older women, and it had been a long while since I’d been on a date. We arranged to meet. OK, so the red flags should have gone up when he suggested some mall, but all he said was that it was outside and we could chat under the trees and I don’t know Canberra so I thought it might be on a riverbank somewhere, on the grass.

It was a blocked off pedestrian mall in the middle of the city. Err… what? I followed my phone gps to where he’d said to meet, rounded the corner and looked up to see this figure in the distance. And then something happened which was horrible and actually beautifully karmic. He saw me… and for a millisecond… he slumped.

Now. I know that slump. You go on enough online dates, you know that slump. It’s that first impression moment when you realise you’re absolutely NOT attracted to the person so now you need to go through the hour or so of getting to know you conversation to then extricate yourself and never see them again. Brutal, I know. Online dating is not for the faint hearted. I’ll put my hand up high here, I have invisibly slumped with the best of them. I have probably been the unknowing agent of another’s slump many times, however it’s the first time I have ever actually noticed someone slumping when they saw me. He was lovely, kind, polite, beige in a Canberra kind of way… and totally not interested. We sat on a perfectly nice park bench in a paved pedestrian mall with a few people wandering aimlessly about, under trees lit up with coloured LEDs… as far as ambience went, it was like being at a failed rave before anyone got there, or the train-wreck-in-slow-motion birthday party nobody showed up to. The ambience of very well laid out hospital grounds. Mmm.

I told a couple of my less extreme but still exciting stories, because if someone can’t handle those they will never handle my actual life. Told of ripping out the ceiling of my bus in a hazmat suit to eradicate the festy mouse colony, then making a mad dash in it (the now-clean bus, not the hazmat suit) for the Victorian border, before the barbed wire went up, to give my 12 year old niece her first ever road trip over New Year. By the time I’d finished the story he had inched another foot away, his eyes a little wide. Needless to say, we went our separate ways and that was that. Chalk it up, aikido roll, move on… except I couldn’t. This one had hooks, nasty little barbs that wormed their way under my skin and pinged something old and deep.

I don’t normally take internet dating personally. Here be dragons and I’m not into wrestling those big scaly bastards. For me it’s a way to connect with new people, and sometimes on a meeting there’s actual chemistry but most times it’s a nice hour or two meeting someone and hearing their stories. I don’t have expectations or even agendas. I meet really great humans and usually that’s all it is and that’s ok. Coming home from this one I felt like utter dogshit. Felt invisible and unwanted and old and haggard and rejected and ashamed and full of grief and self loathing. The dragons chewed away at me, bite by bite. It was a long night doing my homework, diving into the pit of ugh.

That night I faced something I’ve been skirting around, all squirmy and in denial. Menopause and sexuality. I’m 51 now, and more sexual than ever… and for the first time, I’m noticing that the normal bandwidth of younger men aren’t as attracted to me as they have been, which incites feeling of panic and despair. 50 is a landmark. It’s not just a number, not in our culture. I’m looking down the barrel of elderhood and I do not want to go quietly into that good night, if it means I stop having fucking amazing, mindblowing sex. Hell no. It’s taken me a long time to learn how to drive this body like a fighter jet. I’m not ready to hang up my wings and fly a desk. And, shitfucknbuggeration…. my options are dwindling.

I’m embarrassed to say this out loud, because I know how shallow it sounds, but I have never been attracted to men my own age. I don’t know if it’s tied into an old sexual abuse at a young age, but since I was 30 I haven’t got that phwoar ping from older men. Which is strange, really, considering how sexual I am. I have a whole lot of stories that are all projections and judgements, with some personal histories that back them up, but at the core of it, I have been repelled by age. The thing I got to after the slump date, was that by rejecting older men I am also rejecting my own ageing. I am rejecting my life stage, my life cycle. I am denying myself the wisdom and experience of these divine, vital, passionate men who have been around long enough to do their work, to really learn how to love a woman. By only going for men a decade younger than me in some ways I am taking on the filter of having to look like a 40 year old woman, which is a whole lot of pressure, and when I don’t (because I can’t, and shouldn’t) my self esteem can get involved in a negative way. I can set myself up for a really (really) bad day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve given the older men angle a good nudge. But when I get to it, my body traditionally hasn’t responded, or it’s taken some mental gymnastics to drop in. I’ve accepted ageism as my kink, gone with it because I’ve been blessed with a succession of gorgeous lovers (and a couple of husbands) (omg that looks so bad when I write it), so why would I shake the tree? No need to challenge my paradigm, my judgement that older men couldn’t fuck me the way I need. I know, I know, it’s ridiculous. Like I said, I’m embarrassed to write this cos I KNOW how stupid it is. But our blind spots are our blind spots and this is a conversation and my blinkered attitude has been butting up against reality and it's time I opened the windows and let in some fresh air. Time and gravity get us all in the end.

Last year I had an amazing affair with a man only three years my junior and it was sexually incredible. Mind blowing. That’s gone a long way to rewriting my script. After Canberra slump-man I went in and spent a whole loooong night in the red wild cave of my psyche, examining my judgements about age, looking under the bed, lifting up the carpets, peering into every nook and cranny and dancing all the icky sticky shameful bits, finding my visceral horror at my own ageing, the places where I am hanging on with my fingernails to a picture of myself that’s two decades out of date. Really working to accept my life stage, my 51 year old face and body and everything that goes with being in a body this long. Not as a pretty new age aphorism or motivational cheerleading pithy quote, cos fuck that, I’m not interested in an instagram meme, I’m interested in transformation. I stayed in it and it was bloody horrible in there, layers of shame and grief, but I felt the horrible until I finally got to call those parts of me home that I reject. Well, some of them anyway. I’m under no illusion that this is a one time dance. But I stayed there until there was peace, and on the other side I thought about taking older lovers… and found space... and hope. And excitement.

And dayumm… suddenly I’m noticing the silver foxes. Turns out I have a new kink to add to my rather impressive collection. Silver, wow, it does something to a face. A well earned face, with history written onto it, the griefs and joys and all that delicious life unspooling backwards, all the mistakes and lessons and that sense of place that comes when you have claimed your space in the world and in yourself. SexyAF. Give me a grizzled greybeard in a white tshirt with a couple of tatts and big wise hands and a bit of belly and a knowing, in-the-world swagger. Meow. I find myself stopping in the street to watch a fit 50 something prowl by. Appreciating, and I mean really appreciating conversation with a bonafide grown up. I’ve started saying yes to men my age, and older. I’m intentionally prioritising them, going on dates, rewriting my paradigm. Smashing those glasses of prejudice and giving myself a chance to let my eyes adjust to the light of capital R reality.

And hot diggity… less than a week later, after a couple of random 50 something bus dates (these are always fun, instead of going out to a bar the date is in the bus, parked looking at a beach, great food, chai, good music and awesome conversation… the bus seems to bring a sense of fun and life and adventure to a first meeting)… I ended up being half ravished by a 55 year old utter hottie giant, hands like dinner plates, built like a fridge, sensitive where it counts, and… ahem… hard as a rock, who I then visited to seal the deal and can I just say…. what the fuck have I been doing all this time?! Gina, you idiot. Facepalm. D’oh.

Needless to say, I am grateful to meet my prejudice… head on, shall we say… and I know it’s going to take more than one adventure to really dissolve this script, but one of the things I’ve noticed is that already I’m not judging my 51 year old body by 40 year old woman standards. Which is all totally self imposed, but a prison, nonetheless and it feels ten flavours of amazing to be picking apart these gossamer cables.

I’m sending out a huge thank you to Slump Man. Thanks for letting me see my own reflection, for the exquisitely aimed shard of pain that allowed me to really look at this stuff. I’m sorry to all the gorgeous my-age-and-older men who I’ve been unconsciously rejecting for all these years… it really isn’t you, it’s me. I’ve been a right judgemental twat and I’m sorry. I'm the one who's missed out on your magnificence. My loss. I'm looking forward to discovering you, if you're up for giving me a second chance.

So there you go... my latest postcard from the taboo wilds. Hope you enjoyed the ride. And as a PS, I'm running a retreat on women's sexuality in May, if you're interested, here's the link.
https://www.wildheart.life/women-unchained.html

Big love
Gi