Sex and the
Older Woman
For a long time we’ve had to make do with Joan
Collins and the mother in The Graduate –
sexy, seductive older women with younger men.
 Now we have Jane Juska,
author of The Round-Heeled Woman*, who, at
66, advertised for sexual partners and has written about her adventures, and the film The Mother which depicts a frumpy-looking older
heroine having an affair with a young man. Add Calendar Girls for saucyness rather than sex and
the film Innocence (older woman reunited with first love, both of them decidedly wrinkly), distributed by MatCine, the company choosing
films for mature cinemagoers, and you could almost believe that older women are the
flavour of the month.
(Film buffs of a certain age would probably add
Fassbinder’s Fear Eats The Soul, a
wonderfully tender movie - modest German cleaner in her fifties meets young Turkish
immigrant, they fall in love and marry. And if you
really wanted to, you could include Demi Moore with her young lover, though I’m not.)
What makes Jane Juska stand out
from this crowd is that she was, before publication, non-famous
and is non-fiction, and her story is ground-breaking. Divorced nearly thirty years ago
with very few in the way of partners since, Juska is a retired teacher who got the idea
(from yet another film, Autumn Tale) to
advertise for men in the New York Review of Books.
Her ad went like this: ‘Before I turn 67 – next March- I would like to
have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you
want to talk first, Trollope works for me.’
Brazen or brave? Cheapening or
empowering? As she says, she hates coy.
I must admit to mixed feelings about all this, though I hate coy too. It worries me that the initial approach to sex in
this book is so detached, a commodity, a service even.
Of course, Juska carefully sorts
out the possible from the unsuitable candidates.
But she is prepared for sex on immediate meeting and hopes that romance will
follow.
Is this the way for a mature woman to behave? It’s the way of men, mature or otherwise, and I
am never too happy when I see women emulating the more negative aspects of male behaviour.
On the other hand, you have to hand it to her. She doesn’t plead, is unapologetic and
positively glories in her sexuality. That’s why the book is groundbreaking. How else would a woman of 66 get noticed? On the whole, the youngest man she meets is the most
civilised. Variously, the older men lie about
their age or their domestic situations or are not slow to try to teach her a lesson for
her ‘outrageous’ behaviour when their own sexual prowess fails.
Maybe Joan and (oh all right) Demi
have got the right idea: go for a younger man. If
you are prepared to take risks, you might get one.
laterlife is at this very moment,
inviting you to take a very minor risk if you are looking for friendship or more. Click here and you’ll find yourself on our new
sister website www.laterlifedating.co.uk
You can search based on age and location, you can even search anonymised profiles before
you become a member. We aim to make www.laterlifedating.co.uk the biggest and best venue for friendship and
dating on the internet.
Just do it. No need to mention Trollope.
* A Round-Heeled Woman by Jane Juska is published by Chatto &
Windus. Click on the cover for further details.
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Talkback is a regular
feature in laterlife.com run by journalist and author Helen Franks. 
