You're as young as the woman you feel

[robinturner]

Loyal readers may remember my soul-searching about being attracted to women many years my junior. Now I have no qualms whatsoever. I've just seen on Turkish television a villager who is 114 years old, together with his twelve-year-old daughter. The girl's mother is thirty-five. That makes a 79-year age difference. And the old goat is considering acquiring another wife! "What can I do?" he says, "the ladies keep chasing after me."

Comments

[slit.livejournal.com]

It's just not fair. Women have to plan their childbearing within the space of a 15-year window, which tends to overlap with other goals slotted into that time frame such as "get tenure," BUT A MAN CAN CONTINUE TO BREED UNTIL HE IS ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN YEARS OLD.

[regyt.livejournal.com]

That's fine. I'd love to be barren. I dream off tying off me tubes.

What's not fair is that it wasn't so long ago that I became old enough to have figured out how to be comfortable with sexual activity, and soon I'll be too old to be attractive. That's the tragedy of being female. One of the tragedies, I mean. Bleh.

Heinlein put it well, though I can't remember his exact phrasing. The gist was, any artist can paint a beautiful young girl. A good artist can paint a beautiful young girl and show us the old woman that she'll someday become. A great artist can paint an old woman, and show us the beautiful young girl she still feels she is, inside.

[kochanie.livejournal.com]

bah! women are beautiful at all ages, perioed. and i think older women are much more neautiful because at least they have something on their face. a life, character, experience.

[oblomova.livejournal.com]

Or as Lauren Hutton once said "Plastic surgery is a way of saying you don't believe in experience anymore." Of course, this was before her bad motorcycle accident, so her opinion may have changed somewhat.

[solri.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean - my wife is 33 and is already saying we should have a child before it's too late, while at 41 I have many decades of sperm production ahead of me (assuming I don't die first) but am not particularly enthusiastic about using any of it.

The limited period of fertility makes a lot of sense for low-tech societies, though. If you'd had your first child at fifteen, you wouldn't want to be still fertile at forty.

[solri.livejournal.com]

There is some justice there, however. The fact that men stay attractive into middle age (if they can avoid baldness and beer bellies) is compensation for the fact that when we were testosterone-crazed sixteen-year-olds, we were about as attractive as a stick insect with acne, and all the girls were drooling over guys twice their age.

I wouldn't be too worried about it, though. As you get older, you tend to attract more discerning men. Failing that, you can put up with zits and knobbly knees and grab yourself a testosterone-crazed sixteen- year-old. I hear that what they lack in finesse, they make up for in enthusiasm.

There's also the likelihood that by the time you start getting wrinkly, anti-aging technology will have advanced to the point that you'll be able to look as young as you like.

[regyt.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll look you up when I'm a wrinkled, grey-haired, saggy-breasted, wise (and wise-ass) pervert lady.

[regyt.livejournal.com]

That is not justice. So what if at age 16, girls are more attractive? That's a much shorter and more fleeting window of opportunity. Also, at age 16 girls may be more attractive, but most aren't yet prepared to enjoy the perks. A few years of twittery beauty is no deal compared to a few decades of experienced distinguished good looks.

Ick, sixteen-year-olds. Anyone can manage enthusiasm.

Worth noting: women are seen as more attractive at an age when men are at their sexual peak, and men are seen as more attractive at an age when women are at their sexual peak.

[solri.livejournal.com]

By that time I'll probably be 114.

[solri.livejournal.com]

OK, maybe it's not justice, just irony.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Quite. My wife has a nose job because when she was a teenager she fell over and squashed her nose flat.

Serious accidents aside, I don't know if I'd ever radically change my appearance, but in any case I'd want to wait until medical technology has improved to the extent that I can just design myself a body and have it made up with minimal pain and expense. And I'd need to be able to save a copy of my old face, just in case I didn't like the new one. I'm so indecisive I've never even had a tatto in case I decided I didn't like it afterwards.