In Praise of Older Women

In a couple of entries over the past few months, I’ve contemplated the idea of old(er) men having one last fling with younger women. My having seen Peter O’Toole in Venus first triggered it. My entry of Tuesday, June 5, 2007, wondered, “if all old men have one last foolishness over some young girl that they need to go through before their lives are over. God, I hope so.” I even quoted Yeats’ last poem, “Politics.” More recently, I mentioned a young woman I work with who gets annoyed when I say I am old. I confessed (here, never to her) that I had less than paternal thoughts about her. That was spurred by my reading Philip Roth’s latest novel, Exit Ghost, where his aged novelist, alter-go, Nathan Zuckerman, falls for a young woman and carries on an imaginary relationship with her as shown in the dialogue that he writes down after he leaves her. I reflected upon the young woman I was referring to and was encouraged by there seeming to be the remnants of lust in my soul even if it doesn’t quite animate all parts of my body anymore.

In some comments that she wrote after that entry, Meghan, the hottest mommy on the Internet (this doesn’t begin to describe what an incredibly interesting woman she is) wondered “are there older men (the term, of course, is relative) who fantasize about having an affair with an older woman? As a woman who is getting older (hey, by Hollywood standards, 33 is over the hill!) I wonder, if I were to be single in my later years, if I would be the object of an older man's fantasy.” The quick answer is that she is already the object of an older man’s fantasy (mine). The considered answer is also yes. To be honest, I find older women much more attractive than younger women. Look back through my entries to when I confessed to having a crush on the science teacher. Without offending anyone if I’m wrong, I would guess she’s around 50. It is, of course, much more than just something physical. Intelligence is attractive and sexy. Personality is attractive and sexy. Experience is attractive and sexy. Talent is attractive and sexy. Consider my recent entry about Reba McIntire. I said Britney Spears on her best day couldn’t compare to Reba. Who are among the sexiest women today? What about Halle Berry (41)? Sharon Stone (49)? Catherine Zeta-Jones (38)? Victoria Principal (57)? Julie Christie (66)? Farrah Fawcett (60)? Marg Helgenberger (47)?

In the 1979 movie, 10, Dudley Moore fantasized about and pursued every man’s fantasy at the time, Bo Derek. He was 44 at the time, and she was 23. Her nubile, young body flowing and rippling inside her flesh-toned bathing suit while she jogged along the beach was a vision. She later graced the pages of Playboy. We’ll forget her laughable performance in Tarzan the Ape Man. Moore’s character went through hell trying to bed the beautiful Bo. However, once he did it, he realized she wasn’t worth the pursuit, and it might have been better to keep it a fantasy. That’s when he knew that what he had at home, his wife played by Julie Andrews (who was also 44 at the time) was whom he really wanted. The truth was, even then (I was then 31) I would rather have been with Julie Andrews. What I find interesting is that I find Bo Derek at 51 much sexier than she was back then. And, it’s not that I would stand a better chance of getting together with a 51 year old Bo Derek than a 23 year old Bo Derek. The chance is still the same today as it was then: zero. It’s because I find her so much more interesting today and beautiful. While I am at it, let’s not leave out Ann-Margaret (66) and Priscilla Presley (65).

As one last revelation, the woman on television I always found to be sexy and not-so-secretly desired was Angela Lansbury (who is now 82). There was something about J. B. Fletcher that was very appealing. It was, Meghan, her “wit and wisdom.”

And, now, I shall end with the immortal words of the immortal bard, Benny Hill:

So give me an older woman,

A real hot-blooded woman,

A ripe 'n' peachy woman,

Give me an older woman every time.

Exit Ghost

The young woman told me I am not an old man. In fact, she has said it several times before generally after I have identified myself that way. There is always some slight exasperation in her voice. It’s not an automatic reaction, and I don’t say it because I seek contradiction. I feel like an old man. I might as well tell it like it is, as my generation used to like to say in its youth. I think she likes me as a person though she always refers to me as Dr. Ellingham, never using my first name. She is 30 years younger than I. I am the same age as her father. I suspect he has said he’s an old man before. I suspect she has told him he is not in exactly the same way she tells me. Maybe parents don’t want their children to grow old because it means they are getting old. Children want to be older, to a point. Though their parents are older, they don’t want them to be old. That smacks of mortality. Children, generally, don’t want their parents to die. Old people die. Therefore, parents can’t grow old. I’ve seen her with her parents, and they are a loving family. Who would want to lose that? She still lives at home. Someday she will strike out on her own, but she is in no hurry now. My own daughter was in a hurry.

I think of all this as I read Philip Roth’s newest book, Exit Ghost. His old protagonist, Nathan Zuckerman, is in his 70s. Due to earlier prostate cancer and surgery, he is both incontinent and impotent. He retreated to a mountain cabin and left New York. Eleven years later, lured by the promise of a surgical procedure that could correct the incontinence, he has returned to New York. He also answers an ad from a young couple who want to swap their apartment for a cabin to retreat from the city and the fears brought on by 9/11. He agrees to do it, but then regrets his decision as the surgery doesn’t work, he meets a very combative young man who wants to develop a literary reputation through him (the young man is also, apparently, sleeping with the wife of the young couple) and, to further confuse things, he falls in love (or is it lust? I haven’t read enough yet to know) with the young woman. This kind of lust doesn’t seem to have physical origins or at least it doesn’t seem like it will have a physical outlet. This all resonated with me as I had speculated before in this blog about whether old men always had at least one last fling in them with a young woman (and, I hoped they did) and the statement by the aggressive young man that old men always hate young men. I’m not sure about the latter. I still wonder about the former. I have thought about the young woman who tells me I am not old in a very non-fatherly way. I find her both physically and intellectually stimulating; well, it’s mostly physical. I once had a very sexual dream about her. I would never tell her that nor ever even suggest that I was attracted to her. I guess I take some solace in the fact that my core is still alive even as some parts of me seem to be dead.

Old men are curious things. Roth contends that there are still things we can learn about ourselves, even at an advanced age. I guess he’s right.