Are you done with having sex? Are you so done with it - that you would offer up your beloved to take his or her sexual energy elsewhere so that you could have an uninterrupted night sleep? Is the very idea of making love so unappealing to you that you would do anything to avoid it?
That was the premise of a recent article in the New York Times Well penned by Meg Wolitzer's whose new novel, "The Uncoupling" (Riverhead Books) just hit the shelves. The article is called "The Sex Drive Idling in Neutral" .
In the piece, Ms.Wolitzer tells a story about a gathering she attended in New York City where a women announced to the group that "I would pay someone to have sex with my husband." I am wondering how many martini's she had consumed before she announced to the world that she had no sexual interest in her husband. Ms. Wolitzer was shocked that this woman's announcement was met with cheers and laughter. I'm not.
To me, that woman was simply stating what some of her friends might have been thinking. We love it when others state our own secrets. Actually, there is nothing that surprises me anymore about human sexuality. And I may be guilty of shocking people around sexuality too. If my mail is any indication - I might be inciting lots of cheering as well from readers with my own story of mid life sexuality in my memoir Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time To Cook Dinner (Rodale).
The one thing that we love as a culture is truth telling.
Perhaps there are two camps here when it comes to the over 40 set. The group who awakens with the "Shift Before The Shift" (pre or peri menopausal women) like I was - bursting at the seams with the wonder of "What is alive in me to explore sexually before I rest in my box for eternal sleep?" and the folks who hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign on their sexuality and try to walk away.
What makes us go in either direction is a curiosity. And I agree with Ms. Wolitzer in her article, that while I tend to focus on women - this is a fork in the road that all of us take - both men and women.
But somehow, when it comes to women taking the fork in the road that beckons sexual exploration, I personally think we are less accepting of that choice than of the gals who hang out the "Do Not Disturb" sign on their sexuality.
Isn't that why television advertising won't let female arousal gels advertise freely but will let the Viagra flag fly high over the Super Ball? We teach men how to reach for the sexuality as they age - but we don't give women the opportunity to reach for their desire. For us girls - it usually remains under a sheet. No one talks to us about basic issues such as vaginal dryness and lube!
Somehow - the wife that "does not put out" is the familiar joke. Perhaps what is not so familiar is the wife shouting out that she simply does not care anymore. It is way more lady like to simply have a headache.But neither response really serves us as women. It is shutting down and cutting off what could be the tool to our next big thing.
My message to women is that our sexuality is not about him. Our sexuality is about who we are.
It is time to really give female sexuality a shake up - and really take the emphasis for a little while off of our partners and put it onto our selves.
What can we do to reawaken ourselves? Once we figure that out - then the paradigm can shift. And this is where I part ways with Ms. Wolitizer when she says:
" But look at the way Bill Clinton's and John F. Kennedy's brains seemed fueled by sex; maybe sex is what got the Family and Medical Leave Act passed, or finessed the Cuban Missile Crisis. Why, a powerful woman who is sexually unengaged cannot be allowed to make vital decisions about the security of the United States!
This kind of thinking is offensive and, actually, insane; sex isn't the anti-kryptonite. But because we're all post-Freudians, it's as if we still believe sex equals strength, health and life; and therefore, not-sex equals weakness, illness and death."
I do believe that sexualty can enliven our being. That tapping into our sexual energy can be a powerful, creative life fueling force. To walk away from our sexuality is walking away from one of the most precious gifts that we are given. Of course not having sex is not necessarily illness, death or weakness. But leaving it behind is not living life in all of its' potential fullness.
Do I think that this woman with the wry, sad sense of humor was degrading herself or her husband in her out cry? Not really. I think she was reaching out. Testing the waters - trying to find out if there were others like her. I think it was perhaps a martini laden look into the faces of her friends - wondering if she was alone in her sexual shut down. And I don't think she truly didn't care. I think she cared more than any of us could imagine. If I was there - I might have put my arm around her - and told her that she was not alone. But that there was another possibility buried deep inside of herself and that it was gold worth mining.
