Sex Machine: Sex With Older Women, or How I Would Make Love to Gloria Swanson

Last week Zeitgeisty posted a delightful picture of wrinkled and saggy Helen Mirren splashing around in the ocean in one of the mystical beach locales where celebrities go to be photographed by paparazzi. Helen Mirren is a beautiful woman, and seeing her disrobed at an age when sexuality is generally considered vulgar, made me smile. Of all the cultural fairytales we tell each other, the idea that sex between older people is somehow inferior to the nubile strains of the twenty-something set is one that frightens me most. I can imagine at least a dozen other celebrities more appealing than the aged Helen Mirren, but I don't know if I'd rather sleep with any of them.

Sexuality is such a visual phenomenon in America. It's the insinuating curves in perfume ads and the conveniently covered nipple on the cover of Maxim. Sex is the clown-faced pantomime of Samantha on Sex & the City, a performance done for the camera, whose lingering presence makes us feel more desirable. Physical symmetry and "hotness" are the social marching orders; we must seek them out, assimilate to their styles and comportment in magazines and on TV, then feel grateful we've found someone young enough and symmetrical enough to inspire envy. Who would envy someone walking around with a slinky sixty-one year-old on their arm? Who could even stomach the thought of a sixty-one year old in the literal act of ecstasy?

I watched Sunset Boulevard last weekend and was reminded of a theoretical flesh crawl with an older woman. Gloria Swanson is beautiful in that movie. Her role is a demented loon whose romantic attachment to William Holden is buffoonish, like some kind of ghoul parading around the land of young attractive people without any sense of shame. Her character's tragic flaw is that she can't accept her own age; she refuses to trade the indulgent vanities of her youth for something more age-appropriate. The way Gloria Swanson attacks the role, clawing at her surroundings with wide-eyed delusion, is extraordinary.

The part of Norma Desmond is insane, but the woman playing the role is dashing. Watching Gloria Swanson act circles around a slack-jawed William Holden, I felt charmed. When she slipped her arm through his while watching her old movies in the living room, I felt a jealous tingle on my leg. William Holden squirmed with discomfort at the idea of a fifty year-old woman's advances. The opportunity was wasted on him. The things I would have done with that hand in my lap, sitting beside someone so alluringly capable and in command of themselves.

Is there an alternative for Norma Desmond that isn't a patronizing dismissal? Is there a way for her to lead a sane life without having to sacrifice her life force and vivacity on some tubby butler? Do older people abdicate the right to be open about their physical and sexual needs because of the slackening of their skins and the onset of bunions? I hope not.

When I'm old I imagine my hunger for body and closeness will remain, even if my hard-on might have to go on meds to keep pace. I can see myself visiting my grown children, staying in the strange sheets of her or his guest room, listening to the eerie quiet of an unfamiliar neighborhood in a strange city. In that room I can imagine myself turning to my post-menopausal partner, taking her speckled hand, with its knots of blue-green veins, and putting it around the back of my head as I follow my salivary divining rod to that most indignant of all god's creations: the geriatric vagina. She looks like Gloria Swanson in my head.

Previous Posts:

Love Machine: Using Your Words, or I Like Pap

Date Machine: Drunk Emailing with J, or How To Fail at Seduction

Sex Machine: Listening to the Neighbors Have Sex

Date Night: In Which I Try To Believe In Aliens

Date Machine: Rate My Pick-Up Lines Redux

Love Machine: Loyal as a Dog

Date Machine: Rate My Politics

High School Machine: Ten-Year Reunion Fantasies

Date Machine: Setting Up Your Friends

Sex Machine: Having Sex at Weddings Redux

Love Machine: Making Love to ESPN

Date Machine: 5 Things I'm Thankful For

Sex Machine: Having Sex at Weddings

Love Machine: What Work Is

Sex Machine: Sleeping Naked

Love Machine: Breaking Up in a Text Message

Date Night: The F U Date

Sex Machine: Shave My Bush

Love Machine: Taking A Break From Dating

Date Machine: The Celebrity You Most Resemble

Sex Machine: I Kissed A Boy

Vote Machine: No Gay People Can't

Sex Machine: Let's Have an Orgy

Sex Machine: My First STD

Sex Machine: There's a Possibility You've Been Infected With HIV

Crying In Public: Some Corner in Brooklyn

Comments ( 29 )

"In that room I can imagine myself turning to my post-menopausal partner, taking her speckled hand, with its knots of blue-green veins, and putting it around the back of my head as I follow my salivary divining rod to that most indignant of all god's creations: the geriatric vagina."

And with that sentence, ladies and gentlemen, Amboabe lands himself a job as head writer for Tales from the Crypt.

Anonymous commented on Dec 17 08 at 11:47 pm

"And with that sentence, ladies and gentlemen, Amboabe lands himself a job as head writer for Tales from the Crypt."

hahahaha. I had similar thoughts.

Yes, Amboabe, old people have sex. I've always thought the taboo around that was silly as well, but you come across as a little on the other side of the spectrum, perhaps... a little fixated.

Toluca_86 commented on Dec 18 08 at 12:08 pm

I think he should write for a Hasidic Newsletter or some other religious group preaching abstinence. It would be the most successful campaign ever.

airheadgenius commented on Dec 18 08 at 12:08 pm

hahahahahahaha.... skin and ahg you gave me the laugh of the night!

zeitgeisty commented on Dec 18 08 at 12:46 pm

i dig it. for me yes the body and shit but it is about the head. we all live in our heads and only people without imagination think otherwise.

Anonymous commented on Dec 18 08 at 1:00 am

"Do older people abdicate the right to be open about their physical and sexual needs because of the slackening of their skins and the onset of bunions?" - Yes. Apparently they do.

amboabe commented on Dec 18 08 at 3:49 am

I wrote something and it disappeared. But anyway, it was something like "Yes old people have sex. It's normal. It's too bad it's so taboo in our society. But you, amboabe, seem a bit fixated on it. I think people are reacting more to your language and what it fixates on. I'm sure you could describe sex by two hot young people using terms and images that would be unattractive to a lot of people as well..."

Toluca_86 commented on Dec 18 08 at 4:02 am

Newsflash: YOU are not an old person! If I see old people romancing each other, holding hands on the subway, exchanging kisses - I think it's absolutely lovely. Presumably these people have sex and they are as entitled to that experience as anyone else. But you manage to describe aging in the most unforgiving way, making it sound extremely unpleasant and then you claim to be celebrating the process. It's not the aging process that's distasteful, it's your treatment of it.

airheadgenius commented on Dec 18 08 at 6:32 am

Gloria Swanson at any age never did anything for me. She *always* looked creepy. Now, Helen Mirren -- yowza! And Charlotte Rampling! Did any of you see The Swimming Pool? There was the 19-year-old French bombshell with the perfect body, but Rampling was an order of magnitude hotter -- I'd pick her any day over a bevy of 20-something starlets (well, maybe not ScarJo, but hey).

profrobert commented on Dec 18 08 at 10:46 am

rampling is just as creepy as swanson... always horrible, has ruined many a film for me including STardust Memories and The verdict...

zeitgeisty commented on Dec 18 08 at 11:10 am

I saw Rampling at Caf

vix_en25 commented on Dec 18 08 at 3:54 pm

ahg: Because I treat it literally, acknowledging the less ecstatic truths about the body? So older people don't have to reckon with liver spots and vericose veins or swollen abdomens or dry crusty callouses? That's not a valid part of physical encounters? It's only the visually assonant that can be arousing? I find that more off-putting than a little bluntness about the temporal shortcomings of the body, which we have such a bad habit of idealizing and objectifying in the first place.

prof: Charlotte Rampling is pretty, but she's always been too boney. I'd smoke her cigarettes but I'd probably go for the young thing with the freckles in the Swimming Pool. A hypocrite to the last...

amboabe commented on Dec 18 08 at 5:06 pm

Z and A: De gustibus non disputandem est, but how about The Night Porter or Angel? Or the Avengers episode she did when she was really young? The distinction I'd draw is that Swanson was creepy and not sexy, but Rampling is disturbing and very sexy (Night Porter is the *only* time I've ever found Nazi imagery erotic). It's the ice-blue eyes. They *know*.

Anonymous commented on Dec 18 08 at 6:33 pm

I guess you win today's "missed the point" award.

airheadgenius commented on Dec 18 08 at 6:47 pm

Does one have to "miss" a point just because they don't buy into it?

amboabe commented on Dec 18 08 at 8:23 pm

One of my problems, Amboabe, with your discussions on aging and the elderly, to use your own words, is that you don't seem to see beyond the "temporal shortcomings." You reduce it to "temporal shortcomings."

And not having been old yourself, it's kind of sad that everything is reduced to a weird romantic/poetic "sad trawl." They're simple, lonely, spotty, saggy, desperate. Perhaps when you are old, you will look at a partner and see her body as the reflection of a long, happy story and not an existential horror... a "sad trawl."

I hope, for your sake, that when you're old, you're not looking at your partner's body and seeing all these so-called flaws as you describe them and saying to yourself... well she's gross, but I love her despite that. I hope all you see is radiant beauty, and that she looks back at you and sees a hell of a desirable man that still makes her knees quiver.

In the meantime, don't be so dismissive of other peoples' lives.

recycledbrooklyn commented on Dec 18 08 at 8:56 pm

I agree with ahg.

I tried to write something yesterday but it didn't go through.

Anyhow, amboabe I think MOST people are reacting to your writing because of the language you use. You seem fixated on the flaws, and on the aging thing. I'm betting someone could write an erotic story about two conventionally hot young people and also focus on language and imagery that would turn people off in a similar way.

Toluca_86 commented on Dec 18 08 at 9:17 pm

Nope. You miss the point because you somehow are positioning yourself as the old person's erotic champion, but you describe age in the most depressing and condescending way. I have friends in their 60's who, in their own words, "fuck like bunnies". I can guarantee that they don't see each other as a sagging heap of wrinkles and age spots.

You are not old. You don't have the trappings of age like children and grandchildren. What you appear to have is an obsession with skin imperfections.

Old people being sexually active is fabulous. Someone writing about it from a position of experience is pretty great too.

Reading a young mans writings about physical deterioration that he has yet to experience is distasteful.

airheadgenius commented on Dec 18 08 at 9:35 pm

Toluca - funny you should say that...

Well lots of people find me tasteful. I find myself distasteful sometimes as well.

But I'm fairly certain I'm not positioning myself as anyone's champion. And I'm certain I never said sex between older people can't be "fabulous."

And I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to sleeping with older people (though I have fooled around with a woman in her mid-50's without much revolt or self-congratulatory pandering).

And yes, I am not old. But I will be. And I have seen, quite intimately, a number of people that I care about age dramatically. I have changed diapers, seen the nude bodies. My descriptors are not the product of fantasy, they come primarily from memory, and I transpose those moments into a sexual context. Is that distasteful? Probably, to a lot of people I'm sure it is. But I'd rather reckon with my honest impulses than tapdance around propriety and leave all those more embarassing or compromising thoughts and ideas unsaid.

In the meanwhile we can play moral whack-a-mole about what a heartless and derogatory person I demonstrate myself to be when I try and write honestly :)

amboabe commented on Dec 18 08 at 10:43 pm

toluca: I'm not trying to turn anyone on by writing here. It's not like the language is made-up. Part of what makes those descriptors unappealing is their universal familiarness. We've all seen them at the beach, in hospitals, in the office etc. Bodies change with age. That idea is not a turn-off to me, but it's clearly a squeamish subject since some people seem revolted by such a literal description without any extra floralized writing to buffer the "eww" factor.

amboabe commented on Dec 22 08 at 12:11 pm

"Part of what makes those descriptors unappealing is their universal familiarness" and people apparently don't like that familiarness, which is a shame because it's part of reality. The grit and bones of your writing reminds me of Henry Miller, my favorite writer - simply because of the unattractive language he uses when describing life in general. He puts it all out there, the ugly and the beautiful. I think you're on the same train as him, which is a good thing - in case others feel the need to disagree.

spjv840 commented on Dec 22 08 at 7:57 am

You're effed in the head.. Comparing his shitass writing to henry Miller? This is why I hate people... You don't know what the fuck youre talking about... His writing is literally nauseatingly bad.. The fact that you can't even tell speaks even less for you..

loobetchka commented on Dec 22 08 at 10:46 am

People on this blog are way too hostile.

spjv840 commented on Dec 22 08 at 10:51 am

I think what jumps out in my mind at least about this post isn't the fact that Swanson is particularly old - she isn't, only 50 at the time of the film - it's that she's fucking CREEPY !!... Which just makes this whole thing kind of comical to me, Amboabe, the blog's resident Vincent Price. Also, no offense to Amboabe, but anyone that's ever actually READ Miller could not compare the two stylistically in any way... I mean, that's some major talking out of the ass there..

zeitgeisty commented on Dec 22 08 at 11:29 am

Oh Z, whatever you say.

spjv840 commented on Dec 23 08 at 12:57 am

Z: it's the part that was creepy, not the person playing the part, which is what I was attracted to.

spjv: Thanks. It's like fruit, just because there are bruises on the skin doesn't make the fruit any less desirable and sweet. Up until a point, anyway. The fuzzy line between ripe maturity and broken down mush is probably the sticking point of disgust, I reckon...

loob: I have no idea what you're doing here, but you keep coming back and back and back. Do you really believe anything you're saying? Who do you think you're fighting with? All these swipes at phantoms that aren't really there. Why do you need to actively wallow in the things you think are "shitass?" Are you waiting for someone else to parrot your thoughts so you can feel vindicated, finally? Less alone? I'll go first then. I'm a shitass writer. Wanna hug?

amboabe commented on Dec 23 08 at 7:47 pm

You're attracted by different things at different stages of your life. And if you've learned anything from your life experiences by the time you're 60, you've learned that it's the wine, not the bottle.

People who are in love or lust can overlook anything from minor physical imperfections to actual handicaps, and that ability just becomes easier as life goes on. Just turn out the lights, light a few candles, have plenty of lube on hand and bingo! You're 25 again!

ZippyDK commented on Dec 26 08 at 3:49 pm

Very good entry. Anticipating the next one.

diabetes diet commented on Oct 27 10 at 11:44 am

Sex Machine: Sex With Older Women, or How I Would Make Love to Gloria Swanson

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