Letters to the Editor
Sandra M
Published Letters: 579 Editor's Choice: 139
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Movies should definitely, frequently, and without benefit of vaselined lenses depict older women in the throes of sexual passion with younger men
[Read the article: Hot grannies just won't stop]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm unsure what the thesis of Ms. Traister's article is -- on the one hand she says "every time we treat post-menopausal libido, or the story of an older woman dating a younger man, as a news-flash revelation, we are just amplifying assumptions about how unlikely these scenarios are". On the other hand she then cites about 7 movies that depict older women in sexual relationships with younger men, and seems to be doing so as a means of making the point that it's not all that post-menopausal libido is alive and well.
Face it, it IS somewhat unusual for older women to ring the bells of sexual congress with younger men. It's not unusual for younger men to go after older women - it happens to me all the time - but it's unusual for older women to take them up on their offers. The movies are depicting a news flash revelation, that it's possible for older women to have casual, revivifying sex with younger partners. And I'm all for it.
The scenario of older guy with younger woman has become so commonplace in the movies as to be passe. In fact, it is presented as the norm, and without warranting any comment. Last night I went to see "You, Me and Dupree". It was a soap bubble of a movie - that aside, Matt Dillon was married to Kate Hudson. Beg pardon but isn't he 15 years her senior? I know almost no couples in real life where the 45 year old husband has a 25 year old wife, but in this movie it was presented as completely unremarkable. The fact that they'd have different tastes in music, likely very different political and social values and experiential frameworks for problem-solving etc.. was not even remotely addressed. They were just presented as average Joe and his average wife (albeit stunningly good looking average Joe and wife). Just like Woody Allen with Mira Sorvino, Michael Douglas with Gwyneth Paltrow, Tom Cruise with Michelle Monaghan, and pretty much every male star with any leading lady. If you believed Hollywood, women pretty much cease to exist after the age of 30, except as de-sexed caricatures (Sigourney Weaver's boss lady in Working Girl, pretty much any mother, Sally Field as Tom Hanks' mother - though she must be about his age). 8% of the roles for women are over 40; for men the figure is 80%.
We've become so inured to seeing this on the screen that it seems perfectly normal, though it's plenty unusual in real life to see May-October romances like this actually working out in committed relationships. So I"m all for the constant celluloid depiction of older women behaving as if they still have needs and desires south of the belt buckle, and like their graying male counterparts, are aesthetically drawn to the collagenic charms of younger lovers. With any luck, in a few years it will be so commonplace to see such a thing on the screen and on the street as to be unremarkable, and no one will even question if art followed life or the other way around.
And by the way, the title of the article, "Hot Grannies Won't Stop" promulages the idea that we should be a bit grossed out by the idea of older women having sex. What is a 'granny' after all? I know plent of granmothers in their 50s who are still quite good looking and fit. I'd never dream of referring to them by the desexualizing, caricaturing term 'granny'. They're women - sexual, vibrant, fully realized women. Not chicks, not girls, not cougars, not grannies -- *women*.
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Oh come on
[Read the article: Fired in the maternity ward]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This headline is monstrously misleading. Stop spinning the story to make it look like she was a victim of an evil patriarchy. She was an executive w ho got fired, and it was HER choice to make the call from a maternity ward and insist on getting the news at that moment.
She is an executive that got fired, and if she was a victim of anyone's poor taste/timing, it was her own. This kind of fraudulent issue positioning gives feminism a bad name.