Why older women should get a younger lover? Life's too short to play
by the rules. Take a tip from Joan Collins and get yourself a young lover.
By Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday July 24, 2001
See also: Are
Younger Men Going For Older Women? Study finds men appear to prefer
"ageing beauties"
I love Joan Collins. While 70s feminists were wondering whether all men
were rapists and all sex was power, Joan was out there, ball-breaking in
her stilettos, looking like a Playboy centerfold and maddeningly in
charge.
Joan Collins is a bridge between Monroe and Madonna. Sexuality is her
stamp - and it's not just the shoes. Yet she has none of the manipulated
passiveness of Monroe. Joan stood for sexual freedom, even though it
landed her in half-porn movies such as The Bitch. She has worked through
all the stereotypes: happy marriage, broken marriage, fulfilled mother,
sex goddess, vampire, porn pin-up, tabloid whore, cradle snatcher, stage
luvvie, and always she emerges as Joan. Just Joan. Not a cinema creation
or a pill-popping wreck, Joan Collins continues to become herself.
Now, at 68, she has ended a 13-year relationship to start again with Percy
Gibson, a theatre producer, aged 35. Fantastic. Forget the bus pass and
the support stockings. Joan is reinventing herself - a trick that few
women learn. Marilyn never managed it. Madonna has been much smarter.
Reinvention is the only way to survive.
Reinventing yourself is not some sinister data-dissolving process where
the past is wiped like an unwanted file. The past comes with you. It is
self-knowledge, not self-denial, that allows people to move forward. The
classic mid-life crisis of abandoning everything is a gesture towards
change that often goes wrong because the deeper questions remain
unanswered. Reinvention is not about staying as you are but with a new
job/house/wife. Reinventing yourself is mental, physical and emotional
renewal.
Women find change difficult. We are supposed to be the still points in a
turning world. Women are the ones responsible for family stability.
Historically, women are the ones affected by change, not the ones who
change things. And yet women's bodies are subject to physiological change
in a way that men's are not. Similarly, women are vitally involved in
their children's evolution from savage to citizen. Women are intimate with
change, but when it comes to changing ourselves, we are afraid.
One of Joan Collins's favourite phrases is 'The greatest risk is not to
take the risk.' One of my favourite phrases - from, er, The Passion
(sorry, folks) - is 'What you risk reveals what you value.'
Right now our world is obsessed with eliminating risk - whether it's
school trips or GM food. We want guarantees with everything, even though
none of us can be protected from ourselves. We try, though. Women try
harder than most. We don't listen to that little voice inside, or to our
dreams. When something really big happens, we call it fate.
One of the heartening things about Joan's own description of her new love
affair is how honestly she takes responsibility for it. It's not fate -
it's what she wants. She is dignified, aware, and in control. Oh, and not
for her the subterfuge of hotel rooms - she doesn't believe in deception.
When Joan fell for Percy, she told her partner how she felt. Those who
find this heartless should remember that sex isn't power - deception is
power.
Of course, a 68-year-old woman with a 35-year-old lover is unusual. We
hardly notice the armies of pensioned-off males with their retinue of
blonde mistresses, but for a woman, an age gap is still seen as an
obstacle to happiness. Women are supposed to be less interested in
physical beauty than are men. I doubt the truth of this. Women are
conditioned to overlook sagging bellies and slack muscles in favour of
economic and social power. Joan Collins has all the money and clout she
needs, so she goes for the man she wants - no compromises.
Fine if you're a celebrity? Think of her as role model instead. What would
it be like if women desired freely, untrapped by gender assumptions or
economic necessity? What would it be like if men looked at women as we
really are, and not as supports or fashion accessories? Desire is
liberating. It is one of the few experiences urgent enough to prompt
change.
For many women, desire has been neutered. When I hear women talk about sex
mattering less than other things, I wonder: have those women ever known
what it is like to make love with someone who excites them?
Ask Joan. Life is too short to play by the rules - and anyway, whose rules
are they? If you want a lover, the time is now.
Source:
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,526394,00.html
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