Older Women's Nipples

Silence is golden, except when it isn’t and I am hoping that my self-imposed hibernation from writing, with all its contributory factors, is over. That’s not to say all the causal factors for not writing are over but I need to start writing again. Not that this is an issue for anyone else other than me but in the vain hope that there are readers out there who have been disappointed by Zenpuss’s absence, then I announce a return!

Please do make comments on this and any other blogs that you have found interesting or stimulating.

ZP

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So Madonna is at it again; shocking the world with the explicit sexual act of showing her tit to an audience of exceptionally excitable people in Istanbul.

Go to You tube and search for Madonna and her nipples.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Madonna+nipples

Can we just contemplate this seriously for a minute? She flashed her tit for a few seconds, and raised her eyebrows in a mocking style at the so-called titillation of this act.

I like Madonna, most of the time. She knows what she is doing. She knew precisely what she was doing when she removed first one bra, and then pulled down another to reveal her pink and protruding nipple. She knew that there would probably be public outcry at the fact that at 53 year old woman with children was showing her tits to the world in a way that was meant to shock and astound her audience. She knew that there would be outcry at this tiny act of rebellion and she carried on regardless.

Why? Because she is a woman who is prepared to challenge the conformities of sexual thinking and for this we ought to be exceptionally grateful.

We need people like Madonna whether we like her or not.

Aren’t breasts and our reaction to them weird? Why can we not accept that there are certain parts of our body that have multiple functions, and that one of those functions might be sexual - or might not, or might be an unsexual act that is actually very sexual to the viewer?

A young person seeing a woman breastfeeding for the first time might actually be sexually stimulated by this act, especially if they have never seen a real nipple before, though in the days of accessible porn at the hit of a button, it is hardly believable that there are many young folk like this. However, as many who watch porn know, it may be incredibly arousing to look at a series of photos of bloody wonderful tits but pales into insignificance compared with the ‘in the flesh’ stimulation of seeing a real person in front of you getting their breasts or cock out.

Nipples are functionary. They are there to feed young babies who suckle from their mother’s breast to taste their first experience of nourishment. So what?
But they are also functionary as part of a sexual intimacy. Sucking the nipple of a beautiful woman, caressing their boob as their excitement of your touch literally grows before your eyes is incredibly arousing.
It is the same tit that fed a baby but for the moment you are touching it, feeling it, smoothing your fingers over it, grabbing it – it is something different. It is an exceptionally beautiful part of the female body that is there for a reason, and there would be no babies to feed if its other function of attraction was redundant.

There are other parts of the body, of course, that also have these complex functions. A cock slips into a cunt and makes it feel that there is only one purpose for both parts of the body. Yet, these organs are also there for other purposes; child-birth, insemination, pissing.

I’ve mentioned pissing before. It is an instinctive act that we all need to do but sometimes, just sometimes when the time is right, this act of going to the toilet can be one of the most arousing things ever. Yet, we are so caught in our own little boxes of thought that we cannot contemplate that this act could be incredibly sexual.

Try it, I implore you. Watching a sexual partner pissing when your cunt is already full of explosive arousal can really get all manner of juices flowing!

Our bodies are incredible things and we perpetually ridicule or dismiss the sexual functions of our mind, body and soul. What Madonna did the other day was remind us that our bodies have these multiple functions and that it is perfectly appropriate to reveal a tit to an audience already excited by the mere presence of this iconic woman. Why not use her body parts to excite them further whilst simultaneously mocking the entire debacle of humanity’s pathetic response to these small acts that may or may not be sexual in their act – largely dependent upon the response of the viewer.

I suppose the saddest thing about this whole issue is that it is still deemed to be shocking for the woman to have done this. The absolute hypocrisy is hysterical. Why on earth are we shocked? Yet in a way, without that shock it wouldn’t be as sexually arousing.

Funny world, isn’t it?

What Madonna does do when she does things like this is get the world talking and contemplating, and for that, as I said, we ought to be grateful. Without Madonna getting her tits out, we would glibly carry on in life never thinking about our reactions to such things, and it needs someone with the stature of Madonna to make us think about our perceptions and reactions to certain issues, and in this case, the whole issue of the sexuality of an older woman.

Which brings me unsubtly onto that issue.

It is one thing for a sexy, nubile young woman to get her tits out for the lads but a 53 year old woman? Apparently that is obscene in our ageist world that is perfectly prepared to dismiss the brilliance and beauty of the mature body.

Madonna is a good looking woman, with an exceptional body. Personally, I think her tits are a little on the small side, and the muscled tone of her arms are scary rather than sexual but I respect her enormously for the way she has looked after her body and continues to be a deeply sexual woman.

But the main reason people were appalled by her act on stage was the fact that she was an old woman. Isn’t it weird how we judge a person by a number rather than looking at who they are and what they are? It’s preposterous!

Let us get this clear. There is NOTHING wrong with Madonna choosing to reveal her tits to the world, just as there is nothing wrong with other women revealing their cunts to the world on various porn sites. There is something terribly wrong with a woman under a certain age doing this but, for me, there is no age limit to the beauty of woman who still feels sexual.
Maybe not everyone wants to see a 65 year old woman’s body but it is a matter of choice, and I can think of plenty of 65 year old women who have far better bodies than this particular human being. The numbers mean nothing!

What does mean something is the liberation that comes from being able to express oneself sexually.

Even Madonna, a woman who has always been overt in her sexuality, would probably have got a huge surge of arousal by doing this ‘naughty’ act. When she kissed Britney Spears on stage it was a judgement call. It was done to provoke conversation. It was a performance, deliberately enacted to get all those men (and women) whose dream is to watch two women performing sexual acts on one another to rush their minds forward into the possible post-performance pussy-munching that could occur when two women are aroused by one another.

(Slight pause to think about this …….. mmmmmmmm!)

Madonna is in her sexual element. I know how that feels and it is an utterly brilliant place to be; the absolute best place to be. I want to be in my sexual element forever, and I never want to stop feeling aroused and excited and stimulated by sex. I need my sexual element and I am sure that Madonna needs hers too.

Yet so few of us are prepared to admit this, especially in the later stages of life.

Which is why it was so incredibly wonderful to see a follow up of the Madonna Nipplegate in “The Sun” of all newspapers.

It’s not very often that you get the chance to praise the newspaper that is responsible for far too much irritation and indeed trauma for many innocent people, but this time they got it right.

They chose some women to re-enact Madonna’s revelation, and then they explained how they felt.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4371665/Madonna-was-right-to-bare-her-boob-at-53.html

“I felt nervous when I pulled my bra down but that’s only natural — Madonna probably did too. But then I felt empowered, it was an incredible feeling.” said the first woman who revealed a really lovely nipple.

Empowered. Empowered. What an utterly brilliant feeling!

 “I never feel more liberated than when I’m topless — whether on the beach or at home.” said the next, and continues to say that she is fed up with the prejudice towards older woman and their sexuality.

The next woman made another comment about Madonna but should be equally relevant to all sexual women of a certain age.

“If you’re an older lady people assume you should act like an older lady. I disagree. No matter how old she gets she should never stop being herself.”

No matter how old anyone gets, man or woman, you should never stop being yourself, and that includes sexually (obviously within reason!).

These women are not freaks; they are not trying to prove any point other than the fact that there is huge liberation in being sexual. There is also a ridiculous amount of hypocrisy in sexuality. They point out how it is perfectly acceptable to walk around a beach naked (sadly only in certain places) but nipping your nip out for a second is deemed to be naughty.

We really are quite fucked up about sexuality and the functions of our body, and our mindful reactions.

Madonna, I implore you. Keep going girl. Keep doing things that just push the boundaries of thought on certain sexual issues.

I look forward with anticipation to her pissing on the stage without the world going into free-fall at the utter shock of someone doing something that we all do more than once a day.

And yes, I realise that my love of golden showers is an acquired taste and not exactly mainstream (if you excuse the pun) but my point is that within reason and without hurting or abusing others, we should be able to express our sexuality in many ways and at many ages and that this is the most liberating and empowering thing in life.

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For further reading, take a look at these two articles from the Guardian. The comments on the latter are worth a read too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/shortcuts/2012/jun/12/pass-notes-3192-the-nipple?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/13/madonna-nipples-hands-off?INTCMP=SRCH

Oh, and a glorious challenge to Bruce Springsteen too?

Giving and Receiving: The Art of Zen - puss?

Firstly, I suppose I ought to apologise to any reader who has actually been waiting for me to write something, not that I expect there are any.

It has been a considerable time since I wrote, which has made me ask the question as to why I have been unable to write anything on this blog for such a long time.

The whole purpose of Zenpuss was to record the sexual enlightenment of a woman who, over a period of time, realised that sex was an important and possibly essential part of her life and indeed everyone’s lives.

It is a personal and powerful story that is only partly told for reasons of anonymity. One day, I really will explain everything, and hopefully hundreds or thousands of women may benefit from the retelling of the gifts that I have been afforded in rediscovering my sexuality from the shadow of a life where it had managed to hide itself.

However, there are always other issues to confront along the way. That is why it is a journey, and that is why the actualisation may never be realised, or it may certainly go through stages of peaks and troughs.

I have learned a considerable amount about myself on this sexual journey, and I am still learning about the body, mind and soul of sexuality. I am reading about sex, Zen sex particularly, and I still feel as though I have so much more to give and so much more to receive in the art of love-making.

Is it better to have discovered and then lost, or not to have discovered at all?

The jury is out, but then again what exactly is ‘lost’?

I can never ever be sorry that I have known sexual satori, except in the moments when I am.

It is possibly the greatest gift that I have ever experienced, though.

I am a fortunate woman.

I may be a nymphomaniac with a cock fetish, who loves nothing more than being filled with the pleasure of an erect cock, ready to smother it with my extreme profusion of fuck juices but there is far more to my sexuality than the actual act of fucking.

Like many others, my journey stalls and comes to abrupt or temporary stops along the way, but journey on in hope I will, because my sexuality has turned out to be a very significant part of me, which is why writing about it can sometimes be difficult.

This entire blog is deliberately about Zen sex because as far as I am concerned, it is the ultimate sex. Everyone can fuck but it is how you think, feel, imagine, create, share, enjoy, understand that makes the difference. It is the complete oneness and the complete togetherness that makes Zen sex the perfection that it is.

Sex is being. Loving is. There is no beginning and no end.

So something blasted me into writing mode once more and it was the simplest of things; a mere statement from an actor in a newspaper, not even talking about sexuality – until his response.

The actor was asked a non-sexual question.

“Is it better to give or to receive?”

The response
“Is a woman's orgasm giving or receiving?”

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And there you have it, the big Zenpuss question of the day.

Is a woman’s orgasm, for a man, giving or receiving?

Or indeed, is a man’s orgasm, for a woman, giving or receiving?

 Or for that matter, is a lesbian’s orgasm a gift or a receipt for the woman who has engineered this loveliness, or is a gay cum giving or receiving?

The obvious Zen response is that it is both. How can you possibly untangle these two essentials of life and of Zen?

The ultimate beauty of all things Zen is that in giving we receive, and in receiving we give. The two are not mutually exclusive; the two are mutually intertwined without a need for trying to sever something that cannot be separated.

Zen asks us to consider our good intentions, and within that is the desire for someone else’s wellbeing. Someone else’s sexual wellbeing is equally valid. So in enjoying sex and lovingly bringing someone to climax is as much of a gift to the provider as it is to the recipient.

Dana.

I can still see the explosion of joy on my “provider’s” face when I erupt with warm pleasure all over the place. This is the most perfect act of love-making. Likewise, my intention has always been to pleasure him, and in doing so I too am the recipient.

Isn’t that what sex and making love is all about?

Isn’t it obvious?

People are selfish beings, and too frequently, especially when caught up in the sensual act of sex, one can make the mistake of focussing entirely on the ultimate climax for oneself.

For real sex, real Zen sex, this is only half of the story. Sex and orgasms are wonderful but if you are only concerned with the ultimate pleasure for yourself, well quite frankly you may as well have a wank.

Not that there is anything wrong with masturbation. In fact, there can be just as much giving and receiving in watching one another wank.

For further illustration to my cause, please read this extract from “Zen Body-Being”

“The most important quality in sex is …….. feeling. Feeling your own body, from head to toe, inside and out, and allowing the natural feelings of passion, lust, love, affection, appreciation, tenderness, joy and pleasure to flow freely and without inhibition…”

“The collaborative nature of sexual activity also provides a uniquely gentle and non-competitive opportunity to explore the issues of psycho-physical relationship. Both the physical and emotional aspects of sex are greatly enhanced by generating feelings, such as intimately feeling your partner’s whole body, or freely radiating your own erotic feelings for your partner to receive. As an opportunity to transcend the usual personal boundaries,  sex encourages a state of openness that allows an astonishing ability to “join” with your partner, giving and receiving a kind of energy that is simply not available in other activity. Sex provides immediate feedback and proof that your state of mind and degree of feeling can have a direct (and wonderful) effect on another person, as well as yourself.”

Collaboration, feelings, giving, receiving, transcending, energy, join, intimacy, exploration, openness. Surely all of these things are qualities of real sex and not just a fuck?

If you have had Zen sex, then why settle for anything else? Which is probably why the sharing of one’s body with another human being is so precious, and so intimate?

Can you really have sex with another person without it being Zen sex if that is what you have accustomed yourself to wanting, expecting, giving and receiving?

That is why it is hard!

Here is another statement from zenmoments.org.

It is not about sex. It is about giving and receiving, but there is something that the sexually enlightened hopefuls amongst us can learn.

“It’s interesting – this giving and receiving thing.
I think in Western cultures we so much emphasize our independence and individuality that it gets way out of proportion - we hate the idea of dependence somehow, and yet we are totally interdependent – participating in a constantly changing dynamic matrix of exchanging – giving and receiving all the time. Sure, the mail man gets paid to deliver the mail, and the bank teller gets paid to do her job, but with just a little extra attention these ordinary transactions with people (whether you are the mailman, the bank teller, the mailman’s customer or the bank’s customer) can be beautiful – it just takes attention and a little kindness – and we all know this! But how easily we get into righteousness when things are not up to our expectations….. sad really.”

We can all strive for better giving and receiving in sexuality, even when we think we have got the balance just right.

Here are some more quotes.

“ [SEX] ……the merging of flesh on flesh, the indescribable fullness, and the climax–that infinite moment of white light and absolute dissolve”.

Surely this is definitely going to work best with giving and receiving?

“Sex is a powerful and blinding drive, but it is not just a primitive drive to selfish and possessive satisfaction. Your sexual impulse can grow with you into a beautiful–and unconditional–physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual union. All of the differences, the power struggles, and the guilt, are dissolved.
Our sexual nature mirrors the union that is expressed in the higher spiritual aspects of life. It is our base experience of nirvana; the complete meltdown of boundaries and separations. And we can transform our sexual nature’s irresistible power into that higher expression, but we must begin by joyously accepting our basic drives.
This sexual alchemy takes time and energy to accomplish, but it is entirely doable. On one end of the scale, sex is a physical and emotional union with your partner, and at the higher end it is creative union with your inner and outer universe.”

The giving and receiving is not just about the two way workings with your sexual partner.

Zen sex goes further than this.

It is the giving and receiving to oneself too. It is the union with the universe. It is a giving of yourself to that universe whilst simultaneously being completely at one with yourself, at the same time as being completely at one with your partner.

Isn’t that miraculous? Isn’t this something that everyone should aspire to?

Just think about it.

What do you really want from sex?

For me, there is no alternative to this. Sex is almost nothing without Zen, at least for some of the time. Yes, sex can be a physical act, a wank, a quickie, but real sex is the giving and receiving, and I am not sure anything will change my mind on this, and the glorious receipt of that ultimate state of Satori that can only come from the completion and the oneness of sexual compatibility – with a partner, with oneself, with Zen.

More on Older Women

Zeitgeist Zenpuss!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/20/yvonne-roberts-over-60s-divorce

This is an article in the newspaper today, and there was me writing about the very subject yesterday.

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A footnote: Angie Watts/Anita Dobson performed last night but I couldn't bring myself to vote for her because she reminded me of one of the women who have made my life such a misery over the last six months.
I love older women and I totally want them to be liberated and free, even free to fuck the person that I thought cared for me more than anyone else. I just wish they would do all their fucking and thinking honestly and openly with due regard for my relationship. But no, none of them could be bothered to do that.
See Zakelius.

But good luck to them anyway. I hope they are all enjoying themselves as I hope these silver separators in the making find their way in the world too.

The Female Orgasm

The Female Orgasm

Back in the news this week is the scientific approach to the female orgasm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/14/female-orgasm-recorded-brain-scans

It appears that somebody has finally decided to look at how the brain functions during orgasm. It surprises me that it has taken this long to state the bleeding obvious as far as arousal and blood rushing to the brain. Haven’t we always said that the brain is probably the largest and even the most important organ in the whole game of love-making?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/nov/16/orgasm-mri-scanner

"The general aim of this research is to understand how the orgasm builds up from genital stimulation and what parts of the brain become recruited and finally build up into an orgasm," said Prof Komisaruk, who presented the work at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington DC on Monday. The work has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
As the animation plays, activity first builds up in the genital area of the sensory cortex, a response to being touched in that region. Activity then spreads to the limbic system, a collection of brain structures involved in emotions and long-term memory.
As the orgasm arrives, activity shoots up in two parts of the brain called the cerebellum and the frontal cortex, perhaps because of greater muscle tension. During orgasm, activity reaches a peak in the hypothalamus, which releases a chemical called oxytocin that causes pleasurable sensations and stimulates the uterus to contract. Activity also peaks in the nucleus accumbens, an area linked to reward and pleasure.
After orgasm, the activity in all these regions gradually calms down.

Well, I could have told them that without being bungled into an MRI machine – apart from the bit which says these regions gradually calm down. It takes me quite some time to ‘calm down’ after an orgasm and I think my brain is still doing somersaults for some considerable time after my first orgasm of the day.

Of course the thing that really interests me is the comments made about such a study. There’s the people who moan that we are wasting time in finding out about the female orgasm and why can we not concentrate on the man for a change (!). Then there are the oh so not witty responses about the need for glasses of wine and a fag as part of the female orgasm. I mean how could a woman possibly climax without one of those drugs?

Then there are thoughtful comments in praise of the study with the subtle suggestion that if we finally get this right, then sex for men and women could be vastly improved.

Women have suppressed their sexuality for years due to a misogynist society and an economic determinant of where a woman’s supposed best interests lie. Men did not want women to enjoy sex in case they bogged off and did it with someone else. It suited everyone’s needs, apparently even women’s, to ignore their sexuality and get on with being the less dominant person in a family.

I think a change is in the air and it is good that these scientific tests are taking place so that some credence and value is rightly apportioned to female sexuality.

However, isn’t it sad that we need a scientific study such as this to state the bleeding obvious?

Why is it that we rely so heavily on academia when we should really be concentrating on getting on and enjoying the entire experience, together, exploring our sexual potential with one another.

And of course, within the entire article there is no mention of female ejaculation.

As far as I am concerned, I would have thought we had moved on from whether females have orgasms and what happens to the brain when they do. Shock horror, there is increased blood action and oxytocin is released!

But who has done a study into what female ejaculation is, how it happens and why certain women and more gloriously susceptible to most natural of bodily functions?

I actually want to know why I gush, what I am gushing and how come I can continue to pour stuff out of my body even when I have soaked a towel and a duvet or two. I want to know these things.

And I want to know them now.

I want to know whether there is any link between female ejaculation and fertility. I want to know why we have been forced to suppress this essential part of our sexuality and I want to know it now.

I finish with a response from one commentator on the article.

Interesting, forthright and I love the thing about faking orgasms.

Female orgasms happen in exactly the same way as male ones; keep rubbing it the right way and eventually you'll get there. Just like male orgasms, in the final few stages, for the final few strokes, it's basically (mutual) masturbation (just like with a penis). In fact, if you look at it under a microscope the clitoris is shaped just like a tiny penis, complete with a perfectly shaped glans.
The reason female orgasms have become so 'complicated', is because of the hangover from the punative taboos around female sexuality; men wanted their woman to stay loyal to them, not go off and and have sex (and breed) with other men, so the best way to achieve this was by making sure women didn't enjoy sex, by punishing and ostracising the ones that did, or who were promiscuous. In some parts of the world they even cut the clitoris off adolescent girls to ensure they don't have an orgasm and therefore are more likely to stay loyal to their husbands. In Victorian England too, the 'little operation' (a clitorectomy) was prescribed by doctors to wives who were regarded as 'hysterical', one of the 'symptoms' being a woman becoming 'over excited' during sexual intercourse.
Today things have changed, but the 'slag' stigma still exists, and inhibits a lot of women from really letting themselves enjoy sex (and have an orgasm) because they might start wanting it with lots of different people, and they might be called a 'slag' and subsequently treated as inferior.
Many women still don't have orgasms during sex, or even through masturbation, partly because women are still governed by the need to behave in a feminine and 'pretty way, and orgasms require one to push quite hard, and not necessarily be particularly 'feminine'. Also, mass media still for the most part tends to show men 'giving' a woman an orgasm through penetrative sex, and this inhibits women (and men too) from doing what feels good & works naturally, making them think they have to do it in a certain way, otherwise they will be thought of as 'weird' or not 'feminine' or 'manly' enough.
For all the men out there, if you really want a woman to have an orgasm, all you really have to do is make sure she doesn't feel inhibited or self-conscious when she's in bed with you, by making her feel good about herself, her body, and that anything she needs to do to come, or needs you to do to get help her come is fine with you. Non- judgemental.
For all the women out there - DO NOT FAKE IT! EVER! HOW ELSE ARE THEY GOING TO LEARN WHAT A FEMALE ORGASM REALLY LOOKS & SOUNDS LIKE?! If you really can't come, (but usually can) it's probably tiredness, or too much to drink, or anxiety etc...men understand this - these are the things that stop them having orgasms too.

Though searching for a clitoris using a microscope, and discovering it is penis shaped?

Oh dear!

Older Women

Before I go any further, I want to make it perfectly clear that I contentedly count myself as one of women in the title of this piece. I may not be a Granny or have to dye my hair to eradicate the greyness but it is only a matter of time, (well the hair dying at least).

I am the right or wrong side of fifty, depending on your perspective, but I am certainly a mature woman – well at least most of the time.

Older women seem to be in the news at the moment. Older women, apparently include women from the age of 31 years old upwards. From where I am standing, I wouldn’t call a 31 year old woman an “old woman” but I suppose if you are having a relationship with a 17 year old, then you could certainly be described as being older.

The other day, I was reading something on the Yahoo website about how some famous Z-lister was “dating” another wannabee celebrity. There was total outcry because she was 31 and he was 17.

I’ve now found the link on the Daily Mail website and have discovered that this woman has had death threats.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2062659/Harry-Styles-dating-Caroline-Flack-Cradle-snatcher-dinner-One-Direction-star.html

I’m not going to go into the age-old debacle of the hypocrisy involved here, in so far that if the age of the genders in this case were transferred, people would find it less problematic. It is a well-known fact that a younger woman having sexual relationships with an older man is far more socially acceptable than the other way around. Personally, and this really is a personal view, I would be concerned with anyone in their thirties having sex with someone who may not be emotionally mature and who has only just passed the age of consent.

But then again, when are we emotionally mature enough to cope with the complexities of sex?

I’d also like to point out that the age difference is not an issue here. It is the age of the youngest person involved. For instance, Catherine Zeta Jones is decades younger than her partner but she did not jump into a sexual relationship with him when she was still of school age.

And even then, there are times when it is perfectly acceptable. At that age I was gagging for sex with an older bloke and I think I had the emotional maturity to have happily been fucked to pieces by this gorgeous one.

Ah, if only.

Diane Keaton was on Woman’s Hour this week. At the age of 65, as a successful film actor, she has had opportunities galore in her life; opportunities that most of us can only begin to imagine, and yet, half way through the interview she stated that she had many regrets, one of which was that she had been too cautious in her previous decades.

I don’t want to wake up at the age of 65 and regret the fact that I did not seize the moment when the moment arose. I do not want to wake up in years to come and wish I had taken the opportunity to do the things that I wanted to do. I do not want to wake up in decades to come and feel remorseful that I didn’t experience lots of sensational sexual experiences throughout my life.

I spent years not understanding, valuing or expressing my sexuality and now that I have discovered all the joys of sex, I’ll be damned if I am going to put a stopper in my delightfully spunky body now.

I want to spray my stuff all over the place. I want to be filmed having sex with myself and others and I want to be free to be sexually proud with whoever chooses to enjoy my sexuality.

This brings me onto another issue that was discussed recently with a group of friends.

Again, I’m back to the glorious Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063430/The-growth-silver-separations-Divorce-rate-60s-surges.html

This article points out that there are a growing number of “silver separations” whereby people arrive at an age of retirement only to discover (or finally acknowledge) that they have nothing in common with their lifelong partner. They may have been contented and have even survived the empty nest syndrome when their children fled from the family home, but then, all of a sudden, they find that they simply have nothing to say or no desire to do anything with their partner.

The divorce rate for these former Baby Boomers has escalated dramatically.

And I really hope that part of this is down to the empowerment of women. I really hope that there are some people who, like Diane Keaton, wake up one day and say, “I am in my 60s. I have regrets but actually there is still plenty of life ahead of me and I am damn well going to get out there and enjoy it”.

Sexual freedom is vital. It is empowering and liberating, and if, at the age of sixty you suddenly feel as though you want something different then why shouldn’t you do it? IF your partner is not offering you what you want, then surely you have an entitlement to look elsewhere. Even if you partner is giving you everything you need, there may still be a desire to feel the liberation of another body in your bed.

Circumstances vary from person to person and relationship to relationship but the issue remains; nobody owns anybody and if it takes almost a lifetime to realise that, then so be it.

But there is a problem.

Google “STI rise in older people” and you will find that this is a world-wide problem, well at least in the western world. Americans, Canadians, Brits and Ozzies have all found that there has been a significant increase in the number of cases of STIs in the over 55s. Clearly, it is not coincidence that this is happening simultaneously with the rise in the over 55 divorce rate.

People suddenly free and expressing their sexuality for the first time in years may suddenly feel as though nothing in the world can prevent them from enjoying themselves, right up to the point when they contract the Clap.

It can be an extremely difficult, embarrassing discovery and unnecessary shame occurs.

http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2011/08/25/3299985.htm

http://health.msn.com/womens-health/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100172026

With the concerns of pregnancy averted by the menstrual nightmare clocking off, women particularly are in danger of making assumptions that they are safe when it comes to sex. I can totally understand this. The total liberation of knowing that you cannot accidentally conceive must certainly relieve a nagging issue in the middle of sex. It is also reported that with an increase in the use of the little blue pill, more older men are thankfully enjoying sex more frequently but once more, in their elation, they are sometimes forgetting that it is not all about being hot and horny. Sometimes, a little care and consideration is required too.

I am honestly not trying to be negative in all of this. I want women and men to thoroughly enjoy their sexuality. I am an advocate of people of all ages enjoying sex. I am damn sure that I want to be enjoying sex as a sexagenarian – lexicographically it seems rather befitting.

Older people MUST enjoy sex and lots of it.

And talking of older women, let’s just celebrate the fact that finally we can look forward to a life of liberation and an enjoyment of our sexuality.

Our world is changing and our sexuality with it.

Last night, I caught a small amount of the Children in Need programme on the television. There was a Strictly Come Dancing session with four newsreaders (all of them over 40 years of age).

Whether you are a fan of this genre or not, I have to say that they all looked bloody good. Susannah Reid, who I confess to having a huge crush on, looked completely gorgeous but the others too showed how to be an older woman oozing with sexuality and confidence.

The routine culminated with Angela Rippon, aged 66, appearing from behind the newsdesk just as she had done decades before on the Morecambe and Wise show, still managing to kick her legs in a full air splits! Amazing!

Good on them!

Older women, however old they are, are out there and enjoying their sexuality, and I am proud to think of myself as one of them.

On a final note about older women in the news, I return to the BBCs Saturday bonanza programme.

At present, Anita Dobson, she of Angie fame in Eastenders, is currently strutting her stuff on “Strictly Come Dancing”. This week, she was in the news and was also on “Woman’s Hour”. There was a slight outcry in the dancing quarters because she apparently performed a brilliant dance last week, scoring an exceptionally high mark from the judges only to find herself in the bottom two at the end of the evening.

Why? Well the only possibility is due to her age. Despite her clear ability and her absolute passion for dancing, she found herself without the support of the public, and I can only, assume as did the media this week, that this was all due to her age.

Older women are not deemed to be as exciting and invigorating as the younger type.

I’m not an avid fan of this programme but I might just watch tonight and vote for Anita just to support the liberation and the sexuality of the older woman.

Life begins at 40, 50, 60 or even further along than that if you explore and embrace your passions, particularly if that passion is for sex.

Here’s to the older woman and her opportunities in life so that nobody in the future wakes up at the age of 65 and says, “I wish.....”

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

It was the mid eighties. I was bored. I’d been dumped by an extremely good looking bloke for a relatively plain looking stick insect. The fact that she was icy, upper middle-class, soulless and condescending somehow made matters worse.

I didn’t actually want to be with the bloke in question. He was a bit of a twat, if I am honest. He was a public school moron with the politics to accompany the silver spoon that had been left in his mouth.

This new girlfriend of his was far more in tune with him, although she had no sense of humour whatsoever, and she wore pearls! I’ve not got anything particularly against pearls but on a 22year old, they just seem rather misplaced, or certainly did at the time.

We all went out one evening, a whole load of us hitting the town in the monstrous way that students do. I’d spent most of my evening with a group of male friends and had been hopelessly hit on by this one lad with the most enormous mouth. I mean, literally. It was the size of Julia Roberts’s with an additional pump of Botox, probably before Botox had even been invented.

He had wavy hair, decent looking eyes and that was about it.

He was deeply unintelligent.

But I was bored and I was pissed off at seeing Little Miss Perfect and the moronic one. I didn’t like the way that she was looking at me. What precisely had she got that I hadn’t apart from a cold and calculating manner?

What she had in abundance was “class” and money and therefore I was redundant, though I am obviously not so full of myself that I did not recognise there was much more to it than that. Some people are just suited to one another, and these two fitted together perfectly.

They got married in the end.

And probably got divorced too.

Anyway, Botox features wouldn’t leave me alone.

I was bored. So when he sat down next to me on the bus home, I let him slide his fingers all over my legs. I let him brush his hands over my breasts as he kissed me, and I decided that I was going to fuck him that night, not because I was particularly attracted to him but because I just fancied doing something outlandish. And of course, there was something to prove to the beautiful ex.

I had my fair amount of fucks whilst at university but had never had a one-night stand before.

As the bus approached my stop, he followed me off the bus, miles away from his own house.

I let him.

I let myself into the house, walked straight up to the bedroom and got fucked.

We fucked quickly and immediately, and then we clambered into bed where he fucked me again. It was raw, unsensual but quite thrilling. He had a decent cock and I remember getting rather aroused, not by the bloke but by the whole raunchy situation. I knew that I had no intention of seeing him again, and prayed that the dimwit wouldn’t fall for me.

In the morning, he left.

I met him at lunch time where he explained to me that he had a girlfriend and was going to be engaged to be married within the year. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was not exactly heartbroken at this news. She was welcome to his rubbery lips and his tailored manner.

I was out of there!

For my own confidence though, I just wish I had been assertive enough to tell him this rather than allow him to think he was giving me the brush-off.

But bizarrely, the whole experience was wonderfully empowering. I hadn’t deliberately dressed myself up that evening in order to get laid, but as soon as this guy started on me, I just thought to myself, “Why not?”

I was a relatively decent looking girl. I hadn’t had sex for nearly a month and in those days, before I rediscovered celibacy or a certainly a lack of interest in sex, I was rather desperate for a decent bit of cock.

It wasn’t a big deal.

On Friday night, I was out in town once more; a different town and different circumstances. I was with a load of girlfriends, the majority of whom were in a stable relationship, or certainly ones of longevity. Nobody had dressed to flirt – after all, apparently middle aged or older women of a certain standing don’t do that sort of thing. Certainly nobody was out to get hold of a man and have their brains fucked out for the sake of it, not even me!

But I was surrounded by others with a different story to tell, not part of my group, but certainly dressed to devour.

Ask teenager girls what they aspire to in life and some respond with the most horrific of statements; they want to be a WAG.

All they want is to go out into the city, meet up with a wannabee or established footballer, stick their fannies in their faces and end up, a few months down the line, as the next Cheryl Cole. I shudder to myself at their lack of self-worth; not merely for their weird aspiration but because they feel a need to define themselves by a man. No woman should do that and it is tragic that we are still in a situation when this happens.

However, on this Friday night, there may not have been the would-be WAGs wandering around the mild autumn streets, only groups of women with various reasons as to why they were dressed or semi-dressed up to the three times threes.

Alert: gross stereotyping coming on.

You’ve all seen them, pottering around on their stiletto heels, carrying the smallest little clutch bag containing keys and condoms, with their Facebook pouts at the ready.

They collect or mutate together into congealed conformity; all long hair, short skirts, skimpy tops, fake tans and a sense of purpose, clothed in a manner that pays no heed to the seasonal variation of our climate.

But I must stop this stereotyping at once. There are also the women who group together and do not tart themselves up to the eyeballs. They are out in the late autumn breeziness with a far more casual appearance; free to choose what they want to wear, perhaps holding a can or two of lager in hand, dying on the spot to be compared with the prospective WAGs.

The night is full of these groups of women. They are merry and alive and enjoying life, I think.

But we don’t know anything about them, about their lives, their dreams, their hopes and yet we start to make assumptions according to what they are wearing and indeed the fact that they are gathered together as a group.

And the first assumption is that they are out to find a man!

That is how conditioned we all are.

There must be a reason why they are dressed in a certain way or giggling profusely. Surely there is only one reason why these girls stay together; safety in numbers until they can shed their unity to subdivide.

Our fiendish automatic assumption, even the enlightened amongst us, is that they are officially on the pull.

But it is not that simple and who are we to imagine as such. And isn’t it tragic that we cannot instantly consider another reason why these women are out and about in the early hours of the morning; that they are just out to have fun.

As I am wandering through the night and journeying with them, I play a little game, I imagine where they have come from, what they are doing, what they hope to achieve in their evening and indeed their lives.

And I look at them and see a little of the adventures that I had when I was their age, or certainly the adventures that I would have liked, for my life was relatively sheltered.

Let’s take a quick look at a group of women then.

There’s the one who really does want to be a WAG: the exhibitionist who is the first on the dance floor, or the one who surreptitiously winds herself on the bar in the hope that a wealthy passer-by will grab her attention, or vice versa.

Then there is another who loves her evenings out with her girls but would like an alternative too. She is a little more demure than the previous girl but what she wants more than anything is a man; a boyfriend, someone to share some time with, almost irrespective of whether there is any true compatibility. The coupling is more important to them than the connection.

Although there is generalisation here, there is an element of truth.

Who else is there within this group of young women? Do they all have the same purpose in life?

Perhaps, amongst them, there are those who just want to be out with their friends, having fun, dancing, drinking, revelling in the joy of female company, not in a sexual way.

There is much to be said for groups!

There is much to be said for having a close-knit group of friends with whom to share a meal or a couple of drinks, and once more, just because they are a group of young women, rather than the group of women of my age, we should not assume that they are all desperate for a man to satisfy their every need. Sadly, as I said, that is precisely what we do.

“Girls just wanna have fun” cried Cyndi Lauper, and that is absolutely right. So shouldn’t we let them do precisely that?

Or perhaps there is the young woman who is brave enough to admit, like I did decades before, that they just fancy a fuck.

Have times really changed?

When I see these women, I actually dance in delight at their liberation and their opportunity. It may not be what the feminists strove for but I love the fact that there are more women out there taking power for themselves.

I did it one night, once. I never kissed a bloke without a serious amount of flirtatious foreplay that would take place, sometimes over a period of months. Frequently the flirtatious foreplay was so subtle I didn’t even know I was engaging in such a process.

Nowadays it does feel as though young women do not have such reticence. If they want something they go for it.

I watch a group in a bar; giggling and chatting, moving their eyes around the room. I pass them as I go to get the next bottle of wine for the muttons shying away in the corner.

All too soon, the force of the group of collective women disperses. They are gradually dissipating from the whole to the fractions, and the mathematical breakdown soon becomes multiples of two, with a few odd ones left out of the equation.

There’s safety in numbers, they said. But now there are only two. And that causes problems. The “one’s” left out feel periphery. The ones who thought they might find the love of their lives are disappointed but the ones who have caught the eye of a prospective snogger or fucker are oblivious in an instant to the needs of their friends.

And all because..........

Why do we have to play this game, and why do I have to sit on and watch, losing all sense of excitement at their liberty, knowing that ultimately everyone is just going to play the conformity game, just like I did.

I look again at the group of young women and hope to see my younger self within.

I find her and I want to grab her by the hand and tear her away. I want to tell her to be herself. I want to tell her that if she wants a fuck, then she should be more forthright and admit to herself and others that this is what she needs. I want to tell her that it is okay to love someone, to care for them, to feel an ultimate connection with another but she mustn’t lose herself, her dignity and everything that she is for the sake of any other human being, however wonderful they may be. I want to tell her that she has plenty of time. She’s not a bird – she is not designed to be monogamous and if she manages to catch the eye of a sexual partner now, it doesn’t have to be forever. I want to tell her that she will be happy and she can have fun and that enjoyment of life comes from diversity and inclusivity.

That’s what I want to tell her, only I know that she has a list of counter-arguments about babies and biological clocks and security and the safety not of numbers but of the number two.

And I cannot argue against that intuitive feeling that I know she has.

The women sit on the train at the end of the evening. They are no longer a large group of young women. Their numbers have been swelled or diminished by the additional men or the loss of some of their party to the delights of a “result” where the keys in the handbag are unused for the night but the other article might come in handy.

Nothing is straight forward but I still live in hope that the groups of girls that I see, be they clad in stilettos or be they simply enjoying an evening of sipping wine at a table in a heated shelter, learn to be unconventional, realise their own worth and feel confident to be themselves, and simply have fun with no expense to others.

Some boys take a beautiful girl

And hide her away from the rest of the world

I wanna be the one who walks in the sun.

Simple, even simplistic lyrics but I want that sunshine back on my back.

Erotic Capital

My dear Tanya. You’ve got me all going again on a fine Saturday morning but not necessarily in a positive way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/28/tanya-gold-media-ignores-feminism

Ms. Gold is fed up. She is quite right to be so. She complains that women are still not getting a fair deal. She explains that there is still a 15% pay gap between men and women which cannot possibly be right in the 21^st century. She cries in pain at the failings of the feminist movement and the fact that there seems no spunk (excuse the pun) in their activities. She says that the media is to blame for frothing women into nothing but consumers whilst simultaneously filling our minds with trivial irrelevances. As someone recently stated, there is an off button if you do not want to watch crap, and there is a choice for all not to read rubbish in the press.

Which brings me carefully back to Ms Gold’s article.

When oh when oh when are women going to stop bickering with one another and get on with the job in hand (I’m doing well with me innuendos so far)?

I am serious. And so is Tanya.

There is plenty wrong with the way that women are treated and portrayed in life, in the media, in the home.

Women do not earn as much as men for a variety of reasons. Firstly, there is an inherent misogynism in this country. Our world is ruled by men, for men. They have the ultimate power and until women realise their own worth, not as a man but as a woman – collectively – this is not going to change.

Secondly, women are paid less than men over a lifetime because they have time off work for having babies. Not only does this interruption halt their pay for a period of time, but it prevents them from climbing the professional ladder at the same pace as their male counterparts, unless they are a particular type of woman who is probably playing the game as a misogynist in tights and a pencil skirt. Thirdly, women do not have the confidence to use their erotic capital – and more of that later.

There are lots of other reasons why women do not earn as much as men but these are just three to be going on with at the moment and, as Gold points out, there are other factors to do with women being more prevalent in caring professions or public sector, therefore they are feeling the punch of redundancy more than men at present.

What Ms Gold and many feminists fail to appreciate, however, is that we are failing so many women by not empowering them with their own minds and their own bodies.

And that is the biggest tragedy of all.

Ms. Gold opened her comments with a snide hit at the new BBC television programme which appears to be a cross between Mad Men and the Virgin advert that had a group of gorgeous women marching through an airport. She is fed up with these images belittling women and putting them down as nothing but a sexual commodity.

Here’s the thing, Tanya, and I say this as a woman who is deeply committed to the feminist movement. We are a sexual commodity and we should damn well celebrate the fact.

Catherine Hakim recently wrote a book all about the subject which I believe I have referred to before.

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846144196,00.html

“Why do some people seem to lead charmed lives? They are attractive, but also lively, friendly and charismatic. People want to be around them. Doors open for them. The answer, this book shows, is in the power of erotic capital - the overlooked human asset that is at the heart of how we work, interact, make money, succeed and conduct our relationships.Catherine Hakim's groundbreaking book reveals how erotic capital is just as influential in life as how rich, clever, educated or well-connected we are. Drawing on hard evidence, she illustrates how this potent force develops from an early age, with attractive children assumed to be intelligent, competent and good. She examines how women and men learn to exploit it throughout their lives, how it differs across cultures and how it affects all spheres of activity, from dating and mating to politics, business, film, music , the arts and sport. She also explores why erotic capital is growing in importance in today's highly sexualised culture and yet, ironically, as a 'feminine' virtue, remains sidelined.Honey Money is a call for us to recognize the economic and social value of erotic capital, and truly acknowledge beauty and pleasure. This will not only change the role of women in society, getting them a better deal in both public and private life - it could also revolutionize our power structures, big business, the sex industry, government, marriage, education and almost everything we do.”

Ms Hakim was understandably defensive about her work every time I saw her on the television. She debated with many people who I greatly respect, for example the capable Laurie Penny, who writes so well for the New Statesman and occasionally the Guardian too. Zoe Williams had a terrible run-in with her over lunch and in my opinion, missed some important points in Ms. Hakim’s work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/19/catherine-hakim-interview

For Ms. Hakim is trying to highlight an important issue even if that point was not particularly well made in some people’s minds.

And it is this.

As women, we have erotic capital. We have the natural curves and kindness that enables us to have something to offer that no man on earth can. We have sexuality in our tits and in our pussies, in our legs and the way that we cover them or leave them bare. We have the ability to dress confidently and courageously without looking as though we are the local slapper. We have the opportunity to enhance our already beautiful features with an array of products or just plain soap and water, if we are sensible.

Women are beautiful. The female form is the most stunning thing known to human life, both men and women, and we are not capitalising on this and never have.

Feminists had a vital role to play throughout history. They were fighting important battles; for recognition, for enfranchisement, for equality in the workplace, for opportunity. And I for one am eternally grateful for their efforts.

However, as I have stated on more than one occasion, they did it at a cost. The feminists of the 60s burned their bras quite rightly because they wanted to make it perfectly clear that they were not at the beckon call of men. They were not mere sexual objects that could open their legs whenever a man desired as if this was their only function in life.

But what they forgot was their own enjoyment in all of this, or perhaps they had never actually found it.

Women are sexual beings and are as entitled and capable of enjoying sex as much as any man.

And we have got it! They haven’t.

Which is why I hold a slightly different view to Ms. Gold.

When I see that photograph of the actresses cum trolley-dollies in their bright red Virgin outfits, I stop and stare too. Admittedly, I am not so keen on the idea that this array of beauties prevents me from getting on with life or becoming interested and empathetic to the Miner’s strike or any other political story of the time, but I sure as hell look and I sure as hell get excited, not just for their beauty but for the fact that these are confident women, using not abusing their erotic capital and getting what they want, not what Mr. Branson or any other capitalist man wants.

This is true feminism; a woman empowered through her own body to aspire and to achieve, to be confident with her own body to ensure that she gets the things in life that she wants. Yes, she is sexy. Yes, she is stunning. Yes, she may well be using her looks to gain access to a professional ladder that may well not be there without them but why shouldn’t she?

But it is she that is making the choices.

If I looked as good as these women, I’d use my erotic capital.

This thing about choice is really important. In the past some feminists have suggested that whilst women think they are making a choice, in actual fact all they are doing is fulfilling the dream of the misogynist.

Let us take these Virgin flight attendants as a point in question.

There is the suggestion from feminists that the women here have made a choice in their career but that choice and even that career is solely there for the purpose and at the discretion of men. The only reason that they have this career is to titillate and excite a man as he travels across the Atlantic in is power-driven world, offering a kindly release from meeting after meeting. The choice of them being there is man’s and all the stupid women are doing is playing into their hands.

Well, yes, there is a possibility that this is partly true or certainly was in the past but we need to move on. We need to ensure that the choice is right back with women and that there is every possibility that some women choose to be a flight attendant because a) they want to travel to interesting places and b) they like their bodies, they are proud of their looks and they get a little sensual or sexual excitement from others appreciating them too.

It is the most subtlest of shifts that is required and like a tipping point, if all women would stop this talk of a misogynist take-over, then we could really start empowering ourselves for ourselves rather than it having anything to do with men whatsoever.

Recently, I attended a Burlesque evening. What made me so utterly content was that there were these women on the stage who were not necessarily the most beautiful girls in the world. They were not the smallest women, they were not the typical perfect size and yet they were there, performing and being exceptionally proud and delighted in their ability to be themselves. They were performing for men and women alike but most importantly they were making a statement to say, “Yes, I have something. I have something that is good and natural and I am celebrating it, in front of you all, and I am happy to do so. I am doing it for me, not for you, though if you enjoy it too, so much the better.”

They were using their erotic capital to good effect.

They were using their erotic capital not to get the better of anybody but because they were simply enjoying being a woman, and this is something that some feminists appear to want us to ignore.

Tanya Gold is right. We need more women in parliament. We need equal pay and not this ghastly gap between men and women, but we also need women to be women and to be proud of the fact. We need women to be sexual beings and ensure that there is as much right to be sexual as a woman as it is for a man.

There is no competition. We just need to lose this idea and get on with being who we are.

And when it comes to erotic capital, well even this phrase is slightly wrong.

Yes, we want women to capitalise on their womanhood, and yes, this sometimes means expressing their sexuality to the point of being erotic, but really, in most cases, we just want women to enjoy being women just as men, I hope, enjoy being men.

Men and women are different but we really have to get over this issue we have about the possible exploitation of our sexuality by men. In some ways we are doing more exploitation by not accepting the fact that we have this erotic capital. We are preventing some women from being who they want to be.

And one final little gripe, Ms, Gold. You mention how deplorable it is that women are seen as mere consumer fodder and then you add a sentence like this.

“When the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) polled 34,158 male and female executives in the private sector last year, they learned the average pay gap between men and women doing the same job is £10,031, and the average woman will, as such, be cheated out of £330,000 in her lifetime, which is a lot for a feminist, and also for a consumer.”

 which I assume suggests that you think that some of the £10K shortfall would be spent on consumer products should fair pay exist because that is what women do!

Be careful.

We can twist and turn any argument and any sentence and my point in doing this is to emphasise that we need a little conformity here. We need to unite and not fight. We need to accept the difference between men and women but most of all we need to empower women to be women and part of that means reclaiming their sexuality and stop pretending that this world is full of misogynists intent on having pussy all for themselves and their own purpose.

It is time for women to capitalise on being a woman and being themselves without any glaring snarls from feminists or misogynists alike.