It started innocently enough. I was down the country, in a small village where a friend of mine had grown up. There wasn’t much by way of nightlife, but like all Irish villages, it had a pub.
It was one of those country places where three generations of a family come to have a few drinks and a chat. I didn’t mind. I love pubs like that, so Friday night found us in the local having a few drinks with the locals.
I got chatting to Mick. He was drinking the black stuff; I was on the beer. We were arguing about literature in general and Zadie Smith in particularly, sinking back the pints and having a laugh.
Mick bought me a drink and then another. I tried to return the favour, but he wouldn’t hear of it. As every woman knows, when a strange man offers to buy her a drink, chances are he has more on his mind than a chivalrous concern for her hydration levels. A drink may be just a drink, but under certain circumstances it is an offer of more than an alcoholic beverage.
A nice girl should say no if she is not interested in the bloke doing the offering. Anything else is impolite. Unless she happens to be broke of course, in which case, all men are fair game and turning down free booze is like turning your nose up at manna from heaven.
But with Mick I had no such qualms. When he asked me to join him outside for a cigarette, I, in my innocence, assumed that tobacco was his objective. I was half-right. He held his John Player Blue lovingly in one hand and made a lunge for me with the other.
You could say I was surprised, but that’s putting it mildly: Mick was 75 if he was a day. But he was a powerfully built man, tall, his back still straight and a lot stronger than I would have expected. I guess it must be true – Guinness is good for you.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. After all, I do know that old people have sex. At the same time, I had not thought that a man Mick’s age would ever make a pass at me, that he would want to, or that he thought I might give him a favourable answer.
You can dress it up any way you like, but I suppose that my attitude is ageist.
In truth, I have no problem with the idea of an older man. An ex of mine is a full 15 years older than me. But I draw the line at someone who qualifies for a bus pass. Yes, Mick was interesting, intelligent and he made me laugh, but sexual attraction is often based on physical appearance more than personality. And while I find freckles cute – for the moment at least – liver spots are a definite no-no.
We may live in a society that is saturated with sex, but it’s mostly one kind of sex. Sexuality and lust is seen as the preserve of the young, fit and attractive. While sex in the media is most frequently straight, this is slowly changing. But with the notable exception of A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late Life Adventures in Sex and Romance by Jane Juska, we almost never see, think or hear of older people enjoying sex. Oscar Wilde got it wrong – sex for seniors is the real love that dare not speak its name.
Older people are frequently seen as asexual. We assume that young people are interested in sex and that this interest diminishes with age. But our perceptions are not borne out by the facts.
Older people have sex more frequently and generally report having happier sex lives than young people. The website SeniorSex.org reports that 58% of men and 50% of women aged 70 and older engage in sexual activity at least once a week. Among these seniors, 61% of women and 75% of men reported very high levels of satisfaction with their sex lives.
In America, adults over 50 are one of the fastest growing groups to be infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. This is because many older people do not consider condoms necessary, as there is no risk of pregnancy.
Anecdotal reports suggest that life in retirement villages is not the quiet twilight years you’d hope for your folks, but happens at full swing.
For most us, the idea of our parents having sex is a disturbing thought. No scratch that, not merely disturbing: it can be downright gross. Well, I hate to break it to you, but chances are your parents have a great sex life. And if they are healthy, your grandparents probably do too.
So what happened with Mick? Well, every girl has had at least one occasion where she is on the receiving end of an unwanted advance. There are a number of ways in which to deal with the situation.
At first I tried what I call the Cosmo approach. According to women’s magazines, keeping an even tone of voice and stating your objections clearly in short concise sentences is the best method of conflict resolution with members of the opposite sex. Did it work? Hell, no!
Mick was not to be put off by a gentle rebuff, so I had to be firm. 40 years of marriage had obviously toughened his hide, and this was less than useless too. By now the situation had moved from pass to sexual harassment and I was getting a little scared. He had me cornered in the dark and all the reasoning in the world had not resulted in Mick removing his hand from my breasts.
When I was but a slip of a girl, my dear old dad explained to me the efficacy of aiming for the balls in order to make a quick get-away. I have never had to use it before, and Mick’s age made me reluctant to try it now. Damn respect for the elderly. Where the hell was his respect for me?
I chickened out and did the next best thing. I stood on his toe, hard. Blast the manufacturers of Viagra! Pfizer can expect a strongly-worded letter from me in the post. But there’s a young lady at Schuh who will be receiving an unexpected gift.
You were right – the stilettos were just perfect.