I have a dear friend who once confessed to me that he was afraid of his partner aging. He’d had the experience, once before, of losing attraction to a partner. It was a painful process; he didn’t know how to talk to her about it. He was in his thirties, when he told me this, and he noted that he looked around at other women in their thirties and could already see changes to their bodies that he found less attractive. A little more weight, a little more sagging. He felt ashamed of this.
I wanted to be understanding, in this conversation. But it also made me a little stressed. How many other men feel this way, deep down, but don’t want to express it?
Afterwards, I asked another friend if he had any concerns about his attraction to women as they aged. “Not really,” he said.
“But you’re not, like, wanting to bang women in their sixties,” I said. “Doesn’t that worry you?”
He shrugged. Then he spoke about how he could see beauty in women of many ages, how sex wasn’t everything in a relationship, how love leads to rose-colored glasses, and how he expected that attraction would shift as he aged too. It would all work out. There would be affection and physical intimacy. Everything was fine.
I felt better.
Some days, I feel quite conscious of my age. I notice that I don’t want to share with others the ways I see my own appearance changing, for fear that if I point out the details, they’ll notice them more too. There are, certainly, ways that I think I have become more attractive as I’ve aged — losing the “baby fat” in my cheeks, becoming more confident, starting aesthetic practices (e.g., eyebrow shaping) that I didn’t do previously. But still, every day I don’t wear sunscreen, I feel a pang of guilt.
I also feel a bit ashamed that I care. There are many ways in which I am not a particularly appearance-obsessed person: I don’t do anything with my hair; I’ll wear it in a stupid-looking bun on the top of my head all the time; I optimize for comfortable clothes, rather than sexy; I don’t do make-up or botox or much hair removal. And I usually feel pretty good, about my body.
But as I age, I see the ways that I have been socialized to value women’s beauty. “They have sunk their hooks into me,” I think, about the faceless hordes. I cannot tear those hooks out.
A friend recently summarized some Rob Burbea talk to me. “We measure ourselves by what we pay attention to.” I was talking about working out, and an increased desire to be stronger than other people. I’m currently dating someone who a) is very attractive and b) works out a lot. I notice how that impacts me. Often, it’s fun, easy. We both have a lot of appreciation for the other’s appearance. We admire each other; we encourage each other in our aesthetic goals. E.g., we both go to the gym together a lot, and I love that. But every coin has two sides, and I notice that this dynamic also makes me confront the hooks, and I find myself wondering how much value I’ll lose once I’m no longer “pretty.”
I wish people related to age differently. I think there can be a wild celebration of aging. I remember feeling this when I’d read fantasy books, and the crones were the wisest, most powerful witches — grandmothers to be respected and seek help from.1 Going through the phases of life was a rite of honor.
But perhaps I’ve always been a bit more open to old age? Even as a teen, coming into my own sexuality, I remember that I would often look at older men and find them perfectly attractive. I’d be happily gushing about stars in their late 40s, and my friends would go “ew” and return to sighing over Orlando Bloom.
But I have my limits too. When I first joined Feeld, I set my age range quite wide — well into the 50s, I think. But I found, as I swiped, that I consistently didn’t feel that excited about the older men. I ended up trying to reset my limits, but Feeld is too buggy to let me do that, so oh well. I use the app less and feel bad that I’ve wasted folks’ time.
How do I want to relate to aging, in myself and in partners? How do I wish others related to aging too?
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I first have some thought like “let us learn to see beauty everywhere.”
A few months ago, I was having dinner with friends, and we were talking about the nature of love. At some point, I gave the example of feeling love when you’re walking down the street, and you see an old lady sitting on a bench, wrapped in her thick wool coat, the autumn sun highlighting the crevices of her face — it’s such a perfect, sweet image that your heart swells.
Is that love? We wondered. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s wonder?
Close enough. It’s a warm, open-hearted appreciation & affection.
I want us all to be able to see this and feel this. When I think of older women, I think, again, of the crones in the books I read as a child. I think of the famous older actresses who are still crushing it in their profession: Golda Rosheuvel and Adjoa Andoh from Bridgerton, Shohreh Aghdashloo in The Expanse, Meryl Streep, of course.2 These are powerful, striking entities. I have so much admiration for them, and I hope to become one someday.
Okay, so what? So we can see their beauty. Seeing beauty is different from sexual attraction. What do you do about the problem of fading sexual attraction as one ages?3
I’m confused about this. I know that my parents were still having sex well into their fifties. When do people usually stop?4 There are cultures that are known for endorsing sex with older women (or at least, not shaming it — their reaction is a shoulder shrug, and that itself is notable). If people are having sex well into old age, then it must be possible to maintain physical attraction? Or maybe the old folks banging are not really very physically attracted to each other; perhaps they’re relying on fantasy and porn?
Let’s assume they are physically attracted. What do you do, knowing that? Is there any action one can take now to make it more likely that you’ll be in a partnership that maintains attraction as you age? (Besides, y’know, asking your partner to wear sunscreen and exercise and such?) Only date people who already find older folks hot? Or maybe you can both watch movies with older actors and try to appreciate them as hotties? I’m generally pretty averse to “you should try to change who you are naturally attracted to” arguments, although I also want people to do at least a little work interrogating their internalized racism, ageism, ableism, fatphobia, etc.5
Maybe the best you can do, to maintain attraction, is to simply find ways to enhance your love and respect for your partner. Gratitude practices. Make sure you support them in living a flourishing life, and then witness them in their power. Love and respect are often a turn-on.6
Also, y’know, there’s all the usual advice, like maintain creativity in your sex lives — play, be kinky, keep the surprises coming. Keep it hot. Be a little twisted. Maybe the psychological games become more and more powerful, as you age and physical appearance is less of an immediate turn-on.
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Let me take a step back here and remember: relationships are about so much more than just sex.
Romantic life-partner relationships can be tricky because they encompass so much. You’re trying to find a person who you feel erotic energy with, but you’re also looking for someone who will be a good father and housemate and sometimes-therapist and friend and spider-catcher and... on and on.7
I want to appreciate how incredibly rich relationships are. How huge they are. And remember that sex is only one component.
I wanted to write “one tiny component,” but then I was like, “well, maybe it’s not so tiny.” But how much of a typical romantic relationship is sex, really? 1/10th?
Uh, how do we even measure this? Time spent? Importance? Maybe sex doesn’t take up a lot of time but it turns out erotic energy is woven into everything, impacting the way you relate to your partner. Maybe you don’t have the same depth of love, without the sex.
I don’t quite buy that. Or like, I am an erotic creature. There would be something missing in my life if I couldn’t have sex. There would be even more severely missing in my life if I couldn’t have sex or masturbate. So, I get that erotic energy is powerful. But also, there are so many people who I don’t feel much erotic energy with, and nonetheless I have powerful, deep relationships with them.
I think for many people, sex often starts as a more dominant part of their relationships (you’re all excited about your crush, hooking up all the time) and then fades to be a lesser pillar. Other elements turn out to be more important.8 When I imagine a great partnership, even if sex fades all the way to zero, I expect to still be left with an incredibly rich, full-of-love-and-life connection.
Related thought: I like hearing my partners tell me “you’re beautiful.” But I especially like it when I know they are referring to my wholeness, to who I am, not just my physical appearance. Once, I was laying with a date in the sun and the grass, and he told me I was beautiful. I pushed back — sure, I’m good-looking, but I’m not that pretty, there are lots of people way more beautiful than me, something something. He groaned. “I’m not telling you you’re the most beautiful. But it’s not even a scale. You’re beautiful in the way this tree is beautiful. It’s beautiful even if there are a million other trees.” Oh. Something about that clicked for me. I want people to see my beauty in the same way they see the beauty in trees. It doesn’t need to mean anything about comparison or sexual desire. This frame is reassuring: it is much easier to believe we will always find our lovers tree-beautiful, no matter how they age.
Where does all of this leave me? I suppose I want us all to recognize that reduced attraction and a fading sex life are (likely?) possibilities with our partners.9 But I also want us to relate to that with acceptance, with an understanding of everything else that relationships are built upon, and perhaps even with a curiosity or eagerness to see what kind of beauty emerges without sex as the foundation of the partnership.10 I expect we’ll all grieve, as sex fades from our lives — much like we will grieve as our health fades. That’s okay, but I don’t want the grief to fully consume us and twist us. I want us to still value what remains.