Five months ago, I had sex for the last time. And when I say last, I mean final – I am never, ever having sex again. And happily so.
Of course, I didn’t realise it would be the grand finale at the time.
So brainwashed am I by marketing aimed at women, that I’d had my hair dyed and my body waxed at the Aveda spa on my way to Soho House in anticipation.
The man I’d been dating for six months initially texted to cancel, so I’d sent him pictures of me in a new silver sequin skirt. He duly turned up at the London hotel suite I’d booked and paid for.
We had vigorous, pummelling sex while the thought of the next day’s cystitis gatecrashed my brain. I oohed and aahed and bore it, which is what desperate older women do, isn’t it?
The next morning, he woke to have wordless, one-sided sex with me again before having a shower and leaving without offering to pay for anything, not even the chocolate he nibbled from the mini bar.
I’d been seduced by the idea of a handsome man finding me attractive, taken in by the initial weeks of love bombing.
But now I realised the actual time we spent in bed was not one of affection: he was merely using my body.
So brainwashed am I by marketing aimed at women, that I’d had my hair dyed and my body waxed at the Aveda spa on my way to Soho House in anticipation, Liz Jones writes
I felt humiliated, rejected. All the anticipation – the treatments, putting on make-up, the nerves waiting in the bar – snuffed out in his careless treatment of me.
I thought this man, so dashing, had finally come along to make up for all the disappointing, orgasm-free couplings of three previous boyfriends and a husband, but he was as clueless as the rest of them. And he didn’t seem to care.
So at 66, I join the one in four women over 50 who say they now have no interest in sex. The great irony being that this new survey, in which 81 per cent of a sample of 2,000 women said their libido had declined since the menopause, was commissioned by a vitamin and minerals firm.
In other words, we are being lectured, as we have been throughout our lives, that we are somehow lacking, unwell or simply not trying hard enough, and we need to spend money – in this case, by buying a supplement – to cure ourselves.
But I wouldn’t say my libido decreased past 50. I have wanted – and have had – much more sex in the past 15 years than at any other time in my life. In fact I’ve always had a very strong sex drive. I want to be dominated in bed, caressed; I fantasise about men.
It’s more that I’ve tired of the treatment that comes with sex. My experience is that men my age or older are clumsy and selfish. This exchange between two people, that should be about love and support is, in reality, so often about point-scoring, defeat, near-misses and cheating.
So I’m retiring; sore, battered, bruised and frankly exhausted.
This goes against the grain in an age when being sexually active as an older woman is sold to us as empowering – to my mind, it’s anything but.
These days, women need to be foxy, for ever! There are endless articles and podcasts advising older women like me how to regain the ‘spark’. But old men? They can just turn up. As ever.
Mind-blowing regular sex has, since the 1960s, been marketed at women as the end goal. Without it, you’re incomplete. You won’t be happy (or have children, a long marriage, security).
I grew up in the 1960s and 70s when my reading matter evolved swiftly from Diana magazine (all tomboy adventures on ponies) to Jackie when I was 11, where I was drip-fed pin-ups of hunks, tips on how to kiss and comic strips featuring a flaxen-haired, long-limbed heroine who always managed to fall in love with a perfect boy.
My experience is that men my age or older are clumsy and selfish, says Liz
At my all-girls’ high school we made fun of the female teachers, who were mostly grey-haired spinsters. We were too stupid to realise these interesting, dedicated, clever women had lost fiancés in the war, or found there were no longer enough men to go around.
They didn’t bleat. They chose instead a life of service, becoming nurses, teachers.
In the 1980s, Cosmopolitan took up the baton in the race towards sexual and romantic fulfilment, offering numerous quizzes you needed to pass, like an exam.
Drummed into my brain was that women should be grateful for male attention. Men are doing us a favour. It’s our job to be ready when he comes along. We must be dressed sexily, thong arranged over our oven-ready nether regions, like so many plucked chickens.
But all the advice, the pursuit of physical perfection, only served to make me feel not good enough.
The result? I didn’t have sex until I was 32. I had numerous crushes in my 20s, most notably on the boy who lived next door. (I finally did date him in my 50s. He was so sexually unadventurous, when I showed him the sex toy menu in my trendy hotel room, he said, ‘Those look awfully expensive’.)
The longer I remained a virgin, the more I built up sex in my mind. At 32, I did finally go back to a man’s flat, thinking it would be magical, that I had made it. I was normal!
He made me watch a horror film before showing me to his bedroom and turning off the light. I felt so unattractive, I assumed he’d gone to sleep elsewhere. But, oh no. The experience was painful and brief.
A decade passed as, disillusioned, I threw myself into my career, which is when I met my future husband. I was 42, he was 26. I was flattered he was interested in me, only discovering later that he’d cheated repeatedly and had been after my money and contacts (I was then editor of a glossy magazine).
There have been only two on/(but mostly)off boyfriends since. The second, a man in his 60s, was the one too mean to experiment at that hotel. He seemed decades older than me. I do think women age so much better than men – we are fitter, more passionate about life, interesting. And we were so very different: he was retired and lazy, I’m a workaholic, OCD nightmare.
That brings me on to the latest man. We met at a party in the Midlands last July. I loved everything about him. Hovering near 60, he frequented the gym, smelled of Dior, was well groomed and resembled Daniel Craig.
Given I felt time was running out – who will want me when I’m 70? – I was quite forward. As I live in Yorkshire, I’d booked a hotel for the night, and we were up in my room within two hours of meeting. He complimented me – ‘beautiful face, beautiful baadddy’ (he had an accent) – and my caution went out of the window.
He was a selfish, vanilla lover, but I felt perhaps I could change him.
Coming down to breakfast the next morning, he said, ‘We are the naughtiest couple in the hotel.’ I felt, ‘Hooray! I’m not on my own, pretending to be interested in my phone.’
We had sex every time we met – five times in 24 hours when he came to my house. But the crucial truism all the sex surveys miss is that older men must take some blame for older women’s disillusionment (especially some single ones, who have no one nagging them to take care of themselves).
Like many older men, my latest lover had learned his moves and stuck to them over the years, with little imagination or concern for the person on the other end.
I felt wasted, unappreciated, given I exercise, dress well and invest in endless beauty treatments, including Botox. Too many older men – not this new one, thankfully, which is why I put up with so much – think women are not visually stimulated. But, just like them, we really are. The older man’s unironed T-shirts, long toenails and varicose veins turn my stomach.
I tried to communicate my needs – women care less what others think post-menopause – not by saying, ‘This is getting boring and repetitive’ but a more encouraging, ‘How about talking dirty or even trying . . ?’
‘Why do you always say that?’ he replied. And carried on. Old dog and all that.
But still I persevered with a man who was unreliable and failed even to bring a bottle of wine when he stayed at mine for the weekend.
For the six months we were together, I was thrilled to achieve loved-up coupledom at a table in a fancy restaurant (he texted he loved me, wanted us to live together) after decades spent eating alone, weekends alone, travelling alone.
But still I persevered with a man who was unreliable and failed even to bring a bottle of wine when he stayed at mine for the weekend, Liz Jones writes
He gave me butterflies, but the constant ghosting, the never putting his hand in his pocket, the fact all he ever wanted to do was have straightforward sex, meant I held a small part of me back, observing, knowing full well he’d never change.
I had bought into the idea that having a boyfriend gave me status, made me acceptable, not a pariah – and initially this felt hard to give up.
It is also the reason I overlooked the fact he didn’t make me laugh or even consider my feelings when he cancelled on my birthday. (I had already packed for our mini break.)
Even after that final time we had sex – a few days before Christmas (I’d arranged for the hotel to erect a fully-decorated 6ft tree in my room) – I didn’t dump him immediately.
But then he cancelled again on New Year’s Eve, after I had spent £200 in Sainsbury’s on food and champagne. ‘I’m ill. It will keep,’ he texted. ‘Well, I won’t,’ I replied.
I’d had enough. The shy, self-doubting worm turned, finally – even before I discovered he’d been cheating on me with multiple women.
He had seen me naked, I had told him how my husband had cheated, even the fact that my siblings had taken my money. And still he decided to hurt the person who had only been sweet to him. I vowed never to trust a man again.
I now realise that women, hoodwinked into behaving like hookers, often don’t value themselves, meaning we put up with behaviour from lovers that we’d never tolerate from a friend.
The biggest revelation from this last ‘relationship’ was that a) a man having sex with me doesn’t mean he even likes me; and b) no matter that I went to the effort of putting up a Christmas tree in my hotel suite, it didn’t make a man love me.
I recognise now that throughout my life I had been having sex with men not for pleasure but to feel normal. I don’t just mean I wanted a plus-one or someone to crack the almonds at Christmas, though that’s nice. I believed being in a couple is the only way to be.
I saw how much my dad loved my mum – they still held hands in their 80s – and I thought I deserved that, too. I thought sex was part of the deal.
But all I’ve got for my troubles is shoddy treatment. So, for that reason, rather than losing my libido, I’m calling time.
In many ways, disillusionment or disinterest in sex past the age of 50 or 60 is a natural phase of life. A time when you are perhaps busy dealing not just with adult children, but ailing parents. So many women my age I’ve spoken to say they don’t want yet another item on their ‘to-do’ list.
There is no shame in saying you can no longer be bothered.
Sexlessness certainly isn’t reserved for us singletons. You can be happily married in a sexless marriage, although society vehemently denies this.
Older couples who are still together but perhaps have tired of sex (I’m sure men feel the pressure to perform, too) can take comfort in companionship, shared interests, memories.
Holding each other, laughing at shared jokes, a kind word or gesture, just someone who offers to help – these all mean more than a fleeting moment of sexual gratification.
If you have that mutual respect from someone who doesn’t judge you, then you are so lucky, and surely that’s enough? Feeling loved doesn’t have to be about sex.
So, what does life look like without sex, the combat sport I have spent my whole life training for? I suspect over time I’ll feel as I did when I fell off my horse and broke my ribs. I sold her saddle and suddenly I felt that pressure to get back on board disappear.
There may be some who think my resolve will weaken. But I assure you it won’t. After all, isn’t the act itself overrated?
Isn’t it all a bit . . . strange, when you think about it? I’m with Sex And The City’s Miranda here: ‘Let’s just get it over with!’
I’ve always found the best part of getting dressed up for a date is when you get home – alone! – and you can breathe out rather than hold in that tummy, peel off the lashes, unhook the bra, fling off the heels and pull on a warm nightie, sitting cosy in the middle of the bed with a dog who really does love you, unconditionally.
I think I’m funny, fit, attractive in some lights, generous, kind, clever; but despite all those attributes I have never met a man who showed me respect, or was my equal.
They should have been grateful, not me.
If I meet an attractive man again, I will not be having sex with him. I have learned my lesson.
It was all such hard work for so little return, so much disappointment! The honing and the harvesting. The hoping and the heartache.
Do you know what? I’m really glad I’m done.
