Too many heterosexual women are missing out on orgasms
A few years ago, my friend Eve visited her mother in Florida. She was acting really odd.
“I need to confide in you,” her mother finally told her in hushed tones that could not conceal her giddiness. “I’ve been seeing a man.”
Phew, Eve thought to herself, relieved it wasn’t something health-related or that her mom had wired money to a Nigerian prince.
Then her mom said something Eve did not expect to hear.
“Evie, Evie, how’d he know what to do with his fingers? Has that ever happened to you?”
What “happened” was that Eve’s mother had experienced an…
No, it’s not that there aren’t enough potential partners
You’re 70, you’ve been widowed for a few years, you’re lonely and you’re ready to find love, or at least companionship, again.
It shouldn’t be too hard given the millions of never-married, widowed and divorced people age 60 and older, and the rise of dating apps especially for Boomers, although many are finding success on apps for ages, such as Tinder.
So what’s the problem?
Your adult kids.
Author Dina Gachman had a sweet story in the New York Times about her 70-year-old dad who was widowed in 2018 and, she discovered, was on Tinder looking for love. …
The stereotype has real-life consequences on women’s health
In her street clothes, she looked like the quintessential “little old lady,” a diminutive, seemingly frail older woman with likely not much to offer.
“Her appearance allowed people to make her into an affectionate doll. … She was made cute and sweet and accessible,” is how journalist Janice Kaplan describes her.
The “little old lady” was the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020 at age 87.
A relentless advocate for women’s rights and social issues with a whip-smart brain, The Notorious RBG was a force to be reckoned with, but she didn’t look like it…
Actor Kate Winslet isn’t afraid to be in her aging body and face in life and on television— why is that such a big deal?
There’s been much written about Kate Winslet’s popular HBO series ”Mare of Easttown,” but what’s gotten the most buzz lately is less about the plot about small-town police detective Mare Sheehan and more about something that almost didn’t happen.
As she strips her clothes off in a sex scene, Winslet reveals “a bulgy bit of belly” that probably would have gone unnoticed by many of us were it not for her sharing that she wouldn’t allow the director to cut it. Naked, Winslet looked every bit like the middle-aged woman that she is, and just about every middle-aged woman saw…
Nothing boosts a middle-aged woman’s libido like a new lover
Many years ago when I was relatively newly divorced, I was sitting on the sidelines of my son’s Little League game and a fellow mom sidled up to me and we began to chat. Eventually, it got around to the topic of sex. Do not underestimate how often that subject comes up at youth sports games.
She confided that after few decades of years of marriage, she wasn’t really feeling it in the bedroom with her husband, a man I knew and who seemed like a good guy. “I’ve lost interest in sex,” she sighed.
She asked me what it…
How can women feel good about aging into their future self if we perpetuate negative narratives?
In her book The Genius of Women: From Overlooked to Changing the World, which highlights the achievements of women who have long been ignored, undermined, and overlooked, author Janice Kaplan wonders what the world would be like if women had the same early support and encouragement in developing their potential as men have. What would the rest of their life look like, and how would their fulfilled potential benefit society?
We’ll never know, but we can imagine. Many women have experienced being ignored, undermined, overlooked.
It would be easy to point the finger at men, but it’s not all men’s…
Marginalized women often feel ignored by society way before midlife
As a never-married woman, Melissa Blake has a lot to say on her blog, So About What I Said, about love, dating, marriage and relationships.
Mostly that it’s not happening, even though she’s at an age when she “should” have it together — husband, kids, happily ever after. Just a few years younger than Stacey Abrams, who forever has to answer why she’s still single, Blake is never asked that.
Why? Maybe because the 39-year-old is disabled. As she tweeted this week:
Fun fact: I literally never get asked why I’m not married yet, even though society loves to ask…
At 47, she’s at an age when women are considered invisible and undesirable
You’re a highly respected beloved politician, voting rights activist that flipped your state blue and prolific romance writer whose latest book, a thriller, has just been published to acclaim. Of course you’re going to be asked about … your love life?
Yes, if you’re a single woman. which is where Stacey Abrams found herself this past week.
In a Sunday morning interview, Erin Moriarty pressed Abrams about when she has time for a personal life. It’s been hard recently, Abrams said, mentioning that a budding relationship had ended right before the pandemic. And then came the questions single women hear…
Focus on what they’ve accomplished, not just longevity
The divorce announcement by Bill and Melinda Gates this week sent ripples through the world, not only concerning what it might mean to their charitable foundation, but also the broader picture — if two billionaires who could easily afford access to the very best marital counselors, couples retreats and life coaches couldn’t make it, well, who can?
Money may make life easier but there’s no guarantee it will keep a marriage intact. …
Women are having babies in their 40s, 50s and even older, refusing to be defined by a narrow window of fertility
New Hampshire teacher Barbara Higgins gave birth to a son after three hours of labor in March.
Three hours of labor is truly impressive (and enviable!), but that’s not what makes her birth unique. Higgins is 57 years old.
She joins a rising number of women who are having children later in life, women like actors Halle Berry, at 47; Laura Linney, at 49, and Kelly Preston at 48.
The number of women in their 40s having babies has been rising almost continuously since 1985. There were 959 births to women aged 50 and over in 2018, up from 840…
Vicki Larson
Award-winning journalist, coauthor of “The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels,” mom, changing the narrative about older women
