Sexy

Me protesting with ACT UP, 1989 (at the age of 25). Photo: Tracey Litt

At 58, I feel sexier than I ever did before, which has frankly come as a surprise. Sexier in all senses: thinking about sex more, and also more burning-hot appealing. I feel like a babe. It's odd: older women are supposed to be the vast unsexy continent of humanity. But anyone who thinks that doesn't really know lesbians. Anyone who thinks that doesn't really know straight women, for that matter.

Doesn't really know know me. When I think of myself in my 20s, such a cute, sly, interesting-looking girl in retrospect but feeling at the time so painfully undesirable, so embarrassingly uncool, so (life is so stupid) fat, with goofy hair, feeling too awkward and anxious to produce a spark in anyone… I just want to go to that sweet and happening young dyke and tell her, "Baby, any of these fools would be lucky to have you!" And I want to grab her and kiss her vehemently, and make her look at her body in the mirror.

There she is in photographs. I remember her gazing with longing at C, K, J, S, and M, feeling they could never possibly want her. And actually feeling ashamed — roiling with shame! — that she still wanted them anyway, as though feeling lust for someone who did not return it was some kind of assault.

In my mouth this morning, hot, slightly swollen frozen blueberries bursting against warm oatmeal, the texture exquisite against my red inner cheek. I've discovered it's the part of my mouth that has the most sensation. A demented amount of these berries, piquant and only a little sweet, the oatmeal slipping and sliding inside my mouth, with the occasional crunch of chopped walnuts. The kind of pleasure that makes me throw my head back.

Experiences like this are more important to me than they used to be. Because I am more important to me than I used to be. My day-to-day experiences, feelings, bodily sensations, boundaries, and needs are far more important than they ever were to me, and this is what has made my life so much better than it was at 23, or 26, or 34.

In my 20s or early 30s I read a fantasy novel by the great Patricia McKillip, in which one member of a race of evil, beautiful, powerful beings tells a human who has just discovered that she has the same powers, "[What we're about is] not compassion, but passion." She was saying that if this young human woman joined her happy kinfolk in the evil race, she would experience extreme delights and unbearably wonderful sensations, and never have to worry about right and wrong again, because this species just didn't give two shits about it.

When I was younger I apparently believed this — that people who were amoral and hurt others had great access to gratification and fun. While those of us who occasionally felt compassion for our fellow creatures were doomed to pallid enjoyments and anxious abstinence.

The people in my family who hurt others seemed to get what they want. I had the fantasy for many years that if I could only be like them, I would get whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. If I could only not care about other people, I would get hot pleasure on the regular and my wish would be the universe's command.

Once, in my 30s, I tried dyeing my hair black, so I would resemble all the mean people in my family. I thought it would give me license, finally, to do what I wanted, to say no when I meant no and fuck you when I meant fuck you. My black hair, however, only resulted in one student telling me cheerfully, "Wow! Love the Goth look!"

I understood finally that it wasn't lack of concern for others that got people what they wanted. What it was was paying attention to what they wanted — having that be at least as important as other people's wishes. Right and wrong remains deeply important to me, but I have finally grasped that devaluing oneself, abandoning one's boundaries, and feeling unentitled to pleasures and needs has nothing to do with right and wrong.

Maybe this is why I feel hotter. I also feel more whole. More real. And much more powerful.

This was a gradual process, but it was particularly once I turned 50 that I felt vigorous, intensely strong, energetic, and capable. Menopause made me burst out with confidence like a werewolf prickling with fur all over, and whether it was these physical changes or the much deeper emotional changes I made, I finally felt capable of being what I am.

This made me sexier. No longer did I have to pretend to be smaller, lesser, or more like other people.

I won't pretend that this was easy. Pleasure isn't always easy for all of us in all its manifestations, and it can be fraught with fear for reasons that are as numerous as stars in the sky. What changed was that in its loudest and largest forms it became something I was able to bear, because my bodymind was revealed as infinitely stronger and deeper than I'd imagined.