Old Bats Feel Too Ugly To Get It On

As I am still down for the count and unable to bring you my usual calibre of patriarchy-denigrating fun, perhaps you will avail yourselves of this link from Darky Macintyre, who has found another all-important news item on a study done on women's sexual desire. Apparently women of menopausal age who experience diminished hotsy-totsiness do so, not because of menopause itself, but because when they look in the mirror they see ugly worthless pieces of shit. "Nearly 21 percent of the women could not think of even one attractive feature and reported an overall sense of dissatisfaction with their bodies."

Thanks, patriarchy!

Comments

[Anne]

The iron cage of beauty is too much for some people.

[David]

Several years ago I met a woman who was, and looked, significantly older than me--well over 50, and thin as a rail. Her eyes were the essence of sexuality and the perfect compliment to her long blond hair.

About a month ago a friend was in a local hospital recovering from a traffic accident. I asked if there were any cute nurses and he said that there was one, but that she was "too old." Too old? I nearly gave him a dope slap when he said she was 35.

[anonymous]

It's a funny thing, but I actually feel much sexier and more beautiful since I became invisible (in other words, since I became too "old" and "fat" to be lusted after by the hoi polloi).

I like my body much better now that no one feels a need to leer at it or make comments, both of which used to horribly embarrass me. Didn't matter what I wore, either.

[yankee transplant]

Oh god, what a brilliant study (choke, choke)
But more importantly, I'm sorry you feel like shit, Twisty. We're out here rootin' for ya'!

[martha]

While I have male friends, I have to say that very few experiences can be as powerfully anaphrodisiac for a middle-aged woman as overhearing the conversations of unknown males of almost any age, in which they (at a cafe table six inches from my cafe table, par example) evaluate the attractiveness of women they know. I'm pretty sure I'll never fuck a man again. And it's not that I feel ugly. I feel that they are assholes.

[sylvanite]

It never ceases to amaze me how neurotic some women are about their bodies. I've often noticed women obsessing about "flaws" that I've never even been concerned about personally (i.e. "My arms look fat in this dress." How many people really notice this woman's perfectly normal-looking upper arms, anyway, much less find them unattractive? I'm guessing none, but I digress). I guess I still manage to be amazed at, and appalled by, how thoroughly women internalize the messages they get that they are nothing but a piece of meat, and they'd better not have any physical "flaws" because then no man will ever want them, and they will be worthless.

[sylvanite]

And Martha comes in with examples of the meat-market evaluation. Yeesh. Do these men look into the women's mouths to evaluate their age and health? Mooooo! Or maybe baaaaa! I gues this does answer the question of how some women manage to get totally neurotic about their looks.

[martha]

Teeth, whiteness of, seems to be a big obsession with everybody lately. But the conversations that really did me in were the ones (and I heard three uncannily similar versions before I stopped going to the b&d deli for breakfast on saturdays), where a fiftyish man was explaining at great length and with poorly concealed satisfaction to a [ick]supportive woman friend [/ick] that the woman he was actually dating was (a) "too needy," (b) "wanted too much from the relationship," (c) "would like it to be more, but he didn't think he wanted it to be more."

[Anthony Staines]

Hi,
Two things - first keep well, and look after yourself first and foremost. I have some idea how you feel having had cancer five years ago.
Second, keep up the writing. You're informative, thought-provoking, clever, witty, literate, and entertaining. America needs you! The rest of us need you too.
Thanks.

[Hattie]

Well, let's go ahead and allow men decide how worthwhile we are. Sheez.

[CafeSiren]

What gets me is the unthinking way in which these studies pathologized waning sexual desire (for whatever reason).

And if the shocking finding is that women don't like their bodies, then I just have to sit, mouth agape, astounded that someone actually funded this study.

[CafeSiren]

And I have to make a small correction to Twisty's original post:

"Apparently women of menopausal age who experience diminished hotsy-totsiness do so, not because of menopause itself, but because when they look in the mirror they see ugly worthless pieces of shit."

Actually, what the study says (according to the article) is that 80% of ALL women from 35-55 look in the mirror and see ugly worthless pieces of shit.

Much better, huh?

[Summer]

Hotsy-totsiness. Right up there with lady-likeness, cutie-pieness, and honey-bunchiness.

I suppose it's a good thing I never really felt all that hotsy-totsy, otherwise, the impending ugly-worthless-piece-of-shittiness of my not-too-terribly-far-off 33rd year might be too much to take.

Damn. I hate the patriarchy more and more each day.

[TeenageCatgirl]

It's probably because their paunchy, balding, red-faced husband actually has the audacity to expect his wife to look like Jenna Jameson or whoever else young enough to be his daughter he just bashed himself off over on the Adult Channel. The women used in that study were mostly straight, which I'm thinking had a lot to do with it.

[darkymac]

TEENAGECATGIRL, The women used in that study were mostly straight, which I'm thinking had a lot to do with it.

You read it the same as I do.
I welcome the thinking that made the survey takers even ask about whether the much-medicalised woman's sexual response could be more to do with the Patriarchy telling woman she looks ugly when she gets older than with any flow of hormones - real or imagined.

The whole HRT-to-make-your-vagina-moist-and-supple-again has always begged the question of what it is that woman is asking for when she reports loss of the list of things that HRT is supposed to fix.
I'm betting that as more of the inefficacy of HRT for other than crippling menopausal symptoms shows up (the latest being a very clear increase of urinary incontinence with taking HRT), there will be alternative anti-aging snake-oil getting flogged or more women going down the mental illness or cunt-o-plasty tubes.
The Patriarchy won't let women off the sin of not being, as you all say, HOTTTT

[TeenageCatgirl]

Indeed. 'Cunt-o-plasty', that's excellent!

[TeenageCatgirl]

Interestingly enough, I watched something on TV a while ago, which featured a female naturist getting a cunt-o-plasty, because her labia weren't precisely even so she was obviously deformed. It struck me as ironic, a 'naturist' having surgery. (She also had fake tits, and they weren't even either).

[acm]

set aside pathologization of low desire.
set aside questions of whether all women have internalized loathing for their "flaws."

but, um, estrogen, anyone? I mean, anybody who has ever gone off (or stayed away from) the pill can tell you that (self-generated) desire is cyclic, so nobody should be surprised (or dismayed) if that changes when estrogen departs. there's plenty of other stuff (mental foreplay!) left to do the job...

[holly]

"Several years ago I met a woman who was, and looked, significantly older than me--well over 50, and thin as a rail. Her eyes were the essence of sexuality and the perfect compliment to her long blond hair.

About a month ago a friend was in a local hospital recovering from a traffic accident. I asked if there were any cute nurses and he said that there was one, but that she was "too old." Too old? I nearly gave him a dope slap when he said she was 35."

You are the patriarchy, David.

[Hattie]

The estrogen thing, yes. I refused the "hormone invitation" myself and am I ever glad I did. I couldn't believe the symptoms my friends were putting up with for the sake of maintaining supple gonads. But their husbands and boyfriends (and sometimes girlfriends) demanded moistness.
Astroglide is pretty good.

[Mandos]

"You are the patriarchy, David."

This is interesting. I was actually waiting for someone to say that.

Which brings us to an important point: most of this discussion seems to imply that it is inherently patriarchal and oppressive to discuss/evaluate sexual attractiveness based on looks. Does this imply a wish for a sexual order that is wholly non-visual?

[Hattie]

I would like a sexual order that is erotic. But fat chance of that in this country.

[Betsy]

David - For starters, the discussion was about women's sexual desire in relation to their own self-image, not men's evaluation of whether women are attractive. Your post seemed to confuse these issues, as you weighed in on a discussion about women's sexual desire and self-image with a response about your and your friend's reactions to a couple of women's looks.

Once again, deep breath: Women's sexual desire (does not equal) men's attraction to them.

[Mandos]

"I would like a sexual order that is erotic. But fat chance of that in this country."

"erotic" meaning...? I know the general meaning of the term "erotic" but do you have a specific definition?

[Hattie]

Ahh, if you have to ask...
You make my point.
Read Colette.