Middle-Aged Women are In!

Middle-aged women are “in.” What a relief, ladies (and the people who love us)! We’re no longer undesirable. No longer untouchable. No longer like the Elf on the Shelf peering down on the action happening under the mistletoe and menorah. We’re the “it” girls at long last. So proclaims Hollywood AND the media. Halleluiah and hooray!

We middle-aged babes are finally having our long-deserved moment in the sun and on the Big Screen. Movies are being made about our wild sex lives. We’re hot and not in a deary, sweaty hot flash menopausal way! Think Babygirl with Nicole Kidman, apparently the new Everywoman of midwifery. Think Demi Moore grabbing beaucoup awards this year, (although alas, not an Oscar). Commercials and sexy middle-aged products are sure to follow.

Middle-Aged Women are So In!

Oh, yes, this is the golden age of middle-agedom. And not just midlife. There’s Dame Helen Mirren, chic and slim, swanning around on the Red Carpet, a hipster in sneakers. You go, you classy dame Dame.

Sure, there’s a price to be paid for all this middle-aged pleasure and fame. Lovely Nicole K can no longer move her forehead and eyebrows — all, sadly, immobilized by beaucoup Botox. Still, she’s garnered heaps of praise for her milk-drinking performance in Babygirl, slithering and grunting on all fours on a dirty hotel floor in the name of kinky sexual liberation.

Yes, today there’s much glory (and cash) to be had in spotlighting — instead of gaslighting — women’s pleasure!

In and Relatable, Too!

And all these midlife ladies in the movies are so truly so relatable to us, the movie-going, popcorn-munching masses, right? I mean, aren’t you, just like Anne Hathaway, Demi Moore, the aforementioned Nicole K, Laura Dern, slender as a reed? Don’t you wear designer clothes — even to the market and are you possessed of perfect hair and make-up — even in bed, even post-coitally? And, of course, don’t you — don’t we all — work at swell jobs like gallery owners, artists, and CEOs?

Plus, in an equally relatable and/or ironic twist, the flicks’ midlife fems are having all their sexual fun with younger guys! To this, my husband stomps his bunioned feet and pouts. He says it’s “unfair.” Where are the “manly” potbellies? The wrinkles? The receding hairlines? The hairy ears? The belching? The farting? I’m sorry. I mean the flatulence! The bottles of Viagra?

The Men Complain!

Still, cinéma vérité aside, me and my man were having a good ‘ole time even before middle-aged and by extension, older canoodling was proclaimed hip. It is, however, in this brave New World of older gals being sexy, a relief to be out of the closet. Now, when I buy lovely lingerie, I don’t have to pretend it’s for my non-existent future daughter-in-law’s bridal shower. Now, I can proudly proclaim, “Yeah, it’s for me, bitch!”

Sexy Back?

I am left, however, with one question: if Nicole K and cohorts are bringing midlife sexy back, does that mean we can all start singing Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” again, or is that still verboten? What are the rules there? Are we still mad at JT about any number of sins he’s committed over the years? Or are we over it/them? Can we just admit we love that catchy little ditty?

(Oh, dear! Am I showing my age by asking that question?)