SARAH VINE: Ignore this hyped-up nonsense about women's sex lives

09/09/2023

SARAH VINE: Ignore this hyped-up nonsense about women’s sex lives

READ MORE: I know all too well why so many Britons loathe their bodies

Turn on the TV or flick through the pages of any glossy magazine and you’ll get the impression that women in their 50s and beyond barely have time to catch their breath between steamy sex sessions with their (more or less) significant others.

There is no shortage of gory details, either. Vanessa Feltz, 61, we are told, favours the ‘reverse cowgirl’ position as ‘it keeps you fit’, which may be true, though one suspects it might be a tad taxing on the old knees. (Or maybe that’s just me.)

Not to be outdone, Carol ‘I hate Tories’ Vorderman, 62, has told viewers of ITV’s This Morning that she enjoyed the attentions of five different lovers, all of whom ‘know about each other’ (I wonder, is there a rota?).

Judging by her pneumatic posts on social media, those gentlemen must have their hands full satisfying her needs and getting her out of her favoured eye-wateringly tight outfits.

Newly single Trinny Woodall, 59, meanwhile, is not only ready to mingle but evangelical about the need for sex. Last week, she told The Mail on Sunday that ‘sex completes you as a woman’ and has said: ‘If you totally shut down your sexuality, you become drier as a person. Your uterus stops secreting sexual juices… and there’s no ‘Hello!’ from down there.’ Cripes!

From Gwyneth Paltrow to Emma Thompson (who has played a 50-something widow who hires a male escort to help her achieve an orgasm) via Davina McCall and every mid-life celebrity female with something to sell in between, a huge amount of mature lady-sex appears to be taking place.

READ MORE: Carol Vorderman, 62, sparks guessing game about the identity of her ‘five special friends’ after revealing she has been with some of them for YEARS

Visions of flowerbeds abandoned, knitting unattended, reading glasses discarded, Marks & Spencer shapewear scattered underfoot as the nation’s menopausal matriarchs maintain meaningful dialogue with their nether regions. The only trouble is, it’s all hyped-up nonsense. This notion that our sex lives begin at 50 is not borne out by the facts.

And while I don’t doubt that Vorderman et al are having a super time boudoir-wise, for most women the reality is rather less thrilling.

A survey of 5,000 Brits has found that 47 per cent of women aged 50 to 54 had not enjoyed any intimacy in the previous three weeks, rising to 52 per cent for those in their late 50s. Among women in their early 60s, that figure rose to two-thirds.

By contrast, among heterosexual men, the numbers who said they hadn’t had sex during the previous three weeks didn’t change according to age, remaining pretty similar into their 70s. This rather begs the question, who on earth are they having sex with?

But perhaps that’s one for another column.

In the same way that a woman’s fertility drops off a cliff in her mid- to late-30s, it seems her sex drive does the same a couple of decades later.

I reckon the culprit is hormones, or rather lack thereof. The menopause doesn’t just rob women of their looks, health and sanity, it also robs them of their desire.

That’s why so many take HRT. Now that all that research about it being dangerous has been debunked, HRT is effectively the female equivalent of Viagra, the wonder drug that alleviates the unpleasant side effects of the menopause and gives back a bit of va-va-voom.

Still, you can have too much of a good thing. HRT will restore some of those old desires, but it won’t turn a recumbent pussycat into a rampant tiger.

Besides, when sex becomes an obligation, it loses much of its appeal. And I just can’t help feeling that all these celebrities in their 50s and beyond bouncing around like superannuated Barbies in latex and leather are having the opposite of the intended effect. They’re so over-the-top about it all, they’re actually a turn-off.

The truth is, women generally just aren’t as keen on sex as men. That is just the way of the world (with a few notable exceptions, of course).

I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that, biologically, sex has far more repercussions for women than it has for men, who can have sex without fear of ever becoming pregnant.

But the point is, we shouldn’t be made to feel inadequate or guilty, or somehow less a person because our chandeliers don’t have to be double reinforced to the rafters.

And yet so much we watch and read seems to conspire to make it so. Not only do we feel we must look ten years younger – through botox, ‘tweakments’, gruelling gym sessions and all the rest – we must also act it.

And I, for one, find it all rather exhausting.

Of course intimacy is important in relationships, even long-term marriages that have weathered the trials of raising children and goodness knows what else.

But women’s bodies go through a lot in their natural lifecycle. It’s only normal that they should get a bit of peace and quiet in later life.

So hang up the latex and just enjoy the cocoa.

Talking about life with his wife, Prunella Scales, who suffers from vascular dementia, actor Timothy West says: ‘We have exactly the same conversation every day of the week and it’s something I never tire of.’

If ever there was a definition of true love, that is it.

Beyond me, Beyoncé

As someone whose own children have experienced the down sides of having a moderately well-known surname, I’m baffled why Beyoncé – a huge superstar – is exposing her young daughter to global scrutiny by letting her perform on stage with her. However much Blue Ivy may want – or appear to want – to be up there, it seems madness.

It’s not just the psychological damage of having the world talk about her, it’s that, aged 11, she should not be grinding along to lyrics about, among other things, her parents’ sex life. Also, it’s not like they need the money. Why, too, isn’t she in school?

Oh come on, Mick!

I have been a Stones fan since the age of two, when my father brought home a copy of Let It Bleed. The iconic birthday cake artwork and that honky-tonk track listing: the Glimmer Twins in their pomp. Their new single is OK as these things go – not bad for a trio with a combined age of 235 years. I’ll buy it.

Leather-clad in a corset, she writhes on the back seat of a red convertible, all bosoms and blonde hair, while Sir Mick warbles on about not getting enough action

But one thing I won’t buy is 25-year-old actress Sydney Sweeney, in the accompanying video.

Leather-clad in a corset, she writhes on the back seat of a red convertible, all bosoms and blonde hair, while Sir Mick warbles on about not getting enough action.

It’s creepy: she’s young enough to be his grand-daughter. With all these hot-to-trot 50-somethings out there, wasn’t there someone more age-appropriate – or even born in the same century?

And so it ends: fugitive terrorist suspect Daniel Khalife was arrested yesterday in West London – after being spotted in my local neighbourhood of Chiswick. He can’t be much of a criminal mastermind if he thought Chiswick was a good place to lie low. It’s a hotbed of curtain-twitchers and busybodies – with, surely, one of the country’s highest concentrations of doorbell cameras. Also, anyone not wearing Boden or Birkenstocks or with a well-groomed labradoodle stands out like a sore thumb. He never stood a chance.

Life’s a beach if you WFH

A picture of Brighton Beach packed with sun-worshippers last week made me laugh.

Silly me: those in Brighton were all civil servants attending very important and no doubt exhausting work meetings

Didn’t they have jobs, I wondered in a slightly Victor Meldrew-y way? But then I remembered that hundreds of council workers have been allowed to ‘work from the beach’ in places as far-flung as Spain, Turkey and Thailand.

Silly me: those in Brighton were all civil servants attending very important and no doubt exhausting work meetings.

If Dominic Cummings really is plotting his own, new political party, Parliament beware. As we saw with Brexit, one thing he really understands is how to listen to voters’ concerns.

What he lacks, though, is the temperament to run anything. He’s very much a backroom strategist, not a front man. Then again, if he and Boris Johnson could find a way of burying the hatchet, who knows…

Anyone flirting with the idea of voting for Labour should visit Slough, where the party’s bankrupt council has racked up a £760 million debt and a £357 million deficit. As a result, it’s selling £600 million of public assets, making cuts of £22 million (including school transport and council repairs) and reducing bin collections to once a fortnight. Oh, and it’s upped council tax up by almost ten per cent. The perfect advert for life under Sir Keir Starmer.

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