Margaret Wente, The Globe and Mail‘s champion of chimp-level logic, recently penned a personal-essay-cum-misogynist-manifesto to lament the loss of her erotic power at the ripe old age of 40. The crème de la gem of the whole thing was her statement that “No matter how sexist or unfair it seems, no one in the world has more erotic power than a 20-year-old girl.” A sad statement considering even most Victoria’s Secret Angels round out closer to 30.
Wente’s version of erotic power lies in the cellulite-free crevasses of co-ed asses and young tits stuffed into gravity-defying bras they don’t need, yet to know the joy of bare nipples against sheer jersey. Unfortunately, Wente’s not the only middle-aged woman who thinks this way, but most don’t get paid to pseudo-comment about culture on a national platform. Many women mourn, or begin to aggressively fear, a supposed loss of sexual power little more than a decade from the day they become adults– but while Wente curses Mother Nature, the problem may be more man-made than biological.
The fact is many women of a certain age remain beings of immense, if not increased, erotic power. Halle Berry, Jennifer Aniston, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, Courtney Cox, Julia Roberts, are all over 40. For God’s sake, even Sofia Vergara – the light at the end of every man’s tube sock – will turn the big 4-0 in July. Even Wente acknowledges this isn’t an unusual feat in other countries: “In French culture, even women of a certain age are still considered erotically attractive. Christine Lagarde may run the International Monetary Fund, but she’s a woman who obviously enjoys her femininity. I’m certain men flirt with her. Still.” A 2006 Synovate poll found more than half of senior French men thought that a woman’s beauty peaks in her 40s. Now, no woman looks the same at 40 as she does at 20, but eroticism is about more than wrinkle-free skin and a tight behind. So if all these women can still be objects of sexual desire, why can’t Wente? Or you?
Unfortunately many women in Western culture manage to screw up one of the few constants in life: aging. While logic dictates that the finer sex should become more independent, self-aware, and able to connect with others at the peak of adulthood, we somehow manage to lose ourselves in an almost pubescent-again fit of social expectations and crippling fear. And who wants to fantasize about sex with a half-there version of a full-grown woman?
Last week, the New York Times ran an article with new evidence that clothing affects how we think and behave. A study conducted by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University found that subjects’ ability to pay attention increases sharply when they wear a white coat that they believe belongs to a doctor. In other cases, people felt more important when they carried a heavy clipboard.
The psychological theory behind it all is ‘embodied cognition,’ the idea that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the body– including what we wear. Fashion has always been an important part of personal identity; we use it to project a cultivated image to the outside world, but if clothes deeply affect how we think, act, and perform more than we ever thought before, what does that mean when it comes to aging?
Embodied cognition doesn’t just work with the uniforms of others, it also occurs with our own day-to-day fashions. Throughout the years, we come to associate certain types of clothing, hairstyles, and accessories as part of ourselves, our identities. They become defining on a deeper level of selfhood and personal tradition than most of us realize. It’s not uncommon for dementia patients, in severe states of cognitive impairment, to carefully apply lipstick using habitual gestures of their past or carefully place strands of pearls over their dinner bibs at the nursing home. That’s just how ingrained these things become.
It’s a sad fact that women of a certain age (that’s different for everyone) force a quick change of style upon themselves in a short period of time. They get ‘real’ jobs and dress to meet others’ expectations, cut off their long locks because it’s the culturally appropriate thing to do, and have less time, money, and energy to shop and tend to appearances because there’s a family to take care of. Women not only lose a large part of their superficial selves, they also lose part of a psychological identity that took decades to construct. This results in confusion, insecurity, and a poor sense of self–none of which are conducive to erotic power. Wente writes, “When I gaze at the girls of spring, it seems like only yesterday that I was one of them. I wore long hair and short skirts.”
Men, on the other hand, don’t go through nearly the same sort of change. As they age, men’s wardrobes contain more or less the same pieces, their hair stays basically the same style (with balding as the exception, and that comes with it’s whole own set of issues), and it remains much more acceptable for a man to take personal time away from the wife and kids. As a result, men maintain a more fluid identity and are able to keep chugging along as the same confident, charming things they were in their 20s.
But embodied cognition might strike the ultimate ironic chord when it comes to Botox, the face-freezing poison that just celebrated its tenth birthday. The motor system influences our cognition, just as the mind influences our body’s actions. When study participants hold a pencil in their teeth engaging the muscles of a smile, they comprehend pleasant statements faster than unpleasant ones. The reverse is also true: holding a pencil in their teeth to engage the muscles of a frown increases the time it takes to comprehend positive statements. So what happens if the face muscles are frozen in perpetual indifference? Do Botoxed ladies take longer to process sexually excited hints of lust, excitement, flirtation, or familiarity from a potential suitor?
Evidence suggests that not only does Botox affect our ability to express emotion, it actually diminishes our emotional experiences. Emotion, not perfectly perky breasts, lies at the heart of all eroticism, and an impaired ability to process, communicate, and bond with others via our facial expressions diminishes the chances of feeling that ‘spark.’ “Absence of facial expression and the inability to imitate facially the expressions of other persons may result in profound changes in the way a person is perceived by others and in a subsequent loss of affiliation,” writes philosophy professor Simon van Rysewyk.
Wente herself is a Botox-user– maybe her changed face does result in fewer sexual advances, but not for the reasons she thinks. Aging is an issue that needs and deserves to be explored in greater depth than “Oh shit, my tits sagged.” Female erotic power lies in self-confidence, independence, and the ability to connect meaningfully with our own and others’ emotions, whether they be I-want-to-fuck-you-silly surges of lust or something more. In world that begs women to be anything but themselves, true power isn’t in staying the same– it’s learning how to grow in an authentic way.
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Sabrina Maddeaux is Toronto Standard’s style editor. Follow her on Twitter at @sabrinamaddeaux.
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