Old Sluts Never Die
or Act Your Age (or at least your bra size)
by Beverly Fisher, Slut at Large and Woman of Easy Virtue

When I retire from escorting, I’ve got some serious plans. Important plans. I want to let my hair go grey, grey, grey. I want a head full of silvery strands to glisten in the sunlight. I want to stop wearing makeup. I want to highlight every wrinkle – lines around my mouth and eyes, decorating my face, telling of all the laughter and smiles in my life. I want to show off those varicose veins, testifying to all the dances I’ve danced, the mountains I’ve climbed. I embrace sagging! I will proudly display drooping breasts! Baby belly, floppy arms, wrinkled neck, stretchmarks... just age!

That’s it. I want to age.

Our society, as a whole, is a youth culture. We adulate the young. All of our trends, our fashions, are dictated by youth. The young define “cool.” And everyone else just follows along. On the television, in movies, in all of our advertising – in short, everywhere we look – we see young, healthy people in the prime of their lives. And they’re all younger, healthier, and richer than we are. Well, at least, me.

Baby Boomers have spent decades in denial about their age. There are very few cool Baby Boomers, but there are legions who think they are. They walk around wearing totally inappropriate clothing and saying things like “word” and “my bad.” You just want to slap them. They never figured out how to grow old with style, so they hang on to the shreds of their youth.

I’m Generation-X... which means I have no clue about what’s cool. But I’m sorry, about everything. I’m really, really sorry. Gen-X has been made to feel like everything is all their fault, which may be true. My bad.

Youth Culture

It is difficult being a woman in our culture, escort or otherwise. Look at the models in magazines, the actresses in movies and on television. Those poor women get a million plastic surgeries, just to try to stay a bit younger, to make it for one more year. Television news anchorpersons, if female, are terrified to age. Aging means the end of their careers – with rare but notable exceptions, like Barbara Walters. Male anchorpersons are allowed to go on and on. For men, gray hair is “distinguished.” Older women are seen as “less attractive.”

Youth in women is highly prized. And in the escorting business, this is especially true. In my world, a “mature” woman means “over 30.” It also means greater experience, greater skills... and yes, a sag here, a wrinkle there. Though some providers I know are well into their 50s, and work hard in the gym to maintain amazingly beautiful bodies.

But we feel pressure to stay as young as possible, arguably more so than the “average” woman. Being “mature” puts us on notice – we are not the ideal any longer. We dye our hair. We diet. We work out. We buy expensive creams and lotions, and carefully rub them into our wrinkles and our stretchmarks every night. We save up for plastic surgery – facelifts, tummy tucks, and the all-important boob job. We do the best we can caring for these bodies, yearning for youth lost.

Why? Why is it so terribly important that women be young? Why are older men “distinguished” and not older women? Why is youth so important to us?

Monkey Brains

I think it’s all based in our animal nature, the part of us that is still beast. It is the biological imperative that drives us, as surely as it drives animals in nature. Our mistake is in thinking that we have “civilized” this aspect of ourselves, that with our culture, knowledge, and intelligence we have somehow rooted out the monkey-self. Not bloody likely, Bonzo.

It simply makes sense. Why would youth be important to an animal? What is the main focus in the rabbit kingdom? Or the seals? Or the sharks? Animals, human or otherwise, seek to survive. Young animals in their prime are better able to escape predators than the older creatures. The oldest, the weakest, the infirm – those are the lunchtime buffet for the lions. The longer you live, the more likely you’ll be eaten. Hell, I’ve been eaten a couple of times this week myself, but then, I wasn’t running very hard.

So youth is important for escaping predators. One gentleman of my acquaintance and I were discussing high-heeled shoes, and why men enjoy seeing women wearing them. Andrea Dworkin would have told you that they’re the western equivalent of Chinese foot-binding, designed to keep women as tortured, bound, suppressed tools of the patriarchy. Andrea Dworkin’s ghost can kiss my ass. My gentleman friend suggested that women in high-heels appear to have longer, shapelier legs – and thus, are faster runners. The better to escape the lions, my dear. The obvious irony is that, while women look like faster runners in high heels, they can’t run at all.

What else makes youth king in the animal kingdom? Sharper eyes, hearing, and reflexes make for a creature more efficient at gathering food, not just evading predators. A youthful mother can better protect and care for her young.

But I’ve been talking about survival of the individual. Each individual is part of a species, a species that must survive. Coded into the genes of every animal is not just the drive to survive the day, but the drive to ensure the survival of the species. We all have to die. If old age doesn’t get us, the lions will. The only way for the species to survive is to propagate. Making babies, in the end, is what life is all about, for just about every species of animal on the planet. We are driven to reproduce. We are driven to fuck. Well, everyone except Laura Bush.

Humans are so arrogant. We think we’re beyond all of this “survival of the species” stuff. But we’ve got that feisty genetic code planted deep in every one of our cells. What our civilization, our culture, our knowledge has given us is the ability to ignore the incessant whispers of that code. We can choose when and how to breed. Or not to. Choice is the gift of civilization; choice is what separates us from the beasts.

But we still feel the seductive pull of that code. It is our nature to fuck. We may choose not to reproduce, but we still feel the desire to rut like animals. As enlightened, conscious beings, we feel the desire to express and receive affection through sex. We have attached emotion and meaning to the act. That’s culture. But it’s not nature. At our core, we are no better than wild dogs, utterly capable of doing it in the middle of the yard, while all the other dogs sit around, utterly disinterested.

The sacred orifice

We have attached significance and meaning to the sexual act. Could this be, perhaps, because that wicked code is writhing within us, telling us what’s truly important? We have made the penis God, and the vagina Goddess. We glorify them. We revere them. Maybe, on some level, the reason we have done this is not because there’s anything special about vaginas or penises – except that they are the instruments by which we propagate and continue the species.

I can decide to attach no special significance to my vagina. I can decide that fucking is fucking, plain and simple... or I can decide that I am making love, and it is powerful, romantic, spiritual, and a celebration of life. It is the code, the biological imperative, that has driven us to revere sex. It is that imperative that has made some feminists insist that the vagina is sacred. They are driven by their animal nature, just as I am, and have used their minds and their educations to attach significance to this part of themselves. The difference is that I choose to attach significance when it suits me. Sacredness, specialness, all of these things are in the mind. The body is just a body, nothing more. I choose to believe that my whole body is sacred, and I can use it in interesting and wonderful ways. Everything I do is sacred. Every fuck is sacred. Love is another, not entirely unrelated, matter.

We are helpless to the code, to the biological imperative. And because we deny it, because we insist it isn’t there, it has been submerged in our collective psyche, and its roots run deep. We are puppets to our DNA.

When a man leaves his menopausal wife for his 22-year-old secretary, he’s not thinking. He’s a slave to the biological imperative. The wife can’t breed anymore; the secretary can. Whether or not he thinks he wants to have children with the younger woman is completely irrelevant. His DNA wants to breed, even if he doesn’t.

Here’s a wild fact: if you mix the sperm from and older man with that of a younger man, the little spermies fight it out, with the older man’s sperm attacking and killing the young man’s wigglers. Living a long time, for men, means that they’re a prime example of the species. Longevity is something important, on the DNA scale. The opposite is true for women. The older we get, the less viable our eggs become. Nature has it set up so that the older men belong with the 22-year-old secretaries.

Here’s another wild fact: sperm are active and capable of breeding right up until the day a man dies. So men are slaves to that biological imperative their whole lives. That sneaky DNA is whispering dirty bedtime stories into the ears of every man on the planet, right up until the moment they kick off.

Women are another matter. As we age, the call to breed grows stronger, for our time is short. We’ve all heard of the “biological clock” ticking away, keeping women in their late 30s up at night. We have a limited time to breed, and then, that’s it. The alarm goes off. The hot flashes start. Animals don’t go through menopause, they breed until they die, like men.

Hot Grandma

This is why I’m so excited about the prospect of aging. Because women, once they go through menopause, can no longer breed. They are no longer driven by the biological imperative, no longer controlled by the insistent whispers of their DNA. We become free. Free to make our own choices and decisions, without biology entering into it. I believe that post-menopausal women are the most powerful creatures on the planet. They do whatever they want, whenever they want, based on choice, not biology.

Imagine having sex, not because there’s some animal need to breed coaxing me along, but simply because it feels damned good! I’m going to be the sluttiest grandma in town.

I will revel in my grannyness. I will carry myself with pride. I will concoct schemes and carry them out. I will grow my silver hair down to my ass, refusing to wear some short grandma haircut. I will dress however I like, even if it doesn’t happen to be polyester. I will dance at parties. I will embarrass my child. I will love, long and hard and lots. I will tell dirty jokes in public, and laugh too loudly at the punchlines. I will wear white after labor day. I will climb mountains and be healthy. I will sit on the front porch and flirt with the mailman, then laugh when he’s embarrassed.

Yes, I’ll concede that some vestigial traces of the biological imperative may drive my aging carcass to seek sex... but then again, maybe not. Maybe I’ll have wild, outrageous, silver-haired, wrinkled, smutty sex with some 30-year-old sugar baby and enjoy every moment of it, free of concerns like babies and other difficulties, or conscience.

The youth culture may continue to rule the world, but, free from the biological imperative, I can plot and scheme behind the world’s back. Who knows, maybe I’ll win. I will be the silver-haired lioness... and the young antelopes better stay out of my way.

 

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