razziecat:

risingoflights:

allsortsoflicorice:

greenjudy:

tzikeh:

cricketcat9:

telesilla:

No and no. The only feeling you have after you hit 50 is a deep feeling of utter contempt for the young.

Okay, maybe I should tone down the salt, because it’s just possible you don’t really know how ageist and rude this is.

First, I’m going to answer this like it wasn’t rude. People over 50 are…people. They fall on the same sexual spectrums (gender and orientation and all that good stuff) that people under 50 do. Obviously people change as they age—emotionally, mentally and physically,—but trust someone who’s been in fandom since 1995 and has been sexually active (in one way or another) since 1976, plenty of older people read and write porn, and plenty of them look at attractive people and think “yeah she could get it.” If that is, indeed, the correct phrase. Sure there are people over 50 who aren’t sexual, just like there are people under 50 who aren’t sexual, but plenty of us are still interested in reading, writing and doing the sex.

Now…I’m going to go a little deeper, because this is just a fucking weird question. It is all but impossible, if you engage with pop culture at all, to be unaware that men over 50 like to consume and create porn. Jesus fucking Christ, if you watch TV at all, you know men over 50 feel sexual attraction in real life. There’s a whole branch of pharmacology dedicated to making sure they can act in that attraction. On this very hellsite, I’ve seen a lot of posts complaining about the age of actors compared to the age of the actresses playing their love interests. I can’t check my newsfeed without seeing a woman who is literally in the news because a man over 50 had sex with her and then paid her to not tell anyone about it.

Harvey Weinstein is 66, for fuck’s sake.

So I suspect the “people” you’re asking about are women, specifically women in fandom. I don’t know if I’m being asked to furnish proof that women over 50 aren’t really active in fan fiction and therefore what we say about fandom can be disregarded or if I’m being asked to furnish proof that women over 50 in fandom are actively sexual and therefore can be thought of as predatory, but either way, this is weird.

I’ve said this before, I know that having old people around when you are a young person can be weird and annoying. We can come off as judgmental, condescending and dismissive. Our weary cynicism can really harsh the buzz of youthful enthusiasm and that’s a drag sometimes. We post selfies and we have saggy boobs and grooves around our mouths and young women don’t always like seeing the future like that, especially when we also bitch about our health or our kids or jobs or the dreams we had to leave behind. Politically, especially if we’re white, we make you wonder who we voted for and if we really have your backs when it comes to social justice issues.

I get all that. And I could go on a rant about how important older women have been to fandom and how you literally would not have it if not for women who were in their fifties in 1975, but those rants are a dime a dozen on tumblr and while I do understand being uncomfortable around older women, I refuse to apologize for my presence in a space I have helped create over the years. I refuse to justify myself when I shouldn’t have to.

If this is a genuine question and you’re upset by my ranting, I do apologize. However, while it isn’t talked about much in Tumblr SJW circles, ageism is real and I see it all the time on this site. Think about all the misconceptions about your own generation and how annoying it is when some stupid article acts like you’re part of an Other monolith.

tl;dr: Many people over 50 enjoy reading and writing smut and many of them still feel sexual attraction. Thank you for asking this question, although since I a) list my age as 55 on my bio, b) link to my almost 3 millions words of smut on AO3, you had the answer to the first part, like, literally in front of you.

People over 50, demonstrating endless patience explaining things to young people who never ever in their entire life knew or spoke to these definitely non human aliens, people over 50. 

BTW, in a few weeks I’ll be 69. Is it the time yet to weave a cocoon, shrivel up and die? I decided not to, since there’s still much smut on AO3 to enjoy, and the YOI movie did not come out yet, and then there’s that, you know, other thing… that three letter word starting with s…  

I get that the asker may honestly have no idea about… let’s call it “middle-life sexuality.” I mean, the asker is statistically most likely to be an American teenager, and fuck knows (ha) that our country is TERRIBLE at sex education. So them not knowing anything about it doesn’t surprise me; they likely don’t even know much about how their own body works.

But this isn’t a question about people over 50 feeling sexual attraction or wanting to read/write porn; it’s a question about whether women are recognizably human once they’re no longer youthful. It’s misogyny right down to its core.

I don’t blame the asker. They’ve been soaking in it their whole life.

Sometimes

sometimes I wonder if there are interested parties fomenting the brutal age-culture divide and making it more pronounced than it ever needs to be. Because when people support one another and bridge generation gaps with communication, they can become very powerful. 

is there someone out there, someone who……. prefers the status quo, prefers subaltern populations to remain silent, someone who thinks older women are nasty to look at, think about, or hear from? Someone who prefers younger women to be isolated, vulnerable and insecure?

oh, who could that be?

When we communicate past the borders of our personal experience, when we learn to listen in the margins of cultural languages and engage in a dialogue with one another, one without a last word, 

then life-experience becomes alchemized. We navigate into the future by looking in mirrors, we recognize one another in ourselves. 

Think of the most educational year of your life. Think of the most painful lesson you’ve learned. Imagine you can impart what you learned to a beloved friend and spare that friend the untold suffering you, yourself, had to endure.

Think of the relative self-confidence or fleeting inward peace or specific clarity you could transmit to your younger friends. If only you could. If only you could communicate. If only you could communicate your experience.

If you really are wondering if older women feel (anything) (desire) (alive), try this:

Imagine yourself, fifty. 

I’ve enjoyed getting older. I’m over fifty, and this time of life right now is truly the best part of my life so far. I feel real compassion for young women who fear growing older. They’re wasting so much time and energy that could be better spent enjoying the here and now. 

I have nothing to contribute except, you ladies are all awesome and thank you so much

My sisters,young and old…Let me add a thought for the young pagans who may be reading this, because there are a lot of them on this site and I follow a few.

Women were demonized by the church and by the wealthy, to the point of literally being killed for it. Some of them were witches in the old sense (herbalist, healer, shaman) and some were not. But many of them had a very important thing in common. THEY WERE OLD. Older women in western society are invisible, considered ugly, worthless, and evil. And if you live a long time, you, too, will become an old woman, subject to the same demonization.

“Respect should cross all boundaries that divide us.” (Kirby Crow)