PRIVATE LIVES
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
Yes, tonight dear. I have a wrinkle The revelation that more sex makes you look younger sounds a clarion call to middle-aged crazies everywhere. Oh, come on, you married couples - three times a week is not as hard as it sounds.
MARNI JACKSON
03/18/99
The Globe and Mail
Metro
Page C5
Do I detect a brand new sexual revolution among the married middle-aged? A neuropsychologist in Edinburgh, Dr. David Weeks, has done a survey of 3,500 people and has concluded that having sex three times a week makes you look "10 years younger." One's immediate thought is, why not have sex six times a week and look 20 years younger? and so on. And if you have sex at 90, will people say, "God! What's your secret? You look 80!"
However, Weeks did add that the people in the study were in "loving, stable relationships" and not having sex merely for cosmetic reasons. In other words, he is not advocating a franchise of boutiques that offer thrice-weekly "sex-lifts," staffed by strapping young "rejuvenators," which also sprang to mind. He's talking about married sex -- where all the action is, it seems.
Another news item caught my eye: A man from Kingston reports that he is delighted with his new Viagra , which he managed to snag during an early study in Canada. The item adds that he and his wife use "about eight pills a month." Hmm. Twice a week, then. Does this mean she looks eight years younger? Or does Viagra sex give you bonus points, sort of like using the Incline button on the treadmill?
I can imagine orgasms giving StairMaster some stiff competition. An orgasm is cheaper, certainly, although you can't watch TV at the same time. No special footwear is required for sex, either -- usually. And which would you rather do, pay $5,000 to have your face eaten away by powerful acids and then burned by lasers, or put a note in your day planner saying, "have more orgasms"? If sex becomes the newest AHA skin cream, and Viagra moves in beside the Advil in the medicine cabinet, then married relations may be in for some interesting times. I can hear the phone conversations now:
"I'm starting to get those marionette lines, you know, the ones that go from the mouth to the jaw, so Ed and I are trying to have more sex. We were going to do ecstasy last weekend, but his prostate was acting up after all the yohimbe we took the weekend before. Ed keeps saying he 'just wants to cuddle,' but all that does is make me look tired."
And have you seen that brand new Carlsberg ad? The one with the couple necking in what seems to be a motel doorway, and then a male voice says, "A friend of mine said that the best sex I would ever have would be with my wife -- and he was right." Whoo! You're safely home, watching TV and suddenly your husband looks over at you and thinks: Beer ads are never wrong.
The notable thing about this new sexual revolution is that for the first time it will have nothing to do with either contraception or reproducing the species. We're talking postmenopausal babes and bypass studs. Meanwhile, evidence is washing over us that the under-30s are turning off sex and holding out for marriage. Perhaps what has happened to the economy is happening now to sex -- the multinationals are taking over. Independent, freestyle sex is going the way of the mom-and-pop grocery store; conglomerate couples now have the monopoly. Sex used to be considered the purview of the young, free and unattached; marriage was when you settled down and things got boring. Now, the under-30 generation are wearing dull little beige suits, drinking eight glasses of water a day, saying no, and talking themselves into the paybacks of celibacy. What if someone told them that holding out will make them look 10 years older?
For the couples who eventually settle into the African Game Safari of married sex -- it can still get wild, but it's got a fence around it and heavy security -- sex changes character. It is no longer the mate-choosing activity it once was. It becomes entirely expressive, and whatever you make of it -- including, apparently, a way to lose sleep and yet look more rested. And with the under-30s going to bed with a good book, it may be up to the Thickwaisted Ones to keep the fires burning.
Our schedules are tight, but we'll manage. Vanity Sex will now join ginkgo biloba, Vitamin E, lunchtime peels and the rest of the antiaging arsenal. Infomercials for Reichian Orgasmatrons will pick up where the ThighMaster ads left off. Let the young Victorians wallow in night after night of saying no -- they'll learn. Older folks have the self-discipline and maturity to overcome the tawdry lure of compulsive celibacy. Three times a week is not as hard as it sounds. And if your short-term memory is failing, just remember to alternate sex with the days you take your baby Aspirin. You'll see visible results in a matter of days |
