You know the old rule about what’s news and what’s not: Dog bites man, no. Man bites dog, yes.
So according to this journalistic guideline about the unusual and unexpected trumping the expected and predictable, a sexy young woman is too common to be news. But an older women who is still hot, that’s news. Because it’s considered as rare as a man sinking his teeth into a poodle.
This is why schleb-watchers are gasping and tweeting about the nude photo of 53-year-old comedienne Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
The consternation over whether an over-50 female could possibly still be sexy has been diverted by the historical blooper in the tattoo on Louis-Dreyfus’s bare back. Apparently there was so much focus on the make-up department of the production team, and on airbrushing in post-production, that there was no time in pre-production for fact-checking the content of that tattoo. For reasons that have not really been explained, the US Constitution is what Rolling Stone chose to decorate the most boring stretch of JDL’s naked flesh. It’s somehow related to her playing the US Vice President in the popular sitcom, Veep.
At first everyone was too busy staring at the place where “John Hancock’s famed John Hancock” appears – just above JDL’s butt crack – to spot the historical inaccuracy. But once they did, the net began buzzing with comments about the blooper. For, as all Americans are taught in Civics class, Hancock is famous for signing the country’s Declaration of Independence, not its constitution.
The American constitution, which John Hancock did not sign
Did no one on Rolling Stone’s staff think to google “US Constitution” to ensure the accuracy of its cover? They wouldn’t have had to read any boring history text. They could have just searched for images of that famous document whose preamble begins with “We the people”. In only .31 seconds they would have got 285-million results, and seen that Hancock hadn’t signed. But time is money in the media world and that squiggly calligraphy takes awhile to apply to human skin. So fact-checking wasn’t prioritized.
The US Declaration of Independence, which Hancock famously signed
Okay, forget the historical detour. Let’s get back to the issue at hand: women’s bodies and what they look like through the ages. Actually, I think this notion of praising women for their sex appeal into old age not only fails to affirm older women, but also fails the newsworthiness test. Because it’s only ever about women who were sexy in their youth and are – miraculously – still considered sexy in their dotage. So how is that man-bites-dog?
I did some googling on this topic and found that the phrase “Older women still hot” mainly brings results about the hot flushes/flashes of menopause, rather than sex appeal. I also learned that there are young men out there who do consider older women “fuckworthy”.
They’re elderly, and whether you’d like to admit it or not, you’d bang them like a salvation army drum. Hot old b****es heeere we go…
– Hot Women over 50 years old YOU would bang!! (LOTS OF PICS), on IGN entertainment website
Yes, here we go, scrolling through pix of women deemed still-sexy despite having entered their sixth decade and beyond. From Jane Seymour to Raquel Welch to Jane Fonda, you can ogle them as they looked as youthful eye-candy, and compare their still-passable faces and bodies now. Girl-babes who are still hot enough to be old-babes. Gee, thanks for the affirmation.
As for those few younger men who indulge their strange dog-biting-like tendencies and lust after older women, there is this caveat:
If you enjoy being with an older women, spending a lot of time with her and genuinely have a great emotional connection then you need to be very aware of this one important fact – she isn’t getting any younger.
– A quick guide on How to Score Older Women, Brosome.com – Awesome stuff for Bros
Thanks for the insight, Bro.
The other aspect of women’s bodies that gets a lot of scrutiny is skin tone. Or lack thereof. Now they don’t call wrinkles “character lines” for nothing. It’s an age-denying euphemism, but there’s a lot of truth in it. Wrinkles are our bodies’ wear-and-tear. They show that we’ve lived life, with its ups and downs, its smiles and frowns.
If you were somehow able to prevent any facial displays of emotion after the age of 20 – or use Botox to erase your wrinkles – and if you had a perfect figure throughout your life – if, if, if you have all that going for you, only then can you hope to compete in the Still Sexy After All These Years pageants. Most of us wouldn’t pass the entry requirements. And most of us are probably relieved to no longer even try to compete.
Like.