Sensual Maturity

The life I have lived is very different from many women of my generation. It has been a product of the heady days of the late 60’s and early 70’s, when we threw away our bras and plunged headlong into the so-called sexual revolution. Now, aged seventy-five, I know from my own experience that women can have sensual and loving experiences way past fifty-five. Supposedly, you could say that “she was born before her time”; meaning that the way my life unfolded resembled the lives of women in their late teens to thirties, not as in my case late thirties onwards!  Even today most of my friends are at least ten to thirty years younger than me and unwittingly I have become a role model, living proof that sensuality, sexuality, and a vibrant life are not only the prerogative of the young.

 

Awareness of sexuality is much more prevalent now than in my youth. Unfortunately the advents of AIDS, violent, sexually explicit movies and the uncovering of the extent of sexual abuse, have all bred fear, more bigotry and ignorance.  Where can one go to rediscover the exquisite sensation, intimacy, love, passion and the glory that a loving sexual experience can bring?  Who tells us about the spiritual, the transcendental in our sensual, sexual lives?

 

I see this lack of sexual mentoring as part of a tradition that has been forgotten, lost in the mists of history.  Maybe I, as an older woman can help redress this, in sharing what I have learned, experienced and felt - the pain and the loving pleasure of my sensual life.

 

 Here, in 2008, it is a blight on our society that uninformed education has precluded us, our parents, their parent’s and their parent’s parents from learning and teaching the joys and pitfalls of burgeoning sexuality. It is as an important part of our development as nutrition, communication skills, honesty, integrity and loving open hearts. We are all, and have been for aeons, left to our own devices to stumble, suffer abuse and damaged information from our peers and the adults who, when we were very young, were our only role models. What hope do we have to grow to rejoice in our sexual feelings and dreams?

 

I had no teachers, no role models, and no wise women to help me unravel those early sexual feelings, to teach me how to physically love my beloved. Sex was only spoken of in terms cold and clinical, or surreptitiously with giggles and sly looks. Love was never mentioned; somehow it had got separated from sensuality. So, of course, I did not educate my four children into the joys of sensuality and sexuality.  I was always too busy, totally ignorant of ‘how to’ and embarrassed. I brushed the whole thing off with “oh well, sex is natural, they will learn when the time is right”. I did exactly what my parents had done with me.

 

My children asked questions and I answered to the best of my ability - technically. However, I never told them how wonderful and loving sex could be, that it could be a spiritual experience, that masturbation was natural and to be enjoyed. When I was young I did not know these things.

 

I did not teach my daughter how to caress and lovingly arouse a man.  I did not teach her about her own body and how to enjoy it.  I did not share my woman’s experience with my sons so that they would understand the intimacies of a woman’s body, so that they would feel good about their own arousal and desires.  I left them to find out, or not, for themselves.

  

I did not trust then in my secret ‘knowing’, in the dreams and fantasies of my inner life.

 

Despite the shortcomings of my younger life, or maybe because of them, I look back on my sensual journey to the present day - somewhat with wonder.  Miracles have happened to me over the years, and finally I am able to relax and experience my sexuality in ways that I could not have imagined when young.  From a sexually ignorant young virgin, married at twenty-one, through divorce, subsequent marriages and love affairs, I have slowly and painfully discovered that which was my birthright, which is everyone’s birthright - a joy and a freedom in my own body and its sensuality that keeps me young and very alive.

 

My first sexual extra-marital affair opened up doors that I did not know existed. Some years later, that very brief encounter, and the unconscious hunger that arose from it, would cause havoc in my life and that of my family.

 

It was the beginning; all my teenage fumblings and the uninitiated guess work of my marriage faded into the background, forgotten. But life was never quite the same again; a deep restlessness was born.  I could never have understood, let alone admitted, that mostly I mistook lust for love.  I could not have possibly comprehended that my search for the ideal mate, for the perfect romance, was ruled simply by my strong sexual urges, which successfully hid the truer search.

 

Through my forties and early fifties in particular I became conscious of that greater search and of course, this changed my sexual needs and experiences. My “inner work” became more important than my search for the perfect mate. I did not know that eventually it could include the warmth of a man’s arms, the passion and peace of lovemaking. I would discover that there was no separation of the sensual and the spiritual.

  

Like all of us, male and female, I am subject to the vagaries, whims and prejudices of potential sexual partners.  I have always had male lovers and live in a society that secretly admires an older man who has a young woman as his partner. It is considered admirable, a mark of continuing virility - almost a status symbol. An older woman is not usually given that approbation. 

 

Over the last twenty odd years, as I happily became accustomed to living on my own, any men who showed interest were usually at least ten to fifteen years younger than me. There was a longing in me to share sexually, spiritually and emotionally with someone my own age.  This did not seem to happen. I had dear male friends who loved me a lot - but not as a lover.  I found this painful. I minded that gravity was beginning to take hold of my body, I minded that the face looking back at me from the mirror did not match the young woman I felt internally. I would like to say that I did not mind, that my vanity had no power any more - it would not be true.

 

Recently I have re-met, heart-fully and sexually, someone I was in love with twenty six years ago! Then we were living in the same commune, where very few sexual encounters developed into anything more. However, our deep friendship continued over the years – re-igniting itself quite recently. So, now I have a lover who lives about 6000 miles away from me across the Atlantic! We visit when we can, but connect daily by the wonders of modern electronics- namely Skype! I feel blessed to have one my dearest and oldest friends as my lover again – feels pretty well near perfect!  Who knows what is just round the corner?

 

I am often asked how I manage to look as young as I do. I give the answer “Living my life - as totally as possible”.  That life has had a strong sexual component, one I have embraced fully. There are no regrets, only gratitude for the opportunities, friends and lovers met on the way. Relationship has proved to be one of my greatest teachers.

 

My willingness to jump into sexual experience, to experiment, to learn, to be hurt and to be happy has served me well. I love my life, am grateful for the richness of experience that age has brought me, and am no longer driven by need.

 

I would like to honour the wisdom of my women friends - the passion and poetry of many men in my life and the love from all of those who have been my teachers in this sometimes turbulent, sometimes transcendental journey.  

Copyright© 2008 – Persephone Arbour