But there was one friend who simply refused to give up her age. She was obviously annoyed and kept fake-joking: “I’m going to be 97!” or “I’m 100!” Cutie-pie grew frustrated, saying ever more shrilly “No, really! I’m going to be six, how old are you?” It got uncomfortable for all concerned. Eventually Cutie-pie’s mother, saw the problem and distracted her, but not until Party Pooper grumbled, “Doesn’t she know that’s an inappropriate question?”

My friends and I all shot each other “WTF? glances. Party Pooper is a fifty-something professional and normally an outspoken feminist. But she had apparently bought into the anti-feminist idea that a woman’s age is something to hide, at least, when a woman is her age. In fact, her being in her fifties is apparently such a shameful secret she had to hide it from an innocent five-year old, who I guarantee had no agenda at all.

It pissed me off no end. Not only was this woman being needlessly rude to a little kid, but she’s just successfully taught that kid one of Patriarchy’s Greatest Hits: Aging is shameful, because the older women get, the more useless, irrelevant, asexual and generally unworthy of attention they are. Way to represent for womanity, sister!

This issue hits home for me as well because of my own age. Next year, I will be 35, a birthday which is supposed to induce panic, particularly if you are unmarried and childless, as I am. There’s no end to the scary messages I get fed about this upcoming birthday.

After 35, it’s all downhill for my poor, neglected reproductive system! I’ll get desperate and baby-hungry! I’ll be infertile! Or if I do get pregnant, my children will have Down Syndrome!  Or worse! ZOMG, all is lost! If only I hadn’t spent my twenties building my career and rejecting marriage! After 35 I’m going to pay for my selfish, slutty feminist ways!

Never mind that at 34, I’m the happiest and most confident I’ve ever been in my life. Now’s the time I’m supposed to start lying about my age. One of my friends jokes about how she’s celebrated her 32nd birthday many times over–about seven times, by my count–so that she “never has to tell anyone I’m in my late thirties.” She’s clearly doing it because she’s sick of the negative messages she’s gotten from ladymags, Big Fashion, reality shows and the solicitously faux-concerned relatives who ask, “So do you think you’ll settle down soon? You’re not getting any younger…”

Well, you know what?  FUCK THAT SHIT. When I turn 35, I’m not going to lie about it. Or about 40 or 50 or right on up until I’m 100. The only thing worse than getting older is NOT getting older. I want a long life and I will be proud–and grateful–to tell people about it.

And shame on older women who perpetuate anti-feminism by lying–or hiding–their age. When women refuse to be proud of their age and experience, we play right into the ugly stereotypes, and pass them right along to younger women and girls.

Love knows no age. via dark_ghetto28 @ flickr

The “Modern Love” column this week was written by Nancy Price Freedman, a 70-year-old woman who investigates whether long-term sexual passion is quantifiable and if it even matters. Upon hearing that an acquaintance ended a relationship because she doubted its potential for long-term “passion,” Freedman writes that

It seemed like such a waste of a promising relationship, and such a high bar to have to maintain — to remain physically passionate for years and years. Though afterward we laughed about the passion part, with barely concealed envy.

“Oy, who has the energy?” my friend said with a laugh.

“Who has the flexible joints?” I added.

“Does anyone actually remember sex?” a postmenopausal colleague chimed in. Shrieks of laughter.

Freedman adds, “Sex at our age is something we’re evidently more comfortable joking about than talking about honestly. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening, despite our declining energy, joints and memory.” And that’s the point that is almost never accepted or acknowledged. She encapsulates the whole issue with this: “Yet the whole issue of sex among older people distracts us from a deeper truth that simple, tender intimacy is very important as we age, the sort of thing our highly sexualized, Viagra-pushing culture tends to minimize or ignore.” The thought of “tender intimacy” over grand sexual passion is seen by our culture as being so boring, so wussy, so girly. Old men popping Viagra in commercials? Standard issue. Old people cuddling in embraces and exchanging slow kisses? Well, it’s assumed that nobody wants to see that.

Underlying this is the fear of aging (younger is always better!) and the issue of seeing intimacy among older people as somehow representing the sex lives of your own parents/grandparents. As someone who definitely knows her parents still have sex (thanks, dad and stepmom, for having sex in our shared hotel room after you mistakenly thought I was asleep), I find myself thoroughly non-squicked by the prospect of senior citizens gettin’ it on.

There is also the assumption that a passionate sex life is necessary to be happy in a relationship. I don’t believe that to be true. And it also is inherently tricky to define what makes a sex life or a relationship “passionate”. Is it defined by frequency? By amount of foreplay? By position used during intercourse? By wearing skimpy lingerie? People’s sex lives are not mapped out like cinematic sex scenes, nor do people stop having sex upon reaching a given age.

RH Reality Check’s Ann Whidden has an excellent feature on the consequences that ensue when we simply write off the possibility of seniors having sex.

“From birth to death, we are all sexual beings. We have a hard enough time acknowledging this when it comes to children, but when it comes to aging adults, the silence is deafening. And deadly: 60 percent of unmarried women ages fifty-eight to ninety-three report that they didn’t use a condom the last time they had sex, and the CDC reports that 15 percent of new HIV cases are among people over fifty.”

Simply put, “Stigma and shame from family, caregivers and doctors, who get “grossed out” by the idea of older adults having sex, leave the concerns of aging adults invisible and untended.” Nobody wants to have “the talk” with card-carrying AARP members about things like condoms and the necessity of STD testing. Whidden closes with a terrific quote from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “On his ninety-fifth birthday, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes saw an attractive woman and mused, ‘Oh, to be seventy again.’” Sexual intimacy at seventy? Perfectly cool. Sexual intimacy at ninety-five? Also fine. Thinking that your sex life stops once the hair turns gray and the bones turn arthritic? Wholly inaccurate. And that “tender intimacy” Freedman spoke of? Yeah, it’s a good idea for the twenty-something set, too. Passion knows no age.