The Phenomenon of 50 Shades

I was on Twitter last week engaging a fellow writer about turning 50 – the implication in our exchange being our 50s were something to look forward to – when a young woman piped in that she hoped we were right. “I’m inching closer to 30 and I’m just a little bit nervous about it,” she tweeted. “Oh please,” my friend Billy replied, and I laughed.

The exchange stuck with me. It reminded me of an old episode of Friends, where Jennifer Aniston’s character spends almost the entire show fretting about turning 30. I have to admit its sort of freak-show-ish to me. How did we get so fucked up about aging?

Not only do our attitudes about age make us miserable, they fuel a sort of impossible idealism that keeps us small – as evidenced in the wildly-popular novel, 50 Shades of Grey. Call it escapism if you want; fantasy as antidote to the stresses of fast-paced, modern day life. I still think it’s doing a number on our psyches. The more we indulge this stuff, the smaller we feel, and the less magnificent our everyday moments of intimacy become.

50 Shades is the most radical (and disturbing) example of the idealization of youth, power and beauty I have come across in some time – there is little or no semblance of the two main characters to anything in real life. Christian Grey is an omnipotent and insanely hot 27 year old with perfect abs and hair who, apparently, would rival the likes of Gilles Marini or Brad Pitt in his heyday. He is stinking rich and treated like God – he has something like 40,000 employees who serve him without question, female staff who ooze and tremble around him like teenagers, and he earns $100,000 an hour. AN HOUR. Nothing is outside of his reach. There is also no end to his sexual appetite or testosterone levels: not only is he ready to go 24/7, he’s ready to go immediately after every orgasm, as many times as required, and his infallible erection is never, ever dampened by human emotions like sadness, anxiety or despair, god forbid. Oh, and the kicker? He’s always monogamous.

But it doesn’t stop there. The female character, Anastasia Steele, is a knock-out, too – except she’s also a virgin who has never masturbated, of course. Think the lack of any urge might mean a low sex drive on her part? Don’t be silly. It just needed Christian Grey to come along and now, magically, not only is she always instantly wet and “ready” before he even touches her, she has multiple orgasms and – wait for it – she can come on command, too!

I had a lot of mixed feelings reading this book. The description of some of the sex scenes – minus repetitive statements like “I want you so much right now” and “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” – is actually quite well done, and the email banter between the two characters is often witty and amusing. But the rest of it was pretty much nauseating.

What really bothered me about 50 Shades, however, was how anti-male it was. It goes like this: despite Christian Grey’s troubled childhood and taste for BDSM, he is forthright, honest, articulate and fully in touch with (and open about) his weaknesses. More importantly, he is kind, endlessly appreciative, and always respectful of her wishes and boundaries. He will do anything for her.

But no – this isn’t enough, not for Anastasia Steele. He isn’t perfect enough. He’s “depraved”. He has issues. When he insists an unconventional Mrs. Robinson experience he had when he was 15 was a loving one, she believes she knows better, referring to the woman as having “robbed him of his youth” and whining incessantly about it at every opportunity. Further on in the book, she makes it her mission to intrude into his early life as often as possible, interrogating him at every opportunity in the name of “getting to know him better.” No amount of information is enough, and she often plods merrily along in spite of his expressed wish not to. She tells him again and again how fucked up he is, and he concedes, thanking her for loving him.

And that is at the heart of what turned me off about this book – the emotional cesspool underlying much of their relationship that of course never interferes with the sex; the subtle emasculation of a man who is both desperately in love and eternally unaffected; her constant adolescent tantrums and his implausible patience. In essence, something so far removed from anything real that it is impossible to relate to. What the hell is driving the sales of this book?

That is the question that drove me to read it. I also wanted to know how anyone could make a novel about BDSM socially acceptable and the answer, just as I suspected, is that it’s been sanitized, prettied up. A man with a dark side is miraculously and religiously principled and safe – there is a lengthy contract with detailed expectations and all boundaries are negotiated; his insatiable desire never interferes with obtaining her consent and ensuring her safety. The author can’t even get through a sex scene without mentioning the “crinkling of the condom wrapper”, for god’s sake.

Idealism hurts us. It separates us from values unfettered by impossible standards and leaves us lost, far away from anything we might call home. Perfectionism is a recipe for misery. The best artists that ever lived all spoke of beauty, even eroticism, in our flaws. “There is a crack in everything,” Leonard Cohen sang. “That’s how the light gets in.”

It is in this spirit I would like to see an erotic novel get written in, and become a bestseller. Even better, an erotic novel about two people over 50 – not stuck in pretense or clinging to their youth but rather, something real with sensuality and wisdom. And maybe one day, when I’m still alive, they’ll even make a movie out of it that is intelligent, tasteful and sophisticated.

As for the popularity of 50 Shades, I think Malcolm Gladwell said it best. The way to understand the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, he writes, is to think of them as epidemics. “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” As for why some start epidemics and others don’t, well, you’ll have to read his book.

The Quiet Whisper of Hope

There is nothing in this world more essential to life than hope. Where it lacks, there is no light. Hope, to me, is the breath of life; it emboldens you and makes you brave; the echo of promise, ever present. It lifts you up when you are leaden, and keeps you going when you feel weak. Hope, of all things, reminds you to dream, no matter how things might look; it is optimism given license….the quiet whisper that says, it is possible. You deserve it. What is yours will come.

I just turned 50 today. And I am so excited. I am telling everyone who will listen I am 50! The way I see it, today marks my induction into a new life passage; the best years of my life. I can’t explain it, but I feel proud to be 50. I know, with the years, the tiny brutalities of aging will continue to hit me – a changing body, discrimination, invisibility. But I intend to find refuge – even salvation – in my aged worldview, unfettered by petty grievance or the silliness of youth. To live in a way that integrates everything I’ve learned into my visceral self, edging me slowly to a different way of being that says, this is your life. It is a gift. Relax and enjoy the ride. Make every day count. Dedicate your focus to finding beauty, even in what isn’t pretty. Endeavor to be kind. Don’t ever forget that hope is the chalice on the altar of dreams. And to keep it alive, don’t look back.

[To Jerry – whose encouragement, support and generosity of spirit have given me hope, in the most profound sense of the word.]

On Turning 50: Longing to Relax

If our “second adulthood” had a jumping-off point, it seems to me it would be the year we turn 50. Up until that point, I think, we often carry on as a version of our younger selves, still bound to the ideals of a culture bent on youth. We get smarter about how we spend our time and have a stronger feel for who we are, but we’re not quite at the point where we’re counting the years we might have left. If we choose to, we can still deny the process at hand, and unless we have terrible genes, we can fare quite well.

But our 50s are a whole new era. It gets a lot harder to play make believe. Yet if our eyes are open, we gain access to a new pool of wisdom, and we can start to get our feet wet. Pretending loses its appeal. We begin to let go and enjoy the freedom that comes with aging.

At least, that is what many women have told me, and what I, in turn, believe, in the most visceral sense one can have. I am about to turn 50 in ten days; the beginning, as a friend of mine calls it, of my “second wind”.

I am aching for a revolution. More than that, I am aching to relax, in every conceivable way. And nothing brought that home more than my mother, just out of the hospital, set on a regimen, unwilling to consult a second opinion. Without going into details, let’s just say that what I saw in her scared the daylights out of me. Because it was a blown up version of something I’d been witness to my whole life: an unquestioning loyalty to an authority outside herself, and a “pulling in” – not the kind of pulling in we do in introspection, but a pulling in that involves tightening, holding in or holding on.

I know she is doing the best she can with what she has. I know she is fighting the only way she knows how – her “pulling in”, oddly, is also a form of protest. But it doesn’t help, because I want to see her happy, and because of what it triggers in me. I am deathly afraid of becoming rigid as I age. In my experience, one of the many challenges of getting older is a tendency to resist change, even when our sanity, or peace of mind, depend largely on the contrary. Living in a society where elders are so grossly undervalued, it’s easy to hold our emotions in as we tell ourselves, nobody wants to know anyway. If we become bitter about society’s disregard for us, we would often be wholly justified.

But do we want to sacrifice our quality of life to silent protest? I certainly don’t. Nor do I want to become set in my ways – yet I have already seen signs that this is where I am headed. And it’s chilling. I remind myself that my stress levels are high; that seizing up is all I’ve known, and that I am actively working to unlearn it. Then my mother re-enters my consciousness, and the haunting resumes.

In many ways, she and I are polar opposites in our personalities, priorities and character. We would never be friends if we weren’t related. We have worked hard to find common ground over the years, and to focus on the love we have for one another. And I do love her – fiercely, desperately, and without bounds. But her way of coping; of dealing with her emotions, really fucks me up. I can’t be around it. I need fluidity. I need to learn how to really relax into life, and to court change. And I hope as I enter my 50s, I can find the strength to do just that.

Finding Love as an Introvert

All my life I have admonished myself for not wanting to be “out there” more. When I was in grade school, I was always jealous over the “it” girl in class. In high school, I wished I was part of the cool crowd, reigning supreme at the back of the bus. Into my 20s, I took self help workshops to learn how to be more dynamic and likeable. Even in my 30s I spent inordinate amounts of time trying desperately to be someone I wasn’t.

Thank god for aging. It wasn’t until I got into my 40s that I began surrendering to the hand I’d been dealt, which involved a long and arduous process of struggling, in earnest, with who I really was. And I’ve come quite a distance. Many years of solitude and introspection have enabled me to get out of my own way. My character has finally begun to take shape and find expression. And I am far more interested in living my own life than anyone else’s, even with all its uncertainty. For the first time in my life, I have found liberation in not knowing. I’m going to be 50 in June, and I’m very, very excited.

For years I have heard from women about how great the 50s are. You finally start relaxing and learning to really enjoy life. You don’t sweat the small stuff. You are in your element sexually. You tell it like it is. The list goes on. I intend to reap all of this and more. But more than anything, my 50s will be an ownership and a celebration of my true, introverted nature.

I can thank Susan Cain for this, in part. Her book, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking has opened my eyes to a “cultural evolution that reached a tipping point around the turn of the 20th century.” America, she says, has shifted from what the influential cultural historian Warren Susman called the Culture of Character (which focused on inner virtue and honor) to a Culture of Personality (which focuses on outer charm, and how others perceive us). In other words, extroversion has become the North American cultural ideal. Today, she says, “we make room for a remarkable narrow range of personality styles….we are told that to be great is to be bold; to be happy is to be sociable.”

But the great thing about this book – I am still reading it – is that it is helping me to see myself in a new light; to “take stock of my talents” as an introvert and to appreciate all the qualities that come with it. Of course, most of us are on a spectrum, so I do have an extroverted side, born of a stronger inner core – but it’s interesting that, when people see that, they can hardly believe there is an introvert buried underneath it, calling all the shots. I have become someone I never thought I would be and frankly, spent much of my life fighting: a deeply sensitive, unconventional outsider who needs substantial alone time in order to assimilate, integrate and refuel.

That makes finding love extraordinarily difficult. I have spent the vast majority of my adult life on my own, outside the bounds of any conventional relationship. Couples who have found happiness in spending most of their days together are foreign to me; I cannot imagine living that kind of life. I have always put passion over domestic love; I am what author Esther Perel calls a “romantic”. Since I don’t get out much, I have been on dating sites, but I find small talk intolerable. I ache for something real – thought provoking, deep discussions that expand my mind, touch my heart, or inspire me to see the world differently. And I aspire to affect others the same way. When this happens, it rocks my world. I treasure it; become hungry, reach for more. But at some point I have to back off, re-group – and none too soon. I need my space, and lots of it. Somehow it makes whatever was shared mean that much more.

I know there are other people like me out there, but finding them is another matter. Intimacy with someone you trust and have chemistry with is a gift. But so is a connection with self. The life I have chosen, the solitude I have had – it has, many times, been lonely, but I would rather be lonely alone than lonely in a relationship. And it has taught me a lot about independence. I suspect, if I were ever challenged by the prospect of an ongoing, long term relationship, I’d have to learn how to do it. Learn how to “do” a relationship. Maybe I’ll get lucky. Maybe I’ll find someone who needs time alone as much as I do.

Or maybe not. Either way, I want my 50s to be a time when it all starts coming together; of coming home to my destiny, and living in harmony with all my core values. Cultivating a rich, inner life, I think, is what helps make that possible.

On Kissing: What Matters?

Having recently been treated to the company of a sensual and distinguished gentleman, I’ve experienced a most gentle stirring of all things visceral; places tidied up, shelved or ignored. It’s nice. Though I haven’t met him yet – our contact has been limited to the telephone – he brings to our conversations a strong and intriguing presence, and a certain something that I cannot yet identify, but draws me to him.

The other day, he asked me what kind of kissing I liked. Nobody has ever asked me that before, and it got me thinking. It got me thinking about how intimate the act of kissing is, and is in some ways more intimate than intercourse. I thought about past lovers; the ones I felt inclined to kiss, and the ones I did not. I thought about the times that kissing a man repelled me, and what it was about it I didn’t like. I remembered the kisses that made my heart want to burst with joy, or that stopped my world.

As with many other things in my life, it was only with experience and the passage of time that I really got to know, and trust, my deepest of sensibilities. And just as there are thousands of ways to make love, there are just as many ways to kiss somebody. I’ve got a pretty good range, and I’m fairly confident that my technique rivals that. But as most of us know, a good kiss can only go so far without someone responsive on the other end. And responsiveness is limited by what we are willing to experience.

I’ve had some decent kisses in my time, a few of them pretty hot. But my quest for the Holy Grail continues, and by that I refer not so much to an ideal but to a quality; something open and dynamic, an eroticism born of both heart and passion. That I am entering my “second adulthood” is fuel for that inspiration. I’ll be 50 this year, and I am far keener than I ever was to nuance. I’m ready for a whole new world of kissing, and for the first time in my life I’m beginning to feel I deserve it. To be desired sexually is one thing, but to be kissed, by someone who longs to kiss you – that is quite another.

That’s just me. So when he asked me that question, I did my best to answer it. I was shy. I like almost kissing, I told him, those tentative moments. But I also like ones that are sure; kisses deep, raw and lustful. So much of it depended on the mood, I told him. I tried to be eloquent, not sure how I fared. Inside, in my most private fantasies, I roamed. I imagined kisses that tantalize, or dance on the edge of something. I imagined foreheads kissing in tender communion. And I thought about the soft animal kiss; the one that explores, or indulges a primal yearning.

I remember the time that Adrien Brody surprised Halle Berry at the Oscars with a passionate kiss when she went up to accept her award. I remember the way he held her, and cradled her head. It reminded me of the way Clark Gable kissed Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. We don’t see that style much any more. A lot of big screen kisses look and feel similar to me, even when there is chemistry. We live in an era of “everything you need to know about kissing” books. Maybe we need them because the average person lacks imaginative kissing abilities. While I’d be the first in a room to pick up a book on the “art of kissing” out of sheer curiosity, I think courage of heart matters more than skill.

At least in our later years, when hopefully, performance gives way to an earthly presence, and kissing becomes an expression of something that really matters.

A Dinosaur in a Sea of Technophiles

I consider myself a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to technology. I don’t own an iPad or an iPhone or a Blackberry or a palm pilot. I avoid using my cell phone unless absolutely necessary and I don’t text. When I get on a streetcar or a subway, instead of putting a headset on or losing myself in a tiny screen pad, I pull a soft cover book out of my carrying bag.

I am fighting the craze every step of the way. Why? Because when I am sitting on a subway train and I look around and 20 out of the 30 people I am surrounded by have their faces buried deep in a hand-held gadget, I think the world is losing its mind. We are so far removed from our natural environment it’s frightening. I’ve seen streetcar drivers short-turning who get up out of their seat to announce the last stop, everyone has to get off. Without fail, there are always a few stragglers, yapping on their cell phones or music blasting, oblivious to the fact that the car has just emptied and there are a crowd of people on the street corner staring at them.

I value my senses. When I am on transit, I want to open the window and smell the air, or be aware of the sounds around me to stay safe and alert. At home, I want to use my vision and exercise my mind away from the glare of my computer screen. I strive to hone my sixth sense by paying attention to energy shifts in my environment, and the intuitive feel of my own body. I want to live IN the world – the real world, not a virtual one. Life is short. I don’t want to be sacrificing any more of my valuable time to technology than I absolutely have to.

I am used to being a bit of a freak. When I tell people I don’t text, I am generally met with shock or disbelief. When I read an article or a blog post supposedly intended to assist newbies in some “basic” social media task and I don’t understand most of the language, I wonder how I got so far behind so fast. I am an intelligent woman. But I simply cannot seem to muster up the required amount of gusto to get myself up to speed. I already spend far too much time blinking at my computer screen as it is.

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching Ellen DeGeneres interview Eddie Murphy. She was asking him about rumors that were circulating and one of them was that he didn’t have a computer or an email address. Was it true?

“Nah, I don’t do any of that stuff,” he replied dismissively. His disinterest was palpable, and I not only admired him for it, but I was filled with a sense of wild envy. Imagine having so much money that you don’t ever have to use email if you don’t want to!

But Ellen pressed on. Did he not even have a cell phone? Murphy’s face lit up. Actually, he had met a girl recently and when the time came to give him her phone number, he reached for a piece of paper. “Oh – you want to do this the old fashioned way,” she quipped. That’s when Murphy ran out and got his first cell phone.

So here’s my question. Is writing a phone number down on a piece of paper really old fashioned?! Do we really want to live in a world where “old fashioned” is viewed as “out of touch”, or where a simple act like this is condescended to? It seems to me that’s where we are headed if we’re not already there. Clearly the comment irked Murphy, whose association with the term was enough to make him feel uncool or out of the loop. It’s too bad he didn’t hold his ground. A dude who doesn’t bow to the trend if it doesn’t suit him is sexy. Someone who’s been around is sexy. Experience is sexy. If his lady friend couldn’t get that, she’s not worth his time.

And so it should go for any of us who are “older”. But I digress. How many times have you allowed someone to “program you” into their cell phone? Have you always been comfortable with it? I seldom am. I can’t help but think about the fact that once I’m in there, I stay there for as long as he owns that phone, or chooses to delete it. Whereas a piece of paper, he’s got to take that home and leave it on his night table and keep track of it somehow. I want to know if he’s interested enough to go to the effort. I don’t want to be “inputted” into his system to be Google searched or sent Facebook invitations. I want to figure out whether I even want to know him first.

And that’s what bothers me about so much of social media today. We’re all so busy accumulating contacts, collecting “friends” and making links that we are spending less and less quality time really getting to know the people we “know”. We’re not as discriminating. It’s all about numbers, size, follower counts, volume. Someone on Twitter recently said to me that he was overwhelmed with knowing so many people superficially, while at the same time knowing so few.

I’m on Twitter with a purpose because I do believe that social media has a place if you’re smart about how you use it. Specifically, I think Twitter is the most multi-faceted, creative and intelligent medium on the scene today. So it’s disheartening to see it abused by spammers or everyday joes peddling their products. I resent having to invest my time regularly “unfollowing” people who “bought” me as a follower. And I don’t understand the use of automated DMs or tweets. They miss the point. This is a venue loaded with opportunities.

One of those might be to allow kismet to do its work. I like to use my intuition in choosing the timing of my tweets, and see what comes out of that. What new connections might come out of my “feeling my way” through how and when I tweet? I treat it like an exercise in “right timing”; of synchronization with the forces that be. Otherwise, I’m just on automatic, succumbing to the often mindless buzz of technological seduction.

And this, as I see it, a benefit of being “older”. So much of it is about seeing that bigger picture – for example, having a grasp on the broader purpose and implications of social media – and getting some perspective on what really matters. It’s about slowing down and paying attention, and being wiser about how you spend your time.

At least for me. That’s the gift; that’s what I’m making it. Because I sure as hell don’t want to spend the prime of my life immersed in a virtual reality.

I want the real deal.

Aging & Destiny

Destiny is something I think about a lot. I am fascinated with how things come together and the timing with which they happen; unforeseen turns at opportune junctures. I do not believe that life is random. I believe that, save for what might be loosely referred to as “the law of chaos”, most things happen for a reason. Discerning what life presents to us and the challenge it brings can be a part of a lifelong spiritual practice that really takes root in our later years. On the most basic level, we glimpse our mortality and so contemplate our purpose in life. But some of us go a lot deeper than that. Is the life I am living my own? How do I define success, and is it anything to do with what I’ve been taught? Am I content to live the second half of my life the way I lived the first? What is it that matters to me most?

These questions are the fruits of a bid for something more, which looks way different at 50 than it did at 25. Making major life changes when we’re older takes real kahunas. Whether we leave an unhappy marriage, abandon a stable job or jump headlong into personal development training, there’s usually a lot at stake. But taking that initial leap is exhilarating. If it works out, we feel reborn, alive – even vindicated. If it doesn’t, we may well doubt the wisdom of our ways. It hasn’t played out the way we thought, and now there’s no going back. Bold moves expose us, not the least of which to ourselves.

And that’s not a fun place to be. An eyes-wide-open look in the mirror can be daunting, however aptly-timed. It’s easy to lose sight of our courage. We don’t recognize ourselves anymore, and it’s damn well disconcerting. This wasn’t part of the plan, we grumble. But what does “working out” really mean? Is there something else in store for us we hadn’t seen coming?

It was E.M. Forster who said, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

If there were a central philosophy around which life over 50 revolved, this would definitely be in the running for me. Woody Allen once said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” There is something really liberating about opening ourselves up to the unexpected, and the older we get, the harder that is for some of us to do. But it is also, I dare say, the most rewarding time to do it. In the Bridges of Madison County – one of my favorite movies of all time – Meryl Streep says in a voice over, “I was acting like another woman – yet I was more of myself than I ever had been before.” The character she played was in the midst of a profound awakening. Could it be, as Thomas Moore puts it, that we are “most ourselves when we are furthest from the self we think we ought to be”?

I find this prospect incredibly exciting. Getting on in our years presents a clear opportunity to consider what was once unthinkable. Giving ourselves over to a life contrary to plan is, I think, one of the purest acts of surrender there is. With age comes a stronger sense of self, and with that, new capacities. Just who is the person we think we ought to be, and what would it mean to sacrifice that to something greater? Is happiness really the ultimate goal,or is there something else more important? What if vitality bore little resemblance to how we had once imagined it?

One of my favorite writers, Dr. Bill Thomas, recently quoted from a blog he had found:

“You might look inside yourself and think you know yourself, but over many decades you can change in ways you won’t see ahead of time. Don’t assume you know who you will become.”

How utterly invigorating to ponder.