Well, I mention "America" because being a market-oriented society, America usually sells a bit of everything to everybody as long as there is a demand (even for the poor there is crack, outsized dreams of making it big someday, and cheap, fatty food to be sold).
So, I was surprised to learn that there is a dearth of playful lingerie for 60 and above women in this nation.
Joyce Wadler does a hilarious turn on this particular paucity in the American market.
She says she had modelled her middle-life sexuality image on Mrs. Robinson, the older seductress played by Anne Bancroft in the 1967 movie, The Graduate. Mrs. Robinson wore black, lacy bras and panties. At that time Bancroft was a mere 36 and her character may have been in her early 40s. Late thirties to mid-forties was in the cougar-range back then (wasn't that much back). By the time Wadler turns 60ish, the black lace thingie has passed; a 60ish female in 2013 can't be seductive in the lingerie that adorned the body of a 40 something in the 60s.
She has to close page, chapter and book on Ms. Bancroft and peer into the current smouldering images of Victoria's Secrets models. But those women, though vastly younger and stick-like-ier than herself, are not really about the messy act of sex per se. They are always getting ready for sex and wouldn't want to get into tangled limbs and body fluids for fear of wasting the sheen on their amazing hair or the gloss on their pouty lips and the carefully arranged lingerie on their silky bodies.
Besides, as Wadler reminds herself, she doesn't want to look farcical (it isn't clear whether Wadler thinks the VC models are farcical or the notion of she trying to be like them is).
The writing is engaging; which leads me to my usual cross-cultural question? Why can't imagine women from India, in their 60s be playful?
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