You Don't Have to Be French to Be Sexy

It’s definitely a kind of progress to show older woman as sexual, given that many women are said to feel invisible in middle age. But sexiness as an aspirational goal tends to be a doubled-edged sword — it doesn’t mean much at any age if it doesn’t come alongside being actually valued and paid and respected in the same ways men are, and some women enjoy getting the sexy heat taken off them even at 30, as the author in this piece meditating on her 30th birthday felt when she wrote:

Drinking the countless cocktails with which I solidified professional relationships, I got used to dreading propositions. When I stopped getting them, the delight of being equal, rather than just fuckable, hit me like a kiss.

You could flip the point around to illustrate the way sexy pressure can be less than awesome: In France, you feel pressure to still look sexy until you drop dead, but at least in America you get to pull on some sweats and crawl into a hole when you turn 30.

I’m not arguing that nothing happens to women as they age, or that the media’s stamp of approval for women of all body types and ages and skin colors and abilities wouldn’t be rad. But until that day comes, there can be no doubt that the most important thing a woman can do, not to mention rad in its own right, is define sexy on her own terms, in ways that feel authentic to her, and that are not about winning the perceived wink of world leaders or magazine approval, which is about as narrow as it gets — pun intended.

Sexiness is a moment, an experience, a gesture, not a permanent state we should all be hustling to achieve 24/7 ’til death do us bonerkill, and it’s not an official designated title issued by someone else, no matter how powerful their readership. Speaking of media, if that’s all we’re looking to on the French sexiness issue, what about the presence of greater numbers of women over 40 on television in the States, being sexy, or the countless aging actresses in luxury ads in fashion magazines? Did they get special permission or what?

And then there’s this:

“Sex appeal doesn’t go away because we don’t have
such a precise definition of beauty. Quirkiness and charm are more valued than
a static idea of perfection. In the United States, beauty is almost
mathematical and can only be achieved in your 20s,” says Laurence Vely, an
editor at Vanity Fair France, who feels a lot of women become more
attractive with age. “Once you hit 40, you finally know yourself and what suits
you. [You] have real confidence.”

I dunno, you guys, I’m not into this to be all go-America, but for every Carine Roitfeld, Catherine
Deneuve, and Isabelle Huppert, I’d raise them a Diane Keaton, Sharon Stone, or
Susan Sarandon. Yes, France is not America, so let’s concede that there is something more freeing about France’s attitude toward sex and sexuality and affairs and overall sexiness. America has a notoriously conflicted identity as part lurid pornographer, part Puritanical pearl-clutcher. We could learn a thing or two from any view that is more laid-back. And yes, let’s champion the directors and magazines who tell more sexy-diverse kinds of women’s stories. But until then, who is waiting to be “allowed” to be anything?

Besides, even in France, where the sexy
older ladies roam so wild and free, there is an effort trying
to get more women buried at the Pantheon, the place where only great men
like Voltaire and Rousseau are buried for being geniuses. The only lady
buried there on her own merit? Marie Curie. But was she sexy? Couldn’t say we should give a shit.

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