Women, you’ve taken the blame in the bedroom long enough! Read one man’s mea culpa. (She’s got passion; he’s got nose hair).
MEMO TO: Women EverywhereFROM: Men Everywhere
One of the most convenient things about being a man is that you women think everything is your fault. Some mysterious combo of nature and sexist nurture often persuades you to take the blame. If a kid gets a cold or an azalea droops, you feel as if you’ve failed. Over the years, this female trait has allowed us men to fly scot-free under the radar of reproach. Which has pleased us no end (while not exactly making us proud of ourselves). But now you’ve taken it too far. Apparently, some of you feel guilty about the dwindling sex in your relationships, and even men have too much character to let you take the hit for that. If the two of us are no longer raising quite the ruckus we did back at Ann Arbor, well, we got to that new place together. Time to set the record straight.
First, let’s cut both genders some slack. Remember, there are powerful forces arrayed against over-40 passion. Sex positions we once somersaulted into are now orthopedically out of the question. And for some of us, there are those damn wonderful children. Yeah, sure, they give meaning to life and all, but on those nights when the 16-year-old is an hour late and not answering his cell, it’s hard to feel like the Sex Pistols of Shaker Heights. Maybe we should take pride in the juice we still have—hey, did we spoon the stuffing out of each other last Saturday or what?—instead of being ashamed that we haven’t broken any furniture since our second anniversary.
This is a free country, which means it’s our constitutionally protected right to have as little sex as we damn well please. And yet. One nice thing about being over 40 is we need no longer resist the temptation to tell the truth. And the truth for most of us, male or female, is that as happy as we are, we feel a bit more passion would polish up our partnership. The duet known as doing it deepens attachment, and together we may have let something precious get away. But hey, don’t take the weight for the lack of pepper in our stew. Here’s the honest man’s list of regrets, a few shouldas that might have helped keep the home fires burning hotter—and still could.
