It's Not You! It's Him!

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 Everywhere  
FROM: 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.

We shoulda worked harder to stay handsome. Sorry about the ear hair. Nose hair too. Heck, all the extra hair. We stand by a fella’s right to get older, but still, we should’ve been more careful about pruning. And we should’ve gussied up the weekend wardrobe. How were you supposed to feel frisky about your Fuzzy-Wuzzy once he started living in a soup-stained Furman fleece? Our bad.

We shoulda put down the clicker. Yes, one joy of marriage is the sweet domesticity, the comfort of customs. But we allowed life to get quiet. We should’ve stayed hungry and fought the habituation that is the enemy of romance—even if that meant getting off the couch.

We shoulda revealed ourselves more. Why did we keep everything inside? We should’ve told you more about our sorrows, our joys, our everything. We should’ve trusted you to be gentle with our dreads. If we’d allowed you more access to our hearts, maybe the natural cooling down of over-40 sex wouldn’t have gone quite so far or left us both out in the cold.

We shoulda been more skilled at sex itself. More attuned to the rhythms and angles and pressures and words you dug. We should’ve talked more openly about sex too. Awkward, yes, but who knows where some forthrightness might have led? Our sheepishness was unbecoming in a fully grown man who has wholesome strong feelings for a fully grown woman.

We shoulda worked harder to make you know how beautiful you are. We are passionate about your thighs, your laugh, your ears, your kind­ness, your scent, the curve of your hip, the toasty warmth of your skin. We should’ve made it clear that it was never sex we wanted, it was always you.

But enough! This list could go on forever. We should’ve helped more in the kitchen. We should’ve made you laugh from the soles of your feet. We should’ve lifted you off the ground now and then. But enough recrimination. We will not look backward. We are all about the future, and in that area there’s good news. Sexual energy is, like wind power, endlessly renewable. Even though our hardware may have depreciated over time, our software only gets more sage with age. If the two of us arrived hand in hand at where we are right now, we can also, together, turn this thing around. We can relight the fire.