Dear Sugar,
I’m a woman in my mid-fifties. I read your column regularly and believe that my question is pedestrian but am humbly asking for your advice and support anyway as I sit in the pain of it all.
After a couple decades of marriage, my husband and I are separating. I am somewhat at peace with it as I feel my marriage has essentially been dead for a while. My husband never was demonstrative emotionally or physically. I have spent many years feeling horribly lonely. No amount of trying to get from him what I needed brought change. It took a lot for me to finally believe that I was worthy of more and to make a step toward that possibility.
Of course the future terrifies me and excites me at the same time. I want to create more loving relationships in my life, both in friendship and romance. I want and need loving touches, loving words. And at the same time, I’m terrified that I’ll never feel the tender touch of a man. I ache for that. Yesterday, as a friend was telling me about a wonderful intimate moment with his partner, I was frightened that I would never have that in my life.
I worry about sex. I haven’t been with another man for a long time. The sex in my marriage was routine and uninspiring. At one point, I told my husband I wanted to have sex more often and he made a joke of it the next night. And, I am afraid I am not very “good” at it. I would orgasm regularly with my husband so it isn’t that. We hid behind what worked until it got to be boring. For years I imagined robust, adventurous sex and yet, I would allow the routine to continue. I am afraid that I will meet a man that I connect with and we’ll have sex and I will not be any good in bed.
I need help. How does one go about changing that before it’s too late?
And, then there is the issue of my body. With clothes on, I am presentable. Without clothes, my body reveals the story of significant weight gain and significant weight loss. I feel good about losing weight, but naked my body is droopy and I’m embarrassed by it. I try to imagine how I will be present sexually with all my insecurities in that department. Surgery is expensive and out of my means. My doctor says without it, my skin won’t regain the same tightness. I imagine orchestrating ways to keep from being seen but I know that probably won’t work and I am so afraid of how a potential lover will react. I don’t want to hide behind my fear and yet, I am so very frightened of exposing myself. I know you can’t do it for me Sugar and yet, I feel so alone in this place of fear.
Are there men my age, who date women my age who will be accepting of my body? I know you really don’t have the answer but I ask anyway.
Emotionally, I am very brave. Sexually and being vulnerable with my body, I am not so much but want to be. And, of course, I am equally terrified that I won’t have the opportunity to express myself, and challenge myself in that way. I respect you so much. Please send help in that special way that you do.
Signed,
Wanting
Dear Wanting,
My daughter is five. One time she overheard me complaining to Mr. Sugar that I was a big fat ugly beast who looks terrible in everything and immediately she asked with surprise, “You’re a big fat ugly beast who looks terrible in everything?”
“No! I was only joking!” I exclaimed, in a falsely cheerful tone. Then I proceeded to pretend, for the sake of my daughter’s future self-esteem, that I did not believe myself to be a big fat ugly beast who looks terrible in everything.
My impulse is to do the same for you, Wanting. In order to protect you from a more complicated reality, I want to pretend that droopy-fleshed women in deep middle age are lusted after by droves of men for their original and seasoned beauty. Looks don’t matter! I want to shout in a giddy, you-go-girl tone.
It wouldn’t be a lie. Looks really don’t matter. You know they don’t. I know they don’t. All the sweet peas of Sugarland would rise and ratify that statement.
And yet. But still. We know it’s not entirely true.
Looks matter to most of us. And sadly, they matter to women to a rather depressing degree—regardless of age, weight or place on the gorgeous-to-hideous beauty continuum. I don’t need to detail the emails in my inbox from women with fears such as your own as proof. I need only do a quick accounting of just about every woman I’ve ever known—an endless phalanx of mostly attractive females who were freaked out because they were fat or flat-chested or frizzy-haired or oddly shaped or lined with wrinkles or laced with stretch marks or in some other way imperfect when viewed through the distorted eyes of the all-knowing, woman-annihilating, ruthless beauty god who has ruled and sometimes doomed significant portions of our lives.
I say enough of that, sweet pea. Enough of that.
I’ve written often about how it is we have to reach hard in the direction of the lives we want, even if it’s difficult to do so. I’ve advised people to set healthy boundaries and communicate mindfully and take risks and work hard on what actually matters and confront contradictory truths and trust the inner voice that speaks with love and shut out the inner voice that speaks with hate. But the thing is—the thing so many of us forget—is that those values and principles don’t only apply to our emotional lives. We’ve got to live them out in our bodies too.
Yours. Mine. Droopy and ugly and fat and thin and marred and wretched as they are. We have to be as fearless about our bellies as we are with our hearts.
There isn’t a short cut around this, sweet pea. The answer to your conundrum isn’t finding a way to make your future lover believe you look like Angelina Jolie. It’s coming to terms with the fact that you don’t and never will (a fact, I’d like to note, that Angelina Jolie herself will also have to come to terms with someday).
Real change happens on the level of the gesture. It’s one person doing one thing differently than he or she did before. It’s the man who opts not to invite his abusive mother to his wedding; the woman who decides to spend her Saturday mornings in a drawing class instead of scrubbing the toilets at home; the writer who won’t allow himself to be devoured by his envy; the parent who takes a deep breath instead of throwing a plate. It’s you and me standing naked before our lovers, even if it makes us feel kind of squirmy in a bad way when we do. The work is there. It’s our task. Doing it will give us strength and clarity. It will bring us closer to who we hope to be.
You don’t have to be young. You don’t have to be thin. You don’t have to be “hot” in a way that some dumbfuckedly narrow mindset has construed that word. You don’t have to have taut flesh or a tight ass or an eternally upright set of tits.
You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve. You have to take off all of your clothes and say, I’m right here.
There are so many tiny revolutions in a life, a million ways we have to circle around ourselves to grow and change and be okay. And perhaps the body is our final frontier. It’s the one place we can’t leave. We’re there till it goes. Most women and some men spend their lives trying to alter it, hide it, prettify it, make it what it isn’t, or conceal it for what it is. But what if we didn’t do that?
That’s the question you need to answer, Wanting. That’s what will bring your deepest desires into your life. Not: will my old, droopy male contemporaries accept and love the old, droopy me? But rather: what’s on the other side of the tiny gigantic revolution in which I move from loathing to loving my own skin? What fruits would that particular liberation bear?
We don’t know—as a culture, as a gender, as individuals, you and I. The fact that we don’t know is feminism’s one true failure. We claimed the agency, we granted ourselves the authority, we gathered the accolades, but we never stopped worrying about how our asses looked in our jeans. There are a lot of reasons for this, a whole bunch of Big Sexist Things We Can Rightfully Blame. But ultimately, like anything, the change is up to us.
The culture isn’t going to give you permission to have “robust, adventurous sex” with your droopy and aging body, so you’re going to have to be brave enough to take it for yourself. This will take some courage, Wanting, but courage is vital piece of any well-lived life. I understand why you’re afraid, honey bun. I don’t mean to diminish the enormity of what’s recently ended and what now will begin, but I do intend to say to you very clearly that this is not the moment to wilt into the underbrush of your insecurities. You’ve earned the right to grow. You’re going to have to carry the water yourself.
So let’s talk about men. A whole bunch of them will overlook you as a lover because they want someone younger and firmer, but not all of them will. Some of them will be thrilled to meet a woman just exactly like you. The sexiest not-culturally-sanctioned-sexy people I know—the old, the fat, the differently-abled, the recently pregnant—have a wonderful way of being forthright about who they are and I suggest you take their approach. Instead of trying to conceal the aspects of your body that make you feel uncomfortable, how about just coming out with it at the outset—before you get into the bedroom and try to slip unnoticed beneath the sheets while having a panic attack? What would happen if you said to Mister Just-About-To-Do-Me: I feel terribly self-conscious about how droopy my body is and I’m not sure if I even really know how to have good sex anymore, since I was frozen in a boring pattern with my ex for years on end.
In my experience, those sorts of revelations help. They unclench the stronghold of one’s fears. They push the intimacy to a more vulnerable place. And they have a spectacular way of revealing precisely the sort of person one is about to sleep with. Does he laugh and say he thinks you’re lovely so just hush up or does he clear his throat and offer you the contact information of his ex-wife’s plastic surgeon? Does he confess his own insecurities or lecture you appallingly about yours? Is he the fellow you really want to share your body with or had you better walk away while the getting’s good?
I know as women we’re constantly being scorched by the relentless porno/Hollywood beauty blow-torch, but in my real life I’ve found that the men worth fucking are far more good-natured about the female body in its varied forms than is generally acknowledged. Naked and smiling, is one male friend’s only requirement for a lover. Perhaps it’s because men are people with bodies full of fears and insecurities and shortcomings of their own. Find one of them. One who makes you think and laugh and come. Invite him into the tiny revolution in your beautiful new world.
Yours,
Sugar
71 responses
So true, Sugar. Men also feel the insecurity that comes from media’s depiction of what women want. A man may worry about his hairline, or the paunch that peeks out over his belt, or the size of his…
Well, anyway, your advice to Wanting should comfort and inspire. After too many years of being imprisoned in a loveless marriage, Wanting will have to realize that she is worth the time and trouble for a man to build a relationship with her where her body is only one of the many things he loves about her.
I agree full bodily, if that is a term. Men are just really happy to be with a naked lady who wants to share that with them. Real men, that is. Fuck the rest. Not literally, of course.
Sugar, I think I would marry you (assuming you weren’t already taken by what I can only imagine is the world’s coolest man to have ever landed someone like you).
Fifty-year-old man speaking: for guys who aren’t douchebags, 90% of it is attitude. If a woman is confident in who and what she is, the right men will be attracted. A woman who needs approval to feel whole will attract douchebags who like to control her. Physical perfection is virtually meaningless when you are up close. It’s the person that matters. Plus, any guy 50 or over is going to be a lot more worried about being able to get it up than he is about whether your belly is creased or has a C-sec scar or whatever.
“… from loathing to loving” — yes, we all need a little (or a lot) of that in our lives. This really hits close to home for me as I enter the dating arena at 43 with 3 kids… but, like “Wanting”, the alternative of being trapped in a loveless marriage is far more scary than the droopiness of three c-sections.
Thank you Sugar!
I’m so grateful for you. Thank you.
Wow, did I ever need to hear this today. Thank you for the good words.
Sugar, you truly are the best. I’m like you Becky – 40, with 2 kids, divorced after 20 years of marriage. It seems that all the men my age want to date 25 year olds – and all the men 10 years older than me want to date 25 year olds too! Thus, after a few splashes in the pool, I have decided to sit by the side and enjoy the sun until the kids are grown. I will be older and wrinklier then, but maybe a bit more courageous too, especially given Sugar’s words of wisdom. Good luck!
Pardon me as I kick in the doors of all my neighbors and make them read the new SUGAR column. You make every Thursday feel like a holiday, Sugar.
XX
M
this is the best turning-55-birthday present i can imagine. almost. love you!
Thank you, Sugar, for your wise and beautiful advice. Wanting, I am so happy for you that you have had the guts and the faith in yourself to take the leap, to open yourself to the unknown, to your future. I too left a marriage after 2 decades at age 55. I too wanted everything, and I also knew that even if I never was intimate again, it was better than being in a dead relationship. But in fact, the world is full of amazing, fascinating people of all ages and predilections. Please take Sugar’s advice, and don’t focus on imperfections. We all have them in spades. Find your future. I’m rooting for you!
“what’s on the other side of the tiny gigantic revolution in which I move from loathing to loving my own skin?”
i don’t know what is over there, but tonight i believe that i might be brave enough to find out.
thank you sugar.
I am twenty-one and needed that as much as I think the fifty-year old who wrote you to get it did. Thank you to both women. You are magnificent.
I love the way my forearms look. I love their particular patterns of freckles, their shape, even the weird blue vein that shows in most of the left one. I don’t know why, but I do.
When I hate everything else about the way I look–which happens every single morning when I get dressed, and for a period of time helped give me an excuse to stay in my jammies all day, ignoring life outside the house–I sometimes take a minute to look at my forearms. How could a hideous hosebeast have such lovely forearms? In this little way, I give myself a chance to feel acceptance and even admiration for my body just the way it is, as Sugar advises. Surely we each have a part of ourselves we can adore, no?
I am currently a year out of a long term relationship. When faced with my own flawed body and the prospect of having to reveal it, I was as paralyzed as Wanting. You see, as a child, I was the horribly bullied fat kid. The residual effect has been a lifetime of believing that I’m simply not attractive. And I have spent that lifetime compensating by being smart enough, charming, funny, interesting, flirty, overtly sexual. By being a first move maker. And, well, by ending up in relationships with people that I know aren’t enough for me, aren’t my ideal, but are ‘what I thought I could get’. But I had a revolution of my own this year. And the results have been staggering.
Dozens of dates, 5 different lovers, sometimes overlapping, it’s been a thrilling rush. A year that has changed my perspective on dozens of ideas about me and how I exist in relationships. A year that has increased my self-confidence in the only way it had been lacking.
This year, I have been called beautiful, been with people I find immensely attractive and would have previously thought were ‘out of my league’, have been lusted after, have had hot, incredible sex, have had first moves made on me, more than I ever thought would be possible. I’ve juggled dates and lovers and sexting and flirty e-mail correspondances. It has been surreal and mind blowing. This year, Stella Got Her Groove Back and then some.
And this body is still large. And lumpy. And middle aged. And hot. And capable of incredible sensuality. And desirable. And gets me off. And turns them on. And. And. And.
And if I can have a revolution (and by God it was a hard fought one)… I agree. Wanting can too.
God, Sugar. You just hit that nail squarely on the head. Bless you and thank you and bless you and thank you again.
Without clothes, my body reveals the story of significant weight gain and significant weight loss. I feel good about losing weight, but naked my body is droopy and I’m embarrassed by it. I try to imagine how I will be present sexually with all my insecurities in that department. Surgery is expensive and out of my means. My doctor says without it, my skin won’t regain the same tightness.
I have lived and wondered about the same thing, under the same circumstances. I had a gastric bypass, and dropped weight, but not skin.
Listen.
A mischievous smile and an intelligent mind is worth gold.
By your words and bravery, you’re already someone worth talking to. Understand that. Please.
Oh, Sugar. Tiny revolutions indeed. I’m not 50 or leaving a husband but I’m experiencing some tiny revolutions of my own, and they are immense. And you are absolutely right about the honesty, the upfrontness. You won’t be laughed at when you tell the truth, and if someone is enough of an jerk to laugh at you in the face of that kind of raw honesty, you will be more angry than hurt. Sugar, thanks for this column. It didn’t make me cry like some of the others, but it rang so true. And Wanting.. go get it! 🙂
change happens at the level of the gesture, and, who cares if the robust love you seek is not culturally sanctoned take it anyway. sugar i love your linking of personal challenge to invisible but strong cultural power and the key to change, personal and cultural, societal, tiny actions gestures words. thats it. the only way to create change one gesture or motion, and practice over and over, and sometimes breathe while you do it, exhale.
“an endless phalanx of mostly attractive females…”
best use of the word phalanx I’ve seen all day.
Sugar, when I read your writing, it makes my heart DANCE!!
yes! perfect! i’ve been resonating with this comparison/body image theme all week. i even wrote a little blog about it the other day. the letter: beautifully honest and vulnerable. the response: empowering and inspiring. thank you both! let’s start a revolution and start loving our bodies just as they are!
“I’ve found that the men worth fucking are far more good-natured about the female body in its varied forms than is generally acknowledged.”
TRUTH.
Also, Dance, you say that you are emotionally brave. Lean into that emotional bravery as you expose the emotions you have about your body (both to yourself and to potential partners).
And for what it’s worth…
Put yourself out there.
Give yourself time.
Dance.
In the mirror.
Wiggle those beautiful hips.
Smile for no other reason than to feel the beauty of a simple upward curl of your lips.
Give yourself time.
Sometimes Sugar’s columns aren’t criers, they’re a triumphant fist pump.
Yes, here’s to working it, exactly what we have.
amazing, as always. i read this to a family full of women, all of varying ages, in varying stages, and we all teared up and said, “hell yes!”
I’m close to 50 years old myself. I’m a successful, high-end paid companion/courtesan/prostitute. None of my clients is under 50; most are in their 50s and 60s, a few in their 70s. I’ve had three children, all by c-section. I have a bad knee. Sometimes I snore. I need to lose 35-40 pounds. I don’t have a perfect body and it makes no difference to the men I see. I make a very good living just the way I am.
It’s true that there are men in their 50s and 60s who would never consider having a partner their age. They want younger, firmer women with no scars, wrinkles or saggy bits. They’re as uncomfortable with aging as most women are and hope that younger women will help them look younger, more virile and more powerful. These men may be very fine people, good to know and to love, but they won’t be appropriate partners for women like us because they confuse packaging with content.
But there are also many men who genuinely do want a peer. The want someone who has lived through the same kinds of things, who has been shaped by and responded to similar events. Content matters a lot more than packaging for these fellows. A woman who knows who she is, who appreciates what she’s experienced and learned, who is also able to forgive not only herself but also others for not being perfect–doesn’t have to be any more alone in her later years than she wants to be.
If you worry about how you’ll be in bed, trust me: men our age worry much more than we do. While we often feel pressured to be physically beautiful, men usually don’t feel that they need to achieve or maintain a similar standard of fitness. The consequence is that they tend to be overweight; they have hypertension; they may have become diabetic; they may have cardiovascular problems of various kinds; they may have other health problems like arthritis. These conditions and the medications that help control them frequently cause or contribute to erectile problems and trouble with ejaculation. Viagra and similar drugs help, a lot of the time, but they don’t help everyone and they the results are often unreliable and inconsistent.
When most men find that they can’t be certain whether they’ll have erections, whether the ones they have will last, or whether they’ll be able to choose when or whether they’ll be able to climax, they don’t feel unattractive, they feel unmanly, humiliated when they’re with a partner and deeply ashamed of themselves the rest of the time. Worst of all, most find it extremely difficult to talk about any of this stuff.
Our culture over-invests in the notion that intercourse is the goal of sex when it’s really just one way to have pleasure. It’s not always the most fun or fulfilling way, either. Many men believe that if they can’t perform as they did when they were, say, 30, it’s all over. But a man who can’t have an erection can still have an orgasm. He can still feel millions of wonderful things when he gives and receives intimate pleasure.
My advice is that the best things you can do include becoming confident, creative and comfortable. Have confidence that you are an attractive and rewarding sexual partner. Find creative ways to give and receive sensual pleasure of many kinds, in and out of the bedroom. Learn to be as comfortable talking about sex, your body and your partner’s body as you are talking about the weather.
Be prepared to show him what you like and to experiment to find out what he likes, too. He may not know what feels good for him and he probably won’t know what feels good for you unless you show him. Find a good-quality adult toy store that offers workshops about a wide variety of sensual activities. Some classes are just for women, some are for people of all genders. You won’t be pressured into doing anything, getting naked or being uncomfortable. You can learn all about sex toys, techniques and games. You can learn to talk calmly and explicitly about sexual things. I can almost guarantee that you’ll meet other people in your age range, too, who are wondering about the same things you are and who have hopes and anxieties like yours, too.
I absolutely believe that you can find the partner you want to have if you let yourself. He’s out there and he will be thrilled to have found you, too.
You, Sugar, are beautiful. That shines through in every word you bring to us, in every column with which you gift us. If I could inscribe the truths you tell on my skin so that I might absorb them into me, walk around infused with that quiet clear certainty that comes after reading each column, I would.
Oh my God, that last paragraph. <3 .
Naked and Smiling, the new standard! XD
Thank you Sugar, for sweetly yet honestly addressing the fears that we all have as women.
Once again, Sugar, you take a problem I’ve been trying to tackle for years and put it in a whole new perspective – causing me to realize that it’s not impossible to change. Also, that maybe…just maybe, I’m good enough as I am. As a human being, I am in a constant state of flux; there is always going to be something to change. However, those things that I focus on as needing to be “fixed” may not have to be. And I applaud Wanting for just that – wanting more and wanting the life she’s entitled to. May I be as brave when I’m that age.
I think I’m ready to carry that water now. 🙂
Human Awareness Insitute (you can google it) offers amazing weekend workshops all over the world exploring matters of body acceptance, sex and sexuality, intimacy, and love. I have attended several of these and found them to be extraordinarily powerful in transforming and healing many of the issues that Wanting is wrestling with. I don’t work for the organization nor do I stand to benefit in any way from sharing this info with everyone, but I really feel that this is one of the best organized forums for exploring and healing these issues in a safe and loving container. I myself have become much more authentically confident in my inherent lovability (and the lovability of my body) as a result of participating in the workshops. Not to mention that the average age of participants is about 45-55 with all ages, shapes, sizes represented. And plenty of sincere and loving older men (including singles) attending.
Sugar, I love you. Your words make my heart soar. Will you marry me?
“…this is not the moment to wilt into the underbrush of your insecurities.”
Aside from having an over-40 body that lost 100 lbs quickly, I also have that lingering fear that I’m not enough in all sorts of other ways. So many times I get what my heart and soul needs by reading you column, Sugar. Thank you!
Sugar, this is not my struggle at the moment. I am a woman, so it’s a battle often raging in the background, but it’s not the main thing right now. But I am doing some hard looking at my life, realizing that some relationships that are incredibly important to me may actually be hurting me. And asking for what I need seems impossible. An insurmountable task.
“Real change happens on the level of the gesture” is exactly what I needed to read today. So I’ll keep making the gestures that say that my needs, my wants, my desires, are real and important and equal to anyone else’s. Thank you.
Sugar, My heart was pounding when I realized you chose my letter. I stepped away from the computer and paced the living room before I was calm enough to read what you wrote. Then, I cried. Thank you so much for your loving, kind, encouraging words to not “wilt under the sage brush of my insecurities.” So many of your words, too many to repeat, floated right into my soul and encouraged me to keep moving toward what I want. This frontier is the most difficult, most vulnerable, for me.
I have chosen not to date yet and to spend some time getting comfortable with my singleness. When I get to the place that I am ready to date, I will reread your column many times for inspiration.
Thank you, as well, to all who commented for your kindness, support, encouragement and for giving me sense of community in what sometimes feels like a very alone place.
Yay, Wanting! You’re about to have so much fun. With a partner who’s got a spark in his eyes, I bet you’re going to be a spicy bombshell in the sack.
Meanwhile, I’m sort of surprised no one has suggested a paid companion/sensual male masseuse/male prostitute. The whole argument that it’s shameful to pay for it because you can’t get it elsewhere is bullshit and a symptom of our sex repressive culture. These guys are professional. You can try out new tricks with a man who will be accepting and non-judgemental of your body all while stoking your ego and giving you great pleasure. If I wanted to learn how to do anything better, I’d go to a professional. Why not the same with sex? No emotional commitment right off the bat, you can explore new strokes before you jump in the dating game.
Either way, good luck. Sugar gave us all some mantras on that one…
I love this: “In my experience, those sorts of revelations help. They unclench the stronghold of one’s fears. They push the intimacy to a more vulnerable place. And they have a spectacular way of revealing precisely the sort of person one is about to sleep with.”
This morning, I had a very vulnerable conversation with a man I’ve been dating only a couple of months. In my case, it’s not my body I’m afraid of revealing, but my psyche. That quote above just made me stop and take the first deep breath I’ve taken since the conversation. I don’t know if I revealed too much or the wrong stuff or if he’ll up and leave now that he knows part of what makes me tick, but I had to take the risk in order to increase our intimacy, in order to find out if this man is worth my time. I’m still terrified I said it wrong. But it seems to me that it’s similar to the LW’s issues: we have to reveal ourselves in our true skin (literally or figuratively) to be truly seen and loved for who we actually are.
Thank you for reminding me to breathe, Sugar!
-M
Thanks Wanting, for sharing your story, and, thanks, as ever, Sugar, for everything you do.
I’ve never commented before but I am moved to suggest, too, getting some simple gadgets and toys and practising some serious self-love. [Maybe incorporating erotica, written or filmed, etc.] There’s something about engaging in this kind of fantasy and play with oneself that seems different to me than more straightforward masturbation or the kind of sex described with the husband, which brings one to orgasm but doesn’t really scratch that itch. Becoming one’s own lover, exploring one’s own body, one’s own flesh, thinking about what works and what doesn’t in an overtly sensual way makes a difference in foundational attitude over time, I feel. Especially when we’re feeling the very opposite of sexy or desirable. Doing it anyway in the safety and security of our own space makes it easier to bring it out into the world, to be present in our bodies and more open to the experience of another whenever he/she shows up. Knowing our current pleasure points, marking our shifts in tastes or mood, and noting all the various ways we can feel sexual on any given day as we change in our bodies and grow older keeps things dynamic and becomes, for me, a certain fascination. I gain a new respect for my body when I observe myself and my senses and responses, separating the ego part out, and really focussing on my sensations. It helps me detach from that judgement I feel. I also find that building a stockpile of these self-loving moments helps tremendously when weeding through the potential lovers who finally show up and allows me to say ‘no’ more readily, more kindly, more honestly than ever. And, too, saying ‘yes’. So, yes: and I’m sure you already know it. But actively practising this kind of self-love, especially before running the gauntlet of the social world, really goes a long way toward self-acceptance, I find, and helps move us past some of these fears and insecurities that I think so many share.
Anyway, bottom line is you’re not alone, mama. Good luck!
Oh, Sugar, there are no words to describe your writing! I am 23 years old, and I have not had all the experiences of Wanting, or any of the other lovely souls who have written to you for advice, but somehow every week there is something in your answer that plucks at the harp-strings in my chest. Somehow there is something that makes me sit up a little straighter and lean closer as I read, and maybe even feel the hot prickle of tears. It’s a testament to your talent, Sugar, that you can answer Wanted’s question with such universal truths. I love love love it. I carry your words with me through every week.
And to everyone who has commented on Wanted’s story, it also amazes me that there is such a bond of love between all of us here in Sugarland. The support and loving words and comfort from not only Sugar but from everyone who reads Sugar and loves Sugar and loves the people who write to Sugar fairly oozes off the screen. It makes me smile.
Perfectly, perfect response, as always, dearest Sugar! As a 48 y/o non-perfect woman, gravity is not my friend. I can so relate to Wanting! I always disclose with potential partners BEFORE we get naked that I look a whole lot better in my clothes than out of them and if any of them got lucky enough to actually judge for themselves, well, if they were shocked or turned off, I never knew it! Another thing to remember is what’s already been said above, most men worry about how we perceive their bodies as much or more than we worry about our bodies and when it comes right down to it, all the see is a sexy woman, standing in front of them and wanting IT! Nuf said.
the first thing sugar’s letter made me think of was katt williams’s bit…
to paraphrase: “you’re worried about stretchmarks? men know that stretchmarks came from either one of two things: either you was big, and got small, or you was small, and got big. either way, we f**kin. either WAY.”
I, too, am a woman in my mid-fifties. I spent all the time from 40 to 55 being single, only to find myself married again.
When I was a little kid, every person in my family was extremely thin…except for me. My family made it plain to me that I was “fat” (even though, as a child, teen, and young adult…I wasn’t). I am now, and have been since my 30s (I don’t feel any fatter now than I did then). I don’t know how to feel “not fat”. I have a funny face, and stretch marks, and hair that never does what I want it to. I’ve never felt pretty.
What I have felt, though, is sexy. I like sex, and somehow, when the clothes come off, I feel sexier than any stereotypical hot woman you’d care to name. Maybe it’s the strength of my desire, and maybe it’s just that when the clothes come off, we are ALL that sexy to the one we’re with.
I’ve never been without a partner when I’ve wanted one. A few have remained my very good friends, and I have lovely memories of others. All of them told me that I’m beautiful. I *know* that I am beautiful underneath my saggy spacesuit, and maybe that shines through. I’ve recently remarried, and it’s a joy this time around.
Don’t rush. Use condoms. There are a bazillion men out there, and one — or more! — of them will be worthy of you. Have fun!
I have never read any of your bits before Sugar. Very inspirational.
My problem? I have an ideal which is to be my shape (hourglass) but with a bit of a flatter tummy and thinner (but chunky) arms and legs, no double chin and without the wobbly bits which were from dropping from 26 stone to 19 stone (still over weight and ‘morbidly obese’ but much healthier than before!)
However this weight loss has left me with huge and saggy upper arms, folds of fatty back skin which comes around to meet my boobs, wrinkly saggy skin on the back of my thighs and folds of skin over the backs of the inside of my knee…
I used to play rubgy when I was at College and Uni. In short I was ripped but I had an accident which put me in a wheel chair for 2 years. I was totally in denial and thought I needed to keep eating the same as I would soon be training again. The weight piled on over that time. I went from being a 17 stone muscular hourglass to a round 26 stone apple … when I could excercise again and when I got over the depression (many years later) I lost weight steadily and carefully in order to avoid this body… but it seemed to not matter. I have days where I can look in the mirror and think ‘yeah OK’ and days when I can’t look in the mirror at all.
I have a partner who loves me and tells me they enjoy my body but I feel my confidence lets me down and there is NOTHING sexier than confidence, right? So what am I going to do??? I’ll tell you.
1.I’m going to re read this.
2.I’m going to print out a list of why I’m beautiful and copy it …
3.I’m going to blow it up and frame it and it’s going in every room of the house
4. Buy sexy undies, scrap that go shopping with OH for sexy undies …
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
My friends and I just did a photo shoot about embracing our bodies. There was so much interest from women who wanted to find some way to self acceptance. It was really fun.We wrote messages of healing on our bodies and photographed them. We all left feeling a little more self-assured and a little more sassy. Embracing your food baby is so necessary and so friggin’ HARD! The experience was so empowering we plan on doing it again and again. I’m posting a link to the photos below, and sending Wanting vibes filled with strength and self-love:
http://queenpinmama.blogspot.com/2011/09/embrace-your-food-baby.html
“Perhaps it’s because men are people with bodies full of fears and insecurities and shortcomings of their own. Find one of them. One who makes you think and laugh and come. Invite him into the tiny revolution in your beautiful new world.”
I did that! And now that tiny, beautiful new world has grown into a beautiful new life. It happens. Leaving the old and busted behind is the first step.
I love you Sugar. You take all the sold out asshole-ishness out of being cool and just leave the pure, haunted, true coolness there for us to soak up.
P.S. Thanks for getting me to write again. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it.
This weekend I went to Las Vegas, one of the epicenters of Look This Way culture. I went with my older sister who is currently much thinner than I am, whose body snapped back like magic after she had her child…etc.
That is to say: perfect storm of body-issue traps.
The bathroom in our hotel room was covered in mirrors. Covered. There were practically no un-mirrored surfaces in that room. As I bathed, brushed teeth, got dressed, I was treated to a view of my body at every angle.
At first this was acutely uncomfortable. I don’t have a lot of mirrors at home, certainly not full-length ones, certainly not ones that show my stomach and ass at the same time. I spent a good while realizing, “I look like THAT…aha.”
For me, the insecurities and self-criticism start firing when I think I should look like something else, and then fool myself into thinking maybe I do, and then realize – oh, yeah, not. I spend a LOT of time looking at images of women on TV and the internet whom I think are beautiful, and who don’t look like me. I wonder why our brains do that thing, where they identify and correlate one thing with another, when there is no logical connection?
But. After the initial surprise and disappointment, having all those mirrors was awesome. Because spending time looking at ME, and not relating it to the images I saw on TV or the internet, or the imaginary version of me I’d had in my head – once I was able to get over doing that – turned out to be fun. Look at my ass! It is much bigger than I thought! And…I like it!
This is to say: it’s not just about accepting that you are not an ideal, or accepting that you can be insecure about what you look like, or those very good things. It’s also about taking control of what YOU think is beautiful. I think my large ass is beautiful, and I also love my stretch marks. I’m not kidding – I do. The part where I get tripped up is when I start thinking there is only one way to be beautiful, and I’m not it.
There isn’t. I am it.
It’s more important to me that I know that than that anyone else does. That’s step one.
thank you, thank you, thank you. I needed this today. I will probably have to circle around it a few times before I can pick it up and run with it, but thank you, thank you, thank all of you, for putting this out there. The revolution road is long and sometimes barren. This is like an oasis.
Sugar,
You never fail to make my day.
I was 55 when my husband left me for a woman two decades younger. And thus my revolution began. It’s been almost five years now, and the small thing that I would like to touch on here is how transformed I feel in heart, mind and body. My own Mr. Never Demonstrative is out of my life, and it’s the best thing that could have happened to my body. Go forth, Wanting, with all of your emotional braveness. Love is waiting. It’s better than plastic surgery.
Sugar, I read your column every week and it always makes me cry, but generally not until I get to the comments. It’s reading the relief in all the responses from people who are so thirsty for what you give them–the kindness and the careful listening and the amazingly intuitive filling-in of blanks and the unwavering confidence in their ability to climb out of whatever rut they’ve found themselves in–that’s what gets me.
So I didn’t think when I finally left a note in this intimate and inspiring post-column space it would be to differ with anything you’ve said. And I’m not differing exactly, but because like Wanting I’ve both plodded along in relationships with partners who were doing just fine, thank you, and weren’t particularly concerned about whether I was too, and (and here I’m no different from any other woman in the world) felt that same fear that my naked body would never be deemed worthy of the loving and joyous sex that my heart was demanding, I wanted to add something from my own experience.
It is this: I’ve done the hard work of leaving a relationship because I’d finally managed to believe the voice inside me shouting patiently for years that I was “worthy of more.” I’m now with a man who LOVES the very specific parts of me that I hate the most, who finds sensual pleasure and emotional solace in zones of my flesh that in my mind are maps of pain: compulsive overeating, anorexia and addiction, the same weight lost and gained over and over again until the skin ripples and yields in that way my partner so appreciates. This might not sound like a problem. It isn’t any more. But when we were first exploring each other, I realized with horror that part of the cost of being with someone who would love my body the way it was was that he would want to TOUCH it. He would want that to feel good. He would want me to use my hated thighs and belly and saggy breasts to love him back with. And in order to do all of that, somehow, I had to love them too. It was really, really hard to let go and do, and it was worth it, and that’s more or less what Sugar just said, much more beautifully than I could. What I wanted to add is: Wanting, that first thing you mentioned? Ending a relationship that’s not killing you or anything but simply isn’t letting your life expand to fill the vastness that you know it’s destined for, going even though you have no car keys and no road map? You DID that part already, and, at least by my lights, that part is harder. I don’t want to downplay the challenge for women of living in our bodies, just to say that if your experience goes anything like mine, the step you’ve already taken has actually gotten you about three quarters of the way toward where you’re going, and the rest is the home stretch.
Gorgeous! Such bottomless wisdom, Sugar.
Dear Sugar, I am fan of your column and a customer. You were kind enought to offer me some wisdom when I wrote you, thank you. Today I am writing to ask that you take a few lines in a column that week to let your readers know that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I am honored to be on the board of directors of the Portland Women Crisis Line; http://www.pwcl.org Each month our volunteers and staff take over 700 calls, the majority are about DV, while sad to say there is little we can do for the caller because of very limited resources, we do give survivors a person that listens and cares about them. If you could let your readers know about the national DV hotline; 1-800-799-2233 perhaps someone that is in a DV situation could start living a life free of personal violence. The national hotline can let callers know of local resource they can contect with. I am sure you get many requests like this and any information you can share with your readers would be wonderful. by the way the ED of the PWCL would be a great resource if you need information on this topic, her name is Rebecca
Thank you
Michael Bartley
Board member of the Portland Women Crisis Line
Sugar I want you to shrink and live in my pocket. Please?
Love the line about feminism’s failure: We claimed the agency, we granted ourselves the authority, we gathered the accolades, but we never stopped worrying about how our asses looked in our jeans.
Ah yes, the am i good enoughs suck. I was there. In some ways I still am. 7 years ago I left my sex-free marriage. Who would want me? I am old, fat, kinky, a bit odd. But. I refused to live in the fear the way I had, and while I cannot say I completely overcame it, I have been loved by one man and desired by many others. Its terrifying to be naked, but freeing as well. Wanting, you can do it.
Bless you, Sugar. You know what I needed to hear. I’ve been reading and re-reading this since it was published and I find something new in it each time I do. Thank you for sharing yourself with us!
When you look into a mirror you see not only a reversed image but an image that is so distorted by your fears, fantasies and cultural fetishes that you have NO IDEA what you really look like. You never will. Nor will any two people see the same YOU. Everything is subjective.
It’s all about energy: the kind you project, the kind you receive. It’s about who you are. Period.
I can only speak as a nearly 50 year old man who has had sex with the same woman for decades. I believe love is the greatest aphrodisiac. The intimacy my wife and I feel exposing our own vulnerabilities and insecurities in the context of unqualified acceptance is itself a turn-on. We both acknowledge the beauty of younger, tighter, larger, firmer specimens of both sexes. But that has little to nothing to do with what goes on between us in the bedroom (or the hot-tub, or…). Let’s face it. Sex is up close and personal. We don’t stand back and appraise each other, though my wife graces me with her nakedness as much as possible. When she does, I don’t assess and critique. I recognize in her a woman who has gives herself to me without reserve – How could I resist?
Fuck more. Think less.
Sorry if this seems insensitive but GODDAMN! Life is short! Jump into the pool and stop worrying about how you look in the bathing suit.
Okay, that was my knee-jerk response. Sorry. I’m a 55-year-old single straight dude and honestly: I couldn’t care less about lumps or wrinkles or grey hair or gymnastic ability. Give me a mischievous twinkle and a conspiratorial smile and I’m putty in your hands.
At least until the Viagra kicks in. Pahrump-bump.
I could give up and stay home. I could pound Racer 5s and watch Breaking Bad reruns and bemoan my bald head, my expanding waistline, my shrinking wallet, my flagging libido.
To merely look at me, you might think that I am nobody’s prize. But I get out there and I mix it up and I make the best of it. Sometimes that story ends in a bed with a woman.
Sometimes that sex is great. Sometimes it is less great. Never do I regret it, unless she has a cat. (Damn allergies!)
You should get out there too, Wanting. Otherwise how the hell are we ever going to find each other?
I am 25 and was very touched by this column… I am still waiting for that elusive experience of feeling sexy and desirable that’s supposed to come with youth. I feel like because of my age I have no excuse for not being hot, and that there are SO many beautiful, fashionable, smart and successful women in NYC that why would any decent guy want me? I guess my looks are probably at least average, and I put effort into my clothing/hair/makeup/etc, but rarely have I ever acknowledged or acted upon a possible attraction I have for someone…I’m certain they have far better options. Since my teens, I’ve felt utterly surrounded by girls that are either more beautiful, more confident, more interesting, or all of the above.
I’ve never been in a relationship or experienced real intimacy (only a couple short-term physical encounters), which only reinforces my beliefs that for whatever reason, I am inherently just not the type of woman that the men I’m interested will ever want. Objectively, I know it’s a confidence thing, but how is an insecure person supposed to convince herself to simply “be more confident” when she doesn’t feel it’s warranted?
“You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve.” This totally hit home for me, because I know you’re right. It’s easy for me to find excuses to hide behind my insecurity, but as curious as I am about intimacy, I’ve become even more afraid of the vulnerability that will come with it.
I used to feel the same way about my body, and avoided sex and skinny dipping and being topless when it was hot out. But then I decided that since I liked doing all of those things more than I liked pretending I had a different body than I do. So, I just acted like I was all comfortable and confident and fine with people seeing me naked, and over the years, I actually became comfortable and confident and fine with people seeing my imperfect body naked. It was really, really, really hard and first, but it got easier and that voice in my head got quieter and quieter until it hardly ever comes out anymore.
Sugar is right – real change starts with YOU, and even if you just let one person see you in all your imperfect, naked glory, not only do you get more confidence, but they will broaden their mind about what real people and real beauty is. Cause really, most people don’t look like models, so why let pretending that we do get in the way of living our lives?
Someone above recommended the Human Awareness Institute (about human sexuality). I looked it up on Google and came up with this cautionary thread:
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?4,57543
My dearer Wanting,
I read and pondered your letter. I love Sugar’s response, but I also feel like you may need some practical advice. So here goes….start with Angelina Jolie. Is she beautiful? If we examine and look closely we can find flaws. But what makes her have that something? The gleam in her eyes. She’s into it, and ready. Are you? Could you pull that off? Have you tried? At our middle ages there are some flaws: man boobs, guts, hair in wierd places. Oh, have you forgotten that man can have flaws too? but when a man is trying to seduce you, he has already decided he’s attracted to you, so you no longer need to worry about being attractive to him, because he’s already there. You Should have some nice undies on and button up shirt, which you can slowly unbutton in a semi dark room. Start with that. I am not that attractive, really, but I seem to be able to Attract male attention…eye contact, laughing, interest in his story, looking for that spark. He must ignite that twinkle in your eye! Have opinions, a life of your own! that Mr. maybe must prove worthy of being a part of, because it’s pretty great.
We fall in love with the flaw of our beloved, not their perfection. The flaw is what lets us in. So have your flaws, because for the right guy, there is you, in all of your flawed awesomeness.
It’s funny, Sugar. In some columns, you write about all this insanely tragic stuff, like abuse and death and family and leaving and losing and that kicked-stomach kind of pain that everyone deals with at at some point in their lives, but usually (hopefully) only occasionally. And most of those columns make me cry, it’s true.
But this one? This column, seemingly about the humdrum everyday struggle most of us face regarding our bodies, especially after a serious breakup of one sort or another? THIS little column didn’t make me cry.
It made me sob.
Like, hiccup drawing in air loudly and messily and mascara-running sobs. Like that, and in front of my boyfriend. (A man who, thank god, loves me and my totally wonky body.) But yeah. This one was killer. It was therapy on my laptop, and a wake up call that I’m not so over my body issues as I thought I might be.
So, you know. Thanks. Thanks you, as always. (For making me cry. Ha! Irony.)
You’re the best, lady.
Alice is known in Polska.She’s plays in a few movie.I don’t understand why only became involved with the ugly “Playboy” xD
There is one rule to go by in this situation of being out of practice in sex. You are planning to be with a guy you like a lot and he is going to be a guy who likes you a lot and that stands to be the best advantage. Next, guys want to know they are doing a good job, there is no reason to feel insecure if you keep him informed that he is doing well, this will in turn encourage him to do even better and it catches like a grass fire… As for you and what you can do for him, know that guys are visual and that if you ask him questions about how well you are doing and will take what ever direction he is giving you — you will blow his mind. It is easy, we are easy. We like to look and we like to hear. The emotional support stuff that has put you in the mood will make it all that much better. Know that the guy you are going to be with is going to be somebody you know and like and find attractive and so it will be easy. You are very loving and have gone through a lot of stuff. I wish I could introduce you to my bachelor friends. Bless You!
I could have written this letter. Since I divorced 10+ years ago, I have been hoping for a man who I could love and who would appreciate that love to come into my life. He hasn’t, and I’ve been blaming the fact that I’m heavier than I want to be.
Reading this (and MaggieMay’s and Samantha’s posts) has changed my life. Today, my attitude changes. Today, I will fully embrace myself as I am. Sure, I will still do my best to exercise and eat sensibly; I haven’t given up on being a size 8 again, but I will no longer put living on hold until the scale tells me to proceed.
18 months ago, I found out my husband of 15 years and my only lover had betrayed me so beautifully and thoroughly that my Catholic priest and my lawyer both said exactly the same thing about restoring the marriage-“Don’t”. I also turned 40. I was also overweight. And I hadn’t had sex with anybody who had never seen me naked before since the age of 18, when I was in the best shape of my life.
So. Ensuing terror.
I reconnected with someone from high school- we turned out to be very different people than we were then, with a goodly share of baggage to unpack, but he asked the right questions. Bluntly, directly, with concern. Then with love.
He thought my status was something I badly needed to rectify, volunteered for the job, and spent a long time preparing for our eventual encounter 6 months later in a city we both remember extremely fondly now.
The funny thing? Of all my body parts, I hate my lower body. All of it. Hips, ass, thighs, knees. But oh, God, especially my thighs. I looked at the full length mirror with fear and loathing, naked, and cringed, months before we saw each other.
The REALLY funny thing? He loves them. Delights in them. Adores them. And for all he says that might have been his job as my seductor, the way he touches all those parts I bewailed as my possession displays the truth.
Go figure.
I want to believe all this, but I’m not there yet. I think terrible insults to myself when I see my lower body in the bathroom mirror. I’m starting to believe I’d rather give up on having sex ever again, even though it’s something I love and I’m good at, than let a new person see my body.
I am past the fifties. I am pretty sure that this woman will find, if she begins to “date”, that as a relationship becomes more friendly these kinds of questions will not be foremost in her mind. My parents lived in a senior Park in Florida and it was like Peyton Place.
After realizing I was in a marriage with a man who could never make intimate connections, the lack of intimacy had left me hollow and very insecure. My thirty year old body had lost 70 pounds throughout the past few years and although I felt great, facing a new person naked and being sexually active was frightening. I worked hard at living myself. I skinny dipped in the dark, I wrote living noted to myself, I changed in front of best friends. I challenged people and myself to see me as I am.
Recently, I found someone that I knew would be a kind and generous partner and we had sex upon knowing each other for only a few days! It was liberating! After removing my clothes, I stood there naked before him and he shuttered in ecstasy and want at my saggy skin, my stretch marks, my less than perky breast and I felt so incredibly validated. Not validated by someone’s opinion but validated that my opinion of myself was true. I am beautiful, I am healed. And yes, the sex was amazing! Good luck, all!
Thank you so much, this was encouraging..still a little apprehensive, but feeling better about an encounter that I really look forward to. You are the BOMB!
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