Middle-aged women are allowed to like sex, writes Angela Mollard

KYLIE Minogue has copped a lot of criticism for her new, slightly over-the-top music video Sexercise. But women in their forties are allowed to like sex, writes Angela Mollard.

“WOMAN, 45, LIKES SEX.”

Yep, don’t think I didn’t angle to get it on the front page with a headline in 130 point and an accompanying picture of Kylie Minogue, head tilted back, eyes closed in simulated mid-orgasm.

But since there’s probably a footballer or a horse who’s done something remarkable like score a goal or, you know, run fastish, here we find ourselves, like so much about women’s sexuality, tucked away and largely hidden from view.

Anyway, enough with the innuendo because I want to talk about Kylie and what on earth she thinks she’s doing pretending to have a sex life at 45.

The brouhaha this week focused on whether her new video, Sexercise, is hypersexualised or cheesy or just a tad “too Miley”. But we all know the subtext is about her age and whether it’s a bit “icky” (a friend’s word) to grind about in a white leotard when you should be getting your kicks making chicken stock or returning library books.

News_Image_File: We’ve seen worse things in music videos.

To be fair, one of my favourite gossip columnists dispensed with subtleties. Kylie, he tutted, was “creepy and undignified” and guilty of singing songs that involved an “awful lot of sex”. And then, because dear Andrew is clearly the lovechild of George Brandis and the Dowager Countess of Grantham from Downton Abbey, he proceeded to sledge our national treasure for not acting her age, concluding that after a lifetime of love he was “breaking up with her”.

Now if I know Kylie, and I do because we’re the same age and once shared the same enthusiasm for perms and Jason Donovan, she is not sobbing in the gutter. No, Ms M is laughing her cute little butt off because her new album Kiss Me Once has gone to number one in Australia, which will take care of her superannuation balance thank you very much. What’s more, on the promo trail she enjoyed a happy little flirt with Richard Wilkins, who in a shocking case of double standards, is allowed to remain devilishly sexy at nearly 60.

To be honest, I’m more bemused than cross. Because as the first generation to not only discover the clitoris but write the instruction manual for its use, why does anyone think we’d want to close up shop at 45? Granted, we may not be up for a seven-day operation but there’s a lot to be said for a boutique service.

News_Image_File: Looks comfy.

Sexercise is not a great song but it’s a laugh, a bit of a tease. Kylie is referencing Olivia Newton John’s Physical and Carly Simon’s “No Secrets” nipples, and every sultry Debbie Harry, Kim Wilde and Pat Benatar track in between. Yes, I’d like it to be a more honest portrayal of the sex lives of middle-aged women — and having survived breast cancer, Kylie is well placed to provide a more nuanced and grown up view. But if the sales of Fifty Shades of Grey are anything to go by, women sometimes want to forget their Caesarean scars and thickening waists and menopausal flushes and indulge in fantasy.

At today’s All About Women Festival in Sydney, author Daniel Bergner will dismantle the tired narrative of the libidinous male and the sexually disinterested female. For his book What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire the poor man spent months studying female arousal — and not just in rats — coming (sorry) to the conclusion that “women’s desire — its inherent range and innate power — is an underestimated and constrained force.”

But we know this. Or we would if the facts had been widely reported, rather than languishing behind politics, business and sport. Radical changes in women’s status have had a profound effect on our sex lives, a discovery largely ignored when it was reported in the highly respected, The Lancet, three months ago. Being able to control our fertility, combined with greater agency in society and the workplace, has made us more sexually adventurous. And staggeringly, the average women now has eight partners during her lifetime, up from four in the 1990s, and catching up with men, who average 12. What’s more, 16 per cent have had same-sex dalliances with other women, which has cultural implications far beyond a marketer’s wet dream.

News_Image_File: That’s not the traditional technique.

So why does it persist — this notion that men are the aggressors and women the receptacles — despite growing cultural evidence to the contrary? And why do we constantly hark back to Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, a movie released the year I was born, as our only reference point for the sexually-overt older woman?

Because women are supposed to be nice (which we are) and to want intimacy and babies (which we do). But research and society is telling us women want fulfilling sex as well. I was going to write about health funds this week, fearing sex was a subject too risqué for a mainstream Sunday audience. I also wasn’t sure about my Mum reading it. But if Kylie can begin a conversation in a leotard and red stilettos, I can kick it along in my sundress and thongs.

Because women, even pensionable ones, like sex. Get over it. Or under it.

Twitter: @angelamollard