Yann Moix has got it wrong about older women
The author doesn’t know what he’s missing, says Nirpal Dhaliwal
Poor Yann Moix. The French author lives with a “curse” that makes it impossible for him to be attracted to women over 50 because their bodies, unlike those of a 25-year-old, are “not extraordinary”. He also won’t date white women because they are “pretentious, focused on themselves and concentrating on the problems of luxury”. My own experience of older women could not have been more different. When I was 26 I embarked on a torrid affair with a 42-year-old fashion magazine editor that would result in marriage and the most significant relationship of my life. Prior to that, I had liaised often with older women, a proclivity that began when I was aged just 20 with a Jamaican divorcee who had moved to London after her marriage ended ed in New York and relished shed my vigour, incessant ant tumescence and eagerness to please. e. I loved being the plaything of older women – all of them possessing g extraordinary bodies dies and also “focused on themselves” – in the he most thrilling way. y. Having endured so much bad sex with men of their own generation, they were determined to get what they required. I became something like a protégé, receiving a splendid education from each. What Moix finds most challenging about older women, I suspect, is their preparedness to express dissatisfaction. An innocent blank slate, lacking hangups, I was a willing student, exhilarated by their enjoyment of my ever-improving technique. And they were the opposite of pretentious. Having grown up in a working-class Asian neighbourhood, many of these women, who weren’t from my background, provided an exciting expansion of my horizons – not only sexually, but culturally, socially and intellectually, too. I loved savouring sybaritic weekends cocooned in their beautiful homes or on high-class holidays. My ex-wife and I fell in love while staying at Goldeneye, Ian Fleming’s Caribbean estate. No 25-yearold could have provided me with such experiences. I’m now 44, and over the past decade my relationships have been with women of my generation, but older women are as attractive to me as they ever were – unlike many middle-aged men, I don’t pine for twentysomethings. The intelligence, empathy, humour and scintillating conversation offered by a woman who has lived is more important. Women who don’t excite my mind don’t keep me physically phys interested. Yet, Ye as I increasingly think about wanting to be a father, I find myself myse at a tragic fork in the road. Do cot I continue to enjoy the deliciously seasoned s company of o women my own age and older, or do I choose children c and a life with someone younger? Either way, it seems I have to forgo something extremely ext precious, the th absence of o which may haunt hau me forever.
I’m attracted to the intelligence of a woman who has lived