Sonny, if you want it, here it is, come and get it. But you better hurry ’cause it’s going fast.
‘Come on over, Jake,’ I texted back. ‘I’d love to see you. xxx’
‘Great…will be there at 8. xxx’
I felt my insides stirring. My world was once more aburst with flashing fairy lights. I tossed my mobile onto the bed and put on my CD of Cher’s greatest hits – at full belter volume, of course – then ran myself a warm, fragrant bath. And do you know, as I luxuriated amidst the bubbles, eyes closed, picturing the rampant romps to come, it was as if the diva of divas were right there with me.
AFTERWORD
So there you have it. My racy dating memoir. Anyway that’s what I thought it was, until a publisher I met referred to it as a ‘sex memoir’, a category of book I had never even heard of before, innocent creature that I am. Sex memoir? Well fair enough, there is plenty of sex in it, although it delves into other aspects of human life too – love and relationships, desire and disappointment, ageing and the generation gap. But if I’ve written a sex memoir, so be it. No big deal. My goodness, sex is everywhere these days in our 21st century Western world. And often in far more explicit and base forms than anything contained in my little tome. Who could possibly object to the Raven’s carefree frolics?
Ha! I know better now. Despite our progressive ‘anything goes’ society – in which gay couples can marry and raise children, transgender folk can swap sexes to suit, and reconstituted families can set up households in any configuration they like – the concept of an older woman enjoying intimacy with a much younger man is a lifestyle choice which still shocks many people. I didn’t think there was much sap left in the ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ brigade but boy, did I ever get that wrong.
My book burst on to the public consciousness overnight via a three-part serialisation in a major British tabloid paper. And it would be an understatement to say that my life has not been the same since. That tabloid has the most popular newspaper website in the world, read by 50 million people, and as I was to discover, quite a few of them did not approve of me and my book.
I have been a journalist all my working life and am no stranger to controversy, having written various first-person pieces which have divided public opinion. But that was before the rise of the human sub-species known as the internet troll. Once that lot got their anonymous mitts on my story they subjected me to a volley of vitriol and I admit I felt hurt. But not for long. First of all I simply stopped reading their inane comments, which was surprisingly easy to do. And secondly, if you have worked as a feature writer at the bad-ass Daily Mail, as I did throughout most of the 1990s, you will have acquired survival mechanisms in the face of human harshness: otherwise known as a thick skin.
Still, for the first week or two I reeled from the glare of attention directed at me from around the globe, both negative and positive. Because of course there was a lot of favourable feedback too. At first this came mainly from men. Yes, I was a big hit with the male readers of my story. As it was picked up by the media in country after country, I started receiving messages from them – young men and older men, Turkish men with unpronounceable names and broken English, jovial Aussies, formal-sounding Indians, Irish charmers, a whole slew of suave Mediterranean types, and so on.
Except for two or three cases, the senders of these messages were very well-behaved. They generally said the same thing: they think I’m ‘beautiful’, they admire me, they would be privileged if one day they could meet me. It all made me sound like a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Mother Theresa. But just as I had felt the opprobrium to be way over-the-top, this adulation struck me as somewhat excessive.
Suddenly the whole world seemed to know my name and my story, which made me feel metaphorically naked, and I guess that is one definition of ‘fame’. Overnight my pool of Facebook friends grew from 350 to nearly 1000. And these new fans all wanted to chat with me online. Well, I couldn’t keep that little lark up for long.
What I found even more encouraging were the warmly supportive emails from other women of my generation. For example this, from a woman called Anna:
Like you, I am 61 and been told I don’t look, feel or act my age. No elasticated skirts or sensible shoes for me... yet! Like you, I joined a dating site, lied about my age by four years and yes, I have been approached by much younger men too. Only thing is, I have never pursued it, due to lack of confidence. I envy and admire your outlook to life in the 60s and all I can say is... good for you. I hope you make shedloads with your book and then stick two fingers up at the “haters”. I am looking forward to reading about your adventures and probably wishing it was me. Take care, continue having fun and there might be another book out when you’re in your 70s.
After my appearance on the popular ITV breakfast show This Morning, women wrote to me in greater numbers. I was in the cab on my way home, having just left the TV studio, when their messages started pinging on to my mobile.
From Lucy (sent from her iPhone):
I’ve just watched your interview on This Morning, you are giving women the confidence.
And from Angela:
The criticism of your book is due to a lack of knowledge, as loads of women are doing this! Am 44 and been having loads of unstrung sex with guys 25 and up… I do not envisage this stopping unless I meet my Mr Right. The sex as echoed in your book extracts is dangerous but fun and I feel great.
That day was a turning point for me as I realised that I really had become a kind of role model for older women. Not by any means the first or the only one to indulge in bedroom delights with younger men, but the first to be so unabashed about it, to write about it with total candour, not as anything kinky or outlandish but as a simple fact of life. And I could see that that meant something.
With some women, however, there was a distinct lack of sisterly sympathy, and I’m not referring merely to those indelicate female trolls online. There was the 55-year-old tabloid columnist who berated me for my behaviour, of which she heartily disapproved, like some po-faced Victorian prude... but only after informing readers that she herself received plenty of come-ons from young men, all of which she nobly rejected. Yes dear, we believe you.
And there was the forty-something book reviewer, married with young kids, who completely misunderstood my motives, believing my wild escapades to have been a sad attempt to stave off loneliness. Wrong! Far from being sad and lonely at that point in my life, I was relishing my new freedom and independence. I did what I did in order to pack in the adventure while the going was good. I went looking for fun and excitement. And I found it.
That said, as my story hit the headlines over and over again (and what scandalous headlines they were, e.g. ‘The Grandmother Who Dated 20-Year-Old Men - And Loved It!’) and even some of my friends were stunned into silence, and my family wasn’t exactly relishing the media spotlight, I did have the odd mea culpa moment. I would stop, hold my head in my hands and ask myself: what on earth have I unleashed? This book will follow me everywhere. Whatever else I have written or will write, I will always be the woman who ‘put the sex into sexagenarian’. And at moments like that I considered my response, should someone ask whether, in view of the furore kicked up by Raven, the controversy and the scorching criticism, I would still have written the book as I did. Would I still publish and be damned?
Bloody right I would.
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Raven Page 21