Thankfully, it’s good to know I’m not alone in this sudden craving. Though many women report a decrease in libido connected with hormonal changes during perimenopause, others, like me, report an increase in libido. Sexual drive, I learn, is shaped by myriad factors and complex interactions. If you’re feeling engaged with your life and inhabiting yourself as fully as possible, your sex drive might surge like never before. Research shows increases in libido may be linked to the reduction of two kinds of stresses: (1) a decrease in anxiety about pregnancy and thus the ability to relax and simply enjoy sexual interaction, and (2) a decrease in child-rearing responsibilities that may have negatively impacted intimacy in a coupled partnership.
Though I’m no longer coupled, I can say without a doubt that unplanned pregnancy is no longer a concern and that the child-rearing details have largely left my life. Physically, I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in, thanks to training for marathons, as well as backpacking. I’m waking up at fifty years old, suddenly ready to go, hoping to explore the world of sex I never fully examined when I was young and single. And yet, there’s no one in my life to engage with in this way.
When I was in the process of separating, the thought of doing without sex wasn’t even on my concern list. I just wanted out. Besides, society tells us that sex drive drops precipitously with age, especially for women. I honestly didn’t think sexual yearning would be an issue. I’m like someone who’s always been well fed and who then becomes surprised to feel hunger. I was also battling another, older myth that I had never fully wrestled to the ground.
My first sexual encounter occurred when I was sixteen and seeing a slightly older boy. After months of joined-at-the-hip dating, he pretty much demanded sex. I wasn’t ready but was insecure and didn’t want to lose him. I consented. From that very first experience, I bought into a dangerous stereotype: Sex was something women do for men to keep them happy, to keep them hanging around. Sex had very little to do with me and my own desires. Men, I came to believe, simply had this gender-specific, extraneous need and when women were feeling generous, we might consent to give them a hand, so to speak.
This misconception not only hurt women like me who might not fully embrace our own sexuality until midlife, but also harmed the men in our lives. All that time, I thought that by bestowing my sexual “favors” I was being a giving person, indulging his “special” biological wants. I placed men in a category that required they be grateful to me for my forbearance with their silly little desires.
How condescending is that?
“The first year is the hardest,” a good friend who’s been divorced for decades said of celibacy. “After that, it just becomes normal.”
Her casual fatalism saddened me. It still does.
A fellow writer spent time in his twenties in Dharamsala, where he met another writer who’d become a student of Tibetan Buddhism. They talked of writing, and the student told my friend that he “didn’t need the books anymore.” Thanks to his spiritual advancement, he no longer had to create words and stories to feel fulfilled. My friend has been haunted by those words for the past thirty years. Every time he hits a dry patch in his creative life, he starts to worry. Because, though he may be a spiritual seeker himself, he still wants books in his life, he still needs them.
Like I still need sex. Partnered sex. The real flesh-on-flesh deal.
I crave touch. Being touched. And most especially, extending touch. I find myself looking at men in a new way, just looking at arms, or hands, or legs, and appreciating them like never before. What could feel better than a pair of strong arms holding me right now? What would be nicer to touch than a powerful chest? How much would I love to kiss that jawline with its five-o’clock shadow? (And let’s be honest: How up in arms might I be if a man were writing this and describing in yummy details the body parts of a woman?)
Years ago I learned to avoid the allure of bars by picturing the alcohol stashed behind a wall topped with razor wire—there, but not available to me. I had similarly assigned the same restrictions to men while I was married, I just didn’t realize it. I stopped noticing them or responding in any way. The sexually responsive part of me was completely shut down, turned off, totally unavailable except for one man in one clear-cut situation.
But now, everything feels cut loose, breaking apart. I’m noticing men (and women, too) as if they haven’t been right in front of my face all these years. I’m newly aware of the raw sensuality that surrounds so many people. Over the past year and a half, Rebecca and I have been going to an upscale massage spa as a reward for our running efforts. My first visit there, just before my marriage ended, was amazing. Sitting in the Jacuzzi nude, watching the amazingly beautiful figures of other naked women in the sauna or steam bath, soaking up the joy of touch in the massage. It was my first experience of being fully in my body in years, maybe decades. I felt like I was finally coming home to myself.
At the same time, this newly revitalized in-my-body experience is a little disconcerting, like watching TV in black and white and then, suddenly, the Technicolor is turned on. Look, there’s red! And orange! Have you ever seen such exquisite lime? Everyone around me has been seeing the colors all along. I try to figure out how to deal with the abrupt collapse of the wall that had unequivocally separated me sexually from every other being on this planet—Poof! Gone!—with no idea how to navigate this new terrain.
What I am finding is that celibacy is a bitch. Unbeknownst to me, it turns out I’m a very alive woman with—who would have guessed?—a strong sex drive. Someone who shares the human condition, complicated by all its messy and awkward wants and desires, with my fellow humans. That revelation is at once comforting and disturbing.
Plus, I have no idea how long I should prepare to wander in this unknown land of sexlessness. I wonder, from day to day, if I would be better off plotting a rendezvous or two of my own; I may do so yet. On other days, I embrace the yearn and try to appreciate its beauty. Still, I hold on to a package of condoms as a kind of promise. This celibacy phase can’t last forever.
Besides: I always have my motorcycle.
• • •
We ride on toward Milwaukee. I’d asked to stop for lunch in Madison because I’ve heard it’s such a great college town. As a professor, I’m always curious about the happenings at other college scenes. We leave the interstate at the exit we assume leads there but end up at some rural crossroads that’s clearly not right. We’re hungry and ask around for lunch suggestions, which put us at the Jet Room, a little restaurant inside the Madison Airport. As the four of us enter the Jet Room, I think about pulling Rebecca aside to tell her of my morning. But what would I say? Would you believe I had an orgasm on the bike? It seems like more than a lunch conversation, especially with George and Edna present. I’m not even sure I want to have the conversation at all. In spite of my awakening to new experiences, I still feel a residual film of shame.
We leave the airport, still hoping to see the college town, but follow yet another set of wrong directions that puts us ten miles further away than we intend. By the time we navigate our way back to the interstate, we’ve managed to make an entire loop around Madison without ever seeing it. That loop speaks to me of my own life. I may pick a destination, do everything in my power to get there, only to find myself circling my desire, never quite reaching it. When I’m smart, I eventually abandon the elusive desire when I realize it’s not what I truly need. I have finally, at long last, learned to wear life like a loose garment. To let go when things are not falling into place. To stay alert for new things I wasn’t expecting.
We finally arrive in Bookfield, the Milwaukee suburb where we’ll base our operations for the next three days. Rebecca’s college roommate and her family have offered to host us. Pulling off the interstate and trying to get our bearings, I see a Starbucks. Since leaving L.A. six days ago, it’s the first Starbucks I’ve encountered. Realizing we’ve been that far off the radar gives me joy. I wish we could have made the entire jou
rney without Starbucks.
The lawns here are uniformly trimmed and bordered, the streets overhung with mature trees. We pass Dairy Queens and kids riding home from school on bicycles, finally drawing up to Sue and Russ’s home. We park, four Harleys abreast, under the basketball hoop in the wide driveway next to their large house. I take a picture of my odometer. Since leaving L.A., we’ve covered 2,463 miles.
Sue’s two grade school–age sons greet us and show us our rooms. Mom arrives soon with arms full of groceries. We sit in her landscaped backyard, chatting, the others drinking wine. Sue’s husband, Russ, will soon be home to start cooking. Sue’s brought home real midwestern fare: steaks, corn on the cob, and potatoes.
I excuse myself and go up to the room I’ll be sharing with Rebecca. Quiet, alone, I Google: “orgasm on motorcycle?” One woman’s comment cracks me up: “Are you kidding? All the bashing around on my lady parts. No way!”
A guy answers the question in a different forum: “My last wife used to get off on the Harley vibration, but it was such a pain getting the 650-pound bike into the bed and then washing the oil and chain lube out of the sheets that we only did it that way a few times.”
Another site says a motorcycle’s vibrations can cause an orgasm but calls such occurrences “accidental.”
Immediately I think: I’m a freak. And then I start finding comments from women who have experienced what I have, some as passengers, others as riders. One young woman confesses that it happens when her dad takes her out on his bike. She feels terribly conflicted. Another loves the back of her boyfriend’s bike more than her boyfriend. I’m glad to know I’m not alone but suspect, by the few number of comments, my experience is fairly rare. I’m still not ready to say anything to Rebecca.
Eventually, we eat. I’m ready to fall asleep in my plate. After, I am asleep in two seconds, while visions of orgasms and motorcycles and men pepper my dreams.
•CHAPTER TWELVE•
THE UGLIES
Life is on the wire, the rest is just waiting.
—KARL WALLENDA
Day Seven: Thursday, August 29
Shelter in place, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
“All women are beautiful creatures, by virtue of their gender, their grace, their femininity. They were all created beautiful. Thus, none can be ugly.”
So goes the sex-discrimination thinking at the heart of the Uglies, an all-male association made up of some of the most successful motorcycling men in the world. This exclusive posse includes rock-and-roll celebrities, producers, actors (including the late Larry Hagman), visual artists, and Fortune 500 businessmen. According to the group’s website, the Uglies claim brothers in almost every state as well as France, Switzerland, Finland, Spain, and Germany, “along with a gaggle of Nomads that might turn up anywhere, usually when it’s time for dinner.”
The Ugly logo shirt—a skull and crossbones on a field of black—has been proudly worn at major Hollywood events, on stage at giant music venues, in the boardrooms of multinational corporations, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, not to mention barrooms and brothels from Hamburg to Honolulu. “Beneath that swag is a seething Ugliness that unites what otherwise appears to be a totally disparate amalgamation of riders,” the website boasts. And though I’ve been warned that this is a rabidly all-male club, and that women are never welcome except as compliant arm candy, I am still dying to get my hands on a T-shirt.
I’ve met some Uglies back in Los Angeles, but I’m about to get to know more of them. We’ll be spending much of this weekend with the club because Rebecca’s father, Oliver, is an Ugly. If we’re with Oliver, we’re golden. Over the past two weeks, Oliver chartered a more casual route to Milwaukee, meeting up with Ugly brothers along the way. More Uglies are arriving in town by the minute.
Of course the question arises: How do I reconcile the fact that this is a gender-excluding society? Their motto—“Beauty is only skin deep, but Ugly is to the bone”—seems an odd contradiction to the exclusion of women. Yes, I know that the world of motorcycling is unapologetically sexist and certainly doesn’t need me to help support it by yearning for its emblem of oppression. And yet, I find myself here, curious as to the macho mystique of this tribe, wanting to better understand the hormonal bonding.
We won’t be meeting with the Uglies until later this afternoon, but thinking about such things spurs questions about how we’re different, men and women, and how our experience of risk and life shape us, questions that have been with me since day one of this journey. While we’ve explored the reality that men tend to be bigger risk takers than women, I wonder about the benefits we sacrifice by remaining risk averse, just like I wonder what I’m foregoing by being excluded from the Uglies. My research and ongoing conversations with scientists provides key clues. “The Confidence Gap” in a 2014 issue of The Atlantic by journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman is particularly informative.
Androgen hormones are part of the answer. The male body pumps more than ten times the amount of testosterone than a woman’s body, benefitting men with advantages in speed, strength, muscle mass, and a zeal for competition. This hormone also ties into risk taking. The Atlantic article cites recent studies at Cambridge University that linked high testosterone levels with an appetite for financial risk. Using saliva samples taken twice daily from high-income male traders at a London hedge fund, researchers found that on days when the men’s testosterone levels started out high, they made riskier trades compared to days when the levels began low. This became a self-perpetuating cycle: When those risky trades paid off, the traders’ testosterone level surged even more. One trader demonstrated a 74 percent rise in testosterone over a six-day period of gains. Thus, taking risks and seeing them pay off means a person is much more likely to continue taking risks.
Though I’ve read that women show an increase in financial risk-taking behavior (such as competitive bidding) during ovulation—they also perform better at sports, demonstrate improved visual acuity, score higher on tests, and display enhanced cognition. Still, they do not generally demonstrate the same levels and type of risk taking seen with testosterone-fueled men. If they have children, the desire to nurture and care for their offspring may be part of that equation, tamping down any risky inclinations. Still, that doesn’t mean that risk of some sort is not good for them, only that they’re not as biologically compelled to take the more hair-raising kinds of risks that men do.
But one thing seems certain: Avoiding risk altogether is actually an unhealthy state for all of us, male and female alike.
When we opt for security and risk-free choices, the likelihood diminishes that we’ll take future life-enriching risks when they present themselves. If you’re not used to stepping out of the controlled life you’ve built, the chances shrink that you’ll do so today or even tomorrow. We accustom ourselves to staying small and contained. Just as the men whose levels of the neurohormone surges when their risk taking pays off thus creating a drive for still more risk, those who take fewer and smaller risks may see their lives contract, our desires shrink. Remember what you dreamed of when you were younger? Do you still have those dreams and desires that thrill and impel you? Or has life taught you to accept what you’ve been given and to ask for no more?
The cultural milieu in which we were raised, and the one in which we now operate as adults, shapes our reluctance. This tendency may play a bigger role in our hesitation to fully inhabit our lives and dreams than even biology. I’m personally fascinated by the findings of Kay and Shipman in The Atlantic. While their examination focuses on women in business, their conclusions shed light on women as a whole and our relationship with risk as seen through the lens of confidence.
Kay and Shipman report that, compared with men, women in the business world generally don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions as their male counterparts. Women predict they’ll do worse on tests than men predict of their own performance, and women regularly underestimate their abilities. Yet objective evidence points out the fa
llibility of these impressions. Women make up half of the global workforce, and studies demonstrate that companies who employ women in large numbers outperform their competitors on every level. Still, men get promoted faster and are paid more than women. So what’s going on?
A tilted playing field is part of the equation. A 2015 study by the American Medical Association examined the nursing profession. Though women outnumber men by more than ten to one, male nurses still earn more. Even after controlling for age, race, marital status, and children in the home, salaries for males surpassed females by nearly $7,700 per year in outpatient settings and nearly $3,900 in hospitals.
What Kay and Shipman found at the heart of this disparity was that while women may be equally or even more competent than men, due to their lack of confidence they often fail to capitalize on their abilities.
Studies looking into this confidence difference in business found surprising statistics. Among business school students, for instance, men initiate salary negotiations four times as often as women. When women do negotiate, they ask for 30 percent less than their male counterparts. One researcher, Marilyn Davidson at the Manchester Business School in England, asks her students each year what they expect to earn five years after graduation. Every year she finds consistent differences between male and female students. Male students value their worth at $80,000 a year while female students expect $64,000.
Why this discrepancy? It’s simple. On some deep level, we don’t think we’re worth it. We don’t believe in our own abilities.
In particular, Kay and Shipman looked at a 2003 study by psychologists David Dunning from Cornell and Joyce Ehrlinger from Washington State University that measured the relationship between female confidence and competence. The psychologists were following up on a previous finding, called the Dunning-Kruger effect, that demonstrated a tendency for some people to substantially overestimate their abilities. In other words, less competent people are actually more likely to overestimate their abilities.
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