Single File: Short and Pithy Bites
Take it from me, ladies: Men don't want to be our saviors. In this wildly changing world, where the unpredictable is a daily occurrence, no man -- not even a big hunk with a bigger ego -- has time (or energy) for a cloying, clinging femme. Let's face it. To be a needy female is to be a relic, out of step with today's love-style. And the few damsels reluctant to surrender the needy script need to know they can't have it both ways, needy in male company but fiercely independent in the larger world. Besides, being a savior is (yawn) boring.
--Again and again, "Single File" touts the deliciousness of older-younger coupling. Men -- the wealthy ones -- have relished the arrangement for eons, more than happy to have their arm candy envied. Well, that's fine. What irks this columnist is that women don't get in on the fun! Why, oh, why don't we get the message and take a young'un to be our own -- till death (or a change of heart) do us part?! Are our wrinkles stopping us? That could very well explain the resistance. But I'm not buying it. There's got to be much more going on to keep us from coupling with a young buck. Still, at this delicate stage of (sigh) our empowerment, best let the matter lie -- for now. But for the intrepid, let's take a closer look at the phenomenon. The younger lover is tutored by the older woman's greater life experience, gently educated in lessons his mother never taught him. And what does he bring to the coupling? The allure of young flesh, yes, but beyond that, he brings the mindset of sexual freedom -- the lack of inhibiting sex roles, total freedom of expression, encouragement of female assertiveness. In his value scheme, who does what (and when) simply doesn't exist in lovemaking. Their bedroom life is mutually nurturing. He is a far different sex partner from those she has known. Enough said?
--Lately, passports have been on my mind. (Media influence, no doubt.) My preoccupation is not travel between continents, though, but travel between lifestyles. It occurs to me that most of us at some point will qualify for dual citizenship, seeing as in this fluid society, we will -- more than once -- make the trip between the single world and the coupled world. When we do make the trip, we'll be able to make it smoothly -- with minimal disruption -- if we've prepared with lifelong, steady, conscious maintenance of our single core (aka individuality). Cultivating our personhood is the wisest preparation for whatever world we choose to inhabit.
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