Peter McGraw continues his series on aging, retiring, and dying single. In this episode, he talks to Cindy Gallop about aging sexy. What do you think?
Join the Solo community to discuss: https://petermcgraw.org/solo/
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Aging Single #5: Aging Sexy
Introduction
Welcome back. This episode is the fifth in a series on aging, retiring, and dying solo. I will drop an episode on the first Thursday of each month until the series finishes. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve moved the podcast to every other week for the summer. I’m taking a much-needed break. In this episode, I speak to Cindy Gallop, an advertising consultant, entrepreneur, and activist, well known for her work in promoting in combating ageism and gender inequality.
In 2009, she launched Make Love Not Porn, a video-sharing platform that aims to promote realistic and healthy views of sexuality, challenging the stereotype and misconceptions often perpetuated by mainstream media and pornography. Importantly and relevant to our conversation today, she is aging sexy. Welcome, Cindy.
Thank you, Peter, I’m thrilled to be here.
I’m very excited about this episode. I’ve been enjoying what I’ve been learning and sharing with this series. In some ways, this episode’s a bit of a palate cleanser. There are a lot of very serious topics when you talk about aging, especially aging as a single, lots of uncertainty, not always good resources, and so on. This one, I feel, as I was prepping it, I got excited about getting older. I want to start by running my working definition of aging sexy by you for your critique given that you’ve given so much thought to this idea.
Aging sexy is a concept that involves embracing the aging process with confidence, maintaining vitality, and continuing to feel attractive and vibrant at any age. It challenges conventional views that associate youth exclusively with sexiness, promoting the idea that sex appeal and charisma do not diminish with age.
Perception Of Sexiness And Charisma
Instead, aging sexy suggests that individuals can grow more appealing and self-assured as they gain life experience and wisdom. I have to ask you, what is your perception of sexiness, attractiveness, and charisma? I like the word charisma as part of this definition because I think it’s expansive. How has your perception of those things evolved, over the years?
Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it. I’m just being me at 64 years old. I guess, I’m very prone to saying the older you get, the better life gets, and that’s really how I feel. I don’t feel any different about that now than I ever have done.
I have a saying, I said in class to my students, these 20 or 21-year-olds, “If you get good at life, life becomes good.” That’s been my perspective. I think when it comes to approaching this series on aging, which is we tend to think that getting older is bad. It’s a decline. I think for a lot of people that is indeed the case, unfortunately. It certainly is likely to become the case if you believe that that’s what the future holds. I think that if you keep at it, so to speak it just gets better and better because of the benefits of living more life.
I completely concur. I would say that honestly, you can have a wonderful life right up till the moment it ends, no matter what the impacts of age. I say that particularly in the context we’re talking about, Peter, because, on Make Love Not Porn, we have many older Make Love Not Porn stars and we have many older members.
Our older members tell us how thrilled they are that we celebrate wonderful real-world sex at every age, including older. We get emails saying, “My wife and I are in our eighties. We continue to have a wonderful sex life. we’re so happy to be able to see other people enjoying sex in later years on Make Love Not Porn.” Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything conditional about it. As long as you are open to just continuing to enjoy life and sex for as long as he possibly can, then you’re going to.
Cultural Headwinds
One of the things that happens about the solo movement, in general, there are these cultural talk headwinds that we experience as singles. I think that there are these same cultural headwinds when it comes to this notion of aging and aging sexy. Do you think that there is a change? Are you seeing a shift in the wind? You’re trying to make a change with your project, but since 2009, 15-plus years ago, are you seeing a change? Are you seeing a difference here?
What I would say to you, Peter is never ask that question in the passive tense because all of this changes when you and I and everyone else make it change and I don’t wait for things to change I make them change. I am making this change all the time. For the benefit of our readers, because this is something I’m very open about, I am somebody who has never wanted to be married.
I have never wanted children. Very glad I always knew that as opposed to finding out the hard way by having them. I am not a relationship person. I adore being single, I cannot wait to die alone, and I date younger men casually and recreationally for sex. I am deliberately very public about all of that because, to your point, we don’t have enough role models in our society, for women and men, that demonstrate you can live your life very differently to the way that you’re expected to and still be amazingly happy. I’m one of the happiest people I know.
I regard it as a responsibility to role model this. I can tell you based on my own experience that everybody out there is desperate for more role models like this. I know that because, a couple of years ago, a couple of friends of mine, Elisa and Lily, who are a mother-daughter duo who run a brand called Style IQ, asked me to take part in an interview series that they do called What’s Underneath.
The format of the interview series is that Elisa and Lily are behind the camera, the interviewee sits on a stool, they ask questions from behind the camera, and as you answer each question you remove an item of clothing. The concept is that you metaphorically strip down to what’s underneath. I did this two years ago at the age of 62 and I took all my clothes off right down to my underwear.
I was blown away by the response to this interview. I did all this, by the way, talking about how I like to live my life, Make Love Not Porn, et cetera. I instantly went viral on TikTok. I wasn’t on TikTok, but clips in this interview have millions of views on TikTok and thousands of comments. There are 900 stitches of this interview with me on TikTok, many of them with a Gen Z meme, “I have seen my future and it is bright.”
The comments under the video on YouTube and on Instagram, are thousands of people, a lot of young women but also young men, saying all my life I’ve been looking for older female role models like this. I was especially moved by one comment under the video on Instagram, where a woman said, “Imagine if we had all grown up seeing and hearing women live and talk like this. Imagine how different our lives would be now.” I believe in living my life to be able to show people that there is a very different way to live that does not involve the oiled grooves of love, romance, marriage, et cetera.
This conversation’s way overdue. When I started the solo podcast, people mentioned you to me. I just really like how unapologetic you are, how very clear what you want, how even though it may not exactly fit with what society says to do, you’re living so authentically, and to your point, we need role models.
There’s not just one way to live life and there’s not just one way to live single life. I think that there are a lot of people who feel less than, they feel adrift, and they feel bad. They think there’s something wrong with them because they don’t want this thing that the world tells them to do in romcoms, love songs, and Jane Austen novels.
Self-Cultivation
You’re the ideal person to have to talk about this idea of aging sexy, not just because we’re talking about sex and aging, but also about the vivaciousness that a lot of people I think lose as they get older. Again, where do you look? Where do you look? I want to do something fun here for a moment. This is something that I have done with my solo community, which you can sign up for at PeterMcGraw.org/Solo. I asked them who are some of your favorite aging sexy icons? I want to ask you first, besides yourself, who out there in the world do you see as doing this well?
In terms of general popular culture, I have been campaigning for many years for my industry advertising, which is Ageist, to reverse its lens whereby advertising and the advertising industry, like the rest of the world, wrong-headedly believe that older people want to be young. We don’t, younger people want to be us.
At this age, we don’t care what anybody thinks. We know what matters in life, relationships, and friendships. We have our sense of style. What frustrates me is that if you talked about aging sexy to anybody who’s looking at popular culture as a whole, they would point you to, for example, there is a very standard set of older women that make it to the cover of Vogue, do the brand partnerships with brands that are, Helen Mirren.
Yes, she jumps up right to the top of the list.
Helen Mirren and Maye Mask. By the way, Helen Mirren and Maye Mask are wonderful, but they’re tall and thin and beautiful. I want to see a world where old women are celebrated, large older women, wrinkled older women, and real older women. Incidentally, Peter, this is what we do at Make Love Not Porn that is so important.
When I say that we celebrate Make Older Love Not Porn, that’s as critically important as for every other generation, in the sense that we celebrate real-world everything. Real-world bodies, real-world hair, real-world penis size, real-world breast size, and real-world vulvas. The fact we do that is crucial because you can talk about body positivity all you like.
You can preach self-love until you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day, nothing makes us feel great about our bodies, like seeing people who are no one’s idea of aspirational body types getting turned on by each other, desiring each other, having an amazing time in bed. In a world where every message popular culture sends us tells us daily, that you are not hot, attractive, or sexually desirable unless you have this skinny, six-pack abs look like this.
Our members write to us at Make Love Not Porn and say, “You made me feel better about my own body.” One man wrote and said, “My girlfriend and I now feel able to be more open and central with each other because you made each of us feel better about our bodies.” My answer to you is that at the moment in the public eye, in popular culture, nobody is doing aging sexy in the way I want to see them do it, which is for real.
I see. This is to your point about the difficulty of finding inspiration, finding mentors, and finding people who are going to be motivational in that way. I understand what you’re saying and I can’t disagree with it. I do think for me, it’s not about body type, but to me, it’s a little bit more about playfulness, charisma, enjoying life, and a vivaciousness that you can perhaps find.
Now, Peter, I’ve just realized that it’s very interesting because you and I bring different lenses to this discussion. You are right in that there are many more brilliant examples of aging sexy when you’re a man. You’re right. It’s about attitude and confidence. I’ve answered your question through the female lens about older women, where they are judged on the way they look in their bodies.
I have a whole list because I ask people these things and if you look at the women on the list, as you said, Helen Mirren, Iman, Gillian Anderson, Jessica Lange, Andy McDowell, Jamie Curtis, Dolly Parton, Salma Hayek.
Skinny, skinny, skinny.
Salma, not so much. She’s got some curves, but nonetheless.
She’s acceptably curvy.
She’s accepted and she’s a gorgeous woman. Yes, you’re right. Then if you look at the list of men, my favorite is Jeff Goldblum. In part because I love the way he dresses. I love how playful he is. The playful personality and so on. The other people from the male list were Sam Elliott, Chris Christopherson, George Clooney, of course, and so on, but you’re right. There is a gendered element to this that is difficult to overlook.
I will say Peter based on my own experience and I want older women to know this. I date younger men, they tend to be in their 20s. I have never been told I’m beautiful as often as since I started dating younger men. Older women are, unfortunately, influenced by the pressure of popular culture and what they expect to conform to.
First of all, I encourage older women to date younger men because it’s a fantastic ego boost, but also I say to them, honestly, by the time that young man gets you into bed, he’s so grateful that he’s there. He just thinks you are the most amazing thing out. That has been my experience. I do not have a perfect body by any stretch of the imagination. I have very appreciative younger lovers.
I love it. I think that’s wonderful and exciting. One of the things that comes up a lot regarding being solo, the third characteristic that I talk about a lot is that solos are unconventional thinkers. They don’t just fall into the rules of society. You’re very clearly a solo, at least in my opinion, because you’re questioning these things and acting in a way that works for you.
It’s not designed to make other people feel happy, other people feel comfortable. It’s designed to make you feel happy and your partners feel happy in that way. Given that it’s hard to find role models, especially as a woman, for the reader who’s looking for role models, besides you obviously, where do they find them? How do they cultivate a perspective in which they’re going to age sexy?
Honestly, I’m very straightforward about this, Peter. Be the role model that we didn’t have growing up, that everybody else can have, including younger people. Be that role model.
What does that look like? If someone was inspired by this idea, where do you suggest they start?
It’s very simple. Just look into yourself. Take a long, hard look into yourself and ask yourself, “What makes me happy? Then do that. Too many people are living life, as I said, in oiled grooves. They’re doing what their parents expected them to, what all their friends around them were doing at the same time, what popular culture tells them they should be doing. Look into yourself, ask yourself what makes you happy, be honest about it, and then do that.
The parallels between living single and living unapologetically in this topic, are that there is so much overlap there because so many people who come to the Solo community have this sense that this is the best life for them. Whether it be for now or forever, and are just so thrilled to find other people who think and feel the same way.
Fashion And Outward Changes
The nice thing is when they come together, they get to inspire each other. They get to share notes. They get to be motivated by recognizing that there are people all over the world like them. One of the things I often talk about is if you want to make a change in your life, one way is to start with a little bit of a makeover, a little bit of a shift, whether it be living arrangements, your clothing, your look, and so on.
Do you think that that notion of, let’s say, fashion, for example, going back to my Jeff Goldblum example as my motivator, is a way to make an outward change to help facilitate an inward change? I have a member of the community who wrote, “How does she maneuver her fashion sense? My fear is being picked out as wearing something that is not in my age group. Should I review my wardrobe annually? Any advice will be appreciated. I was born with zero fashion sense and very little confidence too.” This is someone I think who wants to break out.
My answer to that is to completely ignore the ludicrous concept of age appropriateness. There is no such thing. There’s especially no such thing when today in 2024, we don’t have the generational age breaks that used to operate 40 years ago in a very visible way. Honestly, I would say, because this is my perspective, just wear whatever makes you feel like a million bucks. Do not care what anybody else thinks about it. You don’t care about who’s looking at you.
Just wear. what you love. I have a talk that I give on this topic, which is about, how I believe that it is the expression of your style, not the suppression of it, that delivers desired business outcomes. This is a talk specifically about fashion and what you wear at work. I take the audience through my style journey over the years.
Where I end up is talking about the fact that in the working world, what you put on in the morning is often arming yourself for battle and you want to feel great about it. I was hired to give this talk many years ago by an Irish women’s magazine at a women’s event in Dublin and it went down so well that they then asked me to give another talk at another event they held in Cork, another big Irish city.
I always remember getting a wonderful email after the Cork event from a man who said, “You don’t know me, but my wife attended your talk in Cork last week. My wife is 56, I think she’s gorgeous, but I’ve urged her over the years to dress more stylishly and she’s never felt confident enough to. After your talk, she went out and bought herself a leather skirt and a pair of leather knee-high boots and now she looks amazing.” It is just wear whatever makes you feel like you’re a million bucks.
I did my fashion makeover over the years and it’s been a work in progress. when I was a young man, I was the guy who looked like he went to the gym all the time. Now I wear my Stetsons and clothes that fit well and I feel good when I’m out in the world. I needed someone like her husband to just gently encourage me.
I’ve had a couple, or three people in my life, whether it be a girlfriend, a friend, or even at one point in time, a stylist, who just urged me to make some very basic changes, like wearing clothes that fit well, for example, and then to make some more fashion-forward changes. One of the things that I noticed was, and has been reinforcing, is when I did that, that’s when the compliments come. People are saying, “That’s a great suit.” “I love those shoes.” “I love that hat.” It’s so interesting when you feel like you’re stepping out, but that’s what the world wants.
I occupy that role for a number of my friends and entertain my friends’ children. I have a very dear friend, Susan, whom I’ve helped push out of her style comfort zone. She has three children, two boys and a girl, all in their twenties. They love it when I come on shopping expeditions with them because I’ve pushed all of them out of their cup.
I will go around the store and I will pick out stuff and say, Peter, you would look amazing in this. Michael, you would too, they do and they love it. It helps to have somebody outside your family saying, “You look sexy in that.” Everyone needs that. What I would say to our readers is, first of all, obviously these days, there are a ton of people online who can help in this way.
I say that because I’m a huge fan of Virginia Soul Smith and her email newsletter, Burnt Toast. At the moment, she especially does a lot regarding that positivity. She and another friend of hers have a week-long thing going on where they are trying on new outfits, and deciding what to throw out. They’re sharing all of this with their community.
They’re doing it in a particular context, which can be a lot more difficult for larger women to be able to find stylish clothes. They’re just one example of the fact that, just as there are for men equally, male stylists online can suggest outfits you wouldn’t have thought of. I would say, this is where finding a wonderful store associate in a store with enough breadth, whether it’s a department store or a curated fashion store, can also be fantastic.
Back in the day, in my past life as a high-flying, highly-paid ad exec, I could afford to shop at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent when Tom Ford was designing there. On my first find at the Gucci store in New York, a store associate male came up and said, “Can I help you?” He’s now one of my dearest friends. It’s been many years obviously, Roberto.
What was great was that I would go and shop at Gucci and he would say to me, “Cindy this just come in, you should try it on.” It was something that I wouldn’t have looked at myself. When I put it on, I looked amazing. I recommend to everybody to find a store where they like the breadth of outfits that they have because you want to be able to operate on the spectrum. Find a store associate you trust who will help, as you say, push you out of your comfort zone.
That’s right. I can’t stress this enough, and I hope our experience motivates people if you think that it’s going to be uncomfortable. You think that people are going to judge you badly. First of all, what you realize as you get older is that you don’t care what people think. I feel good about this. I look good in this.
I’m the best version of myself. When people do, they love it. They’re craving this. The way I say this is how often I see people making a bold choice and how much I enjoy it. I like to say that fashion is art for your body. It makes the world a better place. We want more art in the world. I don’t think that you need to sacrifice comfort either.
No, absolutely not. A great criterion for buying an outfit, and by the way, this especially operates if maybe it’s also a wee bit over your financial limits. I have my version of this and I have my friend Susan’s who I mentioned earlier. My version of, making that judgment call is, “Will this outfit change my life?” When it’s not for you love, that you’re going to wear it and great things will happen for you.
My version of, can I justify this amount of money is, “Will this outfit change my life?” My friend Susan has a wonderful one, which, I heard first when one of her sons was trying to decide between two outfits or whether to buy one, and she said, “Does it jump up and lick your face?” Readers, that’s also what you can use, when you’re trying to justify spending that money. Does this outfit jump up and lick your face? If it does, spend that money and buy it.
I’ll say one recent example of this can surprise you. I say this unironically. I was the best man at a wedding. It’s my friend Darwin who appeared on the podcast and just incredibly flattering to be asked into this role. They had a very sexy wedding. What they said was you can wear whatever you want from the classic formal wear to like your burner outfits to everything in between. It was such a fun wedding in part because of the varied styles and it was a very sexy crowd. I was the best man, I own a tuxedo and I’m always looking for an opportunity to wear that tuxedo.
Men look great in tuxedos.
It’s as good as I can look, to be honest, but I didn’t want to just do it as a traditional tuxedo in part because of the nature of the wedding. I swapped out the tuxedo shoes for black leather sneakers. I swapped out the bow tie, which always stresses me out making it, with a bolo tie. Then I bought this big black cowboy hat.
I bought it only for the wedding but because it was in Los Angeles, I had to travel. I can’t pack this enormous hat. I had to wear it on the plane. I had to wear it to the hotel. I wore a black T-shirt, a black bomber jacket, a pair of gray pants, and my Vans sneakers. Cindy, I got so many compliments in between. This guy says to me in the elevator, “I like your hat. It suits you.” I thought to myself, “I think I’m going to start wearing this thing.”
Yes, you should wear the hat everywhere.
We can move on to other topics besides fashion, but I think it’s a place to start where as they say, “If you want to be a confident person, start acting confident.” There’s this outward change that then can fuel this inward change. It’s a little bit, I think, counterintuitive for people. Where you’re thinking that you need confidence to wear something like this. No, you wear something like this.
Embracing Individuality
Let’s talk about some other elements. You’ve talked about, how you have to decide that you’re going to embrace who you are unapologetically. That you’re going to move into the world and into spaces without them telling you how to behave. Now, that’s a very foreign concept, I think, for a lot of people. Where else might they start small to start to make this big change?
Why start small? No, you cannot live life in increments. Don’t even think like that. Especially if you’re older.
Okay, then where should they start big then?
Just literally, as I said, by asking yourself what would make me happy and then doing that. I say that, Peter, because quite frankly if what would make you happy is leaving your marriage, do that, for example. That’s a big move, but I have to tell you, I am in various women’s groups on Facebook and I see women’s stories of their marriages, especially older women. A) I am ecstatic I’m single, but B) I go all those wasted years. Don’t waste any more time living a life that does not make you happy.
I certainly think that this is something that becomes more and more prominent as you get older. As I like to say, that father time, mother nature, and gravity are undefeated. This notion of I’ve made these sacrifices in my life, I’ve put aside my wants and desires, whether it be for professional reasons, family reasons, relationship reasons, and so on. At some point, you’re just going to run out of time. When you look back.
You feel cut from a different cloth. I appreciate you appearing here and living this unapologetic life. When you look back on your life, was there a moment in time, was there an incident, an affirmation that happened that led you down this path or were you already on this path when you were young?
This is the result of 64 years of life. It’s why I say, life gets better the older you get. No, there was no revelation of anything, just the freedom that comes with age.
I see. That’s wonderful. Was the experience in the world of advertising influential to you? It certainly created a contrast between this youth-obsessed world and the reality of the world.
I like to say that my background in advertising is a very good experience of what I do now with Make Love Not Porn. I’ve spent 39 years working in the business of getting people to do things they originally had no intention of doing.
I think that’s fair to say. I share your perspective about advertising. One of the things I lament is that we don’t see enough proud singles within marketing communications.
You’re right, Peter. Something I haven’t talked to my industry about for many years is that we need to reflect on life as it is lived and that we need to reinvent aspirational culture. I talked about, how I’ve been urging them to tap into the aspiration of age. I will also urge them to tap into the aspiration of different ways of living their life. I would love to see more representations of happy solo people living a very obvious happy solo life in advertising as well. I urge that and encourage it.
Sexuality For Solo Individuals
Indeed. Now, a lot of the readers are what I call, “No-way singles.” They’re not interested in dating or relationships at this moment or perhaps forever. They’ve been there, done that. They’re focused on other things. One of the things that you said earlier is about how happy, enjoyable, and fulfilling your sex life is. That we don’t have enough role models, mentors, and so on.
I think that your advice about figuring out what will make you happy and following that is good advice. From a tactical standpoint, I think these things end up being difficult. I write about this, that humans, our superpower is cooperation. Our superpower is following the rules. It allows us to get along.
The problem though is that the rules are meant for society and not for the individual. For someone to embrace as you have dating younger, and much younger. Finding it so fulfilling and such an enthusiastic endeavor. I just have to say, I think a lot of people are like, they need that nudge. They need that bit of where do you start?
What I would say to that, Peter is that everything in my life and career has happened by accident. I have never consciously or intentionally planned anything. My ex-boss in advertising, Sir John Hegarty, has a wonderful mantra, “Do interesting things, and interesting things will happen to you.” I very much encourage that as an approach to the concept we’re talking about now because I began dating younger men by accident.
How did that happen?
I did not set out to date younger men. Back when I was running an ad agency here in New York, and this is something like 22 years ago. We were asked to pitch for an online dating brand, which had come out of the UK, and wanted to take on the Match at its own game here in the US. Put its account up for a pitch to find an ad agency to do a campaign for it to break into the market.
In the advertising industry, when you pitch for a client’s account, you have to experience the client’s product and the entire competitive landscape. We all had to do online dates. This was 22 years ago and none of us, ever had because it wasn’t a thing back then. The rest of my pitch team at the agency were all married, living with, or dating somebody.
They went online as fake personas, they created false profiles. I was single, I thought, “I have to do this for business reasons, why not do it for real? Why not find out what this whole online dating thing is all about?” I posted my profile on a bunch of sites. I was honest about everything, including my age. I got an avalanche of responses, which was very good for the ego.
Much to my surprise, because I had not remotely considered this as a dating strategy, 75% of those responses were from younger men. The majority of those were from much younger men. I suddenly realized that I was every young guy’s fantasy. I was an attractive woman with a high-flying career, did not want to settle down, didn’t want to get married, and didn’t want to have kids. I just wanted to have some fun, and at the time, I just started up an agency in the world’s toughest advertising marketplace, Madison Avenue.
I was working 24 seven, fun was severely missing from my life. I thought, “Wow, having considered this as a dating strategy works for me.” I’ve been dating young men happily ever since. I go back to my point about doing interesting things and interesting things will happen to you. You don’t have to agonize over doing things consciously. Just be open, do interesting stuff, and you’ll be amazed at what ensues.
That’s so good. I think a lot of people who do date, as I said, lots of readers are not interested in dating. To me, aging sexy is independent of whether you’re having sex or romance.
I completely concur, I completely concur.
If it is part of your life, the game changer for me, had to do with my evolution as a solo, was I stopped using a checklist when I did. I just paid attention, “Am I attracted to this person?” What happened was, “Am I turned on by them? Do I like their energy, their smell, their taste, and their feel?” It ended up just opening up lots of possibilities in terms of body type, age, and people’s perspective. Suddenly now you’re matching on the thing that matters.
You’re right, Peter, and this is why I’ve said in the past that people looking for a soulmate would benefit from adopting my strategy of looking for casual sex. What I mean by that is, that I’m very open about the fact I date younger men casually, and recreationally, but no matter how casual the relationship, I’ve one fundamental criterion. They have to be a very nice person.
I have a fantastic radar for very nice people. As a result, I only date utterly lovely younger men. That’s my first point because he must be a very nice person. It is not normally at the top of anybody’s dating checklist when they’re looking for a soulmate. Number one advice, absolutely make that your number one criterion.
Number two, these days a lot of people meet each other online. I use Cougar dating apps to meet younger than I did. You’ll talk and then you will meet for that all-important first date IRL. The lie that gets told by people looking for a soulmate or a committed relationship is, that it doesn’t matter what they look like, they just need to be attractive to me.
Not true. It is because when you walk into that bar or that coffee shop and you set eyes on that person for the first time in this looking for a committed relationship soulmate context, their first thought is not, “Is this person attractive to me?” Their first thought is, “What would my friends think if I walked into a party with this on my arm?”
They are looking for socially endorsed attractiveness. Now, in my case, I’m not. I walk into the bar thinking, “Am I attracted to him? If so, I’m taking him home.” By the way, a lot of my younger men have met my friends and socialized with me. In the first instance, I don’t give a shit about socially endorsed attractiveness. I am thinking, “Are they attracted to me?”
A third point is when people are evaluating their dates, again in a committed, soulmate type scenario, one of the criteria, and this is especially if you’re a woman and justifiably by the way, “Did we both get equal air time?” “Did he ask me about me as much as I asked him about himself?” Now, in my case, I’m building a business, Make Love Not Porn, and facing a ton of very challenging societal and business barriers.
I spend my entire day pitching. Come the evening, I’m sick of the sound of my voice. I don’t want to talk about me, I want to hear all about them. By the way, when you are a 20-something man, you’ve probably never encountered a woman on a date who is so interested in you and wants to hear all about you. When I do that, Peter, I hear wonderful stories. One of the things I love about online dating is that you meet people that you would never normally meet in your sphere of life.
I’ve dated younger men who, are the first in their family ever to go to college, who are supporting their entire family with a salary from the first job. I’ve dated younger men who were in the army doing very dangerous things at a very young age. I just hear amazing stories and that also is enormously attractive. That makes them even more attractive to me. That’s why I say people looking for a soulmate should consider adapting my strategy for finding casual sex.
Finding Fulfillment Beyond Romance
I like it because it’s focused on compatibility. It’s focused on, “Are you interested?” To go back to your word. Let’s talk about doing interesting things outside of the world of romance and sex. One of the things that I like about your perspective because I was reviewing this in my mind, is knitting can be sexy. There are things that you might see characteristically as being something that older people do. Canasta can be sexy.
My friends who adore knitting have a friend who loves mending things and does it in very creative ways.
It’s not about the task per se, it’s about how you approach the task.
Yes, just do things you enjoy.
Yes. I think that insight can be revelatory because it doesn’t mean that you have to start jumping out of airplanes. That’s the traditional view.
My God, no, Peter, what I love about getting old is that it gives you all the excuse you want to not jump out of airplanes.
Yes. I have no interest in jumping out of an airplane. This is something we can end on, is that you don’t have to follow the stereotypes. You don’t have to be anything other than yourself. It almost strikes me as I think about this. There’s a necessary condition, which is to be unapologetic. Then everything else is up to you.
You can almost just imagine taking a sheet of paper and writing down the things that you like to do, and the things that you want to try to do. To just embrace those and experiment with them and work on creating this sexy life. The thing that is so appealing is the person who’s living the life that they want to live and living it as we said, unapologetically.
I would add to that, Peter, a piece of advice I give people regularly, “Stay away from people, places, and things that make you feel bad about yourself.”
Conclusion
Amen. The people who love us and care about us the most should be comfortable with the fact that you’re doing things that they would be uncomfortable doing. Do you have other advice, other sayings, or perspectives that we can end on that would put a little bow on this?
Honestly, just the fundamental one, Peter, do not concern yourself with what anybody else thinks. That is the only way to live your life.
I know, it’s so wonderful for you to hear this. I have been working my whole life to get to that place. I had to write a book about it. I had to do mushroom trips to do it. I had to get older to be able to do it. I want people to get there. I think that the world is better when you don’t just follow the rules. The world’s more interesting, it’s happier, it’s more innovative, and it’s sexier.
Cindy, thank you so much for joining me.
It’s been a pleasure. I would just say to our readers, if you like what I’ve said, please go to MakeLoveNotPorn.com, sign up, and subscribe. Subscriptions start at $10 a month, it’s very affordable. Also, consider becoming Make Love Not Porn stars.
That is very exciting.
Terrific.
Cheers.
Important Links:
- Cindy Gallop – LinkedIn
- Website
- MakeLoveNotPorn.com
About Cindy Gallop:
Cindy Gallop is an advertising consultant, entrepreneur, and activist, well known for her work in promoting sex-positive education and combating ageism and gender inequality. In 2015, she founded MakeLoveNotPorn, a video-sharing platform that aims to promote realistic and healthy views of sexuality, challenging the stereotypes and misconceptions often perpetuated by mainstream media and pornography.