Candace Bushnell Talks Menopause, Sex and Women 'Who Never Want to See a Penis Again'
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When it comes to menopause and sex, Candace Bushnell says "there are two types of post-menopausal women. Those who go sex crazy and those who never want to see a penis again."
In the course of her research, the Sex and the City author has encountered "both situations."
"I've found women between 60 and 70 are the ones who seem to be much more interested in sex," says Bushnell, 63.
"There seems to be a phase that you go through where you're not interested. It's not working right. And then that seems to pass. Of course seeing women as sexual creatures over a certain age is still not that acceptable. I think it's something that makes people uncomfortable. But it is changing."
It's the subject she explored in her 2019 bestseller Is There Still Sex in the City? (about the Sex and the City woman, 25 years later, including her own dating life after her 2012 divorce from ballet dancer Charles Askegard) as well as her one woman show of the same name.
"Women are getting the message that after a certain age, they're not attractive anymore," says Bushnell. "That's basically the message that society gives women. The message is go and be a grandma. That ain't happening."
"I think for a lot of women, they're so used to their value being a reproductive person and being a mother, in a way it's a societal kind of devaluing of women because I think society tells women we really only have value as bearers of children, caretakers of children and men — and sex objects."
"You've been told your whole life, that that's your value," she notes. "Now that's gone and guess what? You're still here."
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Still, she says, there has been change. "For every woman who does not fit the model – that is a step in the right direction."
"At one time, being fifty was pretty much the end," she says. "You are expected to slowly disappear, let your hair go gray, stop dressing a certain way. Well, that's changed. There are so many more women over fifty and we're not going away."
As for her own experience, she says, "I actually went through menopause and did not know it. It was like my clothes, my shoes, didn't fit. I felt exhausted. I did not know i had gone through menopause until I went to the gynecologist and she informed me. I didn't even know it because I was so busy and stressed. I think it happens to a lot of women in their late forties, early fifties. When women are really doing it all. Your career is probably peaking and you may be trying to get your kids into college."
She recalls, "I was doing lectures and there would be moments where your brain just turns off for three seconds. My hair was thinning. Interestingly, it all came back. Somehow when you turn 60, it all gets a hell of a lot better."
When it came to dating and sex, she says, "it does affect your marriage because let's face it, sex is often not comfortable and there's less interest. And if you have a partner, men actually have less interest, but they've got Viagra. Women still don't have anything. But that too is changing. The post menopausal market is getting bigger by the day."
Bushnell, who is on "a couple of dating apps," shared some of the details in her 2019 book about "all the different types of characters you encounter." For instance, she says, "the senior age player, the guy who says he's 75 but when you google him, turned out to be 83."
Overall, she says this next phase of life can be a "gift."
"If you can get the right attitude, it can be a very freeing time," she says. "You can do all those things you did not do before because you were putting everybody else first. I hate to use this term – but a woman can be more like a man."
"That's why I'm doing the stage show," she says. "I wrote and starred in my own one woman show off Broadway and I'm not a trained actress and I'm working on developing a TV version."
"If you can get through the negative messages that society is sending, this is the time you can pursue things," she says. "The fact you don't have to negotiate the sex card can make things better. If you don't have to do things under the male gaze, you have a lot more freedom. It doesn't matter if men think I'm attractive or not. That's not what it's about."
