My "Naked" Truth

[ismnotwasm]

I am a 59-year-old woman in great health and in good physical shape. I stand five-feet, nine-inches tall and weigh 135 pounds. I wear a size six in both jeans and panties, and my breasts are nowhere near my navel. In fact, they still struggle to make it full-up in a B-cup bra. My thighs are no longer velvet and my buttocks have dimples. My upper arms wobble a bit and my skin shows the marks of the sun. There is a softness around my waist that is no longer perfectly taut, and the pout of my abdomen attests to a c-section that took its bikini flatness -- but gave me a son.

Why this brutal scrutiny of myself? It was time to counter the damage of my culture, my own soft-held fear and to pour warm love on my own soul. It was time to claim every mark and not-perfect inch of my own body -- a body that had been called "too wrinkled" by a man who was fetched by my energy and my mind, but did not like the bare truth of me. His name was Dave and he was 55 years old.

We met on a dating site. Dave was interesting, gentlemanly and bright. He held my hand and toured with me on long bicycle rides. He drove many miles to come to my door. He made meals for us both and ruffled my dog's happy head. I was enticed and longed for the full knowing of this man. And so, we planned a weekend together. That's when things got confusing, unspoken and just-not-quite there. We went to bed in a couple's way -- unclothed and touching -- all parts near. Kisses were shared and sleep came in hugs. I attempted more intimacy throughout the weekend and was deterred each time.

On Monday evening over the phone, I asked this man who had shared my bed for three nights running why we had not made love. "Your body is too wrinkly," he said without a pause. "I have spoiled myself over the years with young woman. I just can't get excited with you. I love your energy and your laughter. I like your head and your heart. But, I just can't deal with your body."

I was stunned. The hurt would come later. I asked him slowly and carefully if he found my body hard to look at. He said yes. "So, this means seeing me naked was troublesome to you?" I asked. He told me he had just looked away. And when the lights were out, he pretended my body was younger -- that I was younger. My breath came deep and full as I processed this information. My face blazed as I felt embarrassed and shamed by memories of my easy nakedness with him in days just passed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-korth/sex-over-50_b_5563576.html

[seabeyond]

1. i use to say our body was just the metal to protect our inside, as we traveled in life, like a car.

dents are our scars and scratches are our outward imperfection. doesnt mean the machine is not humming healthy and fine.

along the way, we discarded nonperfection. both our cars and bodies must be perfect.

it is all about the perception of, not the reality of what is.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Well she's well rid of that one

Their lives has no future based on a lie, he should stick to the young women he so admires. He was very cruel to mislead her in the first place.

I suspect she'll find a partner who cherishes her, and he, especially as he ages, will find perhaps physical fulfillment, (and perhaps not if it gets to the point where sex with another human might as well be masturbation) , but emotional emptiness, and a lot of regret.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. You give the male species more credit than do I. Been on a dating site lately?

[theHandpuppet]

8. It's times like this I really, REALLY don't envy straight women

I can't imagine having to deal with the constant blows to one's self esteem.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

9. it would be hilarious if it weren't so sad .... either way,

they are surfed better with a bottle of wine.

There are some nice men out there don't get me wrong but, seems they live across country ... sigh

[ismnotwasm]

11. Nope

Been married for 23 years. I would never have another partner, I would never have married another person. If something happened to him, that part of my life is over.

There is no other- don't mistake me, I don't mean in a romantic sense, I'm not romantic. I DON'T give men more credit then they deserve. Not at all. And as far as a dating site? The whole concept grosses me out, I need to see body language, hear the syntax of spoken words, watch interactions with other persons. For a while, before I make judgements.

And now in middle age, I expect I would be very picky, very judgmental. I'm not the one, body flaws and all who has to do the pleasing. I'm the one who needs to be pleased. I'm rare and precious, something I expect the woman In the the article is as well.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. No shit.

And excuse the fuck outta me and my miserable existence. Lucky you.

[ismnotwasm]

18. I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable

My husband, despite repeated explanations, doesn't understand. He thinks I'd find that mythological someone else. He has no idea how high my standard actually are.

I have a theory, which is probably unfair to the person he is, he has multiple sclerosis, has experienced childhood abuse--sexual betrayal, a horrible first marriage, yet somehow turned out to be a decent human being who respects women. He doesn't quite understand feminism, but he gets what I explain to him.

Anyway, my theory is that he's suffered in ways no one can understand unless they've been through the same thing, and it's made him more empathetic to women, he dislikes people who are clearly full of shit,(it's fun to show him the moron posts around here-- then I tease him and say see how you guys are? He knows I'm teasing) he's strangely emotionally vulnerable in ways I'm not and will never be. Like he's been cleansed through fire. He doesn't listen to men and their sexist bullshit, he tells them to knock it off. I didn't tell him that--he figured it out by himself.

Neither one of us are perfect-- and we get into glorious fights.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. and one day the young women...

will treat him the same way- he will get what he deserves. Like you said, she is better off without this jackass.

[Kali]

4. my god

the other side of how the total focus on youthful appearance (mostly of women) has damaged perception and the ability to function.

feel almost as bad for him as her

[seabeyond]

7. exactly. especially the last decade of inundation of this garbage in every area of life, 24/7

provided by the net, this is just where we are as human beings.

[CTyankee]

5. I bet he ain't no prize in the body department either...

OTOH, he "might" have been covering up his male impotency...

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. forgot his viagra ... possibly.

[freeplessinseattle]

21. My first thought, too. What a jerk either way. n/t

[JNelson6563]

6. Shallow, vain and oblivious.

He almost sounds mid-life crisis-y. What a fool.

Julie

[theHandpuppet]

14. One man I know...

... quite wealthy and well known, older now, as he aged and left one woman would always find an even younger one each time he started a new relationship. I only half-jokingly remarked to my partner that if his present relationship ended I'd expect he'd next be scouring high school yearbooks for his next date.

[BainsBane]

12. What a sad man Dave is

Clearly missing out on a lot in life.

[Tetris_Iguana]

13. Another victim of the pornification of society.

[ismnotwasm]

15. Exactly nt

[geek tragedy]

19. what matters most is the person the body is attached to.

male or female or whatever.

this guys sounds like a world-class putz

[theHandpuppet]

20. Don't know if anyone had seen this article

If this doesn't raise your blood pressure, nothing will.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28272373
11 July 2014
Esquire: 42-year-old women are still sexy
BBC News

Attention all "women of a certain age" - Esquire magazine has decided that you're still sexy, as long as that "certain age" falls below 42.

In an illuminating article, Esquire writer Tom Junod pronounces 42 as the most alluring age of 2014.

In the past when women left their 30s, Junod says, they could break out the funeral pyre for both their looks and their entire sense of womanhood.

"Let's face it: There used to be something tragic about even the most beautiful 42-year-old woman," Junod writes....

[JNelson6563]

22. What a stinky pantload that is!

*gag*

[ismnotwasm]

23. Oh yeah I read that

One if my co-workers brings in his magazines, like esquire and Details-- the last basically a fashion magazine for men. So I read esquire quite often. And like this article, they tend to be condescending and shortsighted. I don't get mad----esquire readers, if they're not Gay like my friend (shit like this goes right over his head) if they buy into this shit are ridiculous fools, often educated, often with good incomes, but whiny bastards.

I just turn it around.

"Let's face it: there used to be something tragic about even the most beautiful 42 year old man"

There really was; they drank and smoked and worked and were seeped in ignorance and toxic masculinity about life and didn't view women as actual human beings. Even today you can see the dying gasps of this attitude. Say, insisting there is only one valid point of view for rape statistics for instance. Dinosaurs, that don't know there time is almost over. Of course the HL ruling and patently ridiculous but constant arguments about rape makes me thinks the dinosaurs aren't quite headed for extinction yet.

[redqueen]

24. I know many women with similar stories.

It's very sad. She's obviously not used to body shaming so it must have been a rude shock to her. Many women who aren't so in line with patriarchal beauty standards are reminded far more often that they don't measure up as a sex object.

[theHandpuppet]

25. I think that's must be especially true for women who find themselves unattached...

... for the first time in their adult lives, either through divorce or the death of a spouse.

[redqueen]

31. It's shocking, some of the things they hear.

This woman was very gracious about Dave's oblivious nastiness. I don't share her eagerness to absolve him of responsibility for his hatefulness. He is one of those who considers women less than human.

[theHandpuppet]

33. I have to agree with you there

She was a helluva lot more gracious than I would have been to that asshole.

[redqueen]

29. Yeah, of course it does. Cause men are sexually objectified just as much, right?

Always super lovely to get the 'what about the men?!' routine here.

Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

[redqueen]

32. lol

Bye

[riqster]

28. Christ on a condom, what a shallow asshole that man is.

Anyone who focuses on externals to the minimization or exclusion of internals is revealing something about themselves. And that "something" is truly ugly.

[redqueen]

35. It is endemic to society.

Think of how often the importance of a woman's appearance is reinforced. How common is the 'no fat chicks' saying? Is there a male version of 'butterface'? There are dozens of even more hateful and vulgar ways that women's bodies are discussed. These are all just more symptoms of the same disease.

[riqster]

36. An old "blessing" I once heard seems applicable:

From my pastor during communicant's class: "May you be treated by others as you have treated them".

Quite the eye-opener, that was. Rev. Schwartzbach was very good at such little zingers.

And it informs my actions to this day. I am wrinkly, paunchy, hairy in the wrong places, in poor health, and my wife thinks I am handsome. There is a powerful lesson in that love. And it goes both ways with us.

[Flatulo]

38. I'm probably uglier than you, and my wife still loves me, too.

We're lucky guys. My wife is still a goddess in my eyes.

[riqster]

39. Same here.

[Flatulo]

37. Dave is such an ass.

I hope he gets the pox from a cheerleader.