Are middle-aged women absolute horndogs and does that make for good box office? That’s what Grazia wondered recently, asking if the film industry is finally “embracing midlife sex”. This proposition turns on three films – two starring Nicole Kidman and one with Anne Hathaway. In A Family Affair, Kidman is a writer who starts a relationship with her daughter’s boss, a film star 16 years younger. In the imminent and thigh-rubbingly anticipated Babygirl, Kidman’s character, a CEO called Romy, has a torrid affair with an intern. In The Idea of You, Hathaway’s Solène starts sleeping with a boyband star after taking her teen daughter to meet him.
So, does this constitute a Milf renaissance? Arguably it’s more of a cougar-naissance (to be pedantic), but the point is that there are older women on screen expressing and acting on desire, and this is being represented as transgressive (in a titillating way), but also straightforwardly hot. Especially Babygirl. “Rarely do we see midlife women in explicit sex scenes like this,” Grazia reports breathlessly, highlighting a scene where Romy masturbates alone after sex with her husband, as well as the playful BDSM dynamic between the leads.
This hotness isn’t confined to Hollywood. Miranda July’s novel All Fours, published this spring, is an urgent, messy explosion of midlife lust. “She masturbates … approximately 10 times, has sex nine times,” The Cut enumerated approvingly of its “hornier than a teenage boy” heroine. Actually, though, TV got there first, just more stupidly. Something shifted irrevocably when the sitcom 30 Rock’s fake show Milf Island was made flesh in the horrifying form of Milf Manor last year. The real version featured the eponymous Milfs seducing each other’s adult sons, making it a show so disturbing (and just bad) that viewers described it as “psychological torture”.
Three films might not make a Milf moment, but three films, a novel and a Freudian nightmare of a TV show definitely do. Imagine – the rich, infinitely various tapestry of human sexuality is apparently so anything-goes, so off-the-wall, that some people even find (thin, conventionally beautiful) older women sexually desirable! Yay, I suppose? I hope it’s not too ungrateful to express ambivalence about culture graciously bestowing fuckability upon us. It just sounds awfully hard work; the kind of endeavour that requires imagination, free time, a sense of adventure and a degree of athleticism that 45 minutes of Body Pump once a fortnight probably won’t provide.
Of course, women increasingly expressing and enjoying the possibility, energy, purpose and, yes, desire that post-reproductive life can bring is wonderful. But distorted through the prism of Hollywood, it becomes pressure; something else to put on your to-do list along with worming the cat and querying the standing charge on your water bill. (Neither of those are euphemisms for sex acts. I think.)
And, speaking for (or possibly projecting on to) my hormonally depleted sisters, we’re tired already with the basic business of being alive. Not so much Milf as MLF: mothers who are a little fatigued. The world is doing awful things and (OK, now I’m definitely projecting) so are our bodies; please don’t make us wear scratchy cystitis-inducing pants and learn a new BDSM vocabulary. Don’t take my word for it – here’s Kidman on making Babygirl: “There were times when we were shooting where I was like: ‘I don’t want to orgasm any more. Don’t come near me. I hate doing this. I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life! I’m over it.’”
It sounds exhausting. Maybe what she needs, what we all need, is a trip to MLF Island? Come, take my hand, Nicole (actually don’t – you don’t want to be touched and I respect that). Come to MLF Island, where there will be nap pods, hammocks, Netflix, books, snacks and no obligation to wear a thong bikini. Because I think perhaps the most transgressive, all-consuming, panting desire of my demographic is just that: the opportunity to read, watch telly, nap, snack, swim and chat undisturbed. Orgasms – while welcome! – will be entirely optional.
• Emma Beddingon is a Guardian columnist
• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here
