The #1 Thing That Makes Men Insecure About Aging

Lovelies:

Since getting older (opens in new tab) (and wiser (opens in new tab)) has been a theme this week, I decided to ask some of my guy friends how THEY feel about getting older.

I was thinking: It's no secret that women feel insecure about aging--we worry about wrinkles, droopy boobies, gaining weight, going gray, on and on and on. But surely, the MENS of the world also anxious about some of the ways their bodies are changing as they get older ... don't they?

So let's get those male aging fears out on the table--so women will know they are not alone! (And other men will too!)

In this spirit, I send a note out to maybe twenty of my dude-friends, saying:

i'd love to hear what bums you out most about aging. thinning or receding hair? gray hair? a flat tire? wrinkles? smelly feet? (come on--it's okay--you know you have them.) something all together different? what?

almost immediately, i got about seven emails back. all of them said more or less the same thing:

Maura! did you mean a SPARE tire? :-) Oh, and I'm not insecure about anything. I'm gonna get a little fat and bald one day--who cares?

And I thought:

Ah, you mens. You really do have it better than we ladies!

But a day or two passed, and finally--finally!--one brave man, 34-year-old Solo Butler*, wrote back with the truth.

Here's what he said:

Sure, there are plenty of visible effects of aging. I don't like the wrinkles around my eyes, for instance,** and it requires a lot more effort to lose weight or stay in shape than it did in my 20s.

But, let's face it, if we're talking about external attractiveness, men get a much better deal out of aging than women do.***

And yet there's one very definite but not immediately obvious effect men suffer as they get older: We men move so quickly past our sexual peak it's almost embarrassing. It's over before we've really learned what we're doing in bed. When I was in my early to mid 20s, it was easy to have sex 2-3 times a night, night after night. After an orgasm, I could get another erection in 20-25 minutes. These days, in my mid-30s, there's no problem getting that first erection, but afterwards, it might take an hour before I'm really ready to go again, and there's very little chance I'm going to be good for anything past round 2. This is one area (and there are others) where I really envy women: They CAN go all night, and aging has no effect on that. In fact, it probably helps them, because they're often more comfortable with their bodies and with sex as they get more experienced, and they probably hit their sexual peak in their mid-30s. So for guys, it's just a little harder to keep up. ...

This, frankly, was rather shocking--and slightly upsetting--news for me. I've never had sex with anyone older than 30, ever! (I almost always date younger. Or, well, I'll GO on dates with older dudes, but I never end up having sex with them.)

So ... I don't know about you guys, but I personally am getting on the horn--hmmm, NOW-ish?--and calling that twenty-four-year-old I met a few weeks ago at a party ...

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*His porn-star name, of course.

**Perhaps he should try Botox?

***Amen to that, yo.