Old lady sex

I have just reviewed 'Love, again' by Doris Lessing over on Silencing the Bell but wanted to add an apposite little quote here. The book is about an older woman (in her 60s), how she falls in love with a very young man, after being widowed and alone for twenty years. She is thrown into confusion by the strength not only of her feelings but of her physical desire for the man who becomes the object of her affection. Her reaction is to opt not to admit her crush to anyone, not even her closest friend, for fear of censure:

"He would have to overcome, for a start, some pretty orthodox reactions. Most men and more women - young women afraid for themselves - punish older women with derision, punish them with cruelty, when they show inappropriate signs of sexuality. If men, they are getting their own back for the years they have been subject to the sexual power of women. She consoled herself with: When this business with Bill is forgotten, I shall still be Stephen's friend." (p.129)

Interestingly there is no sex in the book at all; she finds herself entangled with several men but does not succumb to their advances or her own desires. I was left, rather disappointingly, with the message that it was some weird kind of aberration to fall in love with an old woman and that it was better for all concerned if they just moved on.