Who cares who you sleep with?
Living the best sexual version of yourself, Holly's gift guide for good friends, Mia's 5 life lessons for teenagers, what happens when you admit to using Ozempic & the top K-Beauty products to try.
Yuck. You’re old. No one wants to think about you having sex. Gross. Keep it to yourself. Hasn’t that part of your life kind of ended? Don’t embarrass your children. Do you even want that anymore? Shush. Don’t make a thing of it, put it away.
Who cares who you sleep with? You do, and what you care about still matters. Hiding a part of yourself that’s essential to who you are isn’t the freedom you’ve waited so long for. Sex and sexuality is not only for the young and the lineless. Joy and pleasure and connection has no time limit. Truth has no deadline. You’ve had your time. Shush about desire and love and longing. Now it’s not your turn. So selfish.
This idea has trapped plenty of women in places they didn’t belong, when actually the opposite is true. Now you have a lot more experience and a lot less time, so why would you waste it. Not being who you are, not asking for what you need. Not getting the pleasure until now only played out in the privacy of fantasy. Not feeling the feelings you weren’t raised with a name for, that you were taught to fear and shove aside, push away into a voiceless corner. Who cares who you sleep with now?
What if it took you until MID life to say out loud something that you’ve been trying to find the words for your whole life.
Something like: “Yes, I know I am a mother, married to a man, but I am also bisexual…and I’m ready to date women.” That’s the story of the novelist Julie Cohen.
Julie was in her 40s when she came out as bisexual. Some people asked her why she bothered. As if age, itself, rendered her sexuality irrelevant. Others suggested that just as an adolescent’s sexuality can be dismissed as a “phase”, perhaps hers was simply a mid-life crisis.
Dating after divorce, navigating the apps and the first post-long-term relationship sexual encounters are interesting and nerve-wracking for anyone, and for Julie, this was no different.
🎧Follow below to hear Holly Wainwright’s full conversation with Julie Cohen. The pleasures of post-penis sex, what she found the differences in dating men and women to be, and just how it felt to be living the version of herself that, as Julie says, she didn’t even have a word for when she was growing up.
Read and listen to more
LISTEN: From no sex to best sex at 49.
These 13 books have the very best sex scenes.
Expert sex tips for people over 50.
HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: Things I would buy my best friend for Christmas.
I'm not Oprah, but here are a few of my favourite things that I genuinely like so much I would buy for my best friends for Christmas/Birthdays/Just Because. That is, if my best friends liked exactly what I like. Which they don't. But someone out there must. So, good luck.
A very MID gift-guide.
Oily skin care.
I've been using Sunday Riley for ages. Not everyone can hack Vitamin C, but my face seems to like it, so last year I recommended their CEO moisturiser, which is exactly the right level of rich and fabulous and active. But this year I have been reminded how much I love face oils. Again, not every face does, but mine just guzzles that stuff up like hummus on a cracker.
So. Here are a few I love so much (and are special enough) to gift to someone you love.
Sunday Riley CEO Glow Vitamin C + Turmeric Oil, from $66.
Look, I'm not going to pretend I know WHY Vit C and golden tumeric and the various berries that make this sound more like a smoothie than a face oil work so well, but they do. It does. I LOVE the way this makes my skin feel. I use it in the morning, sometimes after some vitamin B serum if I remember, and it glooooooows. I leave it for a bit and put my make-up over the top…
🎧Follow below to hear some more great gift ideas, this time from the You Beauty crew.
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Your friend has enough bottles of wine. Here are 15 gifts they’ll actually like.
All the non-boring Secret Santa gifts under $50.
‘I’ve found Christmas gifts for every family member on your list’.
‘I’ve been taking Ozempic for two months. When I posted it online, I didn’t expect the comments.’
When I posted a photo of myself to Instagram in a bikini, I typed out a quick caption.
“Thanks for the comments about how confident and happy I look,” I wrote.
“I've been using Ozempic for about six weeks now. I think it's important to be honest about weight loss, so I wanted to let you know.”
Wearing a cossie was not unusual for me, I am a fan of my bod at any size and I'm comfortable posting pics of myself. What was important to me was being honest about why I was looking a little different.
One year before, the rheumatologist I was seeing for my arthritis had suggested I'd need a hip replacement reasonably soon, but that I could probably delay the operation if I lost weight.
For years I'd struggled with my weight and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), hormonal changes and joint pain, combined with a lack of willpower had meant very little success.
One year later, I still weighed the same and I knew I needed help, and my doctor had suggested I start on weight loss medication…
🎧 Follow below to hear Holly talk about food and the absolute necessity of small joys with Virginia Trioli in Screw ‘Slimming’: A Mouthful Of Radical Joy.
THE SCROLL 📱
5 things to feed your mind and fill your soul.
1. Mia Freedman: 5 life lessons for teenagers
2. Katie Holmes and Nicole Kidman went through an unspeakable event. Only one was villainised.
3. JonBenét Ramsey was murdered almost 30 years ago. This is her father’s life now.
4. What I learnt from crashing my son’s Schoolies in Bali.
5. Stay-at-home mums are the ultimate target for MLMs. I know because it happened to me.
ICYMI 👀
10 years on from the Lindt Cafe siege, that day changed the way I do my job. Weekend Watch: The one reason to watch Netflix’s dark new comedy. ‘I was utterly blind’: Emma Thompson’s most heartbreaking scene was inspired by her husband’s affair. Feel guilty all the time? You’re probably the ‘parentified daughter’.
MID-SPO STYLE 👗💄
A glowy, dewy look in five-minutes flat? Makeup artist and beauty expert Amanda Ramsay who specialises in over 40s skincare recommendations has got tired, dehydrated skin sorted. Watch below ⬇️
