OK so the latest 'scientific' research into when women sexually peak has not only depressed us, it's also just another ploy to make women feel bad about themselves in order to flog vitamins. A survey, conducted by Healthspan, has revealed that women are most sexually confident between 21 and 30, with 40 to 45 year olds citing a real uninterest in sex because of the perimenopause. Apparently the perimenopause is 10 to 15 years before the actual menopause (shouldn't it just be called 'pre-menopause'?!). So basically you hit 30 and stop wanting to bonk because of your hormones. And also because, according to the survey, you feel less confident.
It's a perfect ploy - preying on the fear we all have that maybe this is it. Maybe sex doesn't get better with age and experience - and that when you're in your 30s, 40s and 50s, it's still just as awkward as the disappointing fumbles and jack-hammering of your early 20s except now you've got grey hair. Think about university sex, it's supposed to be the best time of your life but he's drunk and so excited to be inside a vagina that, oh no, he's going to... yep. Great. Night, mate.
Obviously that's not every sexual experience in your 2os - you'll have great times, you'll have fumbly jack-hammery times, but the first half is a lot about figuring yourself out and gaining confidence from every shag. If you were born a readymade confidence sex bomb bonking machine, then congratulations! The rest of us took three years to go on top because we felt embarrassed about our stomachs. Or faked it into oblivion. Or still have things we haven't quite got round to telling our sex partners that we're into, yet (What if they don't want to do it? What if we try it and I realise I don't want to do it? What if they laugh?). A lot of us feel safe in the knowledge that 3o-plus year old us will be able to do these things due to not giving a shit, and now we're being told this isn't the case? ARE YOU SAYING IT'S GOING TO BE OVER IN LESS THAN TEN YEARS?
Yeah, by a company who want to flog 30-50 year olds vitamins. By scaring women into thinking they're going to be shit at sex really soon.
See, a lot of the women surveyed blamed the lack of sex on having gained weight as they got older, something the hormone fluctuations from the peri-menopause apparently only exacerbates. And this can be rectified by forking out cash and buying Healthspan vitamins. Yes, the website talks about anti-depressants, and coping methods to deal with the fluctations which is really nice and helpful and all that, but that doesn't take away from the big fat PRODUCT A-Zsign in the top right hand corner. Isn't Healthspan just so clever.
Yes, the menopause really fucks some people up and yes, the peri-menopause may have an effect - but is a drop in sex, or feeling underconfident in bed just because of this? We have a sneaking suspicion that it's probably be to do with the cultural factors as well. It's not like we particularly celebrate women as they age, is it? While men are praised as being sexy silver foxes, women are portrayed as being 'faded beauties' or 'Oh I bet she was fit when she was younger'. On top of that, there's that really fun study that found, while women want to date men their own age, men only want to date women who are 21. Even when they're 50. But no point talking about that, because you can't sell anything in a pot that'll solve it - unless the pot was actual pot (i.e. cannabis) so you can get totally baked for a while and forget about how everyone hates age.
Just like when we're in our 20s, we're comparing ourselves to the myriad of beautiful 20-somethings plastered all over billboards and magazines, imagine how it feels when you're 45 and being told you need to spend £400 on an anti-ageing serum and a bit of cheeky botox because you're wrinkles are unnacceptable? The whole thing is gross. And sex-scaring us all into thinking we'll hate sex after 30 is even more gross. But on the plus side, a Debrief team member's mum once told her she became way more sexually confident in her late 30s and said team member's dad said 'I can attest to that'.
No wait, that's also gross, but slightly more heartening than this study. Which only surveyed 100 women. We say that you make your own confidence, and that confidence gets better the less you give a fuck - not sure about you guys, but we plan on giving exactly zero fucks the older we get, regardless of what some company says.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.