Body image, sex and dating

But you know how you hang onto clothes that are very good, but you can’t get into them any longer because, with age, my shape has changed. You know, I haven’t put on any weight, but then I wonder whether there is fat around the middle, but I’m going to have to break the mould and get rid of these clothes in I don’t know how many wardrobes in this house. I wear a fair amount of them, but there’s also a lot that don’t get worn and I’m thinking, you know, every now and again I have a good go and six or eight boxes will go of stuff. You know, not just clothes.

On that point, Helen, about changing shape. How did that make you feel as you were getting older and growing a different body? What was that like?

I don’t like it. I’ve lost my confidence to sew for myself. I used to sew most of my clothes. Eventually, I used stretch fabrics. I found those much easier. And now I haven’t got the confidence to sew for myself because I just don’t seem to be able to get things to fit me or that look right on me. I just sort of think ‘no I’ve got to go and find it’ and I won’t buy a lot online for that reason either. Because they don’t always fit properly and they don’t look right.

That’s frightening. Body image is frightening. It’s horrible. There’s nothing nice about ageing in the body, I’m sorry. I don’t believe there is. I’m talking about me. In other people I can see it. But with me no, I don’t like what I see, but I don’t let it change what I do or how I dress. Not how I dress. How I feel. I put makeup on in the morning and I get dressed and I look in the mirror and I think okay, that’s the best you can do and off I go and I enjoy my day. I make sure, in my opinion, that I’ve done the best I can. I refuse to be grey haired and no makeup, and wear Nanny type things. But against that I’m not going to dress like an 18 year old either. But no, it’s not nice. You get lots of wrinkles where you don’t want them and it’s awful. You get all these skin blemishes. No, not at all nice. Not at all nice. It’s hard to accept.

I decided that I would go and have plastic surgery because I thought “”It must be because I’m old”” although I was 13 years younger than him and so I trotted off to a plastic surgeon and he assessed me and said “”Yes, this is going to cost you 10,000″” or whatever it was and I thought “”Oh”” and he said “It’s a six-hour operation”, I thought “What? I’m not lying there for six hours being carved up”” I thought “”Blow, I’ll live with the wrinkles” and I had a succession of odd, strange boyfriends.

Yes. I know this sounds bad but I get very angry with women that have met their husband or met their man or whoever it is and obviously you’ve been dressed up at the time and you look good and I think you’re letting yourself down if you don’t keep up that and when I met my partner, I thought to myself “If I ever go to bed with him, I’m going to look pretty shocking” so I went and had tattoos and I had my eyelids, my eyebrows and mouth done and so that I would look a bit better and I still like to put makeup on and until recently, I joined – I was with [a weight loss program] but the last few years I thought “80 odd, does it really matter?” And of course I’ve gone here and there and everywhere, but it’s okay, because he’s not much better anyway, so it’s okay. I did try because I think it’s cheating a man, he loved how you looked and now look at you, you know, you look like a dragon. I thought “No, keep going” so I do.

It doesn’t mean because you’re 60 or 65 or 70 or 80 or 90, you have to dress in black or like an old woman, and you neglect your hair and you neglect your face, neglect your husband, you know, your family. This is – you have to feel good about yourself first for the others to see you in a different light. It’s not an effort. I think it’s your responsibility to look after yourself.

Well, [sex] it’s non-existent. Look, it was a very important part of our lives when we were young, but I think – and I think we’re lucky that it’s happened, that we’re both the same in this way. Through the years … it didn’t disappear, but it faded in importance with all the other stuff we were dealing with. And now, particularly his health issues, it’s just not a thing, not an issue. And I find one of my – she’s a close friend, but a new friend, I’ve only known her for about 12 years, and she is a year older than me – she has a rampant sex life. I mean, she has been divorced once, her subsequent husband died, and she was out at bloody dating agencies, and bringing men home at 65 and I think shit, I can think of nothing – it’s just not important, no. So when I said companionable, I meant companionable.

Well, I’m now sharing my life and our, relationship is a horrible word, our love for each other is quite physical. It’s all over the place. So, even though you’re old, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have a sexual life and I have all sorts of trouble. I’ve got … what do they call it? Prostate cancer and I’m pretty sure that I, considered in isolation I’d be called impotent but we make love and my mate’s no chicken either. Even though he’s very fit, he’s a moderate enthusiast. He’s not an insane bodybuilder. It’s all in proportion. It really is but he’s extremely fit and he does enjoy his exercise. He doesn’t do it, “”Oh, you have to do it til it hurts”” or anything. He doesn’t do any crap like that. He just enjoys cycling and that sort of thing and a bit of gym. But, we make love all right and the spiritual thing that happens to you is quite different from … when was the last time I was doing it like in the movies?

…it’s interesting because you go through menopause and you have a good five years where you’re not interested in sex whatsoever. Not interested at all. You’re thinking oh well, there you go. That’s obviously what that little bit of oomph when you turn 50 is all about, to get you through menopause, to get you through the fact that you’re not interested in sex anymore. Bugger it, this is the way my life is going to be. All of a sudden, you get out of menopause and I think I’m hornier than what I was when I was in my twenties. Because I don’t have to worry about birth control or this or that. This is the body shape. We’ve worked our way through all these issues. You know, the nice thing is he doesn’t have any problems with it. His body shape is definitely nothing to get excited about [laughter]. So it’s kind of – hey. It’s just fun. So you know – he still walks through the door and I get excited. I know he does.

Well, in relationships you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant so that, I know I was the era of the pill, beginnings of but it’s still just – oh, and of course the other thing is menopause. Hey, I’m through that. And I have to say you see people, men my age looking for women in say, their 50s and I would often sometimes take a moment to drop a little note to them saying, “”You know what the difference is. Are you really willing to go through all that menopause and what that creates, or someone who’s free from all of that?””

It’s nice, it’s nice, but talk about sex again [laughs]. To me, sex is part of life, it’s nothing dirty, it’s actually sacred, and most men I’ve met – so far – have either been too young or first thing they want is to have sex. No. I explain to them men have sex to release the pressure, the tension, you know, it does that and of course most of them enjoy it. But women have to be ready, it has to be the right time. That business of having a headache is true – they might not have a headache but they don’t feel like it. They have to really be pampered and they have to be all the way there for it. So I tell these men “”No I’m not ready, I’m just not happy about it. If we can be friends, I’m happy about that, and whatever happens later we just let it happen.”” But they’re not happy. So, just recently I decided ‘Oh I don’t think I’ll bother’ [laughs], not unless I find a man who thinks like me. So it would be nice to have someone to talk to, do things with, but- and sex will come much later. Because I still think on, the way my husband was he was an amazing human being. He was a gentleman in many ways. I haven’t really met a man who – and people say “”Oh you have to forget, you have to live, he’s gone, just-“” But he set such a high standard, I can’t just forget about it and go in the mud and – you know, I can’t. So a very high standard. I’m not looking. If it happens, it happens.

My children will say things like, if I say anything, “”We don’t want to know about your sex life, mother. That’s your business.”” So I think that’s part of that. Do you know what I mean? If somebody came into my life that’s going to be permanent, that you knew, then that would be a different story. I mean, my kids, they’re not against it by any means of the imagination but I think they’re just so used to me on my own as well. They’ve had it all their life, my children. Even though they had a dad, they basically had their mother to themselves and I think that’s how they like it. They still like it that way. They’re very close to me.

SBS did a documentary on sex and the seniors and it was just brilliantly done. Absolutely well done but I’ve been at functions when someone has started talking about it in an actual talk, thinking that the oldies want to know, and they’ll just get up and walk out. They’re still very closed and yet sexually transmitted diseases in older people is rising very fast. In fact, in 2012, it was the first year ever they recorded people over the age of 80 with sexually transmitted diseases and there was 12 in Australia and that’s the ones they know about. It’s happening but no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to know and it’s the younger ones who think it’s just; and in this documentary – Insight it was. On Insight and it’s still on YouTube. It’s a very good documentary. They asked a couple of young people and they just thought it was disgusting that their grandparents would have sex. I think that’s been the picture all the way through.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s some – it’s amazing coming from a Middle Eastern woman having lived in a Muslim country, but again, my experience has taught me through my nursing and all that, that [sex] it’s important. You know people even now, sometimes they want me to ask people – because I’m [an] interpreter – how the sex life is, and oh – it’s a no-no question. I say “”Look, it’s me, I won’t talk about it, it’s the doctor, the doctor has to know to help you””. It’s treated as dirty, something you don’t talk about, something that shouldn’t even be there, so I say to them “”All the prophets did it””. You know, if they’re Christian I say “”Jesus did it””. If they’re Muslim “”Mohammed did it with many women””, “”Moses did it, so there’s nothing wrong with it””. If they’re very religious – mainly religious people are sort of a little bit fussy about it. So if it was bad, why did they do it? It’s needed for the survival of the species, and the medicine has found out that it’s also important in your overall health, so it’s treated with respect, not shame. So I’ve been able to help a lot of women in, you know, talk about it, and the doctor has been able to help them.

Because the woman like, want the husband to be a shelter. She is sitting under his wings, sitting under his shelter and comforting her from the Yolngu humbug, [won’t] make trouble for her, respect her. You know, like that. That’s the only way that Yolngu think about that old woman.

Going into that old age, that makes us stop from, you know. By one way, her, when she is acting differently, being a mother and being a grandmother, she do that all the time. That’s the only way that makes her happy. Make her strong, you know, not think about things like making love or going out with other boyfriend.

Not really, because I’m not conversant with a lot of people and I’ve found over the years that I’d be – what do they say? – breaking the ice with, “”Oh, the weather is good today””, you know, and then I’d go to a certain depth and then I’d lose – you know, I never had the confidence to go further. With the guys I suppose you can talk a lot of football and cricket and things like that.

Well I’ve been apart now gee, must be 25 years, living on my own and it is harder to get along with a woman. I can talk, talk to people and that, but to go out with them I feel a bit uncomfortable.

Yeah you get – you still get the urges but not so often, I still worry about – I put it down as the women frighten me, I’ve had such a bad experience with my wife that I don’t want to get tangled up again. I get on well with women but I don’t – we don’t go too far, and now at my age I’m just wondering whether they give me a cuddle because they like me or because they know they’re in no danger. There are a couple of women out there but I just don’t want to pursue it. Yeah – I’m old, I’ve lived my life on my own.

For the first four, five years when my marriage finished I was on antidepressants so the good thing about that is it completely strips your libido so I wasn’t interested. Then when I finally got off those antidepressants that’s when I decided okay, now I can be in action, I did the property course, got going in that. So I thought okay, I’ve nailed that. I’m on the right track there. Next thing, relationships, and I hadn’t had sex for seven years so I was then hanging out and so I did the, realised no one’s going to come knocking on my door so I may as well be in action. And fortunately we live in an age where the computer can be an amazing asset and so I went on to some dating sites. I paid like, [a dating website] if I can use that as an example. But typical Margaret, she didn’t sit down and just wait for someone to contact me. I paid a certain amount so then I could contact people, who I wanted to. So this is now going back five years. So I wasn’t interested in a full-time relationship. I was looking basically [for] a sex buddy, and was in action, had a guy that was, I saw for two years, worked out it satisfied that part of me.

And then over time that part of me was satisfied that I got to a point where no, that wasn’t what I was, I wanted, I want the total package. And so that’s been the last, and I, you know, over time. So I’ve had plenty of breaks in between and not seeing anyone. But looking at wanting the total package creates a different dimension to having fun on the internet because most guys are just wanting sex. And for me I wasn’t prepared to go that way anymore. My rule is if it’s going to work with someone on a first date, yes, but I want to know that he’s interested in who I am, or interested in me, not just sex. Because I know he’ll be satisfied in that area and then I won’t know if it’s really me he’s interested in. Well, that’s my thinking at the moment. So my ideal is to, that he has his house, I have my house and we get together. So I’m wanting a monogamous relationship but I’m not wanting a live-in, I’m not wanting to go back to washing socks and jocks. I know I’m a nurturer and I could easily take over that role very easily.

We had a conference here in Sydney, just near Central last December, middle of December. It was the 15th of December and he came over to me and he said, “”How gay are you?”” Because I don’t go around telling people I’m gay and I don’t wear pink ribbons or whatever it is and he said, “”Well, my partner died this year and I’ve been pretty lonely for several months and I need someone to share my life with and here is my phone number””. And I said, “”Oh””, because I’m like this, I said, and I’d always found him very, very likeable but I didn’t know him, right, and I found him sufficiently eccentric to be an interesting person. And I spent a night agonising and I rang up [my friend] and I didn’t ring up for advice because we don’t do that. I just rang up to pour my heart out and I’m agonising. As I talked to her, we talked for about two hours or something, and I said, “”I’m going to ring him up. I’m gonna see how it goes”” and so I rang him up and we were both a bit unsure so we spent our first night together up at [my friend’s].

I’ve found a soul mate and I’m over the moon, absolutely. So, life begins.