Hi, folks,
There has been some understandable confusion about what I mean when I use the term “hot,” as in Formerly Hot, or no longer hot, or when I was hot. Once in awhile, I’ll get an email from a reader to the effect of, “What do you mean ‘formerly’ hot? Why can’t you be hot just because you’re older? I am in my 40s [or 30s or 50s or whatever] and think I’m hotter than I’ve ever been!” Growl!
My intention is not to imply that an older person cannot be attractive, gorgeous, good-looking, doable, cougarific, or whatever synonym for hot you favor. In fact, I consider my 42-year-old self all of those things (maybe not first thing in the morning, but after a shower and ideally a tinted moisturizer, absolutely.) In fact, I consider my mother all of those things. Even better, she considers herself all those things.
I’m (trying to) poke fun at a world that would quickly scan a woman and rate her “hot” or not based on the easy markers that I used to have in spades: youth, big hair, smooth, unlined skin and a prepartum body that allowed me to eat carbohydrates without inflating like an airline life vest. When I had those things, I was treated very differently than I am now, and was in an entirely different category of female. Figuring out that I’m no longer in that category, and what that means, has been a trip. Sometimes funny, sometimes fucked up, but always fascinating.
I’m also poking fun at myself for being conflicted about no longer being hot–hot in the sense that people who didn’t already know that I was “beautiful on the inside” thought I was hot. We are all of this culture as well as critics of this culture, so it’s hard not to buy in to some of the silliness even as you’re trying to carve out a place where you can feel good about who you are as you get older.
So I hope this helps and I’d love to hear your thoughts about “hot” and not and perhaps reclaiming the category.
Xo Steph
Photo by Margaret Ann Clarke CC
August 9, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I’ve always felt you were writing about culture– and ways we and people around us respond to cultural constructs of age, beauty, psychological/physical change.
By having us look at cultural ideas about age and gender ironically, with humor and humanity, you are doing us all a great service! You are very generous in honestly sharing your own experiences. In doing so, I think you are helping us love being women throughout the journey. So, in this regard, you are currently my very hot hero!
Hopefully, with work like yours, and challenging our own attitudes, we will come to live in a “formerly ageist” and more accepting and self-loving society.
August 11, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I am also 42 and struggling with suddenly being ‘invisible’. We may not like it, but it is true. The only way to survive it is with humor…and fantastic clothes 20 year olds can’t afford!
August 12, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Your just saying what we are all thinking, in a humorous, Erma Bombeck kinda way. Keep up the great blog. We can all use the laughs!!
August 13, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I love this post and I’d love to put it on MidLifeBloggers. It’s such a hot (and I do mean hot) topic for all of us, and you get the various bits and pieces of the issue down in a very short space.
Jane
August 13, 2009 at 8:28 pm
I never took your “formerly hot” phrase to mean that 40-ish women can’t be hot. I like what I see when I get dressed, put myself together, and even believe my husband when he says I’m “hot.” However, I am not the “hot” I was in my 20’s and now I think it’s funny. Even funnier because I’ve found your blog.
It’s just a different kind of hot.
Keep up the good work ladies!
Lisa
August 14, 2009 at 9:28 am
I fully understand where you are coming from. I, too, have seen the comments and I fully understand that Sophia Loren, Joan Collins and Cher are till hot. Damn right they are! But their boobs are not 50 or 60 years old. Those boobs are 2 or 3 or 5 years old. Same goes for those faces. In looking back at my old photos, I would have been kinder to that woman. She had it going on and never knew. It is what it is… I can tell you though,on the cruises I have been on, I have seen the older skinny ladies in their bikinis and just because you think you’re still hot, don’t get within 50 feet of a 20 year old on her worse day. It shows.
We get it.