Lhe season of love comes and goes/Desires almost never grow old with age. This verse, from a song by Franco Battiato, could be the mantra regarding sexuality differently young girls. Those who don’t like to be called Boomers because in the Treccani Encyclopedia the word has a vaguely derogatory meaning, a synonym for “old” or, as Lidia Ravera says, “expired”. But this generation has achieved some goals and planted some flags. «Let’s tell the truth, we did everything» proudly declares Lella Costa, 71, who has just brought an incredible show about Joan of Arc to the Carcano Theater in Milan (Joan: the maid, the girl, the lark). «Michela Murgia was the protagonist of a huge operation when she spoke about a queer family, and hers was a great gift to society, but we had done it before her. Now we’re talking about ethical non-monogamy? We experimented with the open couple a long time ago. We hit our heads, with some sensational imbalances. There are women who have paid a very high price for all this. Clearance of desire? We thought we had already done that too!
The sexuality of Boomers, or the pleasure of women who have learned to ask
Lella Costa rejects the eternal present of today, which forgets the battles of a not so distant past. And it must be a sign of destiny that she lends her voice to the famous Black Widow, Marvel superhero. Not Scarlett Johanson’s version, but that of Susan Sarandon, the sixty-year-old Black Widow, thirty years after the fall of the Avengers, in the Audible Marvel series Wastelanders.
“She’s a Boomer too,” she explains. «Paper heroes can live forever, agelessly, but this no longer young Black Widow is full of nuances and character, she bets herself, she believes she has a place in the world. As my generation did, and I too, at the time of militant feminism. We fought for the freedom to study, work, love, desire, be or not be a mother, (but we have not yet conquered that of judgment, not completely) choosing friends, companions, companions. But upon reflection, here is the hidden trap: you have had the freedom to sleep with whoever you want, what else do you want? You asked for equality, so why should we open our doors for you, pay for your dinner? Because we want it all. We were goddesses, three thousand years before Christ. In reality we should have established our superiority and, for the sake of living peacefully, we called it “difference”. In fact, we are a bit of heroines.”
From marital duty to the right to pleasure
Of course, that’s not all and it’s not that simple. It took a long time to develop a concrete discussion on the body and the right to pleasure, officially sanctioned with the Declaration of Sexual Rights (World Association of Sexology, 1999) and considered shocking by a society that does not question female sexuality and desire at all. But women are starting to do it.
If he “never has to ask”, as in the ambiguous aftershave commercial, she is ready to ask. To be “seen”. To be at the center of your own life. Comment Valeria Randoneclinical sexologist: «The old and terrible concept of marital dutyson of cultural legacies and shame, it transforms into the right to pleasure. The strategic headache, the fiction of non-existent orgasms gives way to the courage to be happy.”
What would a boomer have done in Paola Cortellesi’s film?
The one preceding the Boomers is a silent generation, mothers and grandmothers often unhappily installed in patriarchal families. And incidentally, a beautiful symbol of a woman devalued, humiliated, used for sad sex – a few minutes, no emotion – by her abusive husband, is Delia, in Paola Cortellesi’s film, a box office success. There’s still tomorrow is an original black and white dramedy set on the eve of Italy’s first female vote, on 2 June 1946. In that historical moment the turning point is social and lies in the right to choose who represents us. The next step will be the right to decide for themselves. In Delia’s place, a Boomer would have left her husband to get back together with her ex, the true love of her life. Another ending.
Sexuality education and self-awareness sessions
With the first feminist wave we discussed sexual education (which does not mean “how to make children”). Remember Lidia Ravera, born in 1951. «Us and our body, written by women for women, was the Bible of the seventies: anatomy and physiology, desire, homosexuality. We learned to know each other and talk about it during the self-awareness sessions (a term introduced by Carla Lonzi, ed.), to compare ourselves in the collective. We were no longer isolated. With the Kinsey report it was discovered that many women did not reach orgasm.”
Today, 47 years after the bestseller Pigs with wings (1976), Ravera takes feminist commitment to another level with hers Age Pride, the desire to reclaim the “third time” of life. To look at the past with sweetness, with indulgence.
From Madonna to Meryl Streep, examples of breaking away from the star system
“We had terrifying slogans,” he admits. «We were shouting “With the finger, with the finger, guaranteed orgasm”, but we were giving the initial push to an entire system. Doctor Gregory Pincus saved us with the contraceptive pill, which separated sex from procreation. You become a mother if you want, you are not forced to have multiple pregnancies, to always remain locked up at home with a new puppy. Are we at zero growth? That’s fine. Birth control was also a liberation. We could not have lived in the world otherwise. We were considered “functions” of men, objects of desire, and never subjects. You can’t be a judge because you’re on your period,
if you cheat on your husband you go to jail, adultery was a criminal offence, punished until 1968. We have rejuvenated this country, we have tried to give a better future to ourselves and to others after us”.
Some examples of rupture also come from the star system: Madonna’s toy boys, Meryl Streep’s late and unexpected divorce after 45 years of marriage.
Mature sexuality is possible
Says Marco Paolini, at the theater with the show Boomers: «That generation was the last that had the critical mass to change the balance». Real. «It opened the way to new possibilities» assures Roberta Cacioppo, psychologist, psychotherapist and clinical sexologist. «Today’s challenge is to find integration, a dimension capable of involving sexual and cultural achievements in a fair, dynamic but balanced way. Many of those who deal with identity, fluidity and gender roles come from feminist backgrounds. In private, women have become masters of sexuality and their own bodies, they know it, they speak without problems, there are studies on gender medicine. Sixty- and seventy-year-olds make choices that are more aware of their desires (just think of separations late in life, an unthinkable event, even “only” due to economic dependence on their husband). Menopause is less and less considered a taboo. Mature sexuality is possible, indeed it is even recommended, the time for pleasure is lengthened.”
Between Viagra, hormonal therapies, “help” and experimentation
And if he has Viagra, she has hormone therapies, as well as a lot of “help”, waiting for a miracle pill to arrive. To the desire of desire claimed by ex-girlfriends, revolutionary in this too, the market responds with supplements with alluring names (Love Max, Aphrodite Sensation), many based on phytoestrogens, gels, vaginal creams with hyaluronic acid and painless lasers for living sexuality fully in the “third time”. Ashton Applewhiteactivist of American Society on Agingsuggests to those who are not a couple to experiment: «There are different models of friendship, intimacy and love behind the main theme of the little house with the white picket fence, Prince Charming, the Hollywood story».
“The problem is not adding years to life, but life to years”
Settle for old age? Not if you have the “earned” twenty years that Lidia Ravera talks about: «Empty rooms to illuminate. Love stories are different. You have a piece of life ahead of you without constraints, and it can be a moment of great freedom. Men have no “expiration date” because, in theory, they can still make babies. But Viagra is just a support like many others. Rather, beware of introjecting a devalued idea of yourself (“he can have children, I’m old”) which turns into racism, into ageism, so you should always be 23 years old.”
Or, notes Lella Costa, «At 70 you have to look 50, do 27 sports (pilates, kickboxing, padel) and take hormones until you die. This means that we started the revolution but we didn’t finish it. I like a phrase by Rita Levi Montalcini: “The problem is not adding years to life, but life to years”. Something happened in the last century, the “us” shattered and everyone did what they could on their own. We have to be careful,
because going back is very easy.”
Christian Collange published the pamphlet in 1979 I want to go back home which, after 10 years of battles, puts the family back at the center of women’s lives and the word “ebb” conquers the cover of the Express. “Reflux?” jokes Lella Costa. “Today if you mention it, they think it’s a stomach ache and give you an antacid.”
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