I’m passionate about sexy, older women, because I am one.

Sunday’s excellent Washington Post article on the sex lives of French women rings true to me. Thankfully, I spent endless weeks of my life as an aging Victoria Secret executive, working in France and Italy.

Just to reinforce Pamela Druckerman’s hypothesis that aging French women have it better, Dove’s 2006 Global Study ‘Beauty Comes of Age  confirmed a 20 year difference between American women and French/Italian/Brazilian women on the topic of when a woman’s beauty peaks.

Imagine looking in the mirror at 25 and believing that it’s all downhill from there. Yes, I’d rather be French!

Age of Ideal Beauty

Dove (Campaign for Ideal Beauty) asked the question ‘what is the age of ideal beauty’? By country responses to the answer ‘twenties’ were:

USA 48%; GBR 41%; FRA 11%; ITA 16%; BRA 18%.

Conversely, by country responses to the answer ‘forties” were:

USA 12%; GBR 22%; FRA 39%; ITA 38%; BRA31%.

Simply stated, American women believe that we reach the age of ‘ideal’ beauty before 30. We are ALONE in that belief among women around the world. The British women aren’t far behind us, and both groups have a staggeringly different self-perceptions than French, Italian and Brazilian women.
 
Serious and Sexless

In some respects, American women have themselves to blame.

Strong cohorts within the American feminist movement branded women like myself as traitors, simply because I never gave up shaving my legs and cared about my looks. As for wearing stilettos … well I was considered a hopeless sellout to the patriarchy.