Dear Pamela Stephenson, Here’s The Reply to Your Recent Fake Question

The other day in the Guardian online (I have to stop reading that) Pamela Stephenson had a fake love problem concerning a woman in her mid-forties who had not had sex for ten years, missed it and was worried that a future partner would be put off by her extended period of chastity.

Here's the reply I couldn't post from work.

Dear Fake Lady,

I’m going to assume that you have not suffered some awful disfiguring accident, nor an emotionally traumatic event that has left you incapable of relating to men except as fellow members of the economic machine in which I assume you are also a cog. I’m also going to assume you are size twelve or under, exercise at least three times a week and have managed to maintain a pleasant and charming exterior.

So...

You are right. Don’t mention that you haven’t had sex for ten years, in what is supposed to be the prime of a woman’s sexual life. A man will rightly take your behaviour as proof that your sexual drive is minimal and politely end the conversation as quickly as possible so he can meet a woman who experiences desire. No man over the age of thirty has any sympathy for a woman complaining she can't get laid. He was rejected by so many of them in his twenties that as far as he’s concerned, her current dry spell is her due karma. Any woman can find a man to have sex with, anywhere, at any time of day. If that’s all she wants.

You want more than sex. Much, much more. You want sex on your terms with a man who ticks as much of your 463-bullet point checklist as possible. And you don't want him to provide you with just the physical act. You want him to provide you with what the physical act means to you. Which is one or more of about two hundred and forty-three different things, none of which are events in the physical world, and all of which are events in your interior world of emotions and feelings.

And why do you want all those Good Feelz? Because you’re wondering why you should, or how you can, go on hauling yourself through the day without some Good Feelz to encourage you. Is this it? Is this all you have to look forward to?

Yep. It is. Welcome to the rest of your life. For the next forty years you are going to work, feed and wash yourself, keep your lodgings clean and tidy, keep yourself fit and healthy, eat well, read challenging books, go on holiday and persue whatever hobby you have... all for no other reason than you woke up alive again. This is where you prove you're an adult. Happiness, love, belonging and other such happy hormone stuff are for children. Adults live right, day after day, for no reward and no reason, and that is the definition of self-respect.

Woman up. Quit whining. And buy a dildo.