My birthday has come and gone. I don't feel thirty-five. Part of that stems from just graduating, I am sure. Of course, I am not sure what thirty-five is supposed to feel like. I don't have children, so I can't measure it in generations. My career is just starting (keeping fingers crossed). My body is still responsive. According to popular culture, it's mostly downhill from here. But what if age was disarticulated from the amount of time one has spent breathing?
In evolutionary theory, neoteny is the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Supposedly, this explains why men find women with large eyes and shiny hair more attractive. In the US, attractiveness is a weird mix of childishness and maturity, pinning the standard for female beauty sometime around the age of twenty (skin color, hair type, body size, and physical ability not withstanding). As a woman, I've felt pleased when people avow I do not look my age, as if somehow looking younger is always positive. One can never be too young or too thin, right? In my time in the kinky community, I learned to evaluate age differently. I will discuss two approaches in the kinky community which disturb accepted beliefs about age and desirability.
Probably the more spectacular of the two is the phenomenon known as "age play." This involves one partner taking on the role of a pubescent or even prepubescent child while the other partner acts as an older person in authority - teacher, nanny, daddy (although some people explore themes of incest, this term is probably not how you imagine it). For some, the play is explicitly sexual, while for others it is experiential. Age play allows for an explicit engagement with power. There are few people less powerful in our culture than children. Part of the appeal of kink is that it violates taboos, and despite the sexualization of children, even playing with the idea of pedophilia is transgressive. It is important to note that no one under the age of eighteen was allowed at the parties I attended and the people I asked were appalled at the idea of involving actual children in play. So it's not as if this was some finishing school for child rapists. In the community I worked with, feminized people generally take on the younger role, sometimes referred to as the "little." The authoritarian roles were generally held by more masculine people. Note that I do not say women or men; like many things in the kinky community, gender was not always tied to a person's physical body. The people I interviewed who played as littles enjoyed the sense of freedom it created. It is a way to remember the wonders of childhood, when everything was new and exciting. It is also a way to recall the terrors of childhood (not necessarily personal child abuse, but the sense that everyone has more power than you and can wield it according to rules you cannot fathom). The person in the authority role (the "big") gets to experience control and power. Many, although not all, scenes revolve around the little misbehaving and the big disciplining them. It is a way to shift perspective, radically imagine and inhabit a different way of being. We were all children once and have morphed into these strange beings. Age play allows people to experiment with both childishness and childlike-nesss. At the end of the scene, everyone goes back to being adults.
A less recognized method of resisting hegemonic ideals, even among those in the community, is the model of female desirability that extends past nubility. My advisor found it hard to credit that parties were well attended by women over fifty or even sixty but it happened. The interesting thing, to me, is that these women were not attempting to look younger. Their attractiveness was based on their experience, generally as dominants but sometimes as submissives as well. In tones of awe, people would whisper about how "scary" the dommes were. They never lacked for partners and usually drew a crowd when they played. They relied less on technique than their male counterparts, instead evoking fear and desire through their presence. It was a revelation to discover a model of female desirability that not only transcended age, but actually valued it. There was also a space for older men to be viewed as sexually attractive, although the contrast was less stunning than with women.
At both ends of the age range, then, people are contesting the meaning of age. An interesting side effect of all of this age play is the treatment of young adults (18-24). Few people had exposure to kink prior to turning eighteen, so neophyte status complicated their desirability. New people (referred to as "fresh meat") could be excited by all the novel experiences and shared that energy with others. This made them attractive. However, their lack of experience usually counted highly against them. Experienced people felt newbies could not be trusted to know what they wanted or needed. This could lead to drama and misinterpretation. In a mainstream culture that places the pinnacle of desirability (for women, anyway) at that age, it was fascinating to see a subculture in which there was serious consideration given to the drawbacks of being a young adult.
Like gender, we are wedded to the notion that age has some sort of objective reality, that it expresses a biological fact about ourselves. In the kinky community, these assumptions are tested and often found wanting. So, thirty-five? It's probably whatever I make of it.
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