http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/941...erity.html
I can't afford to have sex at the moment," says Lysette Peters, a 43-year-old part-time barrister, who recently broke up with her 54-year-old banker boyfriend. "He wanted a lifestyle I couldn't keep up with financially, given the recession."
Another woman I know, who at 39 still has curves that would have a bishop kicking through a stained-glass window, has been celibate for six months, because, as she told me bluntly: "Right now, it's too expensive to run a lover. It's not just the cost of maintaining your appearance, but men these days seem to expect you to pay half of everything.''
There was a time when shiny women south of 30 with independent means possessed the holy grail of a thousand magazine articles – a Prada handbag, an address in an agreeable part of the metropolis (forsaken for Italy in August and Les Arcs in January) and a lover who ornamented their lives, despite the concomitant outlay on lingerie and beauty salons. Now, however, austerity and unemployment are compelling an increasing number of middle-class women to choose between their lifestyles and the ars amatoria, and many are opting for what would once have been unthinkable: no sex and the city.
According to a recent study by the Cumbria Social Institute, the number of single women between the ages of 35 and 50 has increased by seven per cent in the past two years. And it would appear that a steady boyfriend, has, to many, become a luxury they can't afford.
Dr Angela Hutton, who compiled the report, says: "One of the factors is undoubtedly financial. Women are having to prioritise, and the mortgage and the car – as well as taking care of dependants – are taking precedence over men, who are increasingly falling into the luxury category."
It is a truth universally acknowledged that women heavily outnumber men in the dating arena; and the male sex is taking financial advantage of the fact.
As the cost of living escalates, so it seems, has the cost of loving, at least for the more mature woman. While older men remain willing to prise open their chequebooks for a 25-year-old whose alabaster complexion would grace the yacht of any concupiscent billionaire, an increasing number are ignoring the traditional etiquette of courting when it comes to women over the age of 35.
Gallantry is in retreat, buckling under the forces of recession, spurious excuses of equality – and the assumption that such women are in no position to protest, if they want to find themselves in an agreeable position in the boudoir. Michael Glass, a 50-year-old Scottish hedge funder, confirms that Cupid's arsenal of arrows has been subject to age-sensitive cuts.
"While I would happily spend money on a real babe, over whom other men are competing, I don't feel the need to do the same with an older woman who is probably desperate," he says. "Many of my friends feel the same. They'll ask such a woman to pay her share.''
A recently married male friend who, at 49, has a small production company, made it clear while dating potential partners that women who were unable or unprepared to spend need not apply. ''Part of my wife's attraction was her executive salary and her willingness to foot the bill," he says. "I earn, but in a recession I wasn't prepared to throw my money about as I had on previous girlfriends."
It seems that the economic downturn has left chivalry in tattered clothing. Dr Alfred Kinsey, the fabled American sex researcher, concluded in the first study of human sexual behaviour in 1948 that there was a correlation between inflation and sexual activity. High prices and low earnings, he concluded, led to "an increase in celibacy''.
Contemporary females, woefully, are finding this to be the case. "The last two men I went out with would have bankrupted me," says Eliza Budsworth, a 42-year-old television researcher. "The first was a 50-year-old barrister who had extremely expensive tastes and in the end I couldn't pay half the bill in all the five-star hotels we always stayed at.'' She calculated that the cost of sustaining a relationship with him for a year would have been around £17,000.
Her second beau, a 46-year-old author, implied that she was lucky to have him, and: "He wasn't going to spend money on me.''
The sexual see-saw has upended and a transference of power has occurred. While younger men, with the insecurities of youth, may still feel the need to wine and dine women in the traditional manner, the confident older man, providing he has the normal complement of limbs, feels himself to be an Alcibiades reborn, to whom women should pay financial as well as sexual homage. "It was increasingly impressed upon me," says Lysette Peters, "that my bank balance was the strongest hold I had over men."
In essence, many-splendoured romance has been replaced by something cold and glittering that is more akin to a business merger. And if you are a woman who can't afford to splurge, any sort of merger is becoming increasingly unlikely. Dorothy Parker once wrote:
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do
you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my
luck to get
One perfect rose
Today, many women would be lucky to receive even the rose without an invoice for half its cost tied to the stem.
Jane Morrow, a London psychiatrist, told me that many of her older female patients suffer from depression because "they feel that not only are men taking advantage financially, but in this competitive environment, with younger women a continuous threat, they worry they can't afford to maintain that groomed and perfect look that is their one advantage.
"Three months ago one of my patients lost her job. Her chief concern seemed to be that her fiancée would drop her because she could no longer afford designer clothes and weekly trips to the beauty salon and hairdresser."
Today, A-list men expect their female peers not only to pay as they date, but to look as pristine as a Clichy crystal. This involves a considerable outlay, rising as we grow older. Jennifer Ames, an accountant who was made redundant last November, was forced to give up her gym membership, her visits to Knightsbridge boutiques and her weekly pedicures and facials. "I'm only 39 and I've always taken care of myself, but then my boyfriend started to complain I was looking drab, and one week, when I couldn't afford to have my legs waxed, he just went off me.''
She later found out that he had acquired a new girlfriend, aged 25. The sexual value of youth remains a recession-proof commodity. "To tell you the truth,'' conceded a male friend of mine, "I'd be prepared to invest a lot of money on a woman under 30. There's more mileage there and you feel good having her on your arm. Why would I spend money to have a 40-year-old middle-ranking executive on my arm instead? And if she is on my arm, she'd better pull her weight financially.''
Even though the average female salary in the UK is a third less than the average male salary, women are told that going Dutch is the logical outcome of feminism. One woman I know who protested when her date, who had done all the romantic running, asked her to pay her half of the bill at an expensive London restaurant, received the response: "Do you want to go back in time and be some submissive little housewife?" Another was told, under similar circumstances, that her attitude "lacked modernity".
The celluloid sex symbol Lana Turner was once asked, apropos her financially draining hubby Bob Topping, ''is the screwing you're getting worth the screwing you're getting?" Marie Harvard, a relationships counsellor, says: "These days, money as much as infidelity is causing discord between couples. Men are making financial demands on women that they weren't 10 years ago. This is partly due to the economy, but friction arises when women can't meet these demands or don't want to.''
For an increasing number of women, the answer is no. Eliza Budsworth says: "I had the chance of a romantic weekend in Venice last month but the man who asked me wanted half the hotel bill up front, and so that was that. In any case, that sort of attitude doesn't really sweep you off your feet. I know I'm not this year's top model, but if men who aren't exactly George Clooney are only willing to be generous with 23-year-old sexpots, they're also the long-term losers.''
Yet nubile females are always unsafe bets for men with the passions of Romeo in the bodies of Sir Toby Belch. This is where the modern male is making his fatal mistake. Once, wining and dining grown-up members of my sex were willing to overlook men's imperfections in search of a committed relationship. This gave men a certain sexual power, even if it came tinged with gratitude. No longer.
In a development that is ominous for both sexes, more and more women are shunning men who require them to look like Sarah Jessica Parker and meekly pony up half the bill. Sally Hughes, an attractive 41-year-old doctor, faced a choice this summer. "I could either go to France and chill with old friends, or spend money I haven't got and go to Italy with a man who expects me to be super-groomed and financially independent. The first cost £800. The latter around £3,000.'' She decided on old friends and celibacy.
For many women in her position, this choice is looking increasingly attractive. The cost of loving has become too high.
I can't afford to have sex at the moment," says Lysette Peters, a 43-year-old part-time barrister, who recently broke up with her 54-year-old banker boyfriend. "He wanted a lifestyle I couldn't keep up with financially, given the recession."
Another woman I know, who at 39 still has curves that would have a bishop kicking through a stained-glass window, has been celibate for six months, because, as she told me bluntly: "Right now, it's too expensive to run a lover. It's not just the cost of maintaining your appearance, but men these days seem to expect you to pay half of everything.''
There was a time when shiny women south of 30 with independent means possessed the holy grail of a thousand magazine articles – a Prada handbag, an address in an agreeable part of the metropolis (forsaken for Italy in August and Les Arcs in January) and a lover who ornamented their lives, despite the concomitant outlay on lingerie and beauty salons. Now, however, austerity and unemployment are compelling an increasing number of middle-class women to choose between their lifestyles and the ars amatoria, and many are opting for what would once have been unthinkable: no sex and the city.
According to a recent study by the Cumbria Social Institute, the number of single women between the ages of 35 and 50 has increased by seven per cent in the past two years. And it would appear that a steady boyfriend, has, to many, become a luxury they can't afford.
Dr Angela Hutton, who compiled the report, says: "One of the factors is undoubtedly financial. Women are having to prioritise, and the mortgage and the car – as well as taking care of dependants – are taking precedence over men, who are increasingly falling into the luxury category."
It is a truth universally acknowledged that women heavily outnumber men in the dating arena; and the male sex is taking financial advantage of the fact.
As the cost of living escalates, so it seems, has the cost of loving, at least for the more mature woman. While older men remain willing to prise open their chequebooks for a 25-year-old whose alabaster complexion would grace the yacht of any concupiscent billionaire, an increasing number are ignoring the traditional etiquette of courting when it comes to women over the age of 35.
Gallantry is in retreat, buckling under the forces of recession, spurious excuses of equality – and the assumption that such women are in no position to protest, if they want to find themselves in an agreeable position in the boudoir. Michael Glass, a 50-year-old Scottish hedge funder, confirms that Cupid's arsenal of arrows has been subject to age-sensitive cuts.
"While I would happily spend money on a real babe, over whom other men are competing, I don't feel the need to do the same with an older woman who is probably desperate," he says. "Many of my friends feel the same. They'll ask such a woman to pay her share.''
A recently married male friend who, at 49, has a small production company, made it clear while dating potential partners that women who were unable or unprepared to spend need not apply. ''Part of my wife's attraction was her executive salary and her willingness to foot the bill," he says. "I earn, but in a recession I wasn't prepared to throw my money about as I had on previous girlfriends."
It seems that the economic downturn has left chivalry in tattered clothing. Dr Alfred Kinsey, the fabled American sex researcher, concluded in the first study of human sexual behaviour in 1948 that there was a correlation between inflation and sexual activity. High prices and low earnings, he concluded, led to "an increase in celibacy''.
Contemporary females, woefully, are finding this to be the case. "The last two men I went out with would have bankrupted me," says Eliza Budsworth, a 42-year-old television researcher. "The first was a 50-year-old barrister who had extremely expensive tastes and in the end I couldn't pay half the bill in all the five-star hotels we always stayed at.'' She calculated that the cost of sustaining a relationship with him for a year would have been around £17,000.
Her second beau, a 46-year-old author, implied that she was lucky to have him, and: "He wasn't going to spend money on me.''
The sexual see-saw has upended and a transference of power has occurred. While younger men, with the insecurities of youth, may still feel the need to wine and dine women in the traditional manner, the confident older man, providing he has the normal complement of limbs, feels himself to be an Alcibiades reborn, to whom women should pay financial as well as sexual homage. "It was increasingly impressed upon me," says Lysette Peters, "that my bank balance was the strongest hold I had over men."
In essence, many-splendoured romance has been replaced by something cold and glittering that is more akin to a business merger. And if you are a woman who can't afford to splurge, any sort of merger is becoming increasingly unlikely. Dorothy Parker once wrote:
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do
you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my
luck to get
One perfect rose
Today, many women would be lucky to receive even the rose without an invoice for half its cost tied to the stem.
Jane Morrow, a London psychiatrist, told me that many of her older female patients suffer from depression because "they feel that not only are men taking advantage financially, but in this competitive environment, with younger women a continuous threat, they worry they can't afford to maintain that groomed and perfect look that is their one advantage.
"Three months ago one of my patients lost her job. Her chief concern seemed to be that her fiancée would drop her because she could no longer afford designer clothes and weekly trips to the beauty salon and hairdresser."
Today, A-list men expect their female peers not only to pay as they date, but to look as pristine as a Clichy crystal. This involves a considerable outlay, rising as we grow older. Jennifer Ames, an accountant who was made redundant last November, was forced to give up her gym membership, her visits to Knightsbridge boutiques and her weekly pedicures and facials. "I'm only 39 and I've always taken care of myself, but then my boyfriend started to complain I was looking drab, and one week, when I couldn't afford to have my legs waxed, he just went off me.''
She later found out that he had acquired a new girlfriend, aged 25. The sexual value of youth remains a recession-proof commodity. "To tell you the truth,'' conceded a male friend of mine, "I'd be prepared to invest a lot of money on a woman under 30. There's more mileage there and you feel good having her on your arm. Why would I spend money to have a 40-year-old middle-ranking executive on my arm instead? And if she is on my arm, she'd better pull her weight financially.''
Even though the average female salary in the UK is a third less than the average male salary, women are told that going Dutch is the logical outcome of feminism. One woman I know who protested when her date, who had done all the romantic running, asked her to pay her half of the bill at an expensive London restaurant, received the response: "Do you want to go back in time and be some submissive little housewife?" Another was told, under similar circumstances, that her attitude "lacked modernity".
The celluloid sex symbol Lana Turner was once asked, apropos her financially draining hubby Bob Topping, ''is the screwing you're getting worth the screwing you're getting?" Marie Harvard, a relationships counsellor, says: "These days, money as much as infidelity is causing discord between couples. Men are making financial demands on women that they weren't 10 years ago. This is partly due to the economy, but friction arises when women can't meet these demands or don't want to.''
For an increasing number of women, the answer is no. Eliza Budsworth says: "I had the chance of a romantic weekend in Venice last month but the man who asked me wanted half the hotel bill up front, and so that was that. In any case, that sort of attitude doesn't really sweep you off your feet. I know I'm not this year's top model, but if men who aren't exactly George Clooney are only willing to be generous with 23-year-old sexpots, they're also the long-term losers.''
Yet nubile females are always unsafe bets for men with the passions of Romeo in the bodies of Sir Toby Belch. This is where the modern male is making his fatal mistake. Once, wining and dining grown-up members of my sex were willing to overlook men's imperfections in search of a committed relationship. This gave men a certain sexual power, even if it came tinged with gratitude. No longer.
In a development that is ominous for both sexes, more and more women are shunning men who require them to look like Sarah Jessica Parker and meekly pony up half the bill. Sally Hughes, an attractive 41-year-old doctor, faced a choice this summer. "I could either go to France and chill with old friends, or spend money I haven't got and go to Italy with a man who expects me to be super-groomed and financially independent. The first cost £800. The latter around £3,000.'' She decided on old friends and celibacy.
For many women in her position, this choice is looking increasingly attractive. The cost of loving has become too high.
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scanned the comments, didnt catch a glimpse of a white knight
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