How to become "a filthy old man"

“As a man over 60, my self-image is severely compromised.

It's one thing to be pushed to the fringes of the sex market, but to feel like I've been left out permanently is a terrifying prospect.

The only thing worse is having yourself expelled from that market on the grounds that since no one in their right mind could be attracted to you, it is in the best interest of all concerned that you stop having any sexual contact with the world, any sexual identity.” .

Who writes this is Geoff Dyer, one of the most modern and groundbreaking writers on the international scene.

“A national treasure”, as Zadie Smith has defined it.

Geoff Dyer is 67 years old.

He is tall and thin and sports one of those

hairs that are now so popular in advertising.

He plays tennis weekly and the last time he went to the Burning Man — that event with no other law than freedom that is celebrated seven days a year in the Nevada desert — he had 64 cues.

Dyer is also one of my favorite writers and, for some reason I don't understand, at 67 splendid years of him he feels like "a disgusting old man."

"There you are in the morning being charming and funny, not even flirting, with the attractive woman in her early 30s who serves at the bakery, and in the afternoon you are a disgusting," he explains in his latest book, The Last Days

(Random House), which addresses precisely the issue of the passage of time and the decline of life.

And he continues: "Why?

Because of that slight hesitation, that question—'I haven't been a creep, have I?'—you felt on the way home, as you grabbed the still- warm

.

Worrying about avoiding potential ickiness can make you icky.

How did this happen?

Like everything else, it's something that creeps up."

And I can't help but be surprised by this somewhat victimized and somewhat toxic statement that my admired Dyer makes regarding himself as a "disgusting subject" and men over sixty by allusions.

It is true that there is a disgusting way of looking at women.

But that disgusting look is not 14 or 20 or 80 years old, although it certainly exists and any woman is capable of recognizing it.

However, it is, by all accounts, transgenerational filth.

The question is why Geoff Dyer has not felt ownership of this disgusting until he turned 60. What has changed in him or for him with age?

First of all, I think he has changed himself.

Or, even worse, that he has refused to change.

There is a narcissism in the prestigious writer that makes him feel like the center of attention, including erotic gazes.

However, there comes a time when even a successful writer is no longer young.

Even national treasures get old.

And it is possible that when the time comes they will not be able to bear (or accept) their own physical or motor decline.

And at that moment the old man withdrew, “self-expelled” from the “sex market” —as Dyer himself confesses— and renounces the game of seduction.

A game that of course has no age and where the approach to the other must always be very careful, because you are violating the physical and intimate territory of another person.

But, for some reason, perhaps because of his own prejudices,

Dyer no longer wants to take that risk.

And this personal renunciation of eroticism is, sadly, the genesis of the "old disgusting man."

Because when the old man withdraws, he begins to

eat with

She no longer approaches, she no longer takes risks, she "doesn't even flirt" anymore.

She decides that she can't touch, but that she is going to watch.

So it is not so clear that you feel disgusting because you are old but perhaps because you have accepted that the satisfaction of your libido comes only from looking.

And this resignation also implies the resignation of the delicacy that eroticism demands.

There is no risk, there is nothing to lose and, therefore, the look is no longer intimate (and careful) but rather invasive.

And then, yes, you can end up looking like a "creep".

Because, when you look, why does Dyer care about the look of women who are 30 and does not pay attention to the look of those who are 60?

It is evident to me that Dyer, in addition to being 67 years old, has an ageist look at reality that perhaps he has cultivated since his youth and that now turns against him.

But where does this look come from? Why are there people willing to believe that the mere fact of having a birthday makes us disgusting beings?

Our society is getting older every day — Spain will be the oldest country in Europe by 2050, according to the UN — and, at the same time, our culture is getting older every day.

Today youth is a value in itself, just like energy, consumption, display of presence or action.

Everything has to be young, active, new and very fast, just like consumption.

So self-exclusion works on Dyer as both a punishment and an enhancer of a "gross look" on the bodies of younger women.

But this self-exclusion originates from a very deep stigma and from which it is often difficult to escape.

Because, in a way, age stigma is similar to patriarchal upbringing in that it's everywhere.

Even mathematics is ageist and the environment and the very idea of ​​the future, which is talked about compulsively and which seems to belong only to those who have years ahead of them, even though it is impossible to know who they are.

Then what do we do?

There is no choice but to attack the stigma.

And obviously we can only do it together.

Just as feminism should be led by women, but it needs men, the fight against ageism should be led by the elderly, but it needs the young.

Gross is ageless and the old should be the first to know.

Otherwise, Dyer's sex life matters very little to me.

On the other hand, his literary health is my concern, because he is a writer whom I love and wish to continue enjoying.

That is why I remind you from here that when a writer kills the erotic look that ties him to life, he also annihilates his own writing.

This was said by another of the greats, Theodor Kalifatides.

And it is the first of age fight to learn from the greats.

Eroticism, the body and desire are, at any age, inalienable.

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