Essay: Mind the Gap
On the Menopausal Whore
Monica Guerritore and Giacomo Giannotti
First published Jan 17, 2025
(Spoiler alerts for all the films and TV shows mentioned.)
Perhaps because the lines on her face and body feel like a love letter from my future self, 67-year-old Monica Guerritore’s role in the Netflix Italian series Inganno (Deceitful Love) makes her my “menopausal whore” hero.
“Menopausal whore,” is one of the best insults ever hurled my way. And I am repurposing it as the highest compliment, for Guerritore especially, and for the protagonists of the films and television shows in this essay.
My previous menopausal whore hero is Emma Thomspon, who was 62 when she filmed 2021’s Good Look To You, Leo Grande.
A photograph that Monica Guerritore, 67, shared on Instagram along with this caption: “This is what we actresses want (roles) which correspond to our age, reflect in our faces and bodies, (mirroring) the ages of our audience, and celebrating new forms of loving ourselves and to be loved. We are here to tell stories that, even in the pretense of an imaginary plot, are lived by real people.” Translated from Italian to English by Great British Tea Party.
I could write a book about the heavy lifting that “menopausal whore” performs, but for now I want to focus on the simplest of its meanings: an old woman (who actually looks old,) whose desire she was supposed to have returned to sender (patriarchy) after her use-by date expired (menopause) but who–SURPRISE!--still desires and now fucks who she wants with abandon because–PLOT TWIST! --she can’t be punished with consequence (has no fear of getting pregnant).
And there, three minutes into Inganno is Gabriella, the character Guerritore portrays, standing on a balcony and enjoying the view when she spots a better view–a man on a nearby dock who disrobes and skinny dips. A little girl interrupts her delight with “Grandma, grandma! Happy Birthday!” Gabriella has just turned 60. And there, 21 minutes into Inganno is Gabriella kissing Mr. Skinny Dipper aka Elia (played by Giacomo Giannotti who I have learned was Dr. Andrew DeLuca in Grey’s Anatomy), whose hands are soon under her blouse and on her breasts–more delight. And there, 28 minutes into Inganno is Gabriella and Elia, intertwined in her bed, naked, having sex.
Inganno is my favourite of the plethora of so-called age-gap films and television shows released recently. It’s an adaptation of the 2019 British limited series Gold Digger, starring Julia Ormond. Netflix released Inganno in 2024, when “age-gap” films The Idea of You (Anne Hathaway), A Family Affair (Nicole Kidman), Lonely Planet (Laura Dern), and Babygirl (Kidman) were released. The Perfect Find starring Gabrielle Union came out in 2023.
I watched them all. I inhaled them as if I were breaking a fast and I couldn’t eat enough. I am 57 years old. In most films now, I’m too old to be a parent and too young to be a grandparent and considering that I am child-free by choice, I barely care.
As a woman who has liaisoned with quite a few younger men–not so much fuck, marry, kill, but fuck, co-habit, and god-only-knows-what-this-is –I am somewhat of an expert in this “age-gap” moment we’re having so I watched, searching for myself on the screen, and holding a bullshit meter and wow was it triggered.
Let’s start with the phrase “age gap.”
The “age gap” films and TV shows of recent years are being hailed as a cultural moment in their unprecedented portrayals of older women and sexuality. When cultural moments happen, always ask: what do we call them? How are they contained? Who do they portray?
When the man in an on-screen male/female relationship isn’t the one who is older, richer, taller, smarter, etc we call it an “age gap” relationship - rather than just “relationship,” as we do when it is the woman who is younger, poorer, shorter, less intelligent, etc.
Why?
To make babies? To control women?
I watched them all. I inhaled them as if I were breaking a fast and I couldn’t eat enough. I am 57 years old. In most films now, I’m too old to be a parent and too young to be a grandparent and considering that I am child-free by choice, I barely care.
Which is why I want to use “menopausal whore.”
Instead of sounding like a warning from the London Underground about gaps on the platform, it disturbs and incites with its refusal to accept a norm: why must a man in a heterosexual relationship be older, richer, taller, smarter, etc.?
“Menopausal whore” disturbs and incites with its challenge: what do we do with the sex drive of a cisgender woman who is not supposed to have a sex drive because it delivers nothing (for patriarchy) but pleasure for its owner.
And cannot be controlled, contained, or erased.
Perhaps most dangerously, “menopausal whore” and her depiction disturbs and incites against the ageist and sexist assumptions about sex and pleasure as women age. Those assumptions drive panic and undergird dissatisfaction for so many cisgender women who engage in heteronormative and mononormative sex.
“Menopausal whore” disturbs and incites with its challenge: what do we do with the sex drive of a cisgender woman who is not supposed to have a sex drive because it delivers nothing (for patriarchy) but pleasure for its owner.
What happens when a 60-year-old woman is naked and shown enjoying sex, unburdened with the fear of baby making? Abandon is what happens. And terror in the eyes of the patriarchal beholder is what follows.
Exhibit A: “Let Granny Have Her Fun,” atop a male reviewer’s thoughts on Gabriella in Inganno. Understand that such ageist, sexist, and mocking fuckery comes from a place of terror at knowing the power such abandon unleashes.
And to see how such abandon incites and inspires, read María León Zambrano’s review of Inganno for Her Campus, the national online magazine written by college women for college women.
“It felt strange to the eye to watch an older woman in such sexy and romantic scenes throughout the show, and not because I thought it to be strange, but rather due to me having never seen such a relationship before,” Zambrano writes.
(The emphasis is mine. And bingo!)
“To watch Gabriella engage in steamy scenes that showcased her nude body was liberating to perceive as a woman. In addition, when Gabriella and Elia have intimate or romantic scenes, he generally never treats her differently for being older…There’s no difference in comparison to how Gabriella and Elia explore each other’s bodies,” Zambrano, a college student, says in her review.
“The producers didn’t make a big deal about the body of a 60-year-old woman, nor did they make it the entire plot of an episode in which the protagonist degrades herself or becomes uncomfortable with being nude with her lover. She was sexy and desired, and the male lead treated her as such,” Zambrano writes.
Sit for a while with that. A woman in her 20s seeing a woman in her 60s enjoying her body, openly displaying desire and pleasure. The power of that!
And maybe because in 57-year-old Nicole Kidman’s blank face, this 57-year-old woman recognized nothing because Kidman reflects nothing. Kidman's role in Babygirl is my least favourite of the “menopausal whore” genre. If we really are having HOT OLDER WOMEN! moment, surely the woman in this “age-gap” thing should actually look older than the younger man.
In all the “age-gap” films–The Idea of You, Lonely Planet, and The Perfect Find –-the power that the older woman holds by virtue of the age difference is mitigated by giving the younger man extra power.
What happens when a 60-year-old woman is naked and shown enjoying sex, unburdened with the fear of baby making? Abandon is what happens. And terror in the eyes of the patriarchal beholder is what follows.
In The Idea of You, the younger man is a global pop star, in Lonely Planet he is a finance bro, and in The Perfect Find, he is the son of a wealthy media mogul mother. In other words, the filmmakers leveled the playing field in ways we rarely see when the coupling is older man-younger woman. And in so doing, tampered with the power dynamic to make the older woman and the younger man more equal.
Why?
I have been drawn to younger men because, for me, being older than them removes a power that patriarchy gives men in couplings considered the “norm.” The younger men don’t have the power of age over me.
In Babygirl, Nicole Kidman portrays a CEO called Romy, who has a sexual affair with a younger man who is an intern in her company. He is not rich or famous, but the power playing field is leveled another way. She hands it over to him via her kink of submission. If you are a cisgender woman whose kink is consensual submission with a cisgender man, then I hope you saw yourself reflected in Babygirl. I do not want to yuck anyone’s yum. For me, the sight of a woman on all fours licking milk off a saucer at the command of a man deeply distressed me.
Television shows Gold Digger and Inganno don’t level the playing field by making the younger man more equal with the woman. The younger man is not rich or famous nor does he engage in domination/submission kinks with the older woman. And into that space created by the power differential in which the older woman is seen as having more power then the younger man, enter ageism and sexism, the two spinning plates upon which these “age gap” films and shows spin.
We see ex-husbands, offspring, and people at large ask, mockingly and in disbelief: how can a younger man want an older woman? Rarely do they ask how an older woman could want a younger man. By virtue of having six episodes apiece, those shows have more room to display the double standards and hypocrisy that the older woman-younger man dynamic incites.
Into that space created by the power differential in which the older woman is seen as having more power then the younger man, enter ageism and sexism, the two spinning plates upon which these “age gap” films and shows spin.
And wherever there is ageism and sexism, racism is not far behind. So many of the think pieces on the plethora of “age gap” films ignore Gabrielle Union’s The Perfect Find, adapted from Tia Williams’ novel of the same name. It is the only age gap film that centres on a Black older woman with a Black younger man. Union is in real life married to a man younger than herself and has spoken of the challenges and criticisms they’ve fielded, including from his mother. All the others centre white women.
As is so often the case, when it comes to women, these supposedly groundbreaking cultural moments centre white women.
With the exception of Lonely Planet, which is so boring and amazingly lacking in any chemistry between the protagonists–Laura Dern and a Helmsworth Brother–and The Idea of You, all the age gap television shows and films end in marriage and in The Perfect Find, a baby too, so not quite menopausal.
Why?
Again, the need to contain the menopausal whore.
And where are the “age gap” narratives that are not heteronormative?
Tap into that menopausal whore knowing that you’re tapping into an uncontrollable energy and refuse to be tamed.
Heteronormative patriarchy’s designated shelf life for cisgender women is the age at which we cease to be its walking incubators. There is power in expressing and insisting on desire, pleasure, and sex on our own terms–especially when we’re not supposed to and especially when our bodies are changing and we are tasked with honestly meeting that change, despite the attempts of shame and stigma to scuttle our efforts.
Give us more menopausal whores on films and TV shows. Have the glorious menopausal whores fuck and fall in love with more than just men and don’t end all their portrayals in marriage.
Terrify the patriarchy with more grannies having fun. Delight younger women with the knowledge that pleasure and desire do not expire as you get older.
Tap into that menopausal whore knowing that you’re tapping into an uncontrollable energy and refuse to be tamed.
And watch Inganno. Is it somewhat melodramatic and a bit over the top? Yes, and?
From the very first episode, my 57-year-old face is delighted by Monica Guerritore’s 66-year-old face and when she is naked on screen–a lot, yay!--and having sex with a man half her age–a lot, yay!--I see the lines on her cleavage, I see her breasts which look like the uninterfered-with breasts of an older woman, and she looks sexy and fucking incredible just as she is, and I know that I am sexy and fucking incredible just as I am.
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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. Her latest book is an anthology on menopause she edited called Bloody Hell!: Adventures in Menopause from Around the World. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
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Loved this show. Her performance is fantastic.