Unraveling, with Brooke Baldwin

Dearest Unravelers and Unravelers-to-be – 

SEX. Gen X. Did you read this NYT Magazine piece this month? It was Peter who told me about it a few days ago: “Hey, did you see the piece in the Times about women in your generation having the best sex of their lives?” (I’m pretty sure there was a big ‘ole compliment aimed at himself in that question. #deserved.) I was born July 1979 — that’s the tail end of Gen X, short for Generation X, which refers to the generation of people born roughly between 1965 and 1980. We fall smack in between the Baby Boomers and Millennials. Within minutes of hearing about said article, my fingers were flying on my iPhone. The second I finished reading it, I texted the link to about half a dozen of my closest girlfriends (the most common response I got back was something like: “🔥 🔥 Yep.”) And then I realized I had to share this with you too. We’ve gotta talk about it.

Mireille Silcoff’s opening line sets the tone for her whole piece: “In 2019, I divorced, at age 46, and went on to have more and better sex than I ever would have thought possible.” She then compares Gen X women to perennials and explains why we are “the last sexy generation”:

I’ve come to think of this cadre of women as something like hardy garden perennials. Year after year, with the right conditions, perennials continue to flower. Likewise, the sexual Perennial finds herself still well rooted in an erotic life at an age when she may have expected it to fade or wither.

This got me thinking about my own Gen X friend group. This is hardly a scientific survey but here’s a glance: my dear friend, divorced and two years into a very sexy and loving relationship with a man 15 years her junior; another friend madly in love with a profound spiritual connection to a beautiful man from another continent and culture; another friend in the throes of an ugly divorce who is about to live her best life; a girlfriend who ultimately prioritized her happiness, is enduring a nasty ass divorce to finally be with the woman of her dreams (and – as she puts it – multiple lifetimes); and lastly, a friend who let go of a man who refused to love her out loud then fell in deep love with a loving father who adores her in alllll the ways she deserves. Can I get a hallelujah!

This also got me thinking about me… and my own sex story.

Let’s go there. Read on, ladies and gents. But as this is deeply personal, NSFW material — I’m putting up the paywall. Please hit the subscribe button below if you’d like to keep reading / learning / Unraveling.