Celebrating Our Erotic Capital

It’s said that the traditional tantric initiation for men is to see the oldest and ugliest woman in the village as The Goddess Incarnate and to make love with this Divine Consort with total devotion, presence, and passion. In today’s Western tantric village she could very likely be me as I am often the oldest woman at conferences and festivals around the world. These aspiring Shiva’s have a relatively easy initiation in store, as I am a Yogini with velvety soft skin and all of my teeth, yet few have risked this dangerous action, at least until recently. Perhaps, they simply haven’t noticed that while any ordinary guy can get infatuated with a young maiden, it takes a brave and conscious man to get intimate with a crone. In order to do so he must confront his fear of death, not to mention reaching into his depths for the authenticity and integrity to get past her well-honed BS detector. It’s no wonder that many men choose to forgo the initiation and go for the low hanging fruit.

We crones have not had very good press for quite some time. Neolithic goddess sculptures went out of fashion thousands of years ago. The media does not often sing our praises – and to take personal responsibility for this sorry state of affairs – neither do we. From a secular perspective, it’s our own attitudes toward our erotic capital that need an upgrade.

According to Catherine Hakim, a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and the author of Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom and the Bedroom erotic capital is a combination of six qualities, including beauty, sex appeal, social grace, liveliness, social presentation, and sexual competence.

Hakim says men are getting a higher return on their erotic capital than women because even though women in general have more erotic capital than men, men have no compunctions about fully utilizing what they’ve got while women allow shame and embarrassment to interfere with fully reaping the benefits of this valuable resource. And this is even more true when we are talking about those of us who are no longer young.

Many older women complain it’s unfair that as men become older and more powerful they become more desirable partners, but fail to capitalize on their own considerable sexual competence, emotional maturity, social skills, and yes – sex appeal. When it comes to sexual competence, crones do indeed have an unfair advantage. It’s time we crones get the word out that the love and sexual power of older women is the most abundant – and largely untapped – resource for transformation on the planet. When this precious energy is released, then maybe we’ll see a giant leap toward world peace and harmony.