Redefining Hot in the MidLife Dictionary
by Stephanie Dolgoff of Formerly Hot
Hi folks,
There has been some understandable confusion about what I mean when I use the term “hot,” as in Formerly Hot (the name of my blog), or no longer hot, or when I was hot. Once in awhile, I’ll get an email from a reader to the effect of, “What do you mean ‘formerly’ hot? Why can’t you be hot just because you’re older? I am in my 40s [or 30s or 50s or whatever] and think I’m hotter than I’ve ever been!” Growl!
My intention is not to imply that an older person cannot be attractive, gorgeous, good-looking, doable, cougarific, or whatever synonym for hot you favor. In fact, I consider my 42-year-old self all of those things (maybe not first thing in the morning, but after a shower and ideally a tinted moisturizer, absolutely.) In fact, I consider my mother all of those things. Even better, she considers herself all those things.
I’m (trying to) poke fun at a world that would quickly scan a woman and rate her “hot” or not based on the easy markers that I used to have in spades: youth, big hair, smooth, unlined skin and a prepartum body that allowed me to eat carbohydrates without inflating like an airline life vest. When I had those things, I was treated very differently than I am now, and was in an entirely different category of female. Figuring out that I’m no longer in that category, and what that means, has been a trip. Sometimes funny, sometimes fucked up, but always fascinating.
I’m also poking fun at myself for being conflicted about no longer being hot–-hot in the sense that people who didn’t already know that I was “beautiful on the inside” thought I was hot. We are all of this culture as well as critics of this culture, so it’s hard not to buy in to some of the silliness even as you’re trying to carve out a place where you can feel good about who you are as you get older.
So I hope this helps and I’d love to hear your thoughts about “hot” and not and perhaps reclaiming the category.
Xo Steph
All Top Stories 
My first husband was twenty years older than me and I was the hot young thing he lusted after and won. My current husband (who I plan to keep until death do us part) and I started dating when I was 48 and he was 50 and got married when I was 50. I’ve recently (at age 55) stopped coloring my hair and so it is white about four inches down and traveling. I wondered if this would cool his libido (it hasn’t) or if I would stop getting any appreciative glances when out in public. I have found that while the appreciative glances are less especially when I’m schlepping and am not being my colorful, foxy put-together self, the appreciative comments and glances that do come have been from younger men and other women. I also know that if something were to happen and I were back on the dating scene, I’d get dates because my joie de vie is what has made me hot through all my ages. I have friends who are smaller and beautiful who’ve had a terrible time dating largely because they are so picky or they have an off-putting style that drives people away. They don’t know how to flirt, they keep waiting for “it” to find them instead of going out for “it”, and they screen out ordinary folks. Anyhow, hot is as hot does as hot feels. My mother at 75 is still sexy and among the 60-80 year olds, she gets lot of “play.”
Jan,
Try soy.
I’m just looking forward to a time when I’m no longer hot. As in flashes.
Hot is only skin deep. A young person may look “hot” but if, when they open their mouths, they reveal that they are a shallow, egotistical person, they are no longer “hot” in my book. An older, more mature, person, on the other hand, can become infinitely more hot, when they speak their mind and reveal that they are kind, intelligent, caring, and thoughtful towards others. There are all kinds of hot out there, in my opinion.
byjane reply on August 24th, 2009 5:36 pm:
I half agree with you. There are all kinds of hot out there, but I’m not sure that one’s humanity is part of the definition for most people.
I think the standard of hotness changes with your age. Pop culture is all about selling to the young, so they are obsessive to equate youthness as “hot.” But in the real world, things change, and a thirty or forty year old can definitely see someone in their age group as “hot,” much more than someone who is 23 can see an older person as hot. TV and movies and advertisements distort the world because they need to appeal to our insecurities and fantasies. Right now, I mostly see women in my immediate age group as “hot.” It seems creepy to lust after someone too young, and someone older seems too much like an aunt. That doesn’t mean they aren’t “hot” to those in their age group. I think the problem with modern media is that it rarely moves beyond a demographic of 18-30.
byjane reply on August 24th, 2009 5:32 pm:
Neil,
I think you’re unusual in seeing women in your immediate age group as “hot.” Most of your peers seem to lust after nubile young’uns. It’s that innate thing of wanting to populate the world, and therefore fertility is for them a strong component of ‘hotness’.
Debborah reply on March 12th, 2010 1:22 pm:
If that is your pic you are definately hot. I’m 54 and decided I don’t care what others rate me anymore. I have a man who loves me, and thinks I’m hot so that’s enough for me. I think the hotness scale stops at 50 in my 40′s I was hot, and had men hitting on me all the time. Since I decided to stop dying my hair, and let it go grey, that kinda stopped. So yeah hot definately is on my “I don’t care list.”