11 Reasons Sex in Your 40s Is the Best Sex Ever

Some people (including Miley Cyrus) think sex ends when you turn 40. But I’d rather trust the word of 42-year-old Cameron Diaz, who says—with relish—that sex keeps her young. Little do the Millennials know that the best is yet to come. (First and last pun in this list, promise.)

1. You’ve abandoned the Shame Industrial Complex for good. This is the best you’ve felt about your body since you first got your period. You may not be as lithe and lovely as you were when you were 24 (according to society’s irrational standards of loveliness) but you like yourself just fine. That confidence is seriously seductive.

2. You have no fucks left to give about what other people think about you—including what the lover in your bed thinks about the size of your thighs. (He likes them or he wouldn’t be there, and you know this.)

3. Quick sex isn’t a problem. Sometimes you have to schedule sex, and with toddlers in the next room it’s often abbreviated. But at this age, you know your body so well that even a quickie gets the job done just fine.

4. In your 20s, when your body was super bendy (and sag-free) you had mostly performative sex. Even if you had a lot of it—everywhere, on every surface—you weren’t necessarily in it for the pleasure. By now you’ve experimented enough that you know exactly what gets you off, and you have no trouble demanding it.

5. Speaking of what gets you off—when you can find the privacy, solo sex is pretty damn good (and you can afford high-end vibrators).

6. You are hornier than you’ve ever been in your whole life. No one told you that this was a side effect of middle-age hormones. WTF?!

7. You’re A-OK with atypical relationships. Whether you’re post-divorce or have remained defiantly single, there’s no pressure to get serious with your sex friend(s), unless you’re both into it. Besides, science is finally catching up to the fact that women aren’t wired for monogamy anyway.

8. Some say the sexual peak is a myth. They are wrong. (All my friends would agree.)

9. Age gaps with lovers are cool now. You wouldn’t have dared sleep with someone 10 or 15 years younger than you before your 40s, because it would have been weird (and possibly illegal). The heart wants what it wants, and maybe yours doesn’t mind being called a “cougar.”

10. Plus, more 20-something men are after you now than when you were in your 20s. I don’t know exactly what’s up with that, but I am digging it hard.

11. You’re an adult, and you communicate like one. Whether your lover is your partner of the last 15 years or a millennial you found on Tinder, you realize that sex is 10 percent perspiration, 90 percent communication. And you have no shame about asking for exactly what you want, when, where, and exactly the way you want it.