2014
A Portuguese woman had a court settlement reduced by nearly fifty thousand euro this week after a judge declared that sex for women over the age of fifty, wasn’t especially important. As a result of botched surgery, the woman, a sixty-nine year old housecleaner, could not engage in sexual activity without extreme pain. The New York Times reports:
João Gama, a professor of law at the Catholic University in Lisbon, said that the ruling reflected both “a sexist and socioeconomic prejudice” among the judiciary toward “a housekeeper’s sex life.”
In contrast, he argued, the Supreme Court recently awarded €100,000 to a 55-year-old man who suffered erection problems after his prostate was unnecessarily removed and who was described as financially well off in the ruling.
“My point is that courts value highly the sex lives of old people if they are male and wealthy,” Mr. Gama said.
1745
In a letter to a young friend, Benjamin Franklin suggests that if one is determined to take a mistress, one ought to consider taking an older mistress. His reasons included the following:
Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.
Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.
Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.