Derb is right that it gets increasingly difficult for the aging Hollywood hottie like Jennifer Aniston to stay fetching in a commercially salable way as you near the big 4-0. (A better example: Madonna. Bleah.) Derb’s wrong, I think, about the “salad days” of women being over at 20, and that should get an onslaught of protesting e-mail from women in their 20s.
As the risk of being tarred as a total old-married geek, old married guys probably shouldn’t be nostalgic for the nude female figure, age 15-20. I believe that men too often display nostalgia for the jailbait female form without taking responsibility for one reason why older women are somehow less desirable to view: we “ruined” them by making them mothers, which can change their physique, of course, but also frazzles them beyond always having time to have that sexy oomph that would please some old lecher like Hugh Hefner. The conservative man knows our society needs good mothers way more than it needs hot movie stars who don’t sag in their thirties.