Agrey pube. There was no denying it. If I hadn’t been contorted into what felt like an advanced yoga position trying to do up fiddly press studs on the crotch of the teddy I was wearing to a party, I would never have seen it. The party was for a novel I had written titled How to Kill Your Husband, and the theme was “dress to kill”. I had planned on wearing stockings, a miniskirt, a garter belt with dagger, and the ridiculous teddy undergarment that you clearly needed an engineering degree to operate. But how could I dress to thrill when I knew what was lurking beneath?
I immediately checked in with girlfriends. Had any of them discovered a grey pubic hair? Yes, yes, they had. What’s more, having hit my 50s, there was apparently much more I had to worry about. I would soon need to spend my life savings getting rid of stretchmarks, cellulite, chin sags, eye bags, neck wrinkles, crepey cleavage, pelvic floor lethargy, dry vagina, muffin top and menopausal weight gain; apparently, hormonal changes meant that I would soon resemble one of those giant jellyfish in a Jacques Cousteau documentary, floating about like a flesh balloon.
I would also require a Brazilian butt lift. Having dieted for years to be slim and trim, a peachy rear was now the bottom line in beauty. As was the trout pout, a procedure that involved taking fat from your backside and injecting it into your lips, so that you are talking out of your arse – which explains a lot about Hollywood.
Then there was labiaplasty, or I could opt for a “Barbie”: a surgical procedure that involves a reduction of the labia minora, resulting in a smooth, flawless “clamshell” appearance. (In 2017, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery,labiaplasty was one of the fastest-growing cosmetic operations in the world.) After tightening and whitening my nether regions, the one grey pube problem could be eliminated by simply waxing the whole area, before “vajazzling” it in Swarovski crystals.
But I liked my big luxuriant bush. I checked in with male friends and discovered that grey pubes are very much not on their angst-o-meter. Nor were wrinkles, crinkles, kinkles (knee wrinkles), cankles (thick ankles), waddles (neck fat) or Brazilians. So why did my grey pube discovery feel so significant?
It was the first time I confronted ageist sexism up close and experienced the chauvinism sewn into our psyche. While I was being dismissed as a hag, a bag and a crone, a bloke my age would be lauded as distinguished, matured, seasoned, a manther, a zaddy, a silver fox. The fashion police would not be so ready to cast a man out to sartorial Siberia. As I have said so often, it’s time it went on a T-shirt, have you ever heard a man dismissed as “mutton dressed as ram”?
In my latest novel, four women seek retribution on the men who have sabotaged their careers for the crime of being menopausal. But every publisher I approached made the repulsed face of a kid who has been offered a plate of spinach. “Nobody wants to read about middle-aged women,” one explained. “They’re just not that sexy.”
For a moment, I lost confidence. Maybe I had passed my amuse-by date? Whenever I read books about women of my age, they usually die of despair in lonely flats and get eaten by their cats … But I don’t know any women like that. All my female friends are going up Everest, down the Amazon or tap-dancing on tabletops.
I finally found an enthusiastic publisher and, best revenge ever, the book became a bestseller, proving that there is no justification for shelving older female authors.
Do I still worry about the odd grey pube? Once I was divorced and dating again, it quickly became the least of my worries. Reared on pornography, younger blokes don’t know that women evenhavepubic hair. But the great thing about being in your 60s (or “sexties”, as I prefer to call it) is no longer caring what other people think. Great sex is about being relaxed and, by this age, you have learned to love the skin you are in, grey hair and all. In fact, I can’t believe I’m even vertical, so if you’ll excuse me …
The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette is published by Head of Zeus (£9.99).To support the Guardian, order your copy atguardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.