Desperately resorting to chemical enhancements to excite midlife romance…

Growing old can be fraught with problems. As marriages stretch beyond what used to be a lifetime, the differences between partners can often become more pronounced, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the bedroom. So what does it mean for midlife romance?

With differing sex drives, men and women have often struggled to come to terms with the ask, deny, frustration, grumpiness cycle. The grumpiness of the man becomes the reason for the denial, which increases the grumpiness to levels that can lead to affairs and / or divorce.

A friend of mine was in this exact situation. Barren months had led to calloused hands. Buying a bigger laptop hadn’t helped, nor had leaving his search history open for all to see. His wife had decided he was a boar and a bore, plus with the onset of early evening tiredness, her desire to roll naked around the room had become more of a fear.

In an attempt to break the cycle, my friend found himself inside a Boots store buying over the counter Viagra. In a slightly male way, he had decided that the problem was his ability to last. Nervously he filled out the required form, recollecting the early days of condom buying when you struggled to meet the pharmacist’s eyes as he sized you up for a night of passion.

Popping the pill with excitement

On arriving home, said friend popped his pill early, recognising his wife would soon be heading up the stairs. He followed her, complimenting her on how she looked, and sympathising with how hard she’d worked. He quoted an old song line, to which she replied “amazing” (in retrospect this could have been sarcasm) but at the time he took to be at least a thawing of the ice maiden if not quite a come on.

In other departments, either the anticipation or blue pill was doing its stuff. As he climbed into bed he felt warm, excited and up for the fight. Gently (but quite quickly as he knew it was only a small pre-sleep window) he reached out and wrapped his arms around his wife.

“You’re being very affectionate tonight,” she said suspiciously.

“I just thought how nice you looked,” he answered provocatively.

She turned over. “I think I have a serious bowel issue,” she said.

A lot went through his mind at this point, and sympathy was only one of those thoughts. His first was it was like the nuclear “no sex” escalation – I’m tired, have a headache, am sick, have bowel problem. Then, and somewhat guiltily, he enquired after the symptoms and diagnosis (google has a lot to answer for).

Sadly romantic chemicals don’t last forever in midlife romance

By the time both the symptoms and treatments had been discussed, the power of the pill was well and truly broken, proving that desire and chemicals are still no match for a determined woman.

Fortunately the diagnosis was favourable, and following a more roughage friendly diet, the wife’s health returned. My friend has four pills left from his original five, but with a new big pc and powerful video card he doesn’t see any imminent use for a midlife romance.

And that’s acceptance of middle age and the mid-life crisis. You struggle with the fact that thirty years ago you had the world at your feet, so you should be telling your middle-age self it’s like starting again from your youth.

But then as you get up to start the race your back twinges, knees hurt and hip stabs you again and again with reminders of your decline. Your addictions are harder to shake. Alcohol, tobacco, cake all become a daily battle of wills, with your body reminding you that to carry on as you are means you’ll soon be excited by daytime tv and that vision of an older person’s Ibiza is just a mirage.

So what can you do before you join the bowls club?

Writing exciting erotic stories a surefire way to get followers. Just don’t tell your other half.

Erotic stories

I’ve read lots on how to drive views onto blog posts. None mention erotic stories, but I believe they could show the way to increase visitor numbers.

I’ve always struggled with followers. I’m no Jesus. My kids have more followers than me on every form of social media and all they do is post photos of pouting and feet. I’ve tried hard to gather friends, followers or stalkers, but have been left languishing in the grey nether regions of the web.

It was nether regions that got me thinking. I always remember when I worked for BT most network traffic came from porn sites. We pretended it didn’t for the good of the company image, but supporting and supplying IT to porn sites was lucrative.

Porn, or erotic stories, whatever people may think, generate a following that far outstrips any business site . I remember at work how excited I got when my first corporate video got past 1,000 hits. The porn-site equivalent would have generate a hundred times that without drawing breath. Or an erotic gasp. Admittedly, not with me in it. No one would want to see that.

In the interests of science, and researching blogs and site visitors, I decided to investigate further.

Obviously this wasn’t about videos or pictures. That would just be smutty. I ruled those out after a cursory glance (or two) What interested me however was erotic fiction. Look at ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and the interest that generated. There was no great plot apparently, but it fed an audience hungry for sex; as long as it was done in a less seedy way than your average porn site. You have to wonder, had E.L. James written a book on any other topic, would she have got the same level of interest or publicity? And also, if people around the country rejoiced in reading an erotic story without being worried about work checking up their search history.

Erotic stories with tens of thousands of views

Literotica gets more than 50m hits each month for erotic stories
Literotica – more than 50m hits each month

Erotic literature it turns out is also big business. Averagely good stories on many websites frequently get tens of thousands of views. Just visit Literotica if you don’t believe me (or want a break from this). Apparently 53m other people are doing just that each month!

Imagine that. For this post I’d be pleased with ten. Maybe if I introduced some sex or innuendo there may be more interest. That could be a big one for me (ooo-er). Possibly if I wrote this the same post from a different perspective, but managed to get it posted on a porn site I’d actually have some social media influence.

I could do that. A blog about being redundant midlife, with interview stories and midlife issues brimming with sex scenes. My tale of role playing would genuinely involve uniforms, whips and well-toned recruiters. Would I get more visitors? Yes, without a doubt. Would it be frowned upon? Of course. I’m sure I’d be castigated for peddling porn under the guise of a serious blog. A bit like this post in fact. I’ll be interested to see if I get more visitors due to the words sex, porn and erotic literature featuring heavily.

Happy household or hundreds of followers?

So if you want tens of thousands of hits, erotic stories are the way to go. Just don’t tell your other half you’re writing them. You’ll either be accused of exposing your intimate bedroom secrets, or more likely voicing a unspoken fantasy with your neighbour. Neither are conducive to a happy household. Maybe I’ll just stay happy, and hopeful that the ten or so people who read this will be of a better quality than the tens of thousands I good have got writing porn.