The dilemma I’m a 60-year-old grey-haired woman, reasonably fit and not ugly, but not particularly beautiful. I don’t wear sexy clothing and I can’t fill a double-A bra. I’ve never been tempted to cheat on my husband of 30+ years. But the husbands of my girlfriends keep hitting on me. Two nights ago, one of these husbands had his hands all over me while my husband and his wife were in the same room. I didn’t want to make a scene that would upset the friendly relationships among the couples. I don’t want to lose my girlfriend’s friendship, which is extremely important to me, and I don’t want my husband to get angry with her husband. This is not the first time. The same thing happened with another couple, and after I told my husband about the man’s advances, all communication between both husbands and both wives ended. What am I doing wrong? How can I stay close to my girlfriends and enjoy going out as couples with our husbands without having them hit on me?

Mariella replies Nice problem to have. Swatting off amorous men is no hardship at any age so long as they are prepared to take no for an answer. Thanks for pointing out that there is nothing about you that anyone should find attractive. Grey hair, post-menopausal, small breasts and sensible clothes – what’s to like? Or could it be that our entrenched assumptions about sexual attraction are inaccurate? It’s very easy to feel that we live in a world where unless you’re cosmetically enhanced or blessed with a Baywatch body your ability to find a partner will forever be compromised. But looking around there’s way too much evidence that the opposite is true.

For anyone addicted to the right-hand column on a particular newspaper’s website you’ll find endless evidence that beauty, fame, fake breasts and liposuction does not a happy love life make. If anything the preponderance of cosmetically enhanced celebrity faces makes anyone with a bit of character who wears their individuality (and humanity) with pride stand out a mile.

I know it’s not a thought I should be dwelling on but let’s say for argument’s sake I have to choose between having sex with Kim Kardashian or Germaine Greer. I’d definitely go for the latter. Not only do I suspect that at her age Germaine has a few tricks up her sleeve, but how much more fun would the post-coital period be with the combative, opinionated, outrageous mother of all feminists, rather than spent watching Kardashian re-apply her lipstick and scroll through Instagram?

I may be drifting off topic, but the reason for you writing seems twofold. First, to work out why anyone would find little old you in any way attractive and, second, what the strange siren-like signals are that you’re sending, luring your friends’ husbands to shipwreck themselves on your AA bosom.

My exposure to modern mating in the pages of this column and the fact that I still have a beating pulse (despite being only four years younger than you) focuses my attention on the age-related aspect of your dilemma. I’m beginning to wonder whether the peri-menopausal surge of sexual activity experienced and described by some women actually obscures the other reality, which is how attractive the devil-may-care, reckless, confidence of most post-menopausal women can be.

I’m not entirely letting you off the hook, though. There are women, and I’ve met quite a few, whose only way of relating to men is with the promise of something more. When you don’t have the same skills it’s something to marvel at, unless, of course, it’s being directed at your partner. Are you guilty of enjoying the lure of your own allure? Is it possible that male friendships for you are inextricably linked to the potential of consummation?

There is another vantage point on this dilemma and, crazy though it might appear, it’s worth contemplating. These men behaving badly are your own age and all in long-term marriages. Are they suffering from an epidemic of lust, based on the narrowing of their options as they enter the last quarter of their lives? In teenage years it is strongly believed that illnesses like depression and anorexia can be contagious among impressionable pubescents. I’m wondering if sexual desperation is equally infectious. Perhaps what you’re describing is an undiagnosed mass male midlife crisis, and a palpable hysterical condition is emerging among our menfolk.

As women we are used to disappearing after the demise of our fertility, whereas men of similar age may just be waking up to the reality of their lack of desirability now that they are no longer the only sex with money and power after their prime. It’s just a theory so don’t everyone start ranting and raging in my response thread. I don’t get that many letters from men post-60 and when I do, the majority want to know how they can encourage their partners to have more sex. I’m not sure how to defuse these over-heated septuagenarian husbands, but finding out what’s provoking them is intriguing. Have you ever thought to simply ask? And if you get a satisfactory answer please do tell…

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1

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