Chapter 15
Aida
‘Okay, yeah, I’m ready.’
SIMONE (OFF-CAMERA): I’ve known you for over a decade, darling, and admired you greatly as a journalist and reporter.
And I’ve had a front-row seat to the media shit storm you’ve been publicly dragged into this past year.
All of which leads me to ask you why the actual fuck you’re putting yourself up for this?
ME: [Laughs] I’ve asked myself that question at least fifty times a day since I concocted this idea in my head, and the most accurate answer I can give you is that I honestly feel like I have no choice.
If I thought this was just an altruistic project, then I probably wouldn’t have the guts to see it through. And if I thought it was just a passion project for me, then I’d probably see it as too self-indulgent to justify.
But, the truth is, it’s both.
I’ve seen things in my time as a reporter and newsreader that I can never un-see—things that haunt my dreams. And I’ve feared for my safety and the safety of my crew far more than I would have liked.
But I can sit here and tell you as a friend that I have never, ever felt more terrified about anything in my professional life than I do now.
SIMONE: [Softly] And why is that, do you think?
ME: Because of everything. Because of how shitty the past year of being hounded by the press has been—and I mean the tabloids and the broadsheets.
Because of my reputation as a sensible, trusted newsreader who’s known for shooting her mouth off, sure, but who’s always carried herself with professionalism. I hope, anyway.
But most of all because I’m a forty-six-year-old woman, and our society as a whole isn’t interested in the sex lives of perimenopausal or menopausal women. It’s more than that—we’re not even supposed to have sex lives.
To address the elephant in the room up front, my ex-husband is probably being slapped on the back by his cronies in the House of Lords for having been outed as fucking countless women, women far younger than him.
And the press excoriated him, sure, but they didn’t condemn his sexuality.
Just his infidelity. I, on the other hand, am not deemed by society to have a sex life worth taking an interest in.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m coming at this whole thing from a place of exceptional privilege. I’m a wealthy white woman who can technically still call herself Lady Aida Russell. I’m not complaining because the press isn’t speculating about whether I’m getting any.
But don’t you think it’s interesting?
Of all the thousands of articles my research team has collated over the past year, I haven’t seen one speculating over whether I’ll take a lover. Because it doesn’t even occur to anyone to wonder.
So, to answer your question, I’m doing this for myself and for every other women out there in their forties and fifties or beyond, who’s been written off as having no sex life and certainly no sexual identity.
My identity has been tied up for so long with my career and my marriage, and shame on me for letting it take a divorce to kindle that spark of interest in who I really am beyond all that.
This is my chance to untether myself from that very limited picture of who I am, and I hope it gives other women my age pause for thought.
I hope it gives them any extra courage or confidence they may need to examine the desires and needs and even kinks that make them fully rounded, flesh and blood humans who choose to live the fullest expression of their human experience.
I’ve never shied away from thorough research or tough reporting, but digging into and reporting on my own desires is going to be the toughest challenge I’ve ever faced, hands down.