I can imagine how he feels. Actually, I have felt that way myself. You hit fifty and look back on your life and say,

“What do I have to show for fifty years on this Earth?” My answer to that question was two wonderful daughters; scores of great friends; a plot of land that, while it has never provided a living for me, has presented me with challenges and gifts for thirty years. Yann Moix seems to have come to a different conclusion, and I think that is sad.

The French author recently announced that he prefers to sleep with twenty five-year-old women rather that fifty year olds. Wow. What a surprise. Then for good measure, he threw in that fifty-year-olds were invisible to him, as if this were a novel idea.

Personally, if I had ten books and three films under my belt, I don’t think I would choose to become a provocateur to gain attention. I suspect I would be confident enough in my abilities to maybe write another book or screen play. Perhaps I would experiment with another genre altogether if I felt my life was getting stale. But that’s just me.

In an article on dealing with difficult people, Paula M. Jones wrote:

Provocateurs cause distress in others as a way to avoid their own feelings of distress. They use drama in the same way that many others use alcohol and drugs to numb or to avoid their own negative feelings. All things rational threaten to silence the cacophony of noise a Provocateur’s drama creates, so they reject any true resolution of a problem. They actually feel energized by sitting around and talking about a problem for hours, while the rest of us are exhausted by such a thought.

Jones, Paula M. “Dealing With Difficult People: The Provocateur.” Practical People Skills, December 24, 2017.

I suspect Mr. Moix looked at his life, didn’t like what he saw, and like that annoying boy in junior high who has to throw taunts at groups of girls who are minding their own business, decided to stir up trouble–and attention–by picking a fight with older women. I don’t buy into the dictum that any publicity is good publicity–I have a feeling Milo Yiannopoulos would disagree with me, but too bad. Even in my younger days I wasn’t fond of mud wrestling. When you descend into the dirt, all you get is dirty.

But then, I am a woman in my fifties–at least for a few more weeks–and I am fine with that. I have enough life experience to know that men like Moix are running scared, and frightened people are often cruel. I know that mature women have a lifetime of experience to draw from, so that we don’t need to worry about the frantic posturing of someone like Moix. We understand that men like him are shallow and that we are not missing anything by being dismissed as unattractive. I doubt he could keep up with me in the bedroom anyway.

I’m sure that as long as he has enough public notice that can pass for fame and a bit of money, he will be able to find a few twenty-five-year-olds to sleep with. But he will never be able to have the deep, spiritual experience that sex can be when you love someone from the inside out. How could he? We are invisible to him.