I am a huge Sinead O’Connor fan despite finding her a little disappointing at the Highline last year. This year I am eager for her July 26th (and 27th) Gospel Sessions gig at Lincoln Center, I saw her perform a set of Rastafarian deep hymns at the Beacon maybe 15 years ago and it was possibly the best I’ve ever seen her. I have no doubt, the Gospel sessions will be very special.
Though she is, admittedly, a deeply eccentric woman, and often, I am sure, something of an embarrassment to her family. This appears to be one of those times but I don’t really think it is.
Sinead told the Irish Sun her account at a dating service had been deactivated because her posting had been too explicit: “I wrote a profile so sexual it was removed by the people running the site. And trust me, in the past I’ve written some humdinger profiles but never had one removed. I am very proud. It didn’t get removed for about 45 minutes and in that time there were literally over 160 replies. I wrote a very sexual account of exactly what the fuck would be happening on my ideal first date.”
“There’s a huge market for any enterprising men out there. Especially of 40 and over. This fucking country is an embarrassment when it comes to catering for the desires of ladies who don’t want to be girlfriends or wives. Who nevertheless require regular and above all safe seeing to.”
I don’t know when I’ve agreed with a statement more. Women in their forties, even a huge rock star like Sinead, are finding themselves in the bizarre position of having to dictate to brain date men their sexual needs. Sex is to romantic love what chickens are to eggs. You can have chickens without eggs but you can’t have eggs without chickens. The problem with this is obvious, people who don’t want eggs can’t seem to find chickens. And people who don’t want love are lost in a search for sex. At 45 years old the temperature of desire is as hot as ever but for a divorced woman the need for love is mooted in the hassle of raising a family. Physical desire need not be blessed by romantic idealism.
Sinead, against all odds, has made a powerful statement for women in their middle age. Since their drive is still strong and since they have lost a certain romantic innocence with the pssing of time, they can look at love and not sex with a jaundiced eye. No longer the nubile girls (or boys) in their youth, the decay of their body is not synonymous with a decay in sexuality and smartness: the seeking of ones pleasure without the dread of love (or guilt) hanging over them.
Vastly healthier than the watch/be seen strangeness of online sexuality that is a sad substitute for the intimate meld of sexual beings, Sinead’s point is she wants to be fucked. That’s neither good nor evil: those terms don’t relate to the simplicity of sexual appetite in a woman well past the place where she wants or needs your opinion or approval to be who she is.