I’m a huge fan of a sexy existential crisis now and then. I think it’s a sign of growth, the next step in a person’s evolution when they start to question everything that’s wrong (or right?) in their life. But I’m a fan of it only when it happens to others. When it happens to me? I take it to the extreme and everybody in my path will not leave unscathed.

Last week I was getting ready to have sex with one of my regulars. It had been a while since we last saw each other, and I knew I had to look and feel my best, especially with all this weight I’d recently shed. I shower, I douche, I shave my facial hair, the works. I felt like since we were reuniting I needed to present myself and clean his workspace. With gardening shears in hand, I go to town on my nether regions making sure that nary a follicle is left untrimmed.

About halfway through the foliage, I see that sliver of silver looking right at me. Hiding from plain sight, just underneath the fupa. It stared at me with condescension, almost like it was cackling at me. It made a mockery of my body and rubbed in my face that my body was wilting.

I hated it.

My first grey pube.

I stood there in silence for what felt like an eternity. There I was locked in a staring contest with this melanin-deficient microtube that echoed the sentiments of a twink intern at Cosmopolitan. “You’re old and greying. Time to dye.”

I dropped my Manscape and sank to the floor, genitals in hand, heart in my stomach. I am now old.

At 31 years? I don’t know much about the science of grey hairs, but from what I’ve gathered, it has to be because of my age. I’m not deficient in vitamin B12, I don’t have vitiligo, and I certainly would not have public lice given the fact I was shaving and trimming to a fault. I swear, my pubic bone is smoother than a veal cutlet.

I thought I was taking really good care of my body with my new diet and exercise lifestyle. I thought I could defy the aging process and hold on to what little youth I have left in me. Alas, Father Time had other plans.

I sat on my bathroom floor with my pubes half-trimmed. My cock and balls looked like Two-Face with the hairy side looking like the acid-burned half. Questions were running through my mind faster than I could answer. Am I really that old? What does this mean about my body? Have I entered my daddy era, officially?

Deep breath. Deep breath. Let’s think rationally.

While grey hairs are a sign of age, what am I really scared of? What is driving the fear of age? I plucked the grey pube out and held it in my hand to have a heartfelt conversation with it. I stared at it with intention, and the answer struck me like a bullet in an assassination attempt. I was scared that I was going to age out of sexiness.

This was a somber thought especially because my whole thing is my well-known attraction to older men. I have said many times over that I wish for my men to be so old they’re on their deathbed while we fuck so I can fuck myself into his will. But when it happens to me? It’s just not something I had to think about until this moment.

The idea behind “aging out of sexiness” is such a ridiculous narrative grown out of fashion and beauty magazines not to mention TV and movie stars always looking like they have VIP access to the fountain of youth. Shout out to that one Asian model in his 50s who always looks like he’s not a day over 25. I am severely jealous of you and wish you a painful death.

“Aging out of sexiness” is not a thing. This is made clear by the fact that I have slept with men twice my age, and I think it’s because of the grey hairs. I think the greys represent something more than just age. To me, it symbolizes maturity, experience, a sense of understanding of the world, and most likely good in bed. I believe this is the appeal of the Daddy aesthetic. We all want a man who can take care of us and help us forget we have daddy issues by fully submersing ourselves into a daddy. While Daddy is a state of mind, it is also very much a presentation of oneself. So when I saw this grey pube, I think I just wasn’t ready for that kind of power.

With grey hair comes grey responsibility. A physical sign of age meant to me that I had to start planning my end-of-life stages. Where am I going to be buried? Do I even want to be buried? Who’s gonna take all my stuff when I’m gone? Most importantly, how will people remember me?

Age is a funny thing because we know it’s coming, we know it’s inevitable, yet we do everything within our power to fight it. We lie about it, we constantly dye our roots, we get botox, we even do our darndest to hide our laugh lines. What do you mean I have to hide any sign that I was happy at some point? This is especially true in women and gay men. Simply turning on the TV and seeing anti-aging skin care is obviously targeted at women. Then there’s that “little bit of grey” dye that’s targeted to men. Visible signs of age in women and gays mean you are no longer a sexually virile creature, while straight men get to look refined and handsome.

While I hated the unpigmented omen that sat in my hand, what I hated more was the fact that I thought I was better than this. I thought I would accept aging more gracefully than the everyday folk. I guess I’m also susceptible to vanity and a little narcissism. I’m not immune to the insidious messages of the culture around age, but when I sat there with pube in palm, I had time to reflect on my attitude towards it and what it represented.

I had this grey pube for a while now without me even noticing it, and I still had lots of sexual partners. I had this silver string in my skin folds, and I still had creepy men wanting to slide in my DMs detailing their gross fantasies about wanting to fuck me and sending me an unsolicited dick pic. This was all happening while I had a grey pube. This means that even with a visible sign of age, I was still sexy. I was still fuckable.

While being sexy and fuckable should not be a metric for someone’s worth, for me it means I am still able to enjoy life’s pleasures. That’s not something I want to let go of. Ever. I want to be able to have sex and enjoy myself even as I age, gracefully or otherwise. Just because I’m getting old that does not mean I’m going to lose my desire for sex. And even if I do, then why should I worry? There are other ways for me to feel pleasure beyond sex. It just happens that sex is at the top of my list.

Age will not be a factor in how I have sex. It will not dictate how much pleasure I am allowed to have. Only I can determine how much I want and not some grey pube. So as I wipe away the tears from the realization that I have entered the next stage in my life both physically and sexually, I blow the wisp to the air letting the wind carry it where it may, bringing with it my hopes, dreams, fears, desires, and wishes of a life full of pleasure and joy.