We're taught to think of sex as something that belongs to the youth.

To teeny tiny dresses and being 22 in a sharehouse with someone climbing through your bedroom window at midnight. 

The cultural story goes something like this: your teens and 20s are when you are at your most desirable, your most alive, your most sexual.

Everything afterwards is supposedly a slow fade into irrelevance.

Watch: How to bring fun back into the bedroom. Post continues below.

But when I think back to the sex I was actually having in my late teens and early 20s, I don't exactly remember transcendent pleasure.

I remember slobbery kisses from teenage boys and fumbling fingers making their way down my jeans while I silently hoped things would be over soon. I remember performing sexuality long before I understood my own desire. I knew how to be wanted far earlier than I knew how to feel good.

And all throughout my twenties, people older than me would say "enjoy being young while it lasts," with this underlying implication that nothing particularly exciting was waiting for me on the other side of 30. As though female sexuality had an expiry date.

Except… it didn't. If anything, sex has only become better. More honest. Less performative. Which made me wonder: if sex in my 30s feels better than it did in my 20s, what's happening for women in their 40s?

In a world where women are finally speaking more openly about pleasure, desire and sexuality, are the best sexual years of our lives actually the years when we know ourselves most deeply?

I asked eight women. This is what they said.

Claire, 41.

It has taken until my early 40s to realise that sex is something I'm allowed to enjoy selfishly. Though when did valuing our own pleasure become selfish in the first place?

Now, it's something appreciated. Prioritised.

In my 20s, sex felt performative. In my thirties, indulgent — tinged with guilt. I carried on with the performance anyway, worrying about how I looked when I orgasmed, how my body moved, all of it.

But by 40, I was done. I wanted to feel good and stop hiding. Pleasure doesn't have a filter. If it feels good, it feels good. I don't care what my boobs look like, or how my thighs feel wrapped around the person who makes me feel sexy. Who cares what my goddamn orgasm face looks like anyway? The person seeing it for what it is loves how gritty it is, takes their own joy in witnessing me at my most exposed. Because when it's real, it's raw. And if the person on the other end of that pleasure is half as enraptured as you are, they're ignoring their own O-face too, pushing down twenty years of doubt and self-consciousness, chasing those exact same stars.

Laura, 43. 

Sex in my 40s is something I can't un-know.

I look back on the sex I had when I was younger with so much compassion for my younger self. I see the scripts I'd internalised: deeply heteronormative, patriarchal ideas that taught me sex was defined by a penis entering a vagina, and measured by the satisfaction of the person attached to it. I understood the assignment. Sex was something to perform well at, with success tied to whether he orgasmed and whether he wanted to see me — read: have sex with me — again.

I spent years disconnected from my own pleasure, faking orgasms because I didn't know how to ask for what I wanted. Truthfully, I don't even think I knew what that was.

It never occurred to me that sex could be a place to linger. To luxuriate. To let pleasure move slowly through my body. No one had ever said: this is for you too.

Approaching 40, I became bolder in every area of my life — more comfortable taking up space, having desires, voicing needs. And then, sexually too. I turned forty and, a month later, met my now partner: someone genuinely obsessed with my pleasure. Someone who says "I've got you" and proves it.

Sex now feels expansive, playful, curious and real. No performance. No self-monitoring. Just lingering. Just pleasure. Like sinking into a warm bath after years spent bracing against the cold.

Natasha, 43.

"When I was younger, I was a typical Type A people pleaser who needed validation from others, which meant my own pleasure often came second. As I've gotten older, I have far less fucks to give as a general principle. It's either a hell yes or an instant no. And the same is true when it comes to actual fucks to give. It has to be a hell yes… YES… YES!!!!

I'm just much more confident now in asking for what I want or need, knowing what feels good, and understanding that there's nothing hotter for my partner than when I'm genuinely getting off.

I think there are both psychological and physiological reasons why sex in our 40s can become the best sex of our lives. I've Googled 'peri-menopause + high libido' more than once and it is absolutely a thing. But I also think that for many women, moving beyond the pregnancy, breastfeeding, touched-out baby stage can feel like a reclaiming of who we are — and that often includes a reclaiming of our sexuality too.

It's this incredible apex of confidence boost + hormones as we age."

Kate, 42.

Sex in my 40s feels like a revolution. An undoing and a rebuilding. I have a deep understanding of my body now, what I want, and I'm unapologetic about seeking it out.

There's a foundational trust in myself that I didn't have in my 20s, where sex often felt urgent yet performative, always centred around the other person rather than me.

I've experienced orgasms I once thought were mythical that are now part of my day-to-day life. Squirting, vaginal and anal climaxes — all new to me in this decade of discovery.

Pleasure is non-negotiable for me now, and once I centred that pillar, my body opened up in a way it never had before. I orgasm at least once a day, partnered or solo. Sex has become a way I explore myself and my partners — a form of communication — and kink has been a huge part of that.

I'd dabbled in kink, specifically BDSM, for a few years, but it was after finalising my divorce at 40 that I really threw myself into discovering freedom through submission. I explored both the scene and my sexuality — parties to map out my bisexuality, and fetish clubs to test my limits. I'm now in a validating D/s dynamic with a loving — and very strict — Dom, who I'm currently monogamous with, though we're negotiating opening things up again.

I write openly about my dynamic, fantasies and experiences on my Substack.

Cass, 41.

I never knew sex was meant to be this amazing. Not only do I feel emotionally and physically fulfilled, but the confidence it's given me spills into every other part of my life.

Instead of faking it, fumbling around, or existing in a sexless marriage, I'm now having sex where I'm cumming multiple times with a partner who genuinely values my pleasure — someone I can completely relax and be myself with. It's not performative. It's laughing together, trying new things, and knowing my worth isn't measured by what happens in the bedroom.

Turning 40 made me realise what this amazing body is capable of. It's not perfect, and I no longer feel the need to hide it. It can do incredible things. I know what I want now, and more importantly, how to ask for it. Open, honest communication is the key. I just wish I'd discovered mind-blowing sex earlier.

Kate, 44.

I've always loved sex, but this decade has been about peeling back the layers and exploring the deeper parts of my sexuality, needs and desires.

What's made sex in my 40s better is greater self-awareness. I know myself more deeply now, which means I can recognise what I actually want and communicate that to my husband, even when it comes with uncertainty or vulnerability.

Confidence has played a huge role too. Feeling more comfortable in my own skin, owning my desires and letting go of inhibitions. I also think women today have far more access to conversations around female pleasure than previous generations did. And yes, romance and smutty novels have definitely helped.

There's also been more freedom, and more time, to explore new things both with and without my husband. But what's made that possible is the safety net underneath it all: feeling secure enough to take risks, try new things and share in the adventure together.

Reaching a point where ENM felt like a natural progression of our relationship has been incredibly exciting. It's led to some amazing experiences and allowed me to explore desires I never would have accessed before.

Elle, 40.

I've been with my husband since we were 17 — high school sweethearts who built a life, family and routine together. But during the years of raising young kids, my libido disappeared and he started to feel more like a housemate than the object of my desire.

As our children got older, we began having open conversations about sex, desire and what we wanted to explore. Having only ever been with each other, we eventually stepped into the swingers' scene together — something that reignited a level of chemistry and connection we hadn't felt since the beginning of our relationship.

In my 20s, I felt ashamed of my desires and focused on being a 'good girl'. In my 40s, I feel empowered by my sexuality instead. Exploring together has transformed our communication, intimacy and confidence, and we're now having the best sex of our lives.

Paulidee, 51.

I entered womanhood carrying a complicated relationship with sensuality — playful, dangerous, confusing, and at times shaped by experiences I was far too young to navigate alone. By my 20s, sex had become less about my own pleasure and more about performing, pleasing, and abandoning myself for others. I deeply wish I had known a woman then like the woman I am now.

After marrying a narcissistic man and enduring betrayal, infidelity, and heartbreak, I found myself suddenly single at 33, heavily pregnant, traumatised, and completely unravelled. Yet somewhere in the aftermath of survival, motherhood, and healing, something fierce awakened within me.

My 40s became a reclamation.

I shed layers of shame, silence, and the obligation to "please" without reciprocation and stepped fully into my sensuality with my full soul wide open. I discovered my body with curiosity and pleasure. I embraced desire, movement from within, softness, power, and the wild feminine parts of myself that had been dormant for years. I also found a life partner who celebrates the unapologetic, sensual, bisexual woman I am.

Now in my first year of my 50s, another layer of awakening has arrived. I have walked through the gates of the underworld, I have let go of all of the layers and beliefs of who I was told to be, all whilst respectfully bowing to the archetypal roles of dutiful wife and mother I have been. Today I embody something deeper — a luscious, embodied, sultry woman who is fully alive in her own skin, blood and bones. Lust, pleasure and desire only gets better with age. Best of all, I finally feel wholly at home within myself — bold, aligned, and deeply alive.

Feature Image: Supplied.