Sex, Serums & Staying Up Late: The Anti-Aging Secret They Can’t Bottle

Because what’s the point of looking 25 if you’re already living like a retiree?

By Koel Purie

Editors note: Gen X danced till dawn in smoky bars. Gen Z is sipping matcha and tracking REM cycles. And somewhere in Seoul, the women of the 4B movement have decided men are simply… not worth it. Koel Purie piece is a dispatch from a time when fun wasn’t curated for Instagram and rebellion didn’t need a hashtag. She reminds us that the real anti-aging secret might not be SPF or a twelve-step skincare routine, but the soft chaos of staying out too late, falling for the wrong person, or saying yes to something you can’t quite explain in the morning. This isn’t nostalgia — it’s a dare: to swap beige wellness for a little bad behavior and see if your laugh lines thank you later.

There’s a new pigmentation spot around my cheeks. The lines around my eyes get deeper just as the number of serums I use adds up. The serums are not to blame, although I’m not entirely convinced of their efficacy. Yet, I can’t stop buying them along with the face massager, which remains unopened in its box because I need to spend a minute, or twenty, reading the instructions with my glasses on, which despite multiple pairs placed in strategic places, I can never find.

It’s hard to admit that I’m becoming a middle-aged cliché. I try to focus on the ‘becoming’ part – a concept championed by Aristotle & Co. as a process of transformation and the actualisation of potential. A lump of clay has the potential to become something else and in becoming that it realises its potential. Same for us as we grow older we can stop being and start becoming.

But I’m no Michelle Obama and I do not like growing old, mostly, because I had a blast being young. I loved it so much. I had my share of heartache and disappointment personally and professionally but I also had irrepressible energy, amazing abs and lots of wild sex. I miss all of it. I miss the intensity that only youth can give you.

But when I hear actress Alaya F, young and fit by any standard, bemoan her upgraded beauty regime of tracking sleep, putting flax seeds in her matcha, googling probiotics and so on, I sigh with relief that I’m not young today. This generation of 20-something year-olds does not prioritise having fun. Work hard, sure. Realize your potential, definitely. But schedule as much fun as you can because fun is the most underrated elixir of life.

The Greek Gods knew it. The Hindu Gods did it. They danced, they drank, had multiple lovers and were always up for play.

Hear this from a middle-aged woman (I’ve to keep saying this as part of my own acceptance journey) who can pass off looking at least 15 years younger, has more stamina than your average 20-year-old and a zest for life that can turn filling cabinets into a party – skipping fun will age you faster than sun exposure.

This desire to stay young-looking at the cost of doing young things is symptomatic of the Sephora-conspires-with-Instagram age we live in. My parents and grandparents (all blessed with incredible Asian skin) weren’t guilted into worrying about what ratio of Hyaluronic acid or Niacinamide they applied to their face. They slapped on homemade haldi ubtan, went for morning walks with neighbourhood friends, played a game of tennis or squash, followed a Jane Fonda video, drank vodka with friends, boogied in discos and without making a song and dance about it welcomed the good times.

We didn’t get our dopamine high from screens, we got it from real-life connections, maximising moments, and flirting with danger at every opportunity. I like young people and the way they think but they’re too ‘beige’ for me, and their addiction to the screen bores me. Last night, I was at a very young party on the banks of the Seine under the Eiffel Tower. The Lebanese DJ and the live percussionist knew how to get the crowd going, but on the dance floor, as the music crescendoed, everyone pulled out their phones and started recording. I wanted to scream, “Forget the video, feel the vibe, soak in the communal feeling of moving to the same beat. Be present, dance. This youth is brief.”

Maybe if they put their devices away, looked up from the apps and the porn, stopped comparing and despairing they might find the person standing next to them cute, they might even make eye contact, and one thing could lead to the next - and who knows, maybe this plague of the ‘sex recession’ amongst the young could be cured.

I married later than most and am mostly happy in my marriage, but as I hit middle-age (there we go again), I miss things from my youth - not having cellulite and having casual hookups. Consensual, safe one-night stands can make you walk on air for a few hours, cure a broken heart, get over a job rejection and save you a lot of money in therapy.

Conditioning convinces us that as you age your sex drive slows down. Let’s be clear - this narrative is built to target women because men can go out there and father children at age 80, and when they do, very few eyebrows are raised.

While it’s true that the reproductive bits of an older woman shrivel and shrink, I reject the idea that our sexual desire diminishes at the same rate and must therefore be replaced by crochet.

Perimenopause and menopause cause havoc with our hormones, but as women, we’ve been playing the hormonal game since puberty - libido is not impacted solely by biology and science. Unlike men, so much of our desire is fuelled in and by our head. Older women tend to get more comfortable in their bodies. There comes a moment when we stop obsessing about the absent abs and bonus jelly in our limbs, this increased self-esteem makes us horny.

Thank you, Charlize Theron, 49 and gorgeous, for openly admitting to having a one-night stand with a 26-year-old and normalising hot sex for us mid-lifers.

I want to be the best version of myself so at some point I will open the face massager, pay the exorbitant price for a non-invasive radio frequency treatment to blast out my cellulite, and guilt myself into not missing a single Pilates session. But I will only do this to enhance my enjoyment, not at the cost of it. Don’t listen to Bryan Johnson – he’s a narcissist with too much money, who may defy death, but I don’t call what he’s doing living.

Torturing yourself in the name of self-improvement, forcing yourself to become a morning person when you're clearly a night owl, abstaining from food, sex, and wild times is all counterintuitive to wrinkles and the fountain of youth. Take this as your sign to stop doing it and start having fun.

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About the author: Koel Purie Rinchet is an award-winning Indian actress, producer, and writer, and the author of the debut novel Clearly Invisible in Paris. Hear her in conversation with us on our podcast.

This piece was originally published on her Substack, Renovating Relationships. Read more of her essays here.