I’m at the Point in Middle Age When You Stop Eating Gluten and Start Eating Pussy

After church the other night, I told my lesbian priest friend that I really needed to eat some pussy. “Aren’t there any women out there who are eager to show a bi-curious lady like me a good time?” I asked, pulling on my coat.

She confirmed that indeed, there is a contingent of lesbians who specialize in that very thing. “Where are they hiding? Can you find me one?” I pleaded as we walked to the train. “Like, an Abby Wambach type.”

“Let me think,” she said before we headed for different platforms. “I must know someone. I’m going to get back to you.” She started to walk away, then turned around, head tilted, eyebrow raised. “What exactly are you looking for? Romance? Commitment? Just some fun?”

“I don’t really know,” I sighed. She nodded. She looked determined, like she was afraid her lesbian card might get revoked if she couldn’t find me some pussy.

As my train pulled in, I thought about what Oprah always says: “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” I was proud of myself for finally learning this lesson, and sent up a prayer that my friend would succeed in her mission.  

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The truth was, I needed to eat pussy so I could write this story. I pitched it as a joke based on three things: for the last couple of years, eating gluten gives me a migraine and makes me shit 500 times, I’ve had lousy romantic luck dating men, and two of my writing idols, Glennon Doyle and Liz Gilbert, divorced their husbands and took up with women when they were in their 40s. 

 “OK, but I don’t think you can write the story unless you’re actually eating some pussy,” my editors (aka my Jenny co-founders) said. “Are you even attracted to women?”

This was a fair question, considering I’ve only ever had romantic relationships with men. In fact, I am sometimes attracted to women—although as my younger daughter accurately pointed out, “Mom, you only like women who look like men.” 

“They’re called butches, little missy, and that doesn’t mean I can’t be gay,” I snapped back. “Or bi, or queer, or something. Stop trying to box me in.”

My older daughter, who can always be counted on for a stinging reply, weighed in: “Mom. I want you to go back into the closet. Where you live. That isn’t a closet.” 

“Yeah, mom,” my little one said. “It’s OK to be straight.”

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Shaking off my children’s skepticism, I assured my editors that I was out there trying to find some pussy. By “out there trying,” I meant I’d set my dating apps to let me swipe on women, exchanged messages with exactly seven of them, and gone out with one, best described as a cross between Abby Wambach and Duckie Dale.

I’d heard that lesbians bring a U-Haul to the second date, but despite my best efforts at flirting (getting too high and offering up my biggest vulnerabilities in the form of jokes) this woman had not even tried to kiss me after three dates. My confidence was flagging.

When she stood me up for our scheduled fourth date (at Brooklyn Pride! Her idea! Come on!) I decided I was done with my half-hearted attempt at late-life lesbianism. I didn’t need to bomb out with both genders. From here on out, I would limit my heteroflexibility to commenting “marry me” on all of Rosie O’Donnell’s Instagram posts and masturbating to this picture of Tig Notaro in Army of the Dead.

Of course I could still write the story, I thought. It’s not like I’ve never experimented with a woman. Like many (most?) of us, I’ve tried eating pussy—and I was good at it, too. Like a duck to water! But it’s been a while and I’ve never done it sober, or without a man egging me on and leering over my shoulder.

Where was my journalistic integrity? I needed to give it the old college try, as my mom always says.

And that’s how I ended up asking a priest to find me some pussy after church.

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While I waited for her to get back to me, I got to work. I couldn’t base a whole story around Glennon Doyle, Liz Gilbert, and my own personal digestive system. I started researching late-blooming lesbians and gluten intolerance.

When I thought up this story, I had one of my favorite writers, Samantha Irby, in mind as evidence along with Doyle and Gilbert. If you’re familiar with Irby’s work, you’re also familiar with her colon. (Typical subject line of one of her emails: i ate shit—don’t open this if u are squeamish or u will die.)

Like Doyle and Gilbert, Irby married a woman after writing about her romantic misadventures with men. This, along with her frequent stories about her digestive troubles, led me to believe she was a gluten-intolerant, late-in-life lesbian. But no! Turns out, she has Crohn’s disease and has always been openly bisexual—I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.

So I was wrong about Irby—but plenty of other women have come out of the closet later in life, including Jenna Lyons (a Jenny!), Maria Bello, Cynthia Nixon, Niecy Nash, Stacy London, and Wanda Sykes. And did everyone except for me know that Elyse Keaton is a late-in-life lesbian?

That’s right—Meredith Baxter, who played the mom on my favorite childhood TV show, Family Ties, realized she was gay in her 50s, came out publicly in her early 60s, and married a woman after three marriages to men. “I’m so slow to learn things,” she told The Advocate in 2011. “I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer along that line.”

I may not be gay (I haven’t given up yet!) but I can relate: I, too, am a slow learner. (Also now I have this song stuck in my head and am crying for some reason—??)

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I do not know how many late-in-life lesbians can digest gluten without becoming violently ill, but when I interviewed functional medicine doctor Will Cole, author of Gut Feelings and Gwyneth Paltrow’s personal gut health guru, he told me that gluten is hard on all our guts. Apparently, it’s one of many things that can disrupt our gut microbiome (in my case, this manifests as the aforementioned shitting 500 times and then getting knocked flat by a migraine).

Cole listed brain fog, systemic inflammation, and hormonal problems as some of the other potential symptoms of eating gluten, and offered an intriguing explanation as to why I used to be able to put away a plate of pasta or a slice of pizza without any ill effects.

“It’s the bucket analogy,” he said. “Some people have big buckets, and some people have smaller buckets. That’s our genetic, epigenetic threshold to handle stressors.” When your bucket is spilling over, he explained, you’re likely to experience symptoms such as fatigue, anxiety, and digestive distress. 

These stressors include things we eat and drink (refined sugar, alcohol, ultra-processed foods, and yes, gluten) as well as unresolved trauma, stress, and shame. “These mental and emotional things are like junk foods for the soul that are also contributing to that bucket overflow,” Cole told me. 

Over time, our buckets fill and empty according to what’s going on with us emotionally and physically. Things like changing our diet, getting good therapy, meditating—basically, going on what the internet likes to call “a wellness journey”—can help lighten our buckets, potentially making room for a piece of toast, a glass of wine, or the occasional cigarette.

(OK, Cole did not say cigarettes, I’m taking liberties—but seems like a reasonable interpretation, no? Doesn’t Gwyneth ever succumb to the urge anymore?)

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Perhaps this is why so many of us cannot eat gluten in our 40s—aren’t all our buckets overflowing with stressors by this age?

As for the connection to late-life lesbian awakenings, well… I don’t know. I emailed a few lesbians, trying to get them to let me interview them for this story, and didn’t hear back. Maybe they were offended by my premise. (Not only can I not eat pussy, I can’t even get a lesbian to talk to me about eating pussy!) But I think there’s got to be a link. I mean, just think about men for a minute. Men. Can’t you feel your bucket filling up? Stressful!

Fascinated by Cole’s bucket analogy, I explained it to my daughter, who broke it down in typical, devastating fashion: “So you’re saying if you could just be less crazy, you could eat pasta again?”

Pasta, maybe. After going to therapy three times a week for the past year, learning to meditate, and cutting out alcohol (trying hard to be less crazy!), the thought of digging into a plate of cacio e pepe still makes my stomach clench. But eating pussy? Maybe if I keep on trying, I’ll find it’s the answer to all my problems.

I haven’t heard back from my priest friend yet: I’ll keep you posted.

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