. . . And an Older Erica Jong Learns To Love Zippers

From The Washington Post:

Jong_1 Back when Erica Jong was a lush literary Lolita penning the It novel, she had a certain somethin’ somethin’ going on. She had a way with words: “Fear of Flying,” her feminist manifesto, sold 18 million copies worldwide. And she had a way with men: four husbands and dalliances with other women’s husbands. (Martha Stewart is allegedly still ticked.) Back then, Jong has boasted, she smelled of sex. Pheromones-a-go-go. But with time comes both change and regrets, and, well, the Italians, they don’t stalk her through the streets of Venice anymore, fingers grasping at ripe rump flesh. As Jong, who turns 64 today, sees it, this is a blessing:

“The zipless [romp] could not interest me less,” says Jong, who coined the catchphrase back in 1973. But mature sex, committed sex, with all its zippered encumbrances, interests her plenty. She’s been married to husband No. 4, divorce lawyer Ken Burrows, for 17 years, and the days spent shagging married men, unmarried men, way older men, way younger men — not to mention the occasional tryst with a girlfriend — have given way to years of contented monogamy.

More here.