2024 was the year of horny mid-life women.

"I'm trying hard to think of one midlife woman from any art in the past 12 months who is NOT horny," Jessie said in a recent episode of Out Loud.

The discussion — sparked by Millennial UK columnist Charlie Gowans-Eglinton's treatise in UK paper The Times, for middle-aged women to keep away from younger men — was bolstered by the fact that the new Bridget Jones flick, cringingly titled Mad About The Boy features a 55-year-old Renée Zellweger in a romance with 29-year-old Leo Woodall, of White Lotus fame. 

"We've had Nicole Kidman [in so-bad-it-was-good Netflix rom-com A Family Affair], Anne Hathaway [The Idea of You] and Laura Dern [cosying up to Liam Hemsworth in Lonely Planet] all starring with younger men lately," Holly added.

Watch: more on rom-coms from the Mamamia team! Post continues below.

And it's not just onscreen that the older women of Hollywood are nabbing the nubile young male 30-somethings. 

In what has been dubbed 'Age Gap Autumn' in tinseltown, romantic pairings between middle-aged hotties and much younger men abound.

Forty-two year old Sienna Miller gave birth to a daughter last year — her second child, but the first with 28 year old boyfriend Oli Green, who is more than a decade her junior. 

Cher, 78 — who made headlines when she debuted her relationship with her 38 year old rapper boyfriend Alexander Edwards in 2022 — once famously said that "all women should go out with a younger man".

Then, of course, there is 42 year old Priyanka Chopra's 10-year age gap with husband Nick Jonas, whose six-year marriage is still going strong. 

There are many valid theories as to why this phenomenon is occurring. In the discussion on Out Loud, Jessie suggested — in an accusation only she can level, because she is part of the cohort — that women in their thirties are neurotic. I would gently suggest that, while it may be true, perhaps a large contributing factor to this neurosis is … men in their thirties. 

But let's look at another theory. Gowans-Eglington posited in her piece that it's because older women no longer look like older women. 

"Have you seen how JLo looks in a sequined bodysuit at 55?" the journalist asked. "Gwyneth Paltrow naked in her garden at 48? Pamela Anderson without a scrap of make-up at 57? As a woman, I am in awe. As a single woman in her thirties, I don't need the competition — especially as I'd lose every round."

The writer went on to declare that midlife women are stiffer competition than ever, with "hot bods toned from daily Pilates", and "hot faces from weekly light therapy, facials and maybe a bit of Botox. Fifty is the new 30, but with a property portfolio and without ticking-biological-clock anxiety."

All of which begs the question: does Charlie Gowans-Eglinton know a single middle-aged woman in real life? 

Because I do. I am one. And very few of the non-celeb middle-agers I know are spending their mornings at Pilates.

Their biological clock anxiety might have subsided, but in its place is the never-ending overstimulation of the sandwich generation: a group of women still in the thick of raising those 'biological clock anxieties' that have turned into fully-fledged children, as well as looking after ageing parents who can't remember the password to log into their Netflix accounts.

We're also dealing with an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis that sees most of us paying triple what we were a few years ago on the mortgages on our 'property portfolios' (which by the way, for most of us, if we're lucky, is a humble home in the suburbs that will keep us in full-time employment well into our sixties).

The single, child-free midlifers amongst my friends are still battling many of the same issues, (though admittedly they generally come with the aforementioned Pilates bodies and excellent wardrobes), but in my experience, decades spent in unfulfilling relationships have left them warier of men in general, regardless of whether that man sports a 30-year-old six-pack or a 45-year-old dad bod. 

We're horny, sure — but horny for the men in the romantasy books we read to escape our raging to-do lists, to soothe our cortisol levels. 

I'm personally horny for the shimmering prospect of a night alone with a glass of wine and Season 2 of Tell Me Lies. I'm horny for the list of DIY projects I save in my Instagram archives and know I will never complete. I'm horny AF for the prospect of a girl's weekend I'm organising with my besties for sometime in mid-2025.

And if I'm horny at all for a mid-20s man, it's solely his ability to manage the out-of-control weeds in my backyard that gets me hot — an ability for which I will pay $40 an hour before sending him on his merry way. 

Bridget Jones can keep her young lover. Most of us 40-and-50-somethings barely escaped with our self-esteem the first time we ran the gauntlet of dating men in their twenties and thirties.

This time around, we're choosing our peace.

Feature image: Prime Video.