The Hotter Than Ever podcast is marking our one year anniversary with the launch of the Hotter Than Ever Substack! And so begins Phase 2 of our takeover of all media, one platform at a time…
Over the past year and 70 episodes (but who’s counting?), Hotter Than Ever has invited women over 40 into meaningful, entertaining and sometimes spicy conversations about how to uncover and break the unconscious rules we’ve been following, and find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier and more self-expressed. It has been a wild ride so far, and we are just getting started!
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Why This and Why Now?
I have shared my personal journey from married, successful professional with two kids and a direct deposit, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses life, through a near-death hospitalization with Covid, to the divorced, outspoken, sex-positive, freedom-loving 52 year old advocate for women’s happiness, agency and pleasure I am evolving into today.
What I have learned from both guests and listeners alike this past year is that a lot of us are feeling restless and ready for a change. We are not satisfied with the status quo, and we want more.
We set goals for ourselves in our 20s and chased after them, hard. And we accomplished so much of what we set out to do - maybe we got married, or had kids, or built careers and a place for ourselves in the world and in our communities. We crushed it like the good, high-achieving girls we were raised to be. But those goals no longer motivate us. We’re burnt out from striving to please everyone but ourselves, and we’re ready to invent what comes next.
Now over 40, we are looking honestly at the next half of our lives and we crave a new set of dreams to chase. Dreams that have us prioritizing the things that are uniquely meaningful to us. The things we put to the side or overlooked because we were busy serving others. Things we might have thought were impractical or selfish or too unconventional for the people in our lives to understand. But we’re no longer willing to wait.
It’s not that we have no fucks left to give: it’s that we have ALL THE FUCKS - and we want to give them to whatever (and whoever) WE CHOOSE for the first time our lives.
We crave meaning and pleasure and depth. We want to feel good in the world and in our own skin. We’re ready to change, even if it means blowing up some or all of the lives we so painstakingly built. Now is our time. Because it’s now or never. How much time do you think you have left?
Phew. That’s a lot, but that’s the manifesto. Welcome to the Hotter Than Ever Substack, you sexy things!
What Kind of Community Will You Find Here
Women over 40 have never been more successful, healthy, gorgeous, powerful or outspoken. But a lot of us feel alone with our questions and concerns about marriage, divorce, parenting, dating, relationships, sex, aging, mental health, menopause, career, money, ambition and so much more.
My goal with this Substack is to grow this community of amazing women over 40, enabling us to freely share insights, encouragement and expertise and support one another on our individual and collective wild rides into the next chapter of our lives.
We all need examples of what kind of personal evolution is even possible, and while the guests I interview on Hotter Than Ever will continue to provide insights and new ways of thinking about our choices in mid-life, we can also do that for one another here. My goal is that the squad of Hotter Than Ever cheerleaders will be there to support you as you make empowering changes on your own behalf, and help you laugh in the face of late-capitalist patriarchy (and dating again in midlife).
What to Expect From Us
We will publish this newsletter every two weeks.
In it you will find original writing that relates to the content of our most recent episodes, in addition to my musings on the themes Hotter Than Ever loves to cover most. We’ll also link to supplementary material to help you dig deeper into my guests’ work and the topics they cover.
We will embed the most recent podcast episodes, so you can find everything in one place, easy peasy.
Tracy:“My coming of age really coincided with the early internet. And so it was AOL chat rooms and then it was early internet porn and late night HBO. So that those were my forms of investigation and trying to figure out like, what is the truth about sex? There's what my parents tell me, which feels a little too romanticized and flowery. And then there's Girls Gone Wild.
Erin:I mean, and the notion when you're young because you don't know anything that there is one truth about it, right? And that all of these things can exist simultaneously. And that our job is to synthesize all these messages into a way to live that's okay with us personally. But, I mean, the title of your book is very pointedly “Want Me”. It is not, as you write in a later chapter, “I Want”. It is about your drive to understand what men would find sexually desirable and how you fit into that puzzle.”
Join Erin and Tracy for a conversation that explores:
The clash of feminism and hyper-sexualization in media and its impact on young women's journey to self-discovery
The pressure women face to conform to performative standards of desirability
Feminist theory's role in untangling society's conflicting messages about sexuality
Exposing the myths surrounding pornography and the importance of media literacy
Faking orgasms and how to pursue genuine pleasure
The intersection of motherhood and sexuality, and the liberating journey towards self-awareness and acceptance that comes with age
Please consider supporting our work! Your contribution will help us cover production costs so we can continue to bring you the content you love with the quality you deserve! It’s easy, just buy us a coffee! And thanks!
As a huge fan of your podcast and the grateful recipient of one of your advice mini-segments (thank you for the dating/sex after divorce advice!!) I am so so glad you’re here on Substack Erin! We need your voice! I have loved writing here & sharing my own journey of reinvention after choosing at 62 to leave my 33 year marriage. It is women like you who give me the encouragement to know I am not in this alone, that there’s a sisterhood waiting to pull me into a huge hug. Thank you for being so authentically you.
As a huge fan of your podcast and the grateful recipient of one of your advice mini-segments (thank you for the dating/sex after divorce advice!!) I am so so glad you’re here on Substack Erin! We need your voice! I have loved writing here & sharing my own journey of reinvention after choosing at 62 to leave my 33 year marriage. It is women like you who give me the encouragement to know I am not in this alone, that there’s a sisterhood waiting to pull me into a huge hug. Thank you for being so authentically you.