Women & Sex

A Quick Cup of Joely

Joely Richardson, Nip/Tuck's sexually complicated housewife, clues us into the secret of the forty-something woman is this: She knows who she is, and because of this, she's not afraid to be something else.

By: Marc Parent
[ Updated: Jul 14, 2008 - 5:03:50 PM ]

In Nip/Tuck's world of synthetic beauty, Joely Richardson's Julia McNamara is the smoldering center of the universe waiting, sometimes impatiently, at home. Her male costars may rocket wildly through the show's seedy atmosphere, but the drama always revolves around the fact that neither can pull free of Richardson's sexual gravity. As the FX series geared up for its third season, we found that the real Joely is just as smoldering—and romantically complicated—as the character she portrays."In an ideal world, everyone would meet just one partner, fall in love, get married, and be happy for the rest of their life," says Richardson, 40 and currently single. "But I think that in a way you almost have to go through a Big Love before you get an idea of what you need and what you want. We're all a little brainwashed about relationships from the films we've seen and the fairy tales we've read, and only once you've sort of lived your first big one do you know."

What's a man to do if he wants to impress a worldly woman like her?
"Always speak well of your exes," says Richardson. "It's really important what you leave in your wake."

"Sexual chemistry is the craziest thing. It's completely undefinable, and I think that's what drives people nutty about it, because nobody can figure out the formula."

"I like men who like clothes. I love it when men have a very casual, individual look, but sort of high-end. Don't all women prefer their men a little rough and ready? I do." When men are teenagers, their worldview is as taut and unyielding as the bikinis on the girls they run with. Perfect. Those young women's bodies. But isn't everything perfect before the first step? Isn't every boxer unbloodied right up until the bell rings? Doesn't every round of golf begin with perfection? The engine is perfect until you turn the key—or push it into the dash and press the button, as the case may be. Either way, the rings are gonna settle. Physicists call it entropy—the rate at which order gives way to chaos. I call it living. And you can't love anything about life or women (is there a difference?) without an appreciation for the subtle ways in which the roads get rocky. Newborns are perfect. Children are not. Teenagers are even less so. We grown men and the ladies who share our pillows? Fuggedaboutit. But imperfection to one man is character to another. How interesting, after all, is the pine-plank table compared with the burled-walnut bowl on top of it? So as men age, they should learn to trade the unblemished pegs of the tentative young girl for the worldly wise gams of a woman who knows what to do with them. A boy might see imperfection in the body of a grown woman, but a boy also holds the onions, likes yellow Cheddar, and chokes on scotch. A man relishes a well-marbled rib eye with a vintage Bordeaux and pays for the meal from a fat wad of cash in a money clip. He appreciates a random sighting of a tattooed butt peeking out above a pair of low-rise jeans but goes home to run his hands over the curving lines of a woman whose body holds the evidence of every spin and turn they have ever shared...freckles dappling her chest from too much sun on Tortola...the scar, a small pink bubble from when she jammed her mountain bike into the black dirt of the Tetons...the dimple on her ass from a fall on the tennis court, the one that's smiled at you through every color of lingerie from that day forward. And don't forget childbirth. If you've been so lucky as to witness that battle of all battles, you never really see a woman's body in the same way again. You don't give up your appreciation for the design of legs and hips and breasts (perish the thought) but add to your amazement their combined function—what they can do, the devastating wonder of what their delectable bits can produce.The secret of the fortysomething woman is this: She knows who she is, and because of this, she's not afraid to be something else. Is she a slut in the heels you gave her, the ones she can't even stand in, the ones she wouldn't even show her best friends? Sure she is—lucky you. But only when she wears them. She steps into her closet to slip them off and exchange the fishnets for a flannel shirt, no sweat. And what about unmentionable acts in unmentionable positions? What about the emotionally connected, blistering quickie? What about practically anything you can think of?