However, the recent Hollywood film “The Man From Elysian Fields” returns the subject to its more traditional view: rich older man married to young, attractive woman. And then there’s the VIP Life dating service in New York, which takes supreme advantage of horny, wealthy men by making sure they part with at least $10,000 to get a chance at landing sexy arm candy.

If I weren’t happily married, maybe I could have a date with one of these tycoons. I meet VIP matchmaker Lisa Clampitt’s standards: I’m attractive (she actually says the standard is beautiful, but with Photoshop that’s just an airbrush or two away); I’m thin (112 on a 5-foot-7 frame, which might be a heifer compared to Kate Moss, but I’m a famine survivor by American, McDonald’s-loving standards); and I have an artistic side (being silly enough to pay my bills by writing for a living qualifies as artistic or nuts). So far, so good. Uh-oh. I just saw the last requirement. Clampitt looks for women in their 20s and early 30s so the men can experience “five years of fun and then have kids.” Damn. I’m 51, old enough to be the mother of most of the girls. No kids for this post-menopausal woman.

But don’t worry, girls; don’t let it get you down. If anything, once you know just a touch about the biology of aging, you might be glad you aren’t in the clutches of some older man. These older man-younger woman relationships don’t make a lot of sense, at least in bed.

It’s pretty simple. A man’s testosterone peaks around 21. By the time a man reaches his late 30s, his testosterone levels have dropped by half. My favorite little stat to scare any overly macho man is that almost 80 percent of men over age 42 have some degree of impotency. The testosterone loss also means they lose muscle tone and bone mass (pec implants look good in photos but feel like rubber, so forget the surgery, fellows), have foggier memories, suffer bouts of fatigue and depression, and — most critical for most men — lose their sex drive. Also, higher levels of testosterone in middle age tend to cause baldness, so the men who keep their levels fairly high often pay the price with hair loss. Welcome to a midlife crisis, fellows.

On top of the falloff in testosterone, men experience drops in other hormones such as DHEA (it stands for Dehydroepiandrosterone, which will tell you why everyone abbreviates it), which is only a couple of steps removed from testosterone. As DHEA drops, the body is more susceptible to illness, fat replaces muscle and, again, sex drive declines. Cortisol, often dubbed the “stress hormone,” is manufactured by the adrenal glands, and its production also diminishes in middle age. That means less energy. And to top it off, human growth hormone, which helps everything from muscle tone to skin firmness, starts plummeting through the 30s and 40s. It’s not a pretty sight. These drops exacerbate every bad effect of the testosterone dive. In severe cases, doctors describe the condition as “andropause,” the male equivalent of menopause.

No wonder golf becomes a popular pastime for many middle-aged men. And none of this physical meltdown signifies high-octane performance in bed. While plenty of over-the-counter supplements of DHEA and pills promising to promote the production of growth hormone and testosterone are sold in health food stores and over the Internet, no one is quite sure what the right dosage is, whether the pills really work, and if there are any long-term side effects from trying to artificially restore the hormones that mother nature has taken away.

Sure, Viagra helps. That drug at least will guarantee an erection, which is half the battle for the testosterone-starved older man. But Viagra can cause side effects, from relatively mild ones like headaches, stomach upset, flushed skin and urinary tract infections, to serious problems like heart attacks. Some researchers have tied more than 500 deaths to Viagra, while Viagra boosters contest the link.

For any man who isn’t eager for Viagra, are there alternatives for boosting the flagging testosterone levels? Some men might be tempted by the advertisements for testosterone replacement. Doctors prescribe the wonder medication either in pills, injections or patches. It does what it’s supposed to do, and men who start the therapy love their renewed energy, muscle tone and sexual vigor. The downside is a very real risk of prostate cancer, as well as less life-threatening side effects such as sleep apnea (a cessation in breathing while sleeping, which sometimes leads to blood pressure problems and recurring, severe headaches). Isn’t a risk of cancer vs. a restored sense of vitality the same quandary that women have long faced when it comes to hormone replacement therapy? The difference with men is that the medical community never adopted widespread standards of trying to put all middle-aged men on testosterone replacement. The risks were simply too real.

There is substantial anecdotal evidence that a healthy diet and lots of exercise — good things for any of us in our highly charged lives — stabilizes some of the hormone drop for men. However, a diet very low in fat, though good for the heart, might not be good for the sex drive, as it tends to suppress the manufacture of testosterone. So running a few days a week, some weight training and a healthy diet with about 25 to 30 percent of the good types of fat might be the best bet for naturally keeping testosterone at a reasonable level.

Women also have problems as we age, and a lot of us after menopause have little desire to hop in bed for a round of intimate contact. When I went through menopause, for about six months sex was the furthest thing from my mind (pity my patient husband, whose testosterone level still seems OK at age 48). There are some doctors who call women’s lack of sexual interest after menopause a “desire phase” disorder. Now that is going a tad far for me. The decline in sexual desire is really influenced by hormones, including testosterone, just as it is for men.

The fact that male sex hormones can boost our sexual desire is nothing new. The ancient Greeks and Romans unwittingly used testosterone to increase sexual appetite. Following a hard day of fighting, gladiators often bathed in olive oil. After the bath, the olive oil (which, because of the gladiators’ sweat, now contained small quantities of testosterone) was carefully collected and stored in small jugs, which were then sold to women who smeared themselves in the oil. The effect was a slight increase in testosterone levels and therefore in their sexual desire.

Today, since gladiators are scarce, mother nature has come to the rescue for women. The ovaries, although incapable of producing estrogen after menopause, often continue to produce testosterone for several years. That’s why some women have a strong sex drive for a considerable time after menopause. While our testosterone levels are only one-tenth those of men at younger ages, we almost catch up in later years.

I’ve contended for a long time that women stay afloat a bit more steadily and longer. That was born out just last week when a global survey (sponsored by Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra), conducted in 30 countries among 27,780 adults aged 40 to 80, found that women become sexually dysfunctional at about half the rate of men. “To the extent that women are sexually active, they may be facing men who have problems,” concluded lead researcher Edward Laumann, a University of Chicago sociologist. That means from a strictly biological view the correct cross-generational relationship might be an older woman and a younger man. For women interested only in a physical relationship, landing a younger man closer to his sexual peak can’t hurt. The problem for me and most of my friends is that we also want conversation and intellectual stimulation. Unless I’m fascinated by the man’s mind and soul, it would be impossible to get excited about getting into bed with him.

We live, however, in a youth-obsessed culture where style often seems to matter more than substance. Every time a new novel or film matches a cross-generational couple, it’s likely to generate extra buzz. That will ensure it will be part of our cultural scene, even if it is seldom dealt with accurately.

“The Man From Elysian Fields” is an exception, at least when it comes to the older man-younger woman relationship. In the film Andy Garcia, a struggling novelist, is forced to supplement his income by working at an elite male escort service run by Mick Jagger (who in real life certainly knows a thing or two about dating beautiful younger women). Garcia’s new job becomes interesting when an older, wealthy man (James Coburn) — who can’t perform sexually with his own wife — allows his wife to hire Garcia to have sex with her.

The story line may be scary for men approaching their later years, but at least it’s more realistic than the idea that a man’s money can make up for his lack of testosterone.

That lack of sexual desire that strikes many women around menopause has been turned into another moneymaker by pharmaceutical companies interested in expanding the list of things for which HRT might be used. The Australian study, for instance, said that women could avoid much of their sexual dysfunction by using hormones. The doctors from Down Under linked a decline in sexual interest, arousal and frequency of sexual activity — and an increase in vaginal dryness and pain during intercourse — to the plunge in levels of estradiol, an ovary-produced hormone. “Therefore, estrogen-containing hormone replacement therapy can protect against decline of sexual functioning,” concluded the study.

Boy, that must have temporarily made the hearts of some drug-firm executives race faster. Too bad that in July part of the Women’s Health Initiative study for the most widely prescribed hormone prescription in the U.S. was abruptly halted due to the increased risks for blood clots, invasive breast cancer, heart attacks and strokes. You would really have to be desperate for sex to be on a medication that increases your chances for an early death.

Well, some of you might say, men do it all the time. Viagra, the wonder medication that puts Anna Nicole Smith at risk of having to go to bed with the next 90-year-old multimillionaire she marries, puts men at an increased risk of death from sudden heart attacks. But men are different, in case you haven’t noticed. A slight uptick in the death rate is worth it to some of them to stay sexually active. Women need a bit more than just a medication. And maybe that was the problem I had initially with the Australian study.

Actually, Viagra is now being prescribed for women, even though the FDA hasn’t approved it yet for us. (More than 150,000 women now use it, according to its maker, Pfizer.) Viagra increases the blood flow to the genitals. Women need this blood flow, just as men do, to achieve sexual arousal. That’s the good news. The bad news is that even Pfizer’s own doctors admit there’s no reason to think the side effects, such as headaches and temporary visual problems, will be any different than in men. Viagra can also be deadly for a woman who is on heart medicine containing nitrates.

Too many doctors, and pharmaceutical companies, assume that a simple pill is all it takes for us to want to have sex. But it’s much more than just making sure we are physically ready. For us good sex, and the desire for it, are often dependent on many other factors — such as the relationship we are in, our emotional state, how we feel about our bodies, and even our general mood. Hormones address the mechanical part of it but don’t address the complex emotional part of what really makes sex work for us. Hell, we’ve been giving millions of women HRT for 40 years and it doesn’t seem to me that many of them are enjoying active sex lives in their later years. If hormones were the answer, this wouldn’t be an issue anymore. A British study this past June found that almost two-thirds of women who started an HRT regimen gave it up in the first year due to unpleasant side effects. “They complained of migraines, losing their sex drive and putting on weight. Some also reported breast tenderness and depression.”

I’ve talked to women who swear that their reduced libidos responded to testosterone, one of the hormones now touted for maintaining an active sex life past menopause. One of the most popular prescriptions is for a patch that releases testosterone and androgen. I’m always amazed that any woman who did a minimum of research would ever pop testosterone. We all naturally produce it. Before menopause, estrogen keeps it in check. But after menopause, and without enough estrogen to act as a balancer, testosterone can deepen the voice and in rarer cases cause facial or chest hair. Taking the hormone enhances the odds of these side effects, which may not be reversible. And if that’s not bad enough, testosterone also causes a lot of women to gain weight. Now, if I took testosterone to enhance my libido, it’s hard to imagine that my husband would find me very attractive if I had a moustache, talked like James Earl Jones and weighed 40 pounds more. If that’s progress, I’ll pass.

I never went on hormones during menopause, but my sexual desire did return slowly. A critical part was that my partner did not rush me or make me feel bad about my lack of interest. I learned a lot about myself and my body. Nutritional supplements, including extra magnesium, vitamin B6 and zinc, help boost the libido. Also, sarsaparilla, a herb, helps the natural production of testosterone. And though estrogen-based creams do help with vaginal dryness, there are also natural alternatives, including vitamin E capsules and calendula cream, a moisturizer with antibacterial properties that nourishes and strengthens the tissues. And taking regular doses of evening primrose oil and essential fatty acids boosts the sex-hormone production of the adrenal glands.

Finally, it really is a matter of the old adage: Use it or lose it. Intercourse stimulates circulation and is one of the best natural aids. In the end, for me, there was no magic potion or pill. Once I felt as though I was starting to take back control of my body in menopause, I started to feel better about sex. In the end, my brain was my most important sex organ because it ultimately controlled the way I viewed sex and my desire to have it. Until they have a pill for that, girls, we’re basically on our own.

For researchers who have long maintained a healthy skepticism about hormone replacement therapy, the sudden halt of part of the study was not a surprise, but rather a relief after a recent string of bad news about the medicinal use of hormones. It started last July when the Annals of Internal Medicine reported the results of two studies contradicting the long-held belief that hormone replacement therapy protected postmenopausal women’s hearts. One review concluded that for women with heart disease, hormones actually increased the risk of heart attacks and death by 25 percent. A second study echoed those results, finding that women who started HRT after having a heart attack were 44 percent more likely to have another heart attack or die within a year when compared to those who never used hormones. (The one major study that ever showed estrogen could reduce heart attacks had been based on men.)

In February, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) printed the results of an extensive study showing that women who took hormone therapy for five years or more after menopause had a 60 to 85 percent increased risk of breast cancer, especially a type known as lobular tumors, which account for up to 10 percent of all breast cancers. The findings applied equally to women taking estrogen alone, or in combination with another hormone, progesterone, which had long been touted by HRT proponents as the safety additive to the hormone cocktail.

In that same issue, JAMA reported that HRT, long touted for improving the mental outlook for postmenopausal women, does not often help, and may in fact physically harm them. The study covered more than 2,700 women, whose average age was 67. The results, concluded Dr. Kathryn M. Rexrode, a Harvard Medical School instructor and coauthor of the study, “should challenge the widely held belief that hormone therapy helps women remain more youthful, active or vibrant.” Rexrode went on to say that “the overall data over the last few years suggest that fewer women than we thought are benefiting from hormone replacement therapy,” and concluded that “there is very much we don’t know about HRT.”

The bad news for HRT proponents continued into April. Conventional wisdom had long held that hormone therapy protected women against ovarian cancer. However, a Swedish study refuted that by showing some forms of hormone replacement might actually increase a woman’s risk of this deadly disease. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that two forms of hormone replacement therapy — estrogen alone and estrogen with limited use of progestins, the synthetic form of progesterone — may increase the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer, a form of the disease involving cells covering the outer surface of the ovaries. In women who still had their uterus and used estrogen alone for 10 years, there was a 43 percent increased risk of ovarian cancer compared to women who never used estrogen therapy.

The Swedish researchers also found that women who had used estrogen combined with sequential progestin were up to 54 percent more likely to develop epithelial ovarian cancer than those women who never used this therapy. This study reinforced one published in 2001 in JAMA that found that women who used estrogen therapy for more than 10 years had double the risk of ovarian cancer.

In May, British researchers who had followed 13,000 women for three years reported that those who took HRT were three to four times more likely to develop debilitating gallstones. This confirmed similar findings in the Nurses’ Health Study, a large study underway in the United States.

These are devastating findings for my generation — baby boomers — who have been repeatedly assured that hormone replacement therapy not only offers freedom from the uncomfortable physical symptoms of menopause, but also improves heart health and bone strength, all with virtually no extra cancer risk. It turns out to be a lie — a 50-year-old lie.

Major pharmaceutical companies have been using women — duping women — since the 1950s when a few doctors started classifying menopause as “estrogen deficiency disease,” as if this natural passage was an affliction that needed medication for treatment. Doctors “treated” us with tranquilizers and antidepressants. By the 1960s, with an onslaught of advertising money from Wyeth, the manufacturer of the top-selling estrogen product, hormones became the “cure” of choice for menopause.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that doctors discovered a problem: Estrogen greatly increased the risks of uterine cancer. Hardly discouraged, the pharmaceutical companies went back to the lab and developed a mixture of estrogen and progesterone designed to block the uterine cancer risk. A relentless bid to expand the market accompanied the new menopause “cure.” After initially claiming that hormones only assisted with the symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, the drug companies steadily added to the list of things it was supposed to help, from bone density, to heart health, to sexual vigor, to enhanced memory, to curing depression.

Every time a study has been released that has challenged the safety of hormone replacement therapy, the pharmaceutical companies have gone into high gear to minimize the results and find new reasons for women to continue swallowing the drugs. They have scared women into thinking they will fall apart when they reach menopause — even worse, cease to be attractive — if they don’t start taking hormones. If history is any guide, researchers at Wyeth are trying even now to package a new combination of hormones to replace the tainted brew.

The payback for the last 30 years of false advertising is this week’s news that millions of women have put themselves at increased risk for life-threatening illnesses because pharmaceutical companies and obliging doctors have marketed eternal youth in a dangerous hormonal cocktail disguised as a wonder drug.

Will women, embarrassed by aging and the intimacy of this discussion, continue to be silent? Are we resigned to playing the role of guinea pig for large pharmaceutical companies scrambling to develop profitable treatments? The answer is yes to both questions if we continue to approach menopause as the end of our reproductive ability and sexual attractiveness. We have become convinced that, instead of a new start, menopause signals the end of a vibrant phase of life — and drug companies have long profited from our insecurities about this natural change. They have capitalized on women’s fear, and in the process put millions of us at greater risk of serious disease. Now it is our turn to capitalize on the duplicity of drug companies to put them at risk of serious regulation.