I felt like I knew Monique El-Faizy before I ever talked to her. Monique, a 54-year-old Paris-based writer and mother of two, happens to be friends with two close friends of mine, and I’d heard stories about her for years: How smart she is; how loyal of a friend she is; how courageous she is, both as a journalist and as a person. And, of course, a fair bit about her sex and dating life.
A few weeks ago, I spoke to Monique about her two marriages and how the end of the second led to a sort of sexual renaissance — sometimes with much younger men. We also spoke about Monique’s upcoming book about the Gisele Pelicot trial, and how deeply her reporting has affected her, not just in terms of what Pelicot survived, but about patriarchy, and the pain that some of the men around us are capable of inflicting. What follows has been condensed and edited for clarity.
NAOMI: Okay. So you’ve been married twice. When did you first get divorced?
MONIQUE: I got married in 1992, and just after our 20th anniversary, in October of 2012, I found out he'd been living a secret life for most of our marriage. Not with one person, but doing all kinds of things. It was such a shock because–I was 24 when we met, I was barely out of college– I thought I knew this person better than I knew anybody in the world. And then I woke up one day and found out that in fact, everything I knew about him was a lie. So then there was this moment of, well, if I didn't know what that was, do I know who I am?
People would ask, are you going to leave him? It was a long disintegration. But one day I realized that I would rather be alone for the rest of my life than spend one more day in that marriage. A few months later, in October of 2014, I met this guy who was 22 years younger than me.
NAOMI: How old were you at that point?
MONIQUE: I was 47.
NAOMI: How'd you meet him?
MONIQUE: Facebook. How did you meet anybody of that generation? He was a journalist, too. It wasn't immediate, but there was a moment the night we first met in person when we were chatting and I mentioned my kids, and I immediately regretted it. Which is when I realized I was interested in him. I hadn’t until that moment.
NAOMI: Okay. So he was 25, you were 47. I guess probably you hadn't been with a man that much younger. You'd been married.
MONIQUE: I had had one fling just a couple months before. With somebody even younger. That May, I'd gone to my 25th college reunion and ended up having a fling with a student at the university that I went to.
NAOMI: Did you find yourself more attracted to younger guys or was it just that they happened to be younger guys?
MONIQUE: They just happened to be younger guys. I mean, look, younger guys are more attractive, let's be honest. But it wasn't something I'd ever thought I wanted. In fact, I struggled with it. The reunion thing was just this fun fling. I'd initially said, no, no, no. And then I was like, wait, what am I doing? He's hot. Why not? I was just coming out of my marriage and wasn’t feeling great about myself.
But with my second husband, it was a hard decision. I really struggled with it because I hated the idea of being a cougar. I just didn't want to be that person. Then there was a moment where I thought, if I was the man and it was a younger woman, nobody would think twice. And if I really think that I'm the feminist that I consider myself to be, then I shouldn't care about this. And it became this kind of feminist act for me to not care about the age difference.
But I really hated the whole cougar thing. I'm not one of those women who's comfortable being a cougar.