Pat Benatar puts her 'Best Shot' forward

In 10 years Pat Benatar might be found selling leis and pineapples on the Hana Highway in Maui, wearing a muumuu.
"That's what I'd really want to be doing," Benatar told The Believer magazine. "I have no idea because I had no idea I would be doing this. At 50, I thought I would be done."
Benatar's addictive hits, "Love Is A Battlefield" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," became new-attitude anthems in the '80s. Now married for 23 years to guitarist, songwriter and producer Neil Giraldo, the two soul mates will embark on a summer trek, "Polyamnesia Off The Rock Tour '06."
"I think you can be 50 and still have a rock and roll lifestyle; you can still perpetuate that," she said. "But when you have children your life – this is my job and that's my life. So it's a totally different thing. They're my priority, they have to be, and they always will be."
Benatar's self-assured, rock image has rallied legions of gay fans, which she attributes to "big eyeliner." When gay men approach her, they tell her, "I don't just love you. I want to be you."
She insists that they're a gracious audience. "They're so enthusiastic. They come dressed up – it's really fun," she said to The Believer. "They're crazy and I love them. Even my macho husband, he has a great time, too."
Recently, Benatar has taken a back seat to young rockers like Kelly Clarkson and Ashlee Simpson, but has surfaced in TV shows and on her 2003 album "Go." Her story has also been documented on shows like A&E "Biography" and VH1's "Behind the Music."
"Everyone was really happy because we're the only people who didn't go to rehab," she said about "Behind the Music." "So they were really happy, they were like, 'Wow, look, an uplifting version.'"
Still, Benatar has considered tossing in her chips when she had a run-in with her record label after the birth of one of her children. "No one had any sympathy that your life was totally changed," she said. "No one looked at you as a human being, no one look at you as a woman, no one looked at you as a person … They didn't care, it was just like, 'OK, great, you had the baby, that's nice, can we just get on with it?'"
Even with two daughters, Benatar maintains a fit body, but rarely shows it off. One night, though, Benatar made the mistake of wearing little rider pants on stage. The sound pack on her waist pulled them down, and she constantly yanked up her pants.
"I'm in really good shape but we don't need to see that," she told The Believer. "I sat down on the stool because we were doing an acoustic set and I said to the audience, 'You know, I wonder how these frigging teenagers are keeping these pants up, because I'm like, constantly pulling them up."
She said, during her 2002 Glow tour she "saw more butt crack than a plumber's convention" from the young women.