10 Tips for Hot Solo Senior Sex
Senior sex isn’t just partner sex. Many of us don’t have partners, yet keeping our sexual selves vibrant and health is crucial for many reasons. It’s true that if we don’t use it, we lose it — and that’s true for both women and men.When we have less hormonal rush to stay sexual, especially if we’re without a partner and maybe blue about that, we can fall into a pattern where we don’t think as much about sexual pleasure, and we don’t give it to ourselves. Arousal and orgasms may feel second-rate and inconsequential, and sometimes just too much trouble.
Instead, let’s see our marvelous bodies as still capable of pleasure, and let’s nurture that. We have the capacity — and the responsibility! — to keep ourselves fully functioning by pleasuring ourselves, discovering what feels good (it may have changed, so don’t assume that of course you know) and what it takes to make our brains and body parts sing. Let’s celebrate that we don’t have to close down just because we’re older and partnerless. Indeed, let’s enjoy what we can offer ourselves.
Here are some tips for bringing the sizzle back to your sex life — on your own!
2. Enjoy solo sex during high energy times. When do you feel most sexually charged? When you first wake up? After morning coffee and a good poop? Mid-afternoon? That’s when to indulge in a solitary romp, rather than after a meal when you’re digesting or at night when your sensations are shutting down. When you feel the tingle, indulge it!
3. Create your own foreplay. Do sexy things that get you in the mood. Remember hot times with a special lover. Read erotica, play special songs, watch porn (or, if you prefer, a movie with a star who always turns you on), write sexy thoughts in your journal, take a waterproof vibrator into the bath or shower — whatever starts your path to arousal. Appreciate, decorate, and celebrate your body with lingerie, silk, velvet, massage oil, candlelight–whatever feels good and puts you in the mood.
4. Use a silky lubricant. Don’t just settle for the drugstore variety — there are many different varieties of lubricants for moisture and slickness that feel great and bring back the joy of friction, whether we’re using our hands or a toy. Experiment to find your favorites. Keep the lube within reach so you can reapply frequently.
5. Explore sex toys and other erotic helpers. Our hormonally challenged bodies may need extra help to reach orgasm these days, and our wrists may tire before we reach our goal. Women: try a clitoral vibrator, with or without a dildo, depending whether you like the feeling of a full vagina. (Read the many vibrator reviews on this blog to help you choose.) Men: try a sleeve, cock ring, or prostate stimulator. Lucky for us that sex toys for both genders are easy to find, fun to try, and wow, do they work!
6. Fantasize. Let yourself explore fantasy scenes and partners, no limits. Let your brain (your main sex organ!) indulge in whatever arouses you. Be open to whatever comes into your mind, even if it is something you would not do in real life or with someone you consider off limits. No fantasy is “wrong,” and no one has to know what images or scenarios turn you on. Just go with it.
7. Be physical in daily life. Walking, biking, dancing, yoga, Pilates, lifting weights, and other forms of exercise all enhance blood flow and get you in touch with your own physicality. This translates to your sexual arousal because the blood flows to your genitals as well as to your muscles, making arousal easier and faster. Plus you mentally feel “in your body.”
8. Realize that your solo practice not only gives you pleasure, it’s important for health. Experts recommend at least one orgasm a week for both men and women for genital health and for heart health as well. Weekly orgasms keep the pelvic floor strong and the nerves firing, boost the immune system, and reduce the risk of incontinence, depression, and heart disease. Men – regular orgasms are important for prostate health.
9. If you think you’re not in the mood, do it anyway. It’s too easy to put solo sex on the back burner, and once we’re out of the habit, it’s harder to get revved up again. This is especially true at our age, when our hormones are no longer screaming for release. So reread tips #1-8, and just do it. You’ll find that the physical arousal will happen, that that will trigger your emotional arousal, and that triggers more physical arousal, until it’s all working just right.
10. Don’t think of solo sex as “settling for” a substitute for partner sex. You’re celebrating your own sexuality, glorying in your body’s capability of pleasing you, and enjoying the journey. This is a gift you can give yourself whenever you want, and isn’t that wonderful?
(These tips are copyright 2010-2011 by Joan Price and may not be reprinted without permission from Joan Price. Thank you!)
Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex is available from www.joanprice.com (personally autographed) — be sure to let me know to whom to autograph it — and by clicking the PayPal button below…
The substances in cigarette smoke are known to constrict blood vessels, thus, reducing blood circulation to the sexual organs. Keep in mind that good blood circulation is a must for erections as well as for stamina, not to mention that your smoker’s breath will deter your partner from enjoying sex.
thank you. I am post menopausal by two years and you have made me realise that it is psychological. I do solo sex, but reading about post menopausal shut down hasn't helped. So thank you for your site, it gives me hope for a sexual relationship
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Joan,
Yes. Thanks for reminding us. Gotta make time. I shoot for 2x wk; ask my wife to do the same–so we can stay on top of our arousal cycle; especially now that I'm 66 and older. We shoot for 2x wk intercourse; 2x wk the Sacred Wank=good marriage.
My needs to pull it off?
a) lube
b) sunshine, outdoors naked or half naked in private/safe place
c) vibrator at bass of my balls; I borrow the wife's
d) fantasy–same one each time pretty much. I'm there in my head in a garden with a lady hungry to watch and learn and even to help as I perform this solo ceremony by hand…with an erotic friend.
As you say, if this act is getting and being ready to be partnered? Good. If the act is staying on your game, keeping up with your own "erotic intelligence" now that you are partnered? Good.
And even if we wank 1x and make love 1x and miss out goal: still good to be sharpening our skills, no?
A friend, with an engineering degree went to the hardware store, bought some properly sized PVC pipe and some pipe insulation to fit inside the PVC pipe. The insulation was the size to fit a pipe the size of his penis. Then he put a baby bottle liner inside the pipe insulation inside the PVC, oiled up his penis and masturbated inside the contraption. Says it forms a lovely vacuum that does the job and the bottle liner makes for easy clean up.
He even rigged one up to a sort of small crane and treddle arrangement so he could sit down and read while pumping the foot treddle to move the device up and down on his manhood.
He's 65 years old. Gotta love mechanical engineers.
I would love to have directions on how to make the PVC device and especially how to make the foot treadle device to move the PVC up and down.
Jojoba oil is different from mineral oil – it ain't nasty like you say. Best there is! And only oil that doesn't clog pores of the skin.
Not sure what the MSSW has to do with it, I've a MAPC and have been a licensed massage therapist with national certifications.
Sorry, but oils & waxes can indeed cause skin problems, and also can melt many of the softer sex toys. Using a good water-based lubricant is best for sex toys that you insert. If you choose to use oil, make sure it's not scented, and please don't use waxes. Waxes are the hardest to clear from the vagina, and beeswax stores pesticides and then releases them into your body from the skin contact. We are very reluctant to recommend beeswax for any mucous membrane because of the high levels of pesticides that end up in the wax.
Ellen Barnard, MSSW
http:www.sexualityresources.com
Glad you pointed this out. It is important. Oils are good for massage, but not around latex (condoms), sex toys, or vulvas.
Thanks for these great tips. I'm so glad you emphasize that orgasm is important for our health and vitality. And I love your reminder not to think of solo sex as a second-best or poor substitute for the "real thing."
PS, I'm with Ron. I make my own lube from a couple kinds of organic oil and beeswax. It's the best!
Best lubricant for solo, or partner,sex is jojoba oil. Probably can find some at your local health food store. For sure on line. Lasts a long time, doesn't clog pores, you can add you favorite scent. Try and enjoy. Same stuff often added to shampoo so its good for your pubic hair too.