Posts by Joan Price
No, We’re Not Shutting Up
I had two very different experiences on Sunday, Feb. 12.
1. I read Louise Raflin’s petulant plea to Boomers to hush up about their sex lives in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine.
2. I spoke to a full house at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA, talking about and reading from my book, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty. The women and men in the audience displayed an attitude that was far from the “it’s-all-about-me” egocentrism that Rafkin condescendingly described. They were thoughtful, communicative, vibrant, funny, and passionate.
“Could they please stop writing about it?” Rafkin begs. Not a chance. We’ve only just begun.
Pacific Sun: Tips for Older Lovers
I was interviewed about love in later life by Jill Kramer for the Pacific Sun (Marin County, CA), Feb. 10, 2006, under the title “Tips for Older Lovers“:
I think later-life love is the best. We come to each other with decades of adult life experience, including many relationships that may have helped us grow to the next stage when that person doesn’t fit any more — so then we’re ready for someone who can match us at that next level of growth. So I think it’s natural for us to grow into and grow out of relationships until we get to the point where we really know who we are and what we’re looking for and what we have to give.
It’s harder when you’re older to find the right person. And it’s hard to hold out for someone who’s got everything you’re looking for. So sometimes people get into relationships that are only partially fulfilling because they figure, “Well, I’m not going to do any better.” Yeah, you are! Don’t settle! Do the things you love to do and look around at who else is doing them. Be yourself, don’t put on any kind of an act. Be the person you hope to find.
Library Journal: “wealth of insightful information”
Martha Cornog reviewed Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty, along with other new books about sexuality and older women, in “The Go-Go Golden Libido” in Library Journal, February 1, 2006:
Our third senior sexpert, health writer Price focuses on a smaller number of women of the 1960s “love generation” who are still having happy and wonderful sex. Drawing on data from emailed questionnaires and telephone interviews, the author shares personal stories and a wealth of insightful information about having good sex; dating; staying sexy; coping with hormonal, physical, and medical problems (including vaginal atrophy); and keeping erotic warmth alive in a long-term arriage. Many of these women have been adventurous and continue to be—their stories are not for the monogamy-at-all-costs crowd. Yet this is the book’s strength: reassuring senior-aged women who feel abandoned by the numerous “coupled through life” books (and perhaps distanced from “vanilla” friends) that they are not freakish or alone. One quibble: it could’ve been more inclusive about safe(r) sex, though there’s an excellent reading list and even footnotes.
What about a man’s book?
I’ve talked to some men who are encouraging me to write a book similar to Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty about men after midlife talking about their sexual feelings, experiences, changes, challenges, and past history, along with advice from experts on male sexual issues. I have some questions for you:
1. Would you be interested in reading such a book? What would you hope to read in it?
2. Would men be responsive to a book like this written by a woman? Would they be honest with a woman interviewer? I thought that men would prefer a male writer for a book on male sexual experiences, but I’ve had men tell me that they talk more easily and intimately with a woman than a man.
3. If I do write this book, and you are a man at midlife or beyond, would you be interested in sharing your sexual thoughts, history, current challenges, and stories? (If so, email me your contact information, please!)
Thanks,
— Joan