Posts by Joan Price
Chip August: “Sex isn’t just a piece of skin wiggling around in some other skin”
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Charles “Chip” August, Personal Growth and Couples Intimacy Coach, interviewed me on his “Sex, Love & Intimacy” internet radio show. Now it’s my turn to interview Chip:
JP: I understand you’re writing a book titled “Marital Passion: The Sexless Marriage Makeover.” Do you see many later-life couples in sexless marriages?
CA: As a Couples Intimacy Coach, I have met and worked with hundreds of couples struggling with unsatisfactory sex lives, most in their 40s, 50s and 60s. But it’s not just my experience. Recently I saw a blog from Dr. Phil where he writes: “sexless marriages are an undeniable epidemic.”
JP: Why do these couples give up on sexual intimacy? Do they say it’s because of physical changes?
CA: One major factor behind the “death” of sexuality in long-term relationships is changes in our physiology brought on by aging. As young, sexually active adults, we take for granted that feelings of arousal will be accompanied by tumescence (the swelling of genital tissues), erections (nipples, clitoris, penis) and lubrication. In our minds we link these physical experiences to the idea of arousal. As we age we seem to forget all the other feelings, emotions and sensations associated with arousal.
JP: What happens emotionally when those physiological responses change?
CA: Later in life, when erections and lubrication are less certain, we falsely assume that it is the end of sexuality. It’s as if we have forgotten all the other feelings, emotions and sensations associated with arousal. We seem to forget how hot it once was to hold hands, to kiss, to talk nonsense for hours into a phone late at night, to dance, to finish each other’s sentences.
JP: I often hear from women whose men have given up on sex when their penises don’t work like they used to. I also hear from men whose women don’t want sex because they say it’s no longer comfortable or pleasurable. How can these couples reconnect?
CA: I believe human beings are designed for a lifetime of sexuality. There are many causes for a man’s erection to become unreliable or even impossible, and just as many causes for a woman’s vagina to stop lubricating or hurt. These symptoms are sometimes physiological, sometimes psychological, and sometimes just requiring a bit of education.
If your body does not work the way you believe it should, or you are experiencing a loss of desire, see your doctor, as these could be symptoms of various medical/health problems, psychiatric problems, low levels of testosterone or high levels of prolactine. Low sexual desire can also be a side effect of various medications.
JP: Besides physical changes, why else do couples give up on sexual intimacy?
CA: Beliefs about sexuality that support the idea that sex is really for “young” people. Our culture fosters age-ist, sex-negative beliefs. Most people don’t realize that sex is meant to get better and better as a relationship matures. They’ve bought into the idea that they can’t have a rockin’ sex life if they’re no longer young and the relationship is no longer new. They believe myths that sabotage their sex lives, such as “Sex just doesn’t feel good anymore—sometimes it even hurts—but I can’t talk about that with my husband,” and the most disastrous belief of all: “Passion always dies in a long-term marriage; it’s the price you pay for stability.”
JP: How do you coach people in a sexless marriage to become lovers again?
CA: To become lovers again means behaving as lovers do. When we are in new relationship energy, we gaze into each other’s eyes, we kiss, we phone and email. We send cute cards, buy flowers, go out to dinner, and go for long walks. We make time just for us.
JP: And most couples stop behaving like lovers as the relationship matures?
CA: If we spent as little time and attention working at our jobs as we spend on our relationship, most of us would be unemployed. Relationships take time. Make dates (and keep them). Get naked together and just hold each other and talk. Park with your sweetie by the lake, the beach, the overlook, and neck like you were 17 again.
JP: What’s your most important message for improving senior sex and relationships?
CA: It saddens me that sex has become so genitally focused. Our biggest erogenous zone is between our ears – our mind. Sex isn’t just a piece of skin wiggling around in some other skin. Penises in vaginas are a necessity for procreation. Sex is about intimate connection and shared vulnerability. Sex is stroking each other from head to toe, eye-gazing, shared laughter and shared thoughts. Sex is kissing and hugging and dancing. Sex is lying naked in each other’s arms listening to our hearts beating. Sex is about surrender and control, about laughing and crying.
Chas. “Chip” August is a Personal Growth and Couples Intimacy Coach, host of “Sex, Love & Intimacy” an internet radio show, and author of the soon to be published “Marital Passion: The Sexless Marriage Makeover.” Chip sees clients at his office in Northern California and also does phone-coaching, phone: 1(650) 391-7763, email him at ChasAugust@gMail.com
No Erection, No Intimacy, No Discussion
Senior citizen intimacy isn’t always easy. There are a lot of changes with our bodies as we age.
Molly, age 63, wrote a comment that was featured in a blog post titled “He thinks he can’t please her without an erection, so why bother?” She recently emailed me an update, and I asked her permission to share it with you:
I wanted to thank you for trying to help with my situation. I was the person who asked what to do when he doesn’t want to have intimacy anymore because he couldn’t get an erection. He just said “why bother?”
Unfortunately, our relationship ended. Not by me, by him. He does not communicate in any way with me. I’ve tried everything to get him to talk to me, but it’s as if I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. This is after over two year relationship.
I took your advice and have contacted a therapist. She has been a great help to me. But somehow I think he would benefit so much from seeing someone, too.
It’s just so unfortunate that my guy thinks so little of our relationship that he only based it on one thing. I wish I could try to turn back time and make him understand that an erection is not everything in a loving sex life. But that’s not possible, he has completely cut me out of his life. Won’t talk, or accept any communication from me.
I still love the man and I think I always will. It’s so sad. Life is so very short not to enjoy it all.
Thanks again for your wonderful blog, I can’t tell you enough how it has helped me cope.
I feel the heartbreak in Molly’s words. She obviously loves this man, but he has shut her out completely.
I don’t think, though, that Molly’s partner’s inability to communicate or accept her loving means that their relationship doesn’t mean enough. I think he’s devastated and depressed by what he perceives to be the end of sexual possibility. It isn’t, we know that, but that’s how he sees it. He may be too stuck and too afraid to seek help.
I hear from men who say they have to unlearn the “I am my penis” lessons they learned as boys and teens. This notion becomes deeply ingrained and is a difficult lesson to unlearn, but the old story no longer serves them, or us.
I know it was difficult for Molly to share her story here, and I hope, readers, that you’ll show her how valuable it was by sharing what you learn here that helps in your own relationship. I’m sure she’ll welcome your warm comments.
Joan’s First Cuddle Party
“May I touch your shoulder?”
“Yes.”
“My I rest my leg on your leg?”
“Yes.”
“May I stroke your ribs?”
“No.”
“May I join your spoon train?”
“Yes.”
I attended my first official Cuddle Party last night. Cuddle Parties are led by trained facilitators to enable people to experience more touching in a completely non-sexual way. Most of us don’t get enough touch in our lives, or only get touched through sex, if we’re in a relationship, or brief hugs if we’re not.
Our skin and our emotions crave touching, holding, caressing. The purpose of a Cuddle Party is to enable people — usually strangers, at least for the first few minutes — to enjoy and feel safe touching and holding each other for hours.
Yes, hours. We had 45 minutes of rules and exercises (e.g. saying “no”) first, then at about 7:30 p.m. we were let loose to cuddle anyone and everyone we wanted (as long as they said “yes”) for 2-1/2 hours.
The Cuddle Party took place on a living room floor covered with sheets, comforters, and pillows. There were about a dozen of us, roughly gender-balanced, mostly clad in pajamas. The skilled facilitator and two assistants participated fully and were always available in case someone wanted any kind of assistance.
“Always ask before touching, and be specific about what you want to touch,” we were instructed. “No” means “no” and needs no defense or explanation. If we’re not sure, we say “no.” We can change our minds at any time. We can ask for what we want to receive as well as what we want to do. Clothes stay on, and if we experience feelings of arousal from all this body contact, we do not act on those feelings.
I joined four other people who were spooning, and I enjoyed being cradled in a warm body sandwich. We asked for permission to touch shoulders, backs, legs, hair, thighs. The tricky stage was trying to change position — if one person wanted to turn around, we all had to adjust and start asking for permission all over again.
If it sounds like fun, it was. It felt completely safe and relaxed — even jovial. We could get up, get a snack (no alcohol), come back to the pile of people and decide whom to approach as the next cuddle partner(s).
To find out more about Cuddle Parties and track down one happening near you, visit http://cuddleparty.com//
If Not Now, When Do We Live Fully?
“Putting your own life/needs/emotions on hold can’t be healthy for you,” I told someone yesterday, and it reminds me of how often I find myself saying that.
A reader writes that she has a sexless and even touchless marriage, but can’t support herself financially so she’s staying. A male friend of mine in his sixties can’t decide whether his current relationship is right for him, so he doesn’t decide, he just goes along. A reader in his fifties will start exploring relationships after he moves. A woman says she will feel sexier after she loses weight. A couple hasn’t had sex for years but won’t see a therapist because they think they should figure it out on their own.
I often ask people of our age who have put their own happiness and passions on hold, “If not now, when?”
If you’ve read much of my blog, you know that I lost my beloved husband, Robert Rice, to cancer last August. He was an artist, a dancer, a thinker, and a teacher to all who knew him. As long as he could stand upright, he painted in his studio every day, creating amazing art, yet always striving for that elusive best painting — maybe his next. He painted some of his most magnificent work in his last two years.
“Do you feel like you’re living on borrowed time,” I asked Robert one morning as he pulled on his paint-splattered jeans and sweater.
“I AM living on borrowed time,” he told me. Then he kissed me and rushed off to tend his garden for a couple of hours before heading to the studio.
I’m making myself cry writing this, but I admired him (and admire him still) for always going towards his goals, his love for life and creativity, and his passion for love itself, even when he knew he was dying.
We all have a death sentence, we just don’t know when it is. As we age, though, we get many reminders of our mortality, some subtle (aches in new places, parts that don’t work 100% like they used to), some not subtle at all (a cancer diagnosis, a spinal or hip fracture, parts that don’t work at all).
It seems to me that we have a responsibility to ourselves and to life itself to live fully, productively, and lovingly — as long as we can.
As I reread this post, I realize that it’s a lesson I have to relearn in my own life now as I emerge from the dark place of grief and make my way back to life, work, sunshine, and joy.
Thank you, Robert, for the lessons you taught me so well.
