Posts by Joan Price
Straight Woman Loves Gay Romance
I was surprised and delighted to find Best Gay Romance 2009, ed. Richard Labonté, Cleis Press , an absolute pleasure to read, and more stimulating to me – a straight woman – than most heterosexual erotica.
Partly it’s the romance aspect – the stories and characters are gentle, sweet, and very sexy – and because the whole book is men, men, men. Each story has at least two sexy, loving men who get aroused and naked together, which for me was delicious, fantasy voyeurism. Each story even offers an interesting plot — not just a rush to the genitals — and non-stereotypical characters. Several are even our age, though most are young. The stories are tender and erotic without being the least bit raw, rough, or sleazy. I lapped it up (so to speak).
As my readers know, I lost my beloved husband last summer. I’ve been sexually hibernating since then (while continuing to think and write about sex, as you know). Believe it or not, Best Gay Romance got my sparks sparking again, at least within the cocoon of fantasy.
I wrote to Richard Labonté, editor of the series, about this, and he wrote back:
I’m so happy to hear that the collection helped get your “juices flowing.” I’m not surprised, though – in my A Different Light days (I helped open this still-extant gay bookstore in Los Angeles in 1979), I sold a lot of gay male romances, especially early Alyson titles (way before the Best Gay Romance days) to straight women. I particularly recall a group of six or so women, age range early 30s to late 40s I’m guessing, who would come into the original ADL store in Los Angeles in the ’80s every two months or so and buy everything new since their last visit, often four or five books each, not always the same titles (I’m sure they also shared). Like you, they appreciated the erotic (but not too erotic) male content.
Read more of my sex and/or aging book reviews and author interviews here.
Valentine’s Day without Robert
My first Valentine’s Day since Robert died seemed to be going unexp
ectedly well — a deep and stimulating phone conversation with a close friend, time alone reading and dancing in my exercise room, dinner out with a dear and delightful woman pal, excitement about feeling my life force emerging strongly.
Then I came home. Alone. Lit a candle. And started to cry.
I remembered Robert lighting a candle in the same candleholder I was using. I saw his dear hand lighting it, the hand that would touch me soon. I heard his soft voice, saw his smile. I wrote in my journal memories of seven years of Valentine’s Days, especially the languid afternoons making love as daylight turned to evening and to night. Finally, even the candle would burn down, flicker, and go out as we held each other and continued to kiss in the dark.
Tears streaming, voice wailing, I put down my journal and picked up a book of poetry, American Primitive by Mary Oliver. A friend, Uta, had given it to me on Robert’s birthday, 4-1/2 months after he died, with this inscription:
Dear Joanie,
She is one of Robert’s favorite contemporary poets.
You are very special to me and when you read in this little book, Robert will be with you. He loves you very much.
I had to put down the book when I read this:
…Now you are dead too, and I, no longer young,
know what a kiss is worth.
(photos by Robert’s son Mitch Rice)
Six Months after Robert’s Death
I’ve written about losing Robert to multiple myeloma last August and taken you with me on many of my steps forward. I return today, six months after Robert’s death, to check in with you again. You have been marvelous, posting comments here and emailing me privately with your warm messages and your stories.
If you’re a new blog reader, I’ll update you briefly. Yes, this blog is — almost all of the time — about sex and aging. The reason I wrote Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty and started this blog was because I found great love in later life — I was 57 and Robert was 64 when we met. My work changed from writing about health & fitness to writing and speaking about sex after 60. I decided to face full-on and speak out loud against our society’s stereotype of older-age sex/love/dating as unseemly and icky.
Robert and I had seven years together from first kiss to last and I still feel him with me, especially when I teach my line dance class, where we met and where we continued to dance.
I’m dedicating whatever it takes to the process of grieving and moving through grief. Here are some of the tools and helpers I’ve found since I last wrote Discoveries Helping Me Move Through Grief three months ago. In case this helps you or lets you help someone else, I share them with you:
I’ve learned plenty from the counselors from both Hospice (Rick Hobbs) and Kaiser (Connie Kellogg) and although sometimes I entered their quiet rooms thinking I’d never stop crying, they accepted me with compassion and skillfully taught me ways to cope.
I took an amazing full-day workshop from Joe Hanson, author of Soaring Into Acceptance (available from the author). Among many gifts of that day, I was able to change my one-sentence “story” from “I lost the love of my life, and my life is and will be empty without him,” to “I found the love of my life and learned how to experience love fully, and I take this with me on my path.” (Joe will be repeating this valuable workshop, “The Power of Acceptance,” on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009, in Larkspur, CA, near San Francisco. I heartily recommend it.)
I’m in a Hospice spousal bereavement group. The best part is getting to know other people who experienced the same kind of loss at roughly the same time. Because of the confidentiality of the group, I can’t disclose much about it, except that it’s helping me move forward. I recommend taking advantage of everything Hospice has to offer.
I’ve continued to reach out to loved ones and to new friends and welcome them into my heart. Being close to people who understand me balances my need for a lot of solitude. Extending help to others who need it balances the help I need to accept from others.
Each month gets a little easier.
Yes, I’ll write that next book. Writing still brings me joy, and I’m no less committed to the mission I’ve established here. For now, I’ll continue to indulge in short spurts of writing and when I’m ready, I’ll take on the book I’ve been planning for more than a year.
Thank you for your compassion and confidences. Keep those comments and emails coming, even if I’m not as quick to answer as you came to expect.
Warmly,
Joan
Can Men be Attracted to Gravity-Challenged Breasts?
I was interviewed recently by Sarah Hampson about Boomer sex and dating for Canada’s Globe and Mail. The article, “Boomers, it’s a brave new sexual world,” appeared 1/15/09 and has attracted many reader comments, mostly people objecting to the tone or examples in the article, and several exhibiting the “ick factor,” as I call it — such as these examples:
- I don’t really want to hear about people my parents age having sex.
- Geriatric sex is just nasty. Back in the closet Woodstock.
- Please go have your “old-person” sex somewhere else, but for everyone’s sake do it quietly.
- I am now canceling my subscription to the Globe and Mail.
This woman expert is clearly out to lunch on this one … discounts the physical part of attraction altogether, which for man is probably at least 50/50 with personality. The shape of a woman’s breasts are definitely part of the attraction package.
Actually, I’m not discounting the physical part of attraction at all. What I am discounting is the notion that only a youthful appearance can be attractive. We ARE attractive and sexy even if our breasts are susceptible to gravity over time. My wonderful husband always exclaimed that he was stunned by the beauty of my far-from-perky breasts. Let’s just get over the youth orientation of what our society and the media label beautiful and/or sexy….
Then I had to laugh at the follow-up comment from another reader:
Your husband is also biased. Do you honestly think a husband is going to tell his wife he prefers the firm, perky breasts of a 20 y/o. No…he just dreams about them.