Posts by Joan Price
Gloria Steinem: Doing Sixty & Seventy
I was excited to see that Gloria Steinem has written a new book about aging, titled Doing Sixty & Seventy, and eagerly ordered it. When I saw the book — just 68 pages long and printed in a font about three times normal size, I felt cheated. It’s not a “book” — it’s a series of two essays published in hard cover. Once I got past that realization and read the essays, I was glad that I had.
Steinem, one of the most influencial feminist/activists of our time, was the founder of Ms. magazine. She became an inadvertent spokesperson for aging issues after a reporter said to her on her fortieth birthday, “You don’t look forty.”
Her widely quoted reply: “This is what forty looks like. We’ve been lying for so long, who would know?”
Steinem is now seventy-plus, and still radical. In fact, she claims that women get more radical as they age. This book includes her essay, “Doing Sixty,” plus “Into the Seventies,” a preface (which is actually an additional essay) looking back twelve years after writing “Doing Sixty.”
Some tidbits from these thought-provoking essays:
“I used to joke that I thought I was immortal and this caused me to plan poorly.”
“It was only after I’d become an old lady myself that I lost the habit of imposing my sentimental interpretation on old people.”
“For women especially – and for men too, if they’ve been limited by stereotpyes — we’ve traveled past the point when society cares very much about what we do… Though this neglect and invisibility may shock and grieve us greatly at first… it also creates a new freedom to be ourselves — without explanation.”
“I used to think that continuing my past sex life was the height of radicalism. After all, women too old for childbearing were supposed to be too old for sex. Becoming a pioneer dirty old lady seemed a worthwhile goal — which it was, for a while. But continuing the past even out of defiance is very different from progressing. Now I think: Why not take advantage of the hormonal changes that age provides to clear our minds, sharpen our senses, and free whole areas of our brains? Even as I celebrate past pleasures, I wonder: Did I sometimes confuse sex with aerobics?
I’d love to hear from you about any of these or related topics. Please chime in!
North Bay Bohemian: Birds, Bees, and Oldsters Do It
Thanks to Cole Porter, we know that birds do it, bees do it, even overeducated fleas do it. Well, apparently oldsters do it, too.
Happy Valentine’s Day! I was delighted to be profiled in the North Bay Bohemian‘s 2007 Sex Issue in a lively article by Brett Ascarelli titled “Certain Age.” Here are some excerpts:
Last fall, ABC Nightline sent a crew to Sebastopol to interview author Joan Price about seniors, sex and dating. Price, a former high school teacher turned fitness author and guru, fell in love a few years ago, drawing media attention when she claimed that she was having the best sex of her life. In 2006, she released Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty (Seal Press; $15.95), already in its second printing. The book features interviews with “sexually seasoned women,” experts’ advice about keeping the nethers in shape and Price’s own musings on the challenges of being a sexy senior. The book’s popularity spawned a related blog, in which Price moderates discussions about sex for the mature set.
One recent afternoon at her Sebastopol house, the 4’11” Price is wearing a rhinestone-covered blouse and Mary Janes. No wonder she’s getting some; at 63, she’s super-fit, thanks to a frequent work-out regimen and what must still be damn good metabolism, given the chocolate cookies she’s munching.
… Price is a poster-adult for the cause and now fields sex-related questions from mature adults at workshops across the country.
“I call myself an advocate for ageless sexuality,” Price laughs, “but maybe I’m trying to do more than that: I’m trying to change society one mind at a time, I guess.”
Ascarelli, a young woman, took to heart my comments about the need for society to change its ageist attitude toward sex. She quoted me saying, “I think it will be easier [for women in the future], especially if younger people pay attention to what we’re going through now and don’t see us as the Other, but just as themselves in a few decades.”
photo by Brett Ascarelli
Changes after Prostate Surgery: Tina Tessina
Many of you have been reading and asking about prostate cancer, how it affects sexuality, how spouses/lovers can communicate and keep their love strong while living with it. Some of the most widely read posts on this blog have been those dealing with prostate cancer, such as “A man asks about sex after prostate cancer” and “Grace Period: a novel about living with prostate cancer.”
In response to your interest, I’ve asked Tina Tessina, Ph.D. to comment on this subject. Besides being a psychotherapist and author, Tina writes from experience: her husband is living with prostate cancer. Here are her comments:
The changes that come after prostate surgery are, like all changes, not easy. We don’t like to have to deal with changes, especially those that confront us with our mortality. But, I can happily report, with some encouragement and enthusiasm from me, my wonderful husband is quite functional sexually. His surgery was in 2002, he just got another ‘undetectable’ PSA test, so we are blessed.
For us, the blessing is in how heightened our love and appreciation (which was pretty good before) has been by the threat of terminal illness. Richard is lucky — they got it early, it has not spread, the surgery went well. His second surgery to have an artificial sphincter put on his urethra, also went well.
Others, I know, have a more difficult time. But, as Gerald Haslam wrote in Grace Period, “Live for the moment, since that may be all you have.” Richard and I decided to do that in 2002, and we’ve been making the most of our moments ever since. Every day is a gift, another cup of sweetness, and we drain it to the last drop. One of our joke lines is “I’d like another one of them there drinks,” from Scrooge, referring to the Cup of Human Kindness given to him by the Ghost of Christmas Present.
For some couples, the tension of serious illness creates crabbiness and bickering. Richard and I have never wanted to waste time arguing, and we haven’t for a long time. I don’t believe it helps anything that’s going on. In my newest book, Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Squabbling About the Three Things That Can Destroy Your Marriage out from Adams Media spring 2007, I help couples who are fighting learn new methods of getting along so they can enjoy their time together.
For more, see Tina Tessina’s Dr. Romance Blog. Dr. Tessina is a psychotherapist, author of several books including It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction, How To Be a Couple and Still Be Free, and The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again. She writes the “Dating Dr.” column on www.CouplesCompany.com and “Dr. Romance” on Yahoo! Personals.
Why so hard to talk about sex?
Why is it so hard for couples to talk about sex? Does it get any easier with age?
A year ago, I would have said that yes, with the experience, self-knowledge, and communications skills that come with age, it does get easier to talk about all intimate matters, including sex. That’s certainly true for me.
And yet, in the past year since my book came out, I’ve heard from dozens of readers or workshop attendees who tell me about the difficulties they have communicating their sexual needs, desires, and worries to their partners, either long-term or new.
What do you think? What reasons hold us back from communicating fully about sex to a partner? I’ll start the list, and I invite you to join in with your ideas.
1. We’re afraid of being judged. 2. We’re afraid that our partner will think that he or she is being judged. 3. Our upbringing rears its ugly head: we shouldn’t be feeling/ saying/ doing this. 4. We’re embarrassed about the changes in our sexual response due to aging and/or our medical challenges. 5. We’re afraid our partner will misunderstand or say no to our request. 6. We worry, “What if my partner does what I’m asking, and it still doesn’t work?” 7. We don’t know what to ask for, we just know something could be better.
Please comment on any of these that resonate with you, and feel free to add your own ideas. You can click on “comments” below, or email me with your comments.
Thanks for helping me figure this out!