Robert, Joan’s Fiancé , Speaks Out
When Joan was writing Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex after Sixty and reading drafts to me, often I’d stop her and say, “You’re not going to include that, are you?” and she’d say, “Yes, I am.”
A private person, I worried that she was getting too detailed and personal. But I went along with her when she insisted, “It’s got to be told as it is.”
Now I willingly eat my words. The book does exactly what is needed in our lives and our culture. It doesn’t beat around the bush–it is truly straight talk, without in any way cheapening the subject. In fact, it elevates the subject through honesty that can be respected at every turn of the page.
Seasoned Women
It wasn’t until my own book had gone to press that I learned that Gail Sheehy had written about the same subject, and her book would be coming out at the same time as mine. I had no idea, until I saw her title, that the two of us independently had come up with the term “seasoned women” to describe women 60 and older who have a wealth of life experience, self-knowledge, wisdom, sexual zest, and joie de vivre.
In my book, I gave the term “sexually seasoned women” to the women I interviewed, who shared openly and eagerly their past and present sexual experiences and relationships, and their attitudes about life, sex, relationships, and themselves.
At the same time my book was going to press, Gail Sheehy was titling her book Sex and the Seasoned Woman. I hope readers don’t think either of us stole the term from the other. In a way it’s a startling coincidence, but in another way, of course we’d both come up with that term. It’s just right!
An adaptation appears in today’s Parade magazine, and while of course I wish my book had been mentioned also, I’m happy that this topic is finally getting the publicity it deserves.
Newsday: “Sex after 60: It’s good news”
Here’s Peter King’s 12/31/05 review of Better Than I Ever Expected at Newsday.com:
Sex after 60: It’s good news
Guys, leave the room.
“Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty” (Seal Press, $15.95) by Joan Price is for women only. The book is part motivational memoir, part self-help guide and part sex manual in which Price asserts, “Society’s view of aging women as sexless is wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Price, 61, writes from experience. The book sprang from her own bout of “post-menopausal angst” when she thought her sex life was over. It wasn’t, although she writes that “changes after menopause make sexual enjoyment challenging.” Even so, Price says her sex life now is better than ever.
“Better Than I Ever Expected” gives older women advice on how to date and how to love. Price, who has written several books on health and fitness, also includes many tips on how exercise makes sex better.
Price recognizes the challenges of older sexuality but revels in the rewards. “We’re the Love Generation – we practically invented sex,” she writes. “We’re not about to shut the gates now!”
Reader Reactions to Book
Women aquaintances who have bought the book and read it already (everyone says they can’t put it down!) are walking up to me and talking freely about their own sex lives and relationships. It’s as if we’re continuing a conversation in progress. I love this!
I feel like I’ve opened up a topic that women were hungry to discuss. So many women are already telling me, “It’s about time!” And it’s not just the older women — younger women are saying, “I don’t plan to give up sex when I’m 60… or 80!”
I’m looking at what women say as clues to what they’d like to see in the next book. As I travel and promote the book, I’ll be noting what women ask and tell me, and when their eyes light up when I discuss something.
If you know what you would like to read in my next book, please post a comment here!