Widows and Widowers: Should we just date each other?
“I think I could only date a widower — only someone who has gone through this could understand,” I told a buddy when I thought I might be ready to start dating after losing my beloved Robert.
I put my preference for widowers prominently in my online dating profile. I later changed that, or at least softened it to “bonus points,” just because it narrowed the possibilities too much. But it remains my preference. Here’s why:
- When they are talking with animation and suddenly sink into silence and sadness, I understand.
- When they bring up anecdotes about their wives, I get it.
- When they slip into present tense talking about their spouse, then correct themselves, I remember how often I’ve done that.
- When they talk vulnerably about their grief, I know I can do that, too.
- When they laugh and talk about their future changes they want to make in their lives, I know what it took to get to that point.
How long does it take to be ready to date? I don’t know. We’re all different. Don’t judge us if we think we’re ready, then realize we’re not. We’re not grieving for a time, then suddenly done with grief — it’s a spiral: we cycle in and out of grief. We can feel that we’re truly ready to date, and then we’re struck down by missing our beloved powerfully.
And if you date a widow or widower, please don’t worry that you’re in competition with his or her perfect spouse. You’re not in competition with our memories. Understand that there will always be that layer of memories and love, and accept that part of us. It shows that we know how to love.
Recently, I’ve had a couple of dates with two different widowers. I love the conversation, how easily we slip in and out of past and present, how we acknowledge the fear and the reluctance to date again — and how we realize that our growth depends on learning how to do that. Maybe we should just date each other.
What do you think? Your comments are welcome, especially if you are widowed or are dating a widow or widower.
[Thank you, Sienna Jai Fein, for the post “Widower: What If He’s Not Ready To Date?” on Dating Senior Men, which led me to ruminate on this topic.]
American Savage by Dan Savage: book review
Dan Savage is an outspoken, irreverent, gay sex columnist who gives sex advice to all genders and orientations at Savage Love and on his podcast. With his husband Terry*, he started the “It Gets Better” video project, designed to help kids who are bullied realize that it does get better.
So I was prepared to like Dan’s new book. I had no idea that I would love it, highlight it, bookmark it, rave about it. I had no idea that Dan could write so eloquently, and from the heart. For example:
- “Sex education in America is a lot like a driver’s-ed course that covers the internal combustion but not steering or brakes…so long as we skip past pleasure, desire, and negotiating a romantic or sexual relationship … we aren’t really teaching young adults about sex.”
- “Fighting your sexuality is like holding your breath: It can be done, yes, but not for long (when it comes to your breath) and not forever (when it comes to your sexuality).”
Politically, Dan is razor-sharp. His one-hour, dinner table debate with Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, about gay marriage is worth watching on YouTube — but what you don’t know about what happened before and after the debate is here in American Savage, such as the one question Terry asked after the debate was over:
“Do you think our son should be taken away from us?”
“You shouldn’t ask me a question when you know you won’t like the answer,” Brown said.
“Get the fuck out of my house,” Terry said.
Dan’s personal stories are moving, especially when he writes about his mother’s death, his husband, or his son. Each time he speaks from his heart with a story from his own life, it is to illustrate or lead us to an important point.
Dan Savage makes you think about things you thought you knew. For example, when is/isn’t it okay to cheat?
“We are socially monogamous — we pair bond; we couple up… but we are not sexually monogamous… The fact that your partner is willing to ‘forsake all others’ only means something is your partner doesn’t, on some level, want to forsake all others. and your partner doesn’t.”
How can you help laughing when he writes about Rick Santorum (“then the third most powerful person in the United States Senate [who] equated gay people to child rapists and dogfuckers”) and Dan’s campaign to launch a new meaning for the word “santorum”: “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex” in our culture and in Google searches.
I could go on for another hour, but here’s the bottom line: I recommend American Savage to everyone, straight or gay, who cares about how confused our culture is about sexuality and religion and politics. Please read this book and share it with people in your life who agree with you — and those who don’t.
*Okay, since I’m being honest here — I drool over the photo of Dan’s husband Terry posing in underwear, which I’ll share here with you, at the risk of undermining the intellectual nature of this book review.
 |
| Terry posing in underwear |
Invitation: What do you want to see in new book?
Here’s an inside look at a writer’s brain: Every time I finish writing a book, I shout, “There! I’ve done it! There’s nothing more to say!”
But there always is more to say, more to think about, more to learn, more to teach.
What questions, concerns, and topics related to sex and aging did I not cover in Naked at Our Age, or cover too briefly? What more would you like to know about aging and sexuality in all its colors?
Yes, I’m thinking about my next book, and I need your input! Brainstorm with me by posting your suggestions. (Though you’re welcome to use a fake name, please tell me your real age.)
5/27/13 update: Here are some ideas that followers of my Naked at Our Age Facebook page posted, to get you started:
- Do you cover Tantra? Or is that too New Age for “our age”?
- I’d like to know what I can do in my 40s to prepare for the longest, healthiest, most enjoyable sex life possible in the decades that follow.
- I know you covered some of this in Naked at Our Age but more of how to deal with Sexless Marriage would be real good thanks xxx
Best Sex Writing 2013: book review
Every year, I look forward to the new edition of the Best Sex Writing series from Cleis Press. This year’s Best Sex Writing 2013: The State of Today’s Sexual Culture offers 20 sex-themed, nonfiction essays, previously published in magazines and on websites as diverse as Playboy, Salon.com, New York magazine, The Atlantic.com, and Church & State Magazine.
Since this blog is for sex-positive people age 50+, I always check out the essays about or by our age group first. These two emerged as my favorites:
- “Ghosts: All My Men Are Dead” by Carol Queen stunned me with its beautiful writing and poignant content. Queen writes from the heart about the men in her life whom she lost to AIDS, interspersed with her own story of her sexual blooming in San Francisco, a self-described “small-town dyke who really wanted to fuck practically every gay man she ever saw.” For those of us who lived through the bewildering beginning of AIDS and the ensuing grief, fear, and loss, this essay is particularly moving, though I challenge anyone of any age to read it with dry eyes.
- “Very Legal: Sex and Love in Retirement” by Alex Morris is a fascinating look at the dating lives of residents age 70+ to 90 at Flushing House, an independent living facility in Queens, NY. “There’s a practicality that comes with knowing there are certain undeniable limits to how long a romance can last, or what romance at the age of eighty-five even means,” Morris writes. What about sex? Al, age 89, keeps Viagra in a plastic bag in his shirt pocket. “You know, sex isn’t everything, but it has a lot to do with it,” he says. “An awful lot to do with it.”
I don’t mean to imply that only the essays by writers of our age or addressing issues affecting our demographic will interest you — not at all! You’ll be as absorbed as I was by most of the essays here. Some are political; some are intensely personal. All are well-chosen and well-written. If you’re a sex geek, as I am, you’ll devour this book.
Cleis’s own book description says it well:
The Best Sex Writing series has fundamentally changed the way people think—and what they say—about sexuality. Rachel Kramer Bussel has collected the year’s most challenging, literate and provocative pieces on this endlessly fascinating subject.
This is not an exaggeration. Thank you, editor Rachel Kramer Bussel and guest judge Carol Queen for this superb anthology. And thank you, Cleis Press, for always being a staunch supporter of a sex-positive view of the world.
Best Sex Writing editor Rachel Kramer Bussel is a prolific author, editor and blogger. She has edited over forty books of erotica, and has been published in over one hundred anthologies. She blogs at lustylady.blogspot.com.
Learn more about Best Sex Writing 2013 here.