Breaking Rules at Our Age
What sexual “rules” have you broken since turning 50, 60, or beyond?
I ask this because I discovered from the interviews and reader stories that you’ll read in Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex, many of us make some pretty drastic changes in our lives after age 50. Maybe we get divorced, discover love, open up our marriage, take a new lover, experiment with kink or multiple partners or virtual sex — or some combination of these or other alternatives.
The point is that although society sees us as settled into mid-life or old age, we’re far from “settled.” I think there’s something about emerging from menopause that makes us question where we want to be in our lives. Menopause often feels like an upheaval — I’ve described it before as “PMS on steroids” — where everything seems upside down. We don’t want to be responsible for remembering the whole family’s appointments, for example, and we might not be overly kind when we tell family members to take care of themselves.
After the upheaval settles, we see our lives differently. We realize that it’s now or never: it’s up to us to invent — or reinvent — what we want the rest of our lives to be, and what we have to do to actively go after our dreams.
At the same time, in our sexual world, the old ways may not work any more. We may need different kinds of arousal or even a different type of relationship or a different partner. Major!
I got so many stories from my Naked at Our Age interviewees about alternative sex practices that this topic became a whole chapter: “Off the Beaten Path: Nontraditional Sex Practices and Relationships.” People wrote about swinging, polyamory, BDSM, friends with benefits, older women/younger men (20-30 years difference!), phone sex, and more.
I predicted that younger readers would be shocked at what seniors are doing behind closed doors, and I should have guessed that it would shock our own age group, too. I’ve heard a couple of criticisms that this chapter and the one titled “Hiring Sensuality” (which I won’t tell you about — you have to read that one for yourself, and no, it’s not just men hiring sex!) make it sound like I’m endorsing or even pushing people towards alternative lifestyles.
I’m not pushing anyone into anything. I’m showing senior sex — behaviors and attitudes — in all its colors and stripes. Personally, I support adults doing with other consenting adults whatever brings them pleasure, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone — including the partners of those consenting adults. I have “vanilla” tastes myself, but that’s beside the point. The book is only partly about me. It’s really about you… and you… and you.
So back to my original question: What sexual “rules” have you broken since turning 50, 60, or beyond? By rules I mean society’s rules, the law, unspoken or spoken rules in a relationship, even your own rules. I’d love to see a dialogue start here. Please comment!
Learn more about Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex here.
Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex: book review
Oh, my goodness – I started reading Sugar in My Bowl and I couldn’t stop. I loved this book.
Sugar in My Bowl: : Real Women Write About Real Sex, edited by. Erica Jong, is a remarkable anthology of personal essays and a few short stories, all with the theme of what women think about sex and how they remember and think back on pivotal sexual experiences.
As older women, we’re often ignored and made to feel invisible, especially our sexuality. I love it when books celebrate us, take us seriously, and convey our true experiences and attitudes.
That’s what happens in this anthology. At least half of the writers are age 50+. You can tell from some of the photos and dates or era references in their essays. Some of the younger writers talk about their parents, so we get plenty of sex after midlife in this book.
In “Peekaboo I See You,” Anne Roiphe describes playing doctor with a pal at age 5, while World War II was part of the adult world. “Jimmy puts his hand on my wee wee and he leans down to examine it carefully.” Later they reverse roles, and she wonders, “What do you do with those things below your penis?” “Nothing, he says, “they’re just there for decoration.” Of course they get caught. We always got caught.
In “Worst Sex,” Gail Collins, who came of age in the early 1960s, writes about her religious upbringing, when even starting to get aroused was a sin: “My friends and I were part of the last batch of American women to spend their adolescence being constantly lectured about sex by women who had never had any.”
In “My Best Friend’s Boyfriend,” Fay Weldon describes losing her virginity at age 18 in 1949, when “sex was a dangerous thing, far more interesting and erotic than it is now.”
In “Sex with a Stranger,” Susan Cheever heard the same warnings as I did growing up in the 1950s: “They won’t buy the cow if they get the milk for free.” That didn’t stop her from picking up men at parties. “The real danger of a one-night stand [isn’t that] it will lead to nothing, but that it will lead to everything…Those who are not ready to have their life changed should probably abstain.”
In “Going All the Way,” Liz Smith writes about losing her virginity to her first cousin at 16 in 1939 in an “A plus” experience. “I don’t remember if I had an orgasm,” she writes, “I was so ecstatically having ‘something’ special happen that I didn’t know if I was missing something else.”
In “Herman and Margot,” a short story about an 87-year-old woman and a 92-year-old man, Karen Abbott writes, “In the beginning they take things slowly, reveling in the irony of teasing time when they have so little of it left.”
Sometimes the sex is good, often it’s unsatisfying, bewildering, even “labia-shrivelling” (Jann Turner). It’s always fascinating, the kinds of conversations we wish we could have with other women, but brilliantly written by top-notch writers.
 |
|
| Erica Jong |
I kept noticing that the older women’s essays had the coloring of decades-later perspective, and this was often the take-home message of the essay. We women not only enjoy having sex — we also contemplate it afterwards as well as before! Even when the experience is less than fulfilling — and many of them are! — we learn from them and struggle to make better choices next time.
Jong writes that Anais Nin told her in 1971, “Women who write about sex are never taken seriously as writers.”
“But that’s why we must do it, Miss Nin,” Jong countered. I agree!
Thank you, Erica Jong and all the writers in this anthology for taking on this mission with such purpose and craft. Exceptional book, highly recommended.
Sugar in My Bowl (the title is from a Bessie Smith blues song) has its own website here.
He Said What? book review
I’ve read and enjoyed all Victoria Zackheim’s anthologies. She’s our age, and she knows the themes that affect our lives and haunt our memories. She has a knack for gathering top-notch writers to share their personal moments, and she’s at the top of her game with He Said What?
The essays are powerful revelations of a moment when something a man said changed how a women saw herself, or made a life decision, or knew a relationship was over. As you’d guess, some of the personal essays (and they’re very personal!) revolve around bad boys, bad dates, bad lovers, bad husbands, and bad liars. But sometimes the man uttering the life altering words is a father, a teacher, a doctor, or a brother, and sometimes they’re not bad people, just bearers of bad news.
Some of the essays are funny, especially those about the “demented dance of dating,” as Jane Ganahl calls it. Some are searing. All are worth reading.
Most of the writers in this anthology are over 50, Zackheim tells me. Sometimes you can tell that from the context of the essay: a 6th grade bathroom in 1964; a miniskirt, tie-died shirt, or Grateful Dead song at 15; marrying a naval officer before he ships out to Vietnam. Writing these essays with the perspective of decades after the pivotal event makes them even more powerful to a reader, especially readers our age.
I’ll bet this review is making you think about which “He Said What?” incident you’d choose. Please feel free to comment with your own memory here. Men, “She Said What?” memories are welcome, too!
What did Dean Edell, Candida Royalle, Peggy Brick, and Pepper Schwartz say about Naked at Our Age?
On the back of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex, you’ll see glowing testimonials from Dr. Dean Edell, Candida Royalle, Peggy Brick, and Pepper Schwartz.
Due to space, those testimonials on the back had to be abridged, but here I can share the entirety of what these amazing people wrote. I’m grateful, even tearful, to see the response this book is getting already!
“At last the void is filled. Hang on, because Naked at Our Age breaks all the barriers and goes where ordinary books on this subject dare not….some readers may be shocked and challenged, and others delighted by this bold, direct, honest and completely uncensored approach. An eye opening challenge for anyone who dares to think that sex ends at 60. The message is clear…as far as sex in the senior years.… the best is yet to come. While this groundbreaking book will have some of you blushing, you won’t put it down.”
“Told through the voices of real people interspersed with great advice from smart professionals, Naked at Our Age is an important resource for anyone who wants to keep pleasure and sensuality in their lives as they move in to their later years. I especially like Joan Price’s warm and supportive tone and her ability to get people to share their stories, from which we learn a lot!”
– CANDIDA ROYALLE, Pioneer of woman-friendly erotica and author of How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do.
“Joan Price tells it like it is, ‘The Old Ways Don’t Do It Anymore!’ Then, with irresistible enthusiasm, she tackles all the outdated expectations and promotes a plethora of new ways to celebrate sexuality throughout the later years. Poignant quotations from seniors aged 50 to 90 illustrate the distress caused by the common sexual problems of aging. Succinct responses by professionals describe a rich variety of alternatives. ‘Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex’ is exactly what we do in my course, ‘Older, Wiser, Sexually Smarter,’ so Naked At Our Age will be the perfect text.
“Naked at our Age is a terrific book for adults of any age– but especially written for Baby Boomers and beyond. I loved the mix of voices- personal stories, various expert’s advice- and no sugar coating anywhere- just facts, feelings, and how to have fun. There is plenty of advice – from dating to safer sex– but most importantly, the impact of the book is as much inspirational as it is educational. Reading this book will help women and their partners understand their sexuality better, negotiate what they want more successfully, and make it more likely that sex will be a comfort and thrill their whole life long.”
Order an autographed copy directly from me — be sure to let me know to whom to autograph it — by clicking the PayPal button below…
=====
If you are a Dr. Dean Edell fan, as I am, you’ve heard his arguments against circumcision. In this video, Edell debunks circumcision as AIDs prevention in Africa: