Senior Sex Activism: a Love Letter to My Readers
Welcome to Better Than I Ever Expected!
My book, Better Then I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty (Seal Press), will be out in January 2006. Please see here for a description of this sassy, sexy book combining my personal story with tips and tales from lusty, sexually seasoned women.
We’re proving that our society’s view of older women as sexless is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I’d like to invite you –whether or not you’re a woman over sixty — to participate in discussions of ageless sexuality. Please choose a first name of your choice and your age to identify yourself, and feel free to post comments and questions regarding this hot and important topic.
To start you out, what makes sex after sixty better than you ever expected, personally?
I’d like your candid views, and I hope you’ll express them respectfully so that all women will feel welcome to read and post, and won’t feel they’ve wandered into a sleazy place. Thank you, and welcome to our community!
Joan Price
In the past 5.5 years, so much has happened, personally and professionally. Better Than I Ever Expected and I received much media attention –we still do! — and I found myself the spokesperson for senior sex. What had started as a mission to normalize the idea of people over 60 enjoying sex and daring to talk out loud about it became a huge groundswell. I thank you for the part you played in this movement.
Thank you for making this blog a center of that movement by reading and commenting, showing other readers that we have a community of seniors and elders — men as well as women now! — discussing sex openly and respectfully in a manner that’s welcoming even to people who are not used to discussing their sex lives.
Because of you, one book led to the next one: Men said to me, “What about us?” and both men and women said, “Great that you’re celebrating senior sex, but I’m having a lousy sex life and here’s my problem….” I realized that my next book needed to be aimed at both genders, and needed to address the problems and offer solutions. It also needed to include your stories, because we’ve never shared our stories in public before.
Our youth-oriented society may still be saying “Ick!” to the idea of people our age getting naked, loving the pleasures our bodies can give us, loving each other (wrinkles and all!) and finding ways to stay sexually vibrant whether we’re partnered or not — but society can’t pretend it isn’t happening!
Thank you for that. I’m honored that you’ve chosen to join me in talking out loud about senior sex!
Warmly,
Joan Price
As always, I invite your comments!
“Promise me you’ll keep doing your work…”
“Promise me you’ll keep doing your work,” Robert said, taking both my hands in his and pressing them to his heart, looking deeply into my eyes.
It was three years ago — end of March 2008 — and we had learned that his body was succumbing to multiple myeloma. There were treatments we could and would try, but this conversation marked the countdown to the end, as I think back on it.
He would have one more month of health — fatigued, but able to live the way he loved — going to his art studio to paint, dancing joyfully, and loving me as if his life depended on it (and maybe it did). Then, as treatments failed, his back fractured in multiple places. The extreme pain led him into another world — a world where love was not enough to heal or even ease the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain.
“Promise me you’ll keep doing your work…”
Our profound sexual connection had powered our relationship for our seven, soul-soaring years together. Neither of us had ever had a relationship as sexually exuberant or as emotionally satisfying! Professionally, our spicy hot afternoon delights propelled me to switch writing topics from health and fitness to senior sex. Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty
We already knew that our love wasn’t “forever” the way young people think of it. Besides being seniors, we had the challenge of Robert’s diagnosis — at that point — of leukemia and lymphoma. Our wedding celebrated not only our love, but that six months of chemotherapy had sent Robert’s cancer into remission. We were told we might have ten or more good years of health, a magical gift.
But we didn’t have ten years — we had two.
“Promise me you’ll keep doing your work…”
March 2011: Two countdowns shift in my mind. In August, I’ll face the 3-year anniversary of Robert’s death. (When does it get easier?) But before that, in June, I’ll welcome a new book into the world — Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex — the book I started working on with Robert. In fact, you’ll see that he wrote part of the chapter, “Unlearning Our Upbringing: Men’s Stories.”
I think at our age, those of us who dare to live and love fully have this balancing act between the sweet surprises and rewards of living our dreams out loud and the inevitable losses. Robert gave me the right advice: “Promise me you’ll keep doing your work.” It sustains me and brings me great joy — as does sharing it with you!
“Friends with benefits” — at our age?
Can we have a bedmate who isn’t a soulmate — or even a steady date — at our age?
Miriam, age 57, wrote me this email pondering whether or not it’s possible to have a “friend with benefits” — AKA “sex buddy” — at our age, getting the perks of sex with someone we feel comfortable with, but don’t consider a love relationship:
I read in Better Than I Ever Expected
I eventually want another lifelong love. I could only consider having sex with someone I like and love. I’d like to try the sex buddy approach, but I have a burning emotional question: Even if he’s currently a friend who is willing to be a sex buddy and there’s not a chance between us for a long romance, how do you keep your oxytocin bonding feelings from taking over and locking onto your sex buddy when you should be looking for a more robust, true love, like you had with Robert?
I’d love to know how to navigate this territory without getting derailed or distracted from my goal of finding a long term love. So who are good candidates? And what kind of parameters do you have with such a pillow pal? Monogamous with each other for the time being? Either one is free to have other partners? How do you end it?
I think you said in your book that you actually had a sex buddy when you first met Robert. How did you transition out of it? Any tips for how to make this successful?
I had several sex buddies/ friends with benefits during my long decades of single life. These were men who were friends first, and we genuinely liked each other. We recognized and discussed honestly that we were not each other’s true loves and we understood that our relationship would not develop in that direction.
Yet we were attracted to each other, and at the time we were not in other exclusive relationships. We did a lot of talking before we decided that we would enjoy being sex buddies.
We agreed from the beginning — and I think this is very important — that we would not be exclusive with each other, would not stop seeking an eventual partner, and if we started getting serious about someone else, we would terminate the sexual part of our friendship.
In my 30’s and 40’s, I had a dear sex buddy whom I enjoyed for many years, on and off (depending on whether one of us became involved in another relationship that needed to be monogamous). We were good friends in and out of bed.
But that was largely hormone-driven. Now other sexual needs drive us than our hormones. We want to be touched and held, we love our arousal and our orgasms, we love the high of sex with an enjoyable partner and the laughter and intimacy afterwards. You’re right that our bonding brain chemicals could play tricks on us and convince us were’ in love when the sex is good, even though our logic says no.
The person you mention who was my buddy for two years (I was 55-57) right before Robert and I became involved was in a committed relationship with someone with disparate sexual needs. My friend and I met with his mate and discussed what would be acceptable. We agreed to do only what didn’t feel threatening to my friend’s partner. This worked out very well. But I know this is rare. We were, all three of us, unusually verbal and honest, with good communications skills and a solid friendship.
Then, when Robert and I shared our first kiss, I immediately broke things off with my buddy, who understood and wished me well. We stayed close, Platonic friends — and we still are.
Of course I was honest with Robert, who was understandably uncomfortable about the whole business — he had never had such a relationship, and didn’t understand or like this. So be aware, if you enter into such a relationship, that you might encounter this, too.
Robert eventually got to know my buddy and like him, though he continued to furrow his brow and shake his head at what seemed to him to be very odd behavior!
Miriam also asked me this:
Who are the candidates? When I think of my single male friends, overwhelmingly, I consider them like brothers, and there’s no sexual vibe at all. The only other candidates would be former lovers, if we’ve been able to separate amicably and maintain a friendship. I’d be willing to try that, but then I’m concerned about that oxytocin bonding boost. Since I have already been in love with them once, I fear I’d get too bonded to them again, and stop putting out energy to be available for anyone else, even though I know there’s no romantic long term future with them. But the sensual touch sure would be nice!
I would not return to a former lover whom I had loved for this experiment. It just seems full of potential problems, because your earlier emotions could kick in easily.
Readers, help us here. Where did you find a friend with benefits who was emotionally safe? How did you approach a friend with an offer of FWB? I hope you’ll comment.
(Originally posted March 2010.)
Senior Sex: Solo Style
Candida Royalle, known for pioneering the genre of woman-friendly erotic films and the Natural Contours line of intimate massagers, is the author of How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do. Candida wrote a marvelous piece for my new book, Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex (coming this June — finally!) about the importance of keeping ourselves sexually heathy when we’re not in a relationship.
At age 59, Candida says she’s not in a hurry to find a new partner, but “I am committed to having a date with myself at least once a week to exercise my PC muscle, which runs along the pelvic floor and surrounds the entire vagina. Then I reward myself with a nice little session of self-pleasuring.”
Erica Manfred, divorced at sixty, is the author of He’s History You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After Forty. Erica contributed helpful tips to Naked at Our Age for getting through the devastating emotion- and ego-slamming period of a later-life divorce. 
In a recent Huffington Post article, Erica writes that at age 68, she has decided to give up on dating and sex. “It takes a hell of a lot of energy to date at my age,” the former sexual enthusiast writes. She’s not closing off the possibility of “getting my mojo back” in case Mr. Senior Right shows up at the supermarket, but she’s abandoning the online dating sites and cuddling her chihuahua.
Rachel Kramer Bussel is, at 35, the youngest of our sex-positive celibates. Rachel is an erotica author, sex columnist, and editor of 38 anthologies, including my favorite series: Best Sex Writing 2008, 2009 and 2010.
Is it hard to write about sex all day and not go after it at night? “Am I missing out on what’s supposed to be my sexual peak?” Rachel wonders. “Maybe friends with benefits is the best life can offer me and I’m being foolish or stupid to hold out for something more fulfilling. Or maybe I’ll find that I like being on my own so much I don’t ever want to actually join forces with someone else.”
I’ve divulged my own celibacy since losing Robert — on this blog in a shy way, and with more candor in Naked at Our Age (you’ll see!). I’ve started to date again, which so far means a series of sexless first dates. I’ve had some excitement (again, you’ll have to wait for Naked at Our Age!) but without the culmination of inviting a partner into my body.
Senior sex is still my intellectual, emotional, and career passion. My mission to normalize later-life sexuality in the eyes of society is as important to me now as when Robert and I were curling each other’s toes. I know I’m getting somewhere when seniors are seen as oddities when they’re not having sex!
As always, I welcome your comments!
