Posts Tagged ‘books’
Aging and Sexuality: Recommended Books for Geriatric Intimacy
In Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex after Sixty, I recommended an assortment of helpful books for women and men interested in having great sex and geriatric intimacy. I thought it would be useful to reprint this resource here. I’ll divide the books by category, and I’ll add new books that have crossed my path since Better Than I Ever Expected was published. Let me know about a special book you’ve enjoyed that belongs here. (Keep checking back — this list is just the beginning!)
I’ve included links to these books on Amazon.com for your convenience and to read more customer reviews, although I encourage you to purchase from your local independent bookstore when possible.
And of course, if you don’t already have it, I hope you’ll read Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty! Order a personally autographed copy directly from the author here, or order from Amazon here.
Better Than Ever: Love and Sex at Midlife by Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., (Crown, 2005). A guide to sexual enjoyment in the second half of life, including overcoming health challenges and staying sexy in long-term relationships, based on 145 interviews with men and women ages 45 to 87. This is an excellent book from the male point of view. Unfortunately, Zilbergeld died before this book could be published. We are fortunate to have his last work.
Dr. Ruth’s Sex After 50: Revving Up Your Romance, Passion & Excitement! by Dr. Ruth Westheimer (Quill Driver, 2005). Smart advice from Dr. Ruth about health issues, physical changes, and keeping your sex life with your partner interesting and fun, with stories of real couples.
The New Love and Sex After 60 by Robert N. Butler and Myrna I. Lewis (Ballantine, 2002). A geriatric physician and a psychotherapist discuss how sexuality is affected by physical aging changes, medical conditions, medications, emotional issues, and relationship changes. Rather dry writing style, but it covers the ground.
Sex Over 50 by Joel D. Block, Ph.D, with Susan Crain Bakos (Parker, 1999). Frank self-help book aimed mostly at couples, with tips (“sizzlers”) galore for recapturing romance and passion and dealing with the sexual challenges of midlife and older, plus anecdotes of geriatric intimacy.
Still Doing It: Men & Women over 60 write about their sexuality, ed. Joani Blank (Down There Press, 2000) Real people 60-plus to 80-plus tell bluntly and in graphic detail (and graphic language) what they do and what they like, including an array of sexual styles.
Rescue Me, He’s Wearing a Moose Hat: And 40 Other Dates After 50 by Sherry Halperin (Seal Press, 2005). Fifty-plus widow’s adventures with online dating mismatches. Fabulously funny and often poignant. With dating catastrophes like these, single life doesn’t look so bad.
Revolution in the Garden: The Memoirs of the Garden Keeper by Dell Williams and Lynn Vannucci, autobiography of founder of Eve’s Garden, New York women’s sex shop, written at age eighty-two. Her reminiscences include losing her virginity in date rape in 1940 and attending Betty Dodson’s masturbation workshop in 1970.
A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance by Jane Juska (Villard, 2003). Sixty-six-year-old woman overcomes a restrictive sexual upbringing and places personal ad: “I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like.” She gets plenty of responses and trysts, but the results mostly aren’t very satisfying.
Still Sexy After All These Years? The 9 Unspoken Truth about Women’s Desire Beyond 50 by Leah Kliger and Deborah Nedelman (Perigee/Penguin, 2006). Empowering self-help guide to understanding your changing sexual desire after fifty, with excerpts from interviews.
Unaccompanied Women: Late-Life Adventures in Love, Sex, and Real Estate
by Jane Juska (Villard, 2006)). Juska chronicles how her life, dating and otherwise, has changed since publication of Round-Heeled Woman. If you enjoyed RHW, you’ll enjoy this one, too.
All Night Long: How to Make Love to a Man Over 50 by Barbara Keesling, Ph.D. (Harper Collins, 2000). A sex therapist and former sex surrogate explains what a woman should understand about an aging man’s sexuality, his “temperamental penis,” and how to keep the focus on “lovemaking, not erections–partnership, not performance.” Practical, frank, and helpful.
Great Sex: A Man’s Guide to the Secrets of Total-Body Sex by Michael Castleman (Rodale, 2004). Castleman writes with warmth and honesty about issues that concern men at any age: their own and their partner’s sexuality and pleasure. An excellent book for the man in your life.
Intimacy with Impotence: the Couple’s Guide to Better Sex after Prostate Disease by Ralph & Barbara Alterowitz (Da Capo/ Lifelong Books, 2004). A frank, practical guidebook to satisfying, sensual intimacy whether or not the male partner can have erections. An array of self-help strategies, from communication and creativity to medical therapies.
I hope this helps you to age vibrantly and your senior sex life! Geriatric intimacy is something to be celebrated.
A man asks about sex after prostate cancer
Billybob, 62, has written several times, always willing to share his thoughts and experiences to help both men and women talk more freely about the special challenges of sex after 60. In his case, these challenges include recovering from divorce, re-entering the dating scene, and living with prostate cancer. I just received this question from him:
Since my cancer treatments I still want sex but I have an erection problem that Viagra seems not to work to well. What would a lady think of me if I chose to use a strap on device? Or do you know of alternatives? And If I were to use a strap on how would I break or tell such an idea to a lady?
I wrote this to Billybob:
If you read the chapter of Better Than I Ever Expected titled “When You or Your Partner Can’t,” you’ll see that women are very happy with fingers, tongue, vibrator, and cuddling when their partner can’t have an erection. I don’t think many women would appreciate a strap-on device, though I suggest you talk about it ahead and let her know you’re willing if she’d like it. My suggestion: level with her about your situation as soon as the intimacy gets past kissing, and see what she’d like and — please! — also tell her what would make you feel satisfied. Let me know how this works for you.
What do the rest of you think?
I read two good books on this topic, which I mentioned in Better Than I Ever Expected and which you can order from Amazon by clicking on the links:
Intimacy with Impotence: the Couple’s Guide to Better Sex after Prostate Disease by Ralph & Barbara Alterowitz (Da Capo/ Lifelong Books, 2004). A frank, practical guidebook to satisfying, sensual intimacy whether or not the male partner can have erections. An array of self-help strategies, from communication and creativity to medical therapies.
Making Love Again: Hope for Couples Facing Loss of Sexual Intimacy by Virginia and Keith Laken (Ant Hill Press, 2002). Candid personal narrative by Keith Laken, prostate cancer survivor facing impotence, and his wife, including fears, arguments, resolutions, setbacks, and a new definition of intimacy.
— Joan
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.