In a time of rather unsettling news, one might imagine that the fact that Dame Judi Dench, at the age of 82, still rather enjoys sex, wouldn’t rate a mention.
But, alas, here we are.
Judi Dench, left, and Ali Fazal pose during a photo call for the film Victoria And Abdul at the 74th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy.
By Annie Brown
n an interview for The Radio Times, Dench spoke about her latest role playing Queen Victoria in the throes of a romantic-tinged friendship with Indian clerk Abdul Karim in the twilight years of her life. The film, Victoria and Abdul, said Dench, explores the quite shocking idea that sex, romance and intimacy isn’t just for the young.
“Well, of course, you still feel desire. Does that ever go? To the older reader, I would say: ‘Don’t give up,'” the Oscar winner said.
Dench then further scandalised everybody by admitting that she doesn’t wear older lady certified undies (beige, bloomer-esque, devoid of any sexiness, one supposes).
“There’s a lovely naughty knicker shop — but don’t buy up everything because I’m going there,” Dench said (or perhaps she purred? We weren’t eye witnesses).
Dench also spoke about not needing to fake an attraction to her co-star, Ali Fazal, who plays Abdul Karim,
“He is very, very tall.
Actress Jane Fonda arrives for the photo call for the film Our Souls At Night at the 74th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy.
“He is extremely beautiful and he is an utterly delightful, charming man.”
“No acting at all required.”
Needless to say, her admissions attracted a lot of breathy headlines around the world.
In her personal life Dench has also found love once more with conservationist David Mills, 73, following the death of her husband of 30 years, Michael Williams, in 2001.
She told Good Housekeeping recently, “One hot night during the summer we swam and had a glass of champagne in the garden and I said: ‘This is so fantastic’. I get overexcited about things. I love having a laugh.”
Dench joins Jane Fonda, 79, this month in the scandalous act of talking about older people both having sex, and a zest for life.
Speaking at the Venice Film Festival Fonda spilled on filming (and enjoying) sex scenes in her 70s. Because it reflects where she’s at (in the bedroom).
“First of all, we’re braver,” Fonda told The Hollywood Reporterof her sex life now. “What do you have to lose? So my skin sags… so does his. You know your body better, so you’re not afraid to ask for what you need. I think on a love and sex level, it just gets better.”
And here’s the thing, just as in Fonda’s show, Grace and Frankie, in which she and co-star Lily Tomlin have rediscovered their sexual desire after unsatisfying marriages (and created a rather nifty new product line in vibrators designed for older women), older people have sex. And experience desire. And fancy the pants off people.
Something that was reflected in New Zealand’s brand Lonely Lingerie’ decision to cast 56-year-old model Mercy Brewer for its autumn/winter campaign earlier this year. Because, it turns out, (some) women over 30 like nice smalls too – be it for a partner or purely for their own pleasure. Again, wouldn’t it be nice when a woman in her 50s posing in her underwear isn’t celebrated but is, in fact, business as usual?
According to a recent study of 7000 men and women aged between 50 and 90, half of men and almost a third of women aged 70 and over were still sexually active.
As The Conversation reports, about two-thirds of men and more than half of women thought “good sexual relations were essential to the maintenance of a long-term relationship” and “being sexually active was physically and psychologically beneficial to older people.”
Putting to the side sexual problems that can come with age, and creating expectations around what the sex life of an older person ‘should’ look like (it might be swinging from the chandelier! It might be no sex but a nice cup of tea, please! All of which is fine). But it sure would be nice if the news of Judi Dench and Jane Fonda’s sex lives didn’t have such cut-through.
For, surely, we have far more urgent things to be alarmed about.
[S]ex is just as important for women after 50: that’s what the European Court of Human Rights made clear when it ruled that the judges who reduced a 50-year-old woman’s compensation for a botched gynaecological operation had discriminated against her.
Maria Morais, who is Portuguese and has two children, sought compensation on the grounds that she was unable to continue a normal sex life, but the judges in the original case had argued that the importance of sex declines for women as they get older.
The European Court of Human Rights found that this constituted sexual discrimination, and that the judges had “ignored the physical and psychological importance of sexuality for women’s self-fulfilment and other dimensions of women’s sexuality”.
Sex doesn’t stop at a certain age
In popular culture, portrayals of relationships among older people are becoming more common, implying a greater acknowledgement of older women’s sexuality
In popular culture, portrayals of relationships among older people are becoming more common, implying a greater acknowledgement of older women’s sexuality. The film It’s Complicated (2009) starred Meryl Streep (inset), whose character has an affair with her ex, played by Alec Baldwin, decades after their divorce. This year, Hampstead saw Diane Keaton as a widow falling in love with a man living wild on Hampstead Heath, played by Brendan Gleeson.
Data backs up her case, too. In 2014, a Saga survey of 9,685 people aged over 50 found three-fifths are sexually active and 23 per cent are having sex once a week.
Research released by the Longevity Centre in 2016 showed that 60 per cent of men and 37 per cent of women aged over 65 had sexual activity in the past year.
Caitlin (not her real name), 62, needs no court ruling or Hollywood film to tell her that her sex life is important. She has been in a number of monogamous relationships, but is now having intimate relationships with more than one man.
Having an active sex life makes me feel alive. There’s a deliciousness about it.
I’m single and I have sex regularly, but I’ve been celibate in an earlier relationship when my partner lost interest. I have also been a mistress, where I discovered the thrill of coming to terms with my non-vanilla side. I feel more in touch with my sexuality now than I ever have done.
Sex is not the be all and end all. While I’m passionate about sex for those who want it, I’m also very aware that other people can get satisfaction from other things. But I think if one has the desire, sex is such a fabulous, life-enforcing thing at any age. It’s just a marvellous sensation.
Being 62 doesn’t mean I have to settle
I talk openly about my sex life with my close friends; it’s a running joke with them about what my neighbours would make of me.
I’m not hankering for my ‘one and only’. If I met them, that would be delightful. But I don’t believe I shouldn’t have a sex life just because I haven’t met ‘the one’. You can have good enough relationships that are absolutely fine without being the big thing. I don’t like compromising – just because I’m 62, it doesn’t mean I have to settle.
It would be fabulous to meet somebody who ticks all of the boxes, but I don’t feel I’m missing out because I haven’t got that. Having a sense of adventure and not knowing who I may meet is great fun.
I wanted to be open minded about sex
‘I was stood in the college library and thought, ‘I’m going to go and masturbate’
I grew up in a village South Wales and lost my virginity aged 18 to the man I thought I was going to marry. It was a huge thing because I was still a practising Catholic and it was not the done thing to have sex at school.
At that age, I wanted to be open minded about sex. I enjoyed it. I loved the power of being able to turn a man on, But with everything around you [at that age] you have a patriarchal version of sexuality. The whole thing of ‘what is sexy’ comes from the images you see.
I never masturbated as a teenager – I think I was quite proud that I didn’t. Then I got into this relationship and started to think there must be more to sex than this. When I was 19, I was stood in the college library and thought, ‘I’m going to go and masturbate.’ And I went back to my room and I did!
I began exploring my sexuality in my forties
‘I set myself a goal of being able to use a computer.’
I’ve always had sexual fantasies about spanking, which meant I had a life time of growing up with these suppressed fantasies that I thought were sort of dangerous.
I began exploring my sexuality in my forties when I posted adverts in a magazine. I met someone I thought I was going to be with for the rest of my life when he responded to my advert.
He already knew that I had these fantasies from reading my advert. Our sex life was completely vanilla but fantastic and very active until about six years in, when he developed an illness and went off sex. He seemed almost relieved of the burden.
I cared about him and so I put up with it and set myself a couple of personal goals. One was to learn to use a computer properly. Another was to start creative writing – I had always wanted to write erotica.
Things changed with this exploration of female sexuality and fantasies. I realised I wasn’t going to bring the world crashing down because I have sexual fantasies.
Age 56, I started advertising for lovers
‘I discovered this community out there with the same interest.’
Writing erotica was fun and I was curious to find out if what worked for me sexually worked for other people. I discovered this community out there with the same interest and it brought me back to life.
I started communicating with a man online. We discovered we were both in sexless relationships. I had never been unfaithful and took monogamy very seriously but I was getting to the point where I couldn’t continue like this. I told my partner I was going to struggle to stay faithful if our relationship remained non-sexual.
Suddenly, we had a fantastic sex life again. But it only lasted a fortnight.I told my partner again that I would not be able to be faithful in a sexless marriage and he left me. The man I was talking to online became my lover.
I began putting adverts out online to meet other people and started having other sexual partners. I was 56 at this time.
Sex has to be intimate
We have the rituals you have as a couple; going out together, watching TV, going on holidays
For me, there has to be a level of intimacy in sexual encounters. I met a couple of guys where there was a coldness and that is just not right for me. But there can be a level of intimacy without love.
There’s a chap I’ve been seeing for a few years and we’re very comfortable with each other. We have the rituals you have as a couple; going out together, watching TV, going on holidays.
I see other people because the time we have together is limited and I want more. The ages of the people I see varies; I recently stopped seeing someone who was five years older. The oldest chap I was seeing was about 69. But I’ve also had relationships with people in their thirties and forties.
I’ve now moved back to the village where I grew up. I’m part of the Women’s Institutes and I’ve done relatively serious things work wise. It’s just nice that there is this other part of you that is private, such fun and so life-enhancing.
[I] had a few relationships in my 20s. In some, the sex was OK, in others just boring. I blame it on the fact that I was brought up to believe sex was functional, that men wanted it and women put up with it.
In my early 30s I married a man with limited sexual experience. He was from a religious background and wanted to wait till we were married: boy, was that a mistake. Sex was focused only on what he wanted. We were together for over 20 years and had three kids, and I can probably count the orgasms I had in single figures. Trying to talk about it caused angry outbursts. It was horrible and led to our breakup in my early 50s.
At that point, I decided to figure out if there was something wrong with me. I read Becoming Orgasmic and bought a vibrator, terrified my teenagers would hear me experimenting. I found that, like many women, I just needed sufficient time and attention to reach orgasm.
I began seeing a man, also just out of a sexless relationship, and we talked a lot about what we enjoyed before we did anything. For me, it’s not just about technique – it’s about being with someone who cares enough to invest the time. Sex is finally fun for both of us and we have been quite adventurous – even al fresco. We’ve been together for over two years, and recently married.
My message to other women is: you can start over in later life. This might involve a new partner. Take time to get to know your body after childbirth, breastfeeding and menopause. Do this on your own, if you prefer, then bring what you’ve learned into your relationship(s). And don’t settle for boring sex.
[P]ersons living with dementia don’t have sex. Or they have weird sex. Or they have dangerous sex, in need of containment.
When it comes to dementia and sexuality, negative language and apocalyptic warnings abound. The aging population has been described in the media as a “rape case time-bomb.” Health practitioners often respond in punishing ways to sexual activity in residential care. And the sexual rights of persons living with dementia are largely ignored within residential care policy, professional training and clinical guidelines.
Practitioners and administrators often hold negative and judgmental attitudes about dementia and aged sexuality
Our research at the University of Toronto and the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network investigates embodiment, relationality, ethics and dementia. We are motivated by a shared concern about the reductive focus of dementia care on basic physical needs, and our desire to foster a more humane and life-enriching culture of care. We have explored how the sexualities of persons living with dementia are poorly supported in long-term residential care settings such as nursing homes.
Sex and dementia in the media
When we see persons living with dementia and sex linked in the media, it tends to be in high profile cases of
Institutional policies, structures and practices must support sexual expression.
Vital as such investigations are to the safety of residents in long-term care, we rarely see sexual expression valued or as fundamental to human flourishing.
Our research has explored how these negative representations of the sexualities of persons living with dementia are also found within long-term residential care settings such as nursing homes.
Practitioners and administrators often hold negative and judgmental attitudes about dementia and aged sexuality. When faced with sexual activity, they can intervene in threatening and punishing ways. And long-term care policies, professional training and clinical guidelines tend to ignore the sexual rights of persons with dementia.
The problem with biomedical ethics
The sexualities of persons living with dementia are considered troubling partly because long-term care polices are shaped by biomedical ethics. This ethical approach relies on four core principles: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. These principles support intervening in residents’ sexual expression if it will cause harm to themselves or cause harm or offence to others.
However, this approach sets the bar for practitioners’ interference excessively high. It can restrict voluntary sexual expression by residents living with dementia in nursing homes.
Biomedical ethics also ignore the performative, embodied and relational aspects of ethical reasoning. It assumes that people are rational autonomous beings. It also assumes that self-expression, including sexuality, results only from cognitive and reflective decision making. Given that dementia involves progressive cognitive impairment, persons living with dementia may be unfairly discriminated against by this approach to sexual decision making.
A duty to support sexual expression
We use a model of relational citizenship to create an alternative ethic in which sexuality is seen as embodied self-expression. It is an ethic that recognizes human beings as embodied and embedded in a lifeworld. And one that views sexuality as an important part of being human.
Social and leisure activities supportive of the development of intimate relationships are essential within nursing homes.
This new ethic broadens the goals of dementia care. No longer do health professionals just have the duty to protect persons with dementia from harm. There is also a duty to support their right to sexual expression.
We argue that institutional policies, structures and practices must also support sexual expression. These should facilitate sexual rights. We must also introduce education for health professionals and the broader public — and policy initiatives to counteract the stigma associated with sexuality and dementia.
Social and leisure activities that are supportive of sexual expression and the development of intimate relationships are also essential within nursing homes.
Of course, protection from unwanted contact or sexual harm is still important. However, freedom of sexual expression should only be restricted when necessary to protect the health and safety of the individuals involved.
[D]eclining brain power is a real worry for some people as they age, but new research from England suggests a fun and healthy way to keep your mind sharp, no matter how old you get – sex. According to the study, frequent sexual activity has been linked to improved brain function in older adults, adding yet another health benefit to everyone’s favorite activity.
The study, published online in The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological and Social Sciences, found that people who had sex more frequently scored higher on tests to measure their verbal fluency and their ability to visually perceive objects and spaces between them. This suggests that sex can act as a sort of exercise for the brain, helping to keep it sharp as we age, though researchers aren’t sure exactly why.
“We can only speculate whether this is driven by social or physical elements — but an area we would like to research further is the biological mechanisms that may influence this,” Lead researcher Dr Hayley Wright said in a recent statement on ScienceDaily. “Every time we do another piece of research we are getting a little bit closer to understanding why this association exists at all, what the underlying mechanisms are, and whether there is a ’cause and effect’ relationship between sexual activity and cognitive function in older people.
For the study, the team from Coventry University and Oxford University interviewed 73 people between 50 and 83 years old about their sex lives. The volunteers were asked to fill out a questionnaire which asked how often they had sex, as well as other general questions about their health and lifestyle. The volunteers also took a standardized test that measured different aspect of their cognitive function, such as their ability to pay attention and remember facts, as well as their language and visuospatial skills. Results revealed that increased sexual activity was linked to increased verbal fluency and visuospatial skills. However, sexual activity seemed to have no affect on their attention skills, memory, or language.
This isn’t the first study to look into the benefits of sex in older individuals. For example, in 2016, the same team found that the protective effects of sex on the brain were stronger in men than women. The team speculate that sex may help protect the brain through the release of dopamine and oxytocin, two hormones that not only cause good feelings, but are also vital to brain function by improving connectivity between certain parts of the brain.
Regardless of why sex is helpful for the brains of older individuals, these results suggest that sex is an important part of our health and shouldn’t be discarded just because you age.
“People don’t like to think that older people have sex — but we need to challenge this conception at a societal level and look at what impact sexual activity can have on those aged 50 and over, beyond the known effects on sexual health and general wellbeing,” said Wright.
The basic human need of intimacy does not disappear as we age however in aged care planning it is mostly overlooked and often regarded as inappropriate.
by Annie Waddington-Feather
[C]ouples in aged care facilities are being given little to no privacy in their intimate and sexual relationships, and it’s often the staff who prevent couples from having this intimacy.
A UK study involving residents, non-resident female spouses of residents with a dementia and 16 care staff, carried out last year, found feedback very different from the stereotypical assumption of older people not been sexual.
Carried out by a research team for the Older People’s Understandings of Sexuality (OPUS), some participants denied their sexuality, others expressed nostalgia for something they considered as belonging in the past, and some still expressed an openness to sex and intimacy.
More recently a New Zealand pilot study carried out by Associate Professor Mark Henrickson, from the School of Social Work, and School of Nursing senior lecturer Dr Catherine Cook explored attitudes to sexuality in aged residential care facilities.
They found the need for better understanding of the intimacy needs of older people and a significant number of staff, families and residents are managing complex situations without clear processes to protect residents’ rights and safety.
Intimacy in a care home setting is complicated. Issues include querying consent for someone who is in cognitive decline, staff managing adult children who deem their parent’s behaviour as wrong, and a lack of privacy for couples. Plus, there is a stereotype to overcome – for many sex and intimacy is associated with youth, not older people.
“We are a microcosm of an ageist culture,” says Australian expert Dr Catherine Barrett, Director, Celebrate Ageing.
Dr Barrett’s views go beyond a person’s sexuality and importance of sex, believing there should also be a focus on non-sexual physical intimacy. She highlights a study by the University of Queensland where babies were found to recover quicker if they are touched.
“We need to focus more broadly,” she says. “Some people have sexual relationships because they’re lacking skin on skin touch. Known as ‘skin hunger’ (also known as touch hunger) it is a need for physical human contact, and this can be mistaken as a need for sex.”
She cites one example of a male resident who behaved very inappropriately to any females in the room. “A massage therapist came once a week and he stopped doing what he was doing,” she says. While some residential homes do access sex workers, Dr Barret says in some cases it’s simply for a person to come over and cuddle.
Aged care advocate Anne Fairhall, whose husband of over 50 years is living with dementia and is in a care home says they both missed skin contact. And it wasn’t just between the two of them. “In an aged care home, everyone puts on rubber gloves,” she points out.
Ms Fairhall believes people living with dementia respond very well to love, affection and intimacy. “We’d gone from sleeping in one bed to sleeping in two different locations, and he asked me ‘do you still love me?’; he couldn’t comprehend why I’d put him in a home.” she says. “But it’s not just about holding his hand; it’s about having some privacy.”
“It’s also about eye contact, an arm around the shoulder and stroking his skin. It’s giving him the body language message I’m connecting with him,” says Ms Fairhall. “I’d go in later in the day, sit close to him at dinner and after he’d eaten, get him into his pyjamas, kiss, cuddle and put cheek to cheek.”
Just lying beside her husband is comforting. “Staff are surprised if they walk in and they are a bit embarrassed at first– less so now as they get to know you,” she says.
Dr Barret is calling for more training and education to be given. “We can’t point the finger and say ‘not good enough’ to aged care homes – we need to be asking how we can help,” she says.
To this end, through the OPAL (Older People And SexuaLity) Institute, Dr Barret has developed a set of tools and resources for service providers and organisations. This includes holding workshops and helping develop policies and procedures around sexuality and intimacy.
After attending one of the workshops, Victorian provider Cooinda is in the process of implementing a sexuality policy template.
“This is an important step forward in what we do and the care we give,” says April Betheras, community support, Cooinda. “We talk a lot about person centred care and we have ideas about sexuality and intimacy, but the big thing is being able to think about the whole picture. It’s about identifying with the person and having the conversation.”
She says there is more communication with residents about the subject now, but acknowledges not all residents want to participate. “While some feel that [sexual] part of their life has gone, there are other ways of being close,” says Ms Betheras. “A partner can participate in aspects of care. This is what keeps them close and feeling connected still.”
Training in sexuality and intimacy is also now compulsory for staff. “Staff feel confident in speaking about and dealing with issues. For instance if someone wants access to a sex worker, what would you do that? Who would you go to?,” says Ms Betheras. “LGBTI is also incorporated so we can consider all particular needs.”
Those age 70 and up are having more sex and enjoying it more than younger people. But they don’t kiss and tell.
A study published in March in the Archives of Sexual Behavior noted a decline in sexual frequency among Americans of all ages. The sole exception: people over 70.
By Kevyn Burger
[G]ray-haired customers sometimes sidle up to Smitten Kitten owner Jennifer Pritchett and say with a smile, “Bet you don’t get someone my age in here often.”
The owner of the south Minneapolis adult store smiles right back. “And then I say, ‘Well, you’re wrong. We see people your age every day,’ ” said Pritchett.
Conventional wisdom holds that couples in their golden years prefer to limit their affection to holding hands, a peck on the cheek, maybe a little nighttime cuddle. But a growing body of research reveals that America’s seniors are plenty active between the sheets.
A study published in March in the Archives of Sexual Behavior noted a decline in sexual frequency among Americans of all ages. The sole exception: people over 70.
In the most recent survey for the study, which has been conducted since 1972, millennials and Gen X’ers showed a drop in the number of times they have sex per year, compared with previous years. But the baby boomers and their parents are having sex more often than their cohorts reported in the past.
The study and others like it seem to indicate that the quality — not just the quantity — of sex improves with age. The National Commission on Aging reported that the majority of the over-70 set find sex to be more emotionally and physically satisfying than when they were middle-aged.
Those conclusions are in line with a 2015 British study that found half of men and almost a third of women above 70 reported having sex at least twice a month. It was the first British study on sexual health to include octogenarians. It documented that a sizable minority of those in their 80s still masturbate and have sex.
Many people are, especially younger people.
“We see a consistent disbelief that older people are sexually active,” said Jim Firman, president and CEO of the National Council on Aging.
But Firman is adamant that those antiquated, ageist attitudes shouldn’t put a damper on the love lives of older Americans.
“We can’t let expectations of younger people control what we do,” he said. “Physical contact is a universal need and should be normalized and encouraged as part of aging. We should break those taboos or exceptions that say otherwise.”
Different, but ‘still hot’
Pritchett is all about breaking taboos.
In addition to its selection of vibrators, lubricants and videos, Smitten Kitten maintains a lending library. The books that fly off the shelves the fastest are about sex in later life.
“That’s kind of telling about how hungry people are for this information,” Pritchett said. “Sex ed in school is based around reproduction. When you’re older, family planning is not part of your sexuality. What’s left is pleasure.”
The most popular of the books on the store’s shelf were written by Joan Price, who bills herself as an “advocate for ageless sexuality.” Her bestsellers include “The Ultimate Guide to Sex After 50,” “Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex” and “Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty.”
“My mission is to help people maintain or regain a satisfying sex life, with or without a partner” said Price, 73, who lives in California and regularly lectures, blogs and offers webinars on topics such as senior-friendly sex toys and satisfying sex without penetration.
Price said she got interested in creating content about sexuality for underserved seniors when, at 57, she met a man and “had the best sex of my life.” The longtime health and fitness writer couldn’t find any resources that reflected her experience, so she tackled the subject herself, becoming an erotic cheerleader for her cohorts.
“Sex has no expiration date, but things change — our bodies, our hormones, our relationships,” she said. “Expectations have to change. Responses are slower, we need more sensation, more stimulation to be aroused. We may have to redefine or reframe sex, but it can still be hot.”
Price, who’ll lead workshops at Smitten Kitten on June 4-5, preaches about the importance of communication between older partners.
Silenced by sex shaming
For Carol Watson, 67, flexibility is the key.
Still bawdy about her body, the Minneapolis woman is semiretired from her work at a nonprofit but retains a full-time interest in intimacy.
Starting when she went to college in 1967, she said, she’s “cut a wide swath.”
“That was the Summer of Love, the year birth control pills became readily available,” said the married mother of two adult children. “There was no AIDS, no Hep-C, nothing that couldn’t be solved with a shot of penicillin. We were the generation that could have sex without consequences — and we did. I’ve had many partners and no regrets.”
When her libido flagged a decade ago, Watson asked her doctor for an estrogen prescription for both a patch and cream.
“I’m happy sex is still part of my life. It keeps me young,” she said. “It’s stress relief, validation. It’s about joy.”
Describing herself as “on the far end of the bell curve,” Watson enjoys sex several times a week, within her marriage and with other partners, and said she has no plans to slow down.
“My mother died at 92 and Dad lived to be 96. I’m going to live to be 120 and I’m not willing to let sex fade into the distance.”
Watson’s frankness makes her a bit of an outlier.
While sex may be more common among older adults than younger ones, talking about senior sex still seems off limits. And that only perpetuates the myth that seniors have little interest in it.
“It’s still a sex-shaming society for older people and they internalize that,” said Pritchett. “It’s too bad because the shame keeps seniors in the dark. Old bodies are just as worthy of pleasure as young ones.”
[I]f you are drinking your morning coffee while reading this, then perhaps this article should come with a warning. There are going to be phrases that we tend not to discuss much in public such as vaginal dryness, loss of libido and erectile dysfunction. However, they are a natural part of life, and if we want to continue to be active sexual people well into middle age and beyond, then we have to acknowledge and then address them, because turning the trials and tribulations of middle-age sex into the joy of sex is not difficult.
Sex is important to all of us, regardless of age. Not only is it excellent for getting the blood pumping and putting a youthful spring in your step, it has a number of other benefits too, such as reducing stress, strengthening your immune system, boosting self-esteem, and relieving depression.
The famous manual, The Joy of Sex, still has some salient advice for middle- aged and older people even though it was written nearly 50 years ago. It’s author Alex Comfort wrote: “The things that stop you enjoying sex in an old age are the same things that stop you from riding a bicycle – bad health, thinking it’s silly and no bicycle”.
Well, we can pump up a flat tyre, add some lubricating oil, and still be having sexual enjoyment with no partner. As recent research has shown, and despite an ageist societal view on the topic, our sexuality doesn’t die with middle and growing age. Our sexual needs and levels evolve and change over the years, and the particular issues that might arise from menopause, for example, do not mean we should give up on it. We just need to learn to adapt.
Emily Power Smith may be Ireland’s only clinical sexologist, and talks to large numbers of middle-aged women in her clinics and at talks around the country. “I’ve spoken and written more on this topic than any other related to sex, and the main driver for women coming to me with an issue is poor education. Generally women are very misinformed about what they should be expecting and are very quick to blame themselves.”
If we look at sexual activity as a life-long issue, there can be plenty of interruptions to the normal flow, including illness, childbirth and child rearing, loss of confidence, menopause, and hormonal fluctuations. Low libido, erectile dysfunction, and vaginal dryness are all just normal challenges that can affect our sexual lives, but importantly, ones that can be easily addressed.
“We do specific menopause consultations and counselling for women who start experiencing changes and want to know that they are a normal part of the ageing process,” says Dr Shirley McQuade, medical director of the Dublin Well Woman Centre. “Many women come in with a specific symptom thinking it’s all over, but in fact nearly all issues can be addressed. You just need to realise that your, and your partner’s body changes.”
So what are the main issues and what can be done about them?
Peri-menopausal symptoms
Menopause can effect every aspect of your being, and symptoms including hot flushes, not sleeping, and poor concentration levels, can affect how you feel about yourself.
“Hormonal changes can mean your libido and sex drive go, as well and the emotional havoc they can play,” explains Dr McQuaid. Mood swings, empty nest syndrome, trying teenagers, or work/life balance can weigh in to make us feel less than energetic about sex.
“It is really important to take the time for yourself when you are peri-menopausal, to take stock and adjust to the changes that are happening. I see lots of women who have reached senior career level or have lots of people depend on them and it can be difficult because they feel overwhelmed and aren’t giving enough time to themselves to deal with how they feel.”
The advice is to take pressure off yourself, and try and cull some of the responsibilities. Exercise, eat and sleep well and acknowledge that you can seek help if you need it. “I’ve seen women go to cardiologists because they think they have heart problems when they wake up sweating in the night, or go to rheumatologists with joint pain, when in fact they are just the symptoms of hormonal change.”
Hormone Replacement Therapy
HRT is a common treatment for women who are suffering from continued and difficult symptoms, and it only takes two or three weeks to find out if it will work for you. According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NicE) in their 2015 recommendations, the benefits of HRT, available in tablet form, gels, and patches far outweigh any risks.
According to Dr McQuaid, it is a positive option to take. “About 15 years ago there were scares about risks relating to heart disease and cancer, but the studies were seriously flawed. For women who take it through their 50s, the benefits are significant.”
HRT is available for as long as your symptoms last, with the average duration being eight years. Despite scaremongering to the contrary, there are no withdrawal symptoms or problems when you stop taking the drug, as long as you leave it long enough for your natural menopause to conclude. HRT masks the symptoms, so if you stop before they have fully receded, they will return.
Not all women experience menopausal symptoms, and for women who do, they do eventually pass.
Vaginal dryness
It is completely normal for most women in menopause to experience dryness. The drop in your body’s oestrogen levels means the vaginal membranes become thinner and drier which can makes for uncomfortable dryness. As a result, thrush and Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) are also more common. Lubrication is widely available and will transform your sexual experience if dryness is a problem. Dr McQuaid also recommends treating the underlying issue rather than just the symptom. A prescription product, licensed in Ireland as Vagifem, provides low levels of oestrogen to the local area, and if taken over the longer term can alleviate all symptoms of dryness. Regular sexual activity or stimulation from masturbation also promotes vaginal health and blood flow.
Erectile dysfunction
For men who may identify their every maleness with work and sexual ability, a lowering of libido or erectile dysfunction can be catastrophic. However, accepting that this will happen occasionally, and seeing it a normal part of the ageing process and hormonal changes may encourage them to seek help. The advice is to go to your GP to get checked out to make sure erectile dysfunction is not related to vascular changes and bold pressure / diabetes, and then again there is a simple medication solution.
Painful intercourse
Again this can be a common change in sexual experience, usually due to vaginal dryness. However, other reasons could be a prolapse of the uterus or front wall of vagina which can cause discomfort, so the first port of call for any pain is to get examined by your GP or at the Well Women clinics. All issues can be addressed with medication or procedures.
Heavy periods
A common complaint for women entering peri-menopause is very heavy periods, which are caused by the womb being uncomfortable and bulky. Some women from the age of 40 develop fibroids which make the womb heavier and along with hormonal fluctuations, combine to make structural and hormonal changes that affect the flow of periods. Some women have low iron levels, because heavy periods are the main reason for low iron which makes you tired, so it’s important to keep a medical check on your body while going through the menopause.
Traditionally this was often treated by a hysterectomy, whereas today women can access the pill or coil. All countries where the coil has been introduced have seen a significant reduction in hysterectomy operations.
Change of mind
Addressing specific symptoms is only one way of evolving our sexual lives. Changing the way we have sex is another. “I meet women who have only ever used one position, and now that that proves painful they are at a loss,” explains Dr McQuaid. “It’s useful to experiment and change. It’s more interesting too!”
What we need to remember is that sex is not just about intercourse. There is a variety of sensual, loving, exciting activities that can bring joy and satisfaction. For women experiencing menopause especially, they might need and want more touching and foreplay than before, but after years of marriage, it can be more difficult to change. Asking for what you need is important. Tantric sex – slightly ridiculed in the press after Sting and Trudie Styler admitted to it – is encouraged by many counsellors as it focuses on the sensual intimacy rather than an orgasmic goal.
Whatever the issue with sex may be, Dr McQuaid advises you start with a medical to check to make sure everything is okay. Once that is done, it’s just about dealing with specific issues. “I’ve had a 78-year-old woman come to me recently having a little bit of trouble because her partner has been given Viagra. So she went on Vagifem and has no more problems,” says McQuaid. “I have lots of women come to us for help and they’re happy and healthy and they certainly don’t stop having a sex life. Nor should they.”
Psychologically however, it is also important to rise above the social conditioning that we lose our sexiness as we get older. “There is just no scientific evidence to back this up,” explains Power Smith. “Irish women are very quick to blame themselves and feel guilty for not being better, not feeling enough or good enough. In part we are brought up to feel this way with magazines and media, and then when middle age hits, physical things happen to compound that.” She has three golden rules for women in their middle age with regards to keeping their sex lives healthy and functioning: masturbation, lubrication and communication.
So while the number of potential causes of sexual changes and challenges during menopause and middle ageing can seem overwhelming, there are just as many strategies and treatments for overcoming them.
[S]eventy-nine-year-old Jane Fonda is doing for vibrators what 44-year-old Jane Fonda did for aerobics videos: mainstreaming them.
And not a moment too soon.
The new season of her critically acclaimed Netflix series, “Grace and Frankie,” co-starring Lily Tomlin, sees the two women launch a business selling sex toys for women. If you happen to drive down Vine Street in Hollywood, you might see a giant billboard of Fonda and Tomlin holding ribbed, purple objects under the words “Good vibes” — in case there was any confusion about what they’re holding.
And if you watch “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” you may have happened upon Fonda unveiling a vibrator on daytime TV. (Take that, “The View”!)
“Use it or lose it, right?” Fonda says to DeGeneres, who seems uncharacteristically bewildered.
“Was this something you knew about before the character?” DeGeneres asks. “Before you researched it, was this something you knew about, I mean, were familiar with? Used?”
Fonda offers an emphatic “yes,” before explaining that she owns one vibrator that doubles as a necklace. “It looks like a beautiful piece of silver jewelry.”
Until it doesn’t.
“I applaud her,” said Lauren Streicher, medical director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause. “I’ve been trying to talk about this on daytime TV for years, and no one will have any part of it.”
Fifty-two percent of American women use a vibrator, Streicher said, according to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. And women over 60, in particular, need to know about their benefits.
“Sometimes nerve endings aren’t as sensitive as they used to be, so what did it for you before isn’t going to necessarily do it anymore,” said Streicher, who wrote “Sex Rx: Hormones, Health, and Your Best Sex Ever” (Dey St.). “In addition, you have a lot of medical conditions — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis — that can cause a desensitization of nerve endings, so there is a need for increased stimulation.”
Which may explain why the Carol Wright Gifts catalog — known mostly for its compression support knee-high socks, bunion bandages and denture liners — features a two-page spread of “personal massagers” with such names as Couple’s Raging Bull and The Amazing Butterfly Kiss.
There should be no shame in the vibrator game.
“It’s really just an acknowledgment that women are entitled to pleasure,” Streicher said. “It’s OK for men to have sex and pleasure and to desire that until the day they die, but when you look at women in their 70s talking about sexuality, that’s been something mainstream media has absolutely no interest in.”
Maybe Fonda will help change that.
“I hope so,” Streicher told me. “When I teach medical students, I tell them: Don’t ever say to a woman, ‘Do you have a vibrator?’ That is the wrong question. What you say is, ‘When you use your vibrator …'”
She continued: “When I ask a patient, as part of her history, ‘Are you able to have an orgasm?’ and she says no, I say, ‘How about when you use your vibrator?'”
It lessens the stigma and leads to a more honest discussion, Streicher said.
“We know, at best, maybe 25 percent of women are able to have an orgasm through intercourse alone,” she said. “If men weren’t able to have orgasms and there was a device that made it happen, there would be nothing taboo about it.”
And if Fonda has her way, there won’t be for much longer.
[I]magine living in an aged care home. Now imagine your needs for touch and intimacy being overlooked. More than 500,000 individuals aged 65+ (double the population of Cardiff) live in care homes in Britain. Many could be missing out on needs and rights concerning intimacy and sexual activity because they appear to be “designed out” of policy and practice. The situation can be doubly complicated for lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans individuals who can feel obliged to go “back into the closet” and hide their identity when they enter care.
Little is known about intimacy and sexuality in this sub-sector of care. Residents are often assumed to be prudish and “past it”. Yet neglecting such needs can affect self-esteem and mental health.
A study by a research team for Older People’s Understandings of Sexuality (OPUS), based in Northwest England, involved residents, non-resident female spouses of residents with a dementia and 16 care staff. The study found individuals’ accounts more diverse and complicated than stereotypes of older people as asexual. Some study participants denied their sexuality. Others expressed nostalgia for something they considered as belonging in the past. Yet others still expressed an openness to sex and intimacy given the right conditions.
Insights
The most common story among study participants reflected the idea that older residents have moved past a life that features or is deserving of sex and intimacy. One male resident, aged 79, declared: “Nobody talks about it”. However, an 80-year-old female resident considered that some women residents might wish to continue sexual activity with the right person.
For spouses, cuddling and affection figured as basic human needs and could eclipse needs for sex. One spouse spoke about the importance of touch and holding hands to remind her partner that he was still loved and valued. Such gestures were vital in sustaining a relationship with a partner who had changed because of a dementia.
Care staff underlined the need for training to help them to assist residents meet their sexual and intimacy needs. Staff highlighted grey areas of consent within long-term relationships where one or both partners showed declining capacity. They also spoke about how expressions of sexuality posed ethical and legal dilemmas. For example, individuals affected by a dementia can project feelings towards another or receive such attention inappropriately. The challenge was to balance safeguarding welfare with individual needs and desires.
Some problems were literally built into care home environments and delivery of care. Most care homes consist of single rooms and provide few opportunities for people to sit together. A “no locked door” policy in one home caused one spouse to describe the situation as, “like living in a goldfish bowl”.
But not all accounts were problematic. Care staff wished to support the expression of sex, sexuality and intimacy needs but felt constrained by the need to safeguard. One manager described how their home managed this issue by placing curtains behind the frosted glass window in one room. This enabled a couple to enjoy each other’s company with privacy. Such simple changes suggest a more measured approach to safeguarding (not driven by anxiety over residents’ sexuality), which could ensure the privacy needed for intimacy.
Conclusions
Our study revealed a lack of awareness by staff of the need to meet sexuality and intimacy needs. Service providers need guidance on such needs and should provide it to staff. The information is out there and they can get the advice they need from the Care Quality Commission, Independent Longevity Centre, Local Government Association and the Royal College of Nursing.
Policies and practices should recognise resident diversity and avoid treating everyone the same. This approach risks reinforcing inequality and doesn’t meet the range of needs of very different residents. The views of black, working-class and LGBT individuals are commonly absent from research on ageing sexuality and service provision. One care worker spoke of how her home’s sexuality policy (a rare occurrence anyway) was effectively a “heterosexuality policy”. It may be harder for an older, working-class, black, female or trans-identified individual to express their sexuality needs compared to an older white, middle-class, heterosexual male.
Care homes need to provide awareness-raising events for staff and service users on this topic. These events should address stereotyping and ways of achieving a balance between enabling choices, desires, rights and safeguarding. There is also a need for nationally recognised training resources on these issues.
Older people should not be denied basic human rights. This policy vacuum could be so easily addressed over time and with appropriate training. What we need now is a bigger conversation about sex and intimacy in later life and what we can do to help bring about some simple changes in the care home system.
[I]t is a common assumption that once a couple ties the knot, sex goes out the window. Indeed, the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who said “I do” nine times, once quipped: “I know nothing about sex, because I was always married”.
Yet new research indicates that most couples in long-term relationships remain happy well into their sixties.
While it is not uncommon for couples to disagree about how often they should have sex, this does not necessarily alter their commitment to the relationship, scientists at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Manchester will hear on Wednesday.
Levels of sexual desire
Researchers surveyed more than 5,000 heterosexual, lesbian, gay and bisexual people aged 16 to 65 to discuss their relationships.
Around 60 per cent of respondents believed that sex was an important part of their relationship while 15 per cent disagreed. The remainder neither agreed nor disagreed.
One third (33 per cent) of women reported that their partners wanted sex more frequently than they did, while a larger proportion, 40 per cent, said this was not the case.
Only 10 per cent of men said that their partners wanted sex more frequently than they did, compared with nearly two thirds (60 per cent) who said they did not.
‘Part and parcel’ of relationship cycle
The research, conducted by Professor Jacqui Gabb, of the Open University, and Professor Janet Fink, of the University of Huddersfield, and presented in Manchester on Wednesday, reveals that differences in sexual desire are not considered “particularly significant”.
“Couples are saying that differences in sexual frequency and desire are just part and parcel of the relationship cycle and are accepted as not particularly significant,” Professor Gabb said.
Still going strong
The study also found that many older participants continued to derive pleasure from their sex lives even when sexual activity was less frequent than it had once been.
One older woman who participated in the research described sex as “one of the prerequisites of a relationship” for her.
However, she added: “There are other areas of a relationship which I think need a lot more work and are far more important, like trust, money, love [and] teamwork.”
Long-term love
Professor Gabb said of the findings: “Fluctuations in desire are inexorably tied into other life factors, but it is the sharing of a life together, the investment in that joint venture and the acceptance of change as an integral part of this shared life which enables couples to weather the ebbs and flows that characterise sexual intimacy and the passage of time in long-term relationships.”
She added: “The longevity of partnerships seems to be connected with couples’ capacity to negotiate changing circumstances. For older couples, the first blush of a new relationship may have worn off but the relationship has not tarnished.”
[A]fter Alice Radosh’s husband of 40 years died in 2013, she received, in addition to the usual condolences, countless offers of help with matters like finances, her car and household repairs. But no one, not even close friends or grief counselors, dared to discuss a nagging need that plagues many older women and men who outlive their sexual partners.
Dr. Radosh, 75 and a neuropsychologist by training, calls it “sexual bereavement,” which she defines as grief associated with losing sexual intimacy with a long-term partner. The result, she and her co-author Linda Simkin wrote in a recently published report, is “disenfranchised grief, a grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned and publicly shared.”
“It’s a grief that no one talks about,” Dr. Radosh, a resident of Lake Hill, N.Y., said in an interview. “But if you can’t get past it, it can have negative effects on your physical and emotional health, and you won’t be prepared for the next relationship,” should an opportunity for one come along.
Yes, dear readers of all ages and the children of aging parents, many people in their golden years still have sexual urges and desires for intimacy that go unfulfilled when a partner becomes seriously ill or dies.
“Studies have shown that people are still having and enjoying sex in their 60s, 70s and 80s,” Dr. Radosh said. “They consider their sexual relationship to be an extremely important part of their lives. But when one partner dies, it’s over.”
In a study of a representative national sample of 3,005 older American adults, Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau and co-authors found that 73 percent of those ages 57 to 64, 53 percent of those 65 to 74 and 26 percent of those 75 to 85 were still sexually active.
Yet a report published by the United Kingdom’s Department of Health in 2013, the National Service Framework for Older People, “makes no mention of the problems related to sexual issues older people may face,” Dr. Radosh and Ms. Simkin wrote in the journal Reproductive Health Matters. “Researchers have even suggested that some health care professionals might share the prejudice that sex in older people is ‘disgusting’ or ‘simply funny’ and therefore avoid discussing sexuality with their older patients.”
Dr. Radosh and Ms. Simkin undertook “an exploratory survey of currently married women” that they hope will stimulate further study of sexual bereavement and, more important, reduce the reluctance of both lay people and health professionals to speak openly about this emotionally and physically challenging source of grief.
As one therapist who read their journal article wrote, “Two of my clients have been recently widowed and felt that they were very unusual in ‘missing sex at my age.’ I will use your article as a reference for these women.”
Another wrote: “It got me thinking of ALL the sexual bereavement there is, through being single, through divorce, through disinterest and through what I am experiencing, through prostatectomy. It is not talked about.”
Prior research has “documented that physicians/counselors are generally uncomfortable discussing sex with older women and men,” the researchers noted. “As a result, such discussions either never happen or happen awkwardly.” Even best-selling memoirs about the death of a spouse, like Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” fail to discuss the loss of sexual intimacy, Dr. Radosh said.
Rather than studying widows, she and Ms. Simkin chose to question a sampling of 104 currently partnered women age 55 and older, lest their research add to the distress of bereaved women by raising a “double taboo of death and sex.”
They cited a sarcastic posting from a woman who said she was not a good widow because “a good widow does not crave sex. She certainly doesn’t talk about it…. Apparently, I stink at being a good widow.”
The majority of survey participants said they were currently sexually active, with 86 percent stating that they “enjoyed sex,” the researchers reported. Nearly three in four of the women thought they would miss sex if their partner died, and many said they would want to talk about sex with friends after the death. However, “76 percent said they would want friends to initiate that discussion with them,” rather than bringing it up themselves.
Yet, the researchers found, “even women who said they were comfortable talking about sex reported that it would not occur to them to initiate a discussion about sex if a friend’s partner died.” The older the widowed person, the less likely a friend would be willing to raise the subject of sex. While half of respondents thought they would bring it up with a widowed friend age 40 to 49, only 26 percent would think to discuss it with someone 70 to 79 and only 14 percent if the friend was 80 or older.
But even among young widows, the topic is usually not addressed, said Carole Brody Fleet of Lake Forest, Calif., the author of “Happily Even After” who was widowed at age 40. In an interview she said, “No one brought up my sexuality.” Ms. Fleet, who conducts workshops for widowed people, is forthright in bringing up sex with attendees, some of whom may think they are “terrible people” for even considering it.
She cited “one prevailing emotion: Guilt. Widows don’t discuss the loss of sexual intimacy with friends or mental health professionals because they feel like they’re cheating. They think, ‘How can I feel that?’ But you’re not cheating or casting aspersions on your love for the partner who died.
“You can honor your past, treasure it, but you do not have to live in your past. It’s not an either-or situation. You can incorporate your previous life into the life you’re moving into. People have an endless capacity to love.”
However, Ms. Fleet, who remarried nine years after her husband died, cautioned against acting precipitously when grieving the loss of sexual intimacy. “When you’re missing physical connection with another person, you can make decisions that are not always in your best interest,” she said. “Sex can cloud one’s judgment. Maybe you’re just missing that. It helps to take sex out of the equation and reassess the relationship before becoming sexually intimate.”
Dr. Radosh urges the widowed to bring up grief over the loss of sexual intimacy with a therapist or in a bereavement group. She said, “Even if done awkwardly, make it part of the conversation. Let close friends know this is something you want to talk about. There is a need to normalize this topic.”
[I]nadequate sex and relationships education (SRE) in schools is creating “a ticking sexual health time bomb”, councils are warning, amid concern over high numbers of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among young people.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents 370 councils in England and Wales, has joined the growing clamour urging the government to make sex education compulsory in all secondary schools. Currently it is mandatory in local authority-maintained schools, but not in academies and free schools which make up 65% of secondaries.
Izzi Seccombe, chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said it was a major health protection issue. “The lack of compulsory sex and relationship education in academies and free schools is storing up problems for later on in life, creating a ticking sexual health time bomb, as we are seeing in those who have recently left school.
“The shockingly high numbers of STI diagnoses in teenagers and young adults, particularly in the immediate post-school generation, is of huge concern to councils.
The LGA appeal came as the government was reported to be close to making an announcement regarding SRE and PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education), after the education secretary, Justine Greening, flagged up the issue as a priority for government.
Campaigners hope the announcement will be made during the next stage of the children and social work bill, which is passing through parliament. An amendment with cross-party support was tabled last week which, if carried, would would amount to the biggest overhaul in sex education in 17 years, but it is not yet clear what the government announcement will amount to, and crucially whether it will make SRE compulsory.
Seccombe said: “We believe that making sex and relationship education compulsory in all secondary schools, not just council-maintained ones, could make a real difference in reversing this trend, by preparing pupils for adulthood and enabling them to better take care of themselves and future partners.”
The LGA says while SRE should be made compulsory for secondary school children, with statutory guidance on key issues including sexual health, parents should still be given the option of taking their children from the lessons.
Tory MP Maria Miller was among those proposing the amendment to the bill last week. It followed an inquiry by the women and equalities committee, chaired by Miller, which heard that most children have seen online pornography by the time they leave primary school and two thirds will have been asked for a sexual digital image of themselves before they leave secondary school.
According to Miller, research has shown that just one in four children at secondary school receives any teaching on sex and relationship issues, and Ofsted has said that when it is taught the quality of teaching is often poor.
“Different interest groups cannot agree on a way forward that suits them and in the meantime we are letting down a generation of children who are not being taught how to keep themselves safe in an online, digital world,” said Miller.
“We are not teaching them that pornography isn’t representative of a typical relationship, that sexting images are illegal and could be distributed to child abuse websites and how to be aware of the signs of grooming for sexual exploitation.
[A]lthough Valentine’s Day is often criticised as a cynical creation by florists and the greeting cards industry, it is a useful focal point for considering love and sexuality as elements of human wellbeing that often escape attention in healthcare.
This neglect is most marked in later life, when popular discourse on late life romance is dominated by simple notions of asexuality or by ribald jokes
There are many reasons why healthcare professionals need to learn more about human love and sexuality, not least of which is a fuller understanding of the nature and meaning of ageing.
exuality is a core element of human nature, encompassing a wide range of aspects over and above those related to genital functions, and the medical literature has rightly been criticised for taking too narrow a vision of sexuality.
We need to open up to the continuing significance of love and sexuality into later life
This narrow vision is paralleled by a steady trend in the neurosciences of “neuroreductionism”, an over-simplistic analysis of which parts of the brain light up in sophisticated scanners on viewing photos of a loved one.
We need to open up to the continuing significance of love and sexuality into later life, understanding that sexuality includes a broad range of attributes, including intimacy, appearance, desirability, physical contact and new possibilities.
Studies
Numerous studies affirm sexual engagement into the extremes of life, with emerging research on the continuing importance of romantic love into late life. There is also reassuring data on the persistence of romantic love in long-term relationships, unsurprisingly associated with higher levels of relationship satisfaction.
A growing literature sheds light on developing new relationships in later life, with a fascinating Australian study on online dating which subverts two clichés – that older people are asexual and computer illiterate.
The challenge in ageing is best reflected in the extent to which we enable and support intimacy and sexuality in nursing homes. Although for many this is their new home, the interaction of institutional life (medication rounds, meals), issues of staff training and lack of attention to design of spaces that foster intimacy can check the ability to foster relationships and express sexuality.
For example, is the resident’s room large enough for a sofa or domestic furnishings that reflects one’s style, personality and sense of the romantic? Are sitting spaces small and domestic rather than large day rooms? Do care routines allow for privacy and intimacy? Is there access to a selection of personal clothes, make-up and hairdressing?
Granted, there can also be complicated issues when residents with dementia enter new relationships and the need to ensure consent in a sensitive manner, but these should be manageable with due training and expertise in gerontological nursing and appropriate specialist advice.
Supports
A medical humanities approach can provide useful supports in education from many sources, ranging from literature ( Love in the Time of Cholera), film ( 45 Years or the remarkable and explicit Cloud 9 from 2009) or opera (Janácek’s Cunning Little Vixen, a musical reflection of the septuagenarian composer’s passion for the younger Kamila Stösslová).
We, as present and future older Irish people, also need to take a step back and consider if we are comfortable with a longer view on romance and sexuality.
The Abbey Theatre did us considerable service in 2015 with a wonderful version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in a nursing home. We were struck by a vivid sense of the inner vitality of these older people, suffused with desire, passion and romance.
This contemporary understanding of companionship and sexuality in later life was enhanced by casting Egeus as a son exercised about his mother’s romantic choices instead of a father at odds with his daughter.
We can also take heart from an early pioneer of ageing and sexuality, the late Alex Comfort. Best known for his ground-breaking The Joy of Sex, he was also a gerontologist of distinction, and wrote knowledgeably about the intersection of both subjects with characteristic humour.
He wrote that the things that stop you having sex with age are exactly the same as those that stop you riding a bicycle: bad health, thinking it looks silly or having no bicycle, with the difference being that they happen later for sex than for the bicycle.
His openness and encouragement for our future mirror Thomas Kinsella’s gritty poem on love in later life, Legendary Figures in Old Age, which ends with the line: ‘We cannot renew the Gift but we can drain it to the last drop.’
Women’s sexuality doesn’t die with age, but the level of their desire is diverse.
By Margaret Jennings
[S]he seemed to have it all: a loving family, successful career and beautiful home.
Then Yvonne Carmichael jeopardised everything by having a torrid affair with a random stranger, ripping apart the cosy trajectory of her life.
Yvonne is the lead character in a BBC1 mini-series currently steaming up our TV screens, called Apple Tree Yard.
And while the storyline takes us from the joys of lust to the darkness of rape, it’s rare to see a 50-something female take centre stage in such scenes.
Midlife affairs are usually the reserve of testosterone-driven, crisis-ridden males — as if females have no such needs — or so the media world would have us believe.
Apple Tree Yard, a dramatised version of a novel by Amanda Coe, challenges pre-conceived ideas about middle-age sex.
It not only affirms that it’s OK for older women to be sexually expressive, it annihilates the myth that we become “invisible” and asexual just because we are ageing.
The four-part psychological thriller has prompted a lively debate on this issue and 50-year — old actress Emily Watson, who plays Yvonne, has commented: “Your sexuality doesn’t die with your age. You don’t have to apologise for it.”
The idea that our sexuality can be compartmentalised as non-existent, especially as we are living longer more vital lives, seems absurd.
While Yvonne’s torrid affair illustrates this explicitly, it also raises the issue of how our latent sexual urges are perfectly ripe to be reignited at this stage of life, depending on our circumstances and responses.
“Many women of 50 and beyond succumb to a flagging libido, more difficult arousal and maybe a stale, longtime relationship, by retreating from sex.
“Then they meet someone new and — bam — they feel the excitement that they thought they had left far behind,” says Joan Price, a US author and blogger on senior sexuality.
“They feel on fire. Their sex drive — which they thought was dormant — goes into overdrive. It can be quite an amazing and delicious experience. It can also be bewildering and guilt-filled, if a woman has an affair when she’s in a committed, monogamous relationship.”
Price, now 72, has first- hand experience of this herself: “I was 57 when I met the man who would become my husband and great love. I had been single for decades, with occasional relationships that didn’t go anywhere — and long dry spells.
“It was distressing, because I knew I was a vibrant, sexual being, but after menopause I seemed invisible to the men I met. Many women report that they feel the same. How glorious it is then, when we meet the right person and that person is as electrified as we are!”
The on-screen electricity between research scientist and grandmother-to-be Yvonne, and her handsome lover, Mark Costley (played by Ben Chaplin), is an endorsement of this passionate potential, but is there something missing in our relationship if we yearn to seek those sparks elsewhere?
Sex in relationships is not just about sex, but about the connect between a woman and her partner, says Lisa O’Hara, a couple counsellor with Dublin-based clinic Mind and Body Works.
“If lack of libido is an issue for a couple attending for counselling, it can be part of a wider discontent than just the sexual connection. There may be a loss of closeness in general and resentments by the woman towards the partner that have built up over years, which have gone unaddressed.
“If these are addressed in therapy and things improve, sex may be back once again.”
However, some of her midlife female clients do develop a stronger curiosity about their own desires and fantasies, once free of fear of pregnancy or of other lifestyle issues that had got in the way, says O’Hara.
“Some say ‘I’m out of here’. It totally depends on their unique circumstances and how they feel about themselves.”
The myth that we become less sexual as we age was recently explored in research among women aged 55 to 81, titled Sex, Desire and Pleasure: Considering the experiences of older Australian Women.
Research author Bianca Fileborn, a lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, tells Feelgood: “One of the key findings from our research was that women are really diverse — there’s certainly not one way that older women are ‘doing’ sexuality and sexual desire in mid to later life.
Emily Watson’s as character Yvonne Carmichael in the BBC production of ‘Apple Tree Yard’.
“In fact quantitative research carried out in western countries pretty consistently shows that a significant number of older people remain sexually active — usually a majority — at least until they reach ‘deep’ old age, in their 80s and 90s. But even then, a large minority still have sex.
“Another key finding for us was that women’s desire for sex didn’t depend necessarily on how older they were, but what else was going on their lives that influenced them.”
Irish sexologist Emily Power Smith says she knows women of all ages who, although they’re living with chronic illness and pain, are “determined to find ways to feel sexual”.
“Women who enjoy sex will have sexual desire right to the end of their lives and will find creative ways to keep that spark. But I also work with a number of women in their 50s and above, who want to know what all the fuss is about, because they could quite easily never have sex again.
“Inevitably it transpires that they have never really enjoyed sex. As they begin to discover their ability to feel sexual pleasure and arousal, their drives tend to increase.”
ONCE we are leading healthy lives low libido seems more related to the kind of sex we are having, rather than our age, she says.
“I know many young fertile women who hate sex and many older women, post menopause, who love it. Increasingly, there is research to show that older women embarking on new relationships report no reduction whatsoever in their sexual desire.”
Whatever about the complex rich reality of older women’s everyday sex lives, the screening of Apple Tree Yard may nudge the film and media world towards a more rounded representation of the mature female in all her sensual glory.
And perhaps even encourage women to explore their own sexuality more.
There is a growing posse of sexy women in their 50s and older decades, gracing the fashion and beauty world, in recent times, apart from the fact that some of the original supermodels of the ’90s, such as Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson and Linda Evangelista are already past the half century mark.
This year’s Pirelli calendar also sees photographer Peter Lindbergh tap into the zeitgeist, describing the make-up free portraits of his subjects as a “cry against perfection and youth”.
Some of the high-achieving women he chose to feature were actresses Julianne Moore, 56, Charlotte Rampling, 70, and Helen Mirren, 71.
However, despite this celebration of our vitality as we age, we still may have some catching up to do as individuals, says Power Smith.
“Women do a lot of self-policing when it comes to behaviour, dress and dating over a certain age. I think we are so conditioned to believe our lives are over once we’re 50 — though this is changing slowly — we get very troubled at the thought of our peers wearing short skirts, or dating younger people. But the rules don’t serve us. They never did.
“Only now some of us have the financial freedom, confidence and ability to create new norms. So come on! Let’s break some rules!”
Apple Tree Yard, BBC One, Sunday February 5, 9pm
10 ways to feel sexy
Senior sexpert, author and blogger, Joan Price, gives us these 10 tips for hot sex after 50:
1. Slo-o- o-w- w down. It takes longer for us to warm up, and this intensifies as we get older. Make the warm-up phase of sex play last hours… or days.
2. Appreciate, decorate, and celebrate your body. Jewellery, lingerie, feathers, fringe, silk, velvet, massage oil, candlelight — whatever looks good and feels good. If you know you look sexy, you’ll feel sexy.
3. Learn what you like. Explore, experiment. If you’re partnered, communicate what you like.
4. Do sexy things on your own to get in the mood long before you get naked. Work out. Swim. Dance. Fantasise a sexy scene. Spend some time humming with a vibrator, reading erotica, or watching porn — or all of these.
5. Have sex during high energy times, when your arousal is strongest, whether solo or partnered.
6. If you’re partnered, kiss and kiss. Kiss sweetly, passionately, quickly, slowly, contentedly, hungrily, lightly. All kinds of kisses help you bond with your partner, warm up, and enjoy the moment.
7. Explore sex toys and other erotic helpers, alone and/or with a partner. Lucky for us that sex toys are easy to find, fun to try, and wow, do they work!
8. Use a silky lubricant. There are many different lubricants made specifically for sex that feel great and enhance (or bring back) the joy of friction. Make applying lubricant an erotic part of sex play.
9. Enjoy the afterglow. If you’re partnered, indulge in quality snuggle time.
Solo, don’t get back to your daily life right away — bask in your feelings of wellbeing.
10. Laugh a lot. Laughter is joyful, ageless — and sexy.
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