The Ultimate Guide to Sex after Fifty

Your body trembles with wild lust and anticipation. Fantasy ignites your mind. You can’t breathe. You shudder from the thrill of new, unfamiliar hands on your body. You tear off each other’s clothes—ripping, shredding them, you don’t care—unable to wait another minute. You never imagined it could be like this. You can barely control your orgasm.

Oh, wait. That’s a romance novel, or a porn flick, or a bestseller about a college-aged girl and a kinky billionaire. It’s not exactly real life. Especially our real life!

Part of it is certainly true. The brain turns on powerful lust and attraction signals and we feel breathless, giddy, tingly, maybe a little crazy when we’re embarking on a new sexual relationship. The mind and the body are excited by what poly-amorists call New Relationship Energy (NRE)—that overwhelming emotional and sexual craving for our new lover. We’re amazed at the power of our emotions and how young and alive our bodies feel.

Anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of several books about lust and love, is known for exploring the brain chemicals at work during different stages of a relationship. Attraction, she hypothesizes, is associated in the brain with high levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine and with low levels of serotonin. These combine to give us, as she puts it, “increased energy and the focusing of attention on a preferred mating partner. In humans, attraction is also associated with feelings of exhilaration, intrusive thinking about the beloved, and the craving for emotional union.” ⁹⁷

That’s true at any age, including ours! Many of you have written me—and I’ve experienced this myself—that a new lover sends all concerns about our aging bodies flying out the window, leaving us excited, aroused, and eager. Getting sexual with a new person can be fabulous—the excitement of having sex after a time without, discovering and opening to a new person, the thrill of new lust.

At sixty-seven, I’d had no sexual partner other than a vibrator for three years. I was hesitant to be naked with this rapidly aging body and saggy skin. Finally I let go of the nervousness and embraced my sexual being. That mind switch may have been responsible for finally finding the right lover. Yesterday was our first time in bed, and I have never had such a wondrous sexual occasion. It lasted more than an hour easily, but I was not concerned with keeping time. I was in the flow of enjoying and participating in the moment. We laughed together over our bodies’ evidence of age. We rejoiced in sharing our sexual freedom and knowledge.

The first time we had sex, it was very difficult for me. I froze every time he touched me. I would not let his hands touch certain parts of my body, and only took off enough clothes to accomplish what we needed to accomplish.

Sometimes getting sexual with a new lover isn’t fabulous. We’re nervous and anxious, and often our bodies seem to be saying, “Say, what?” instead of “Go, go!”

We may be self-conscious about our looks, or our ability. Sometimes it’s all awkward fumbling, not knowing how to please this unfamiliar person, not knowing how to communicate about how we want to be pleased. The sights, sounds, and smells are all different. Maybe grief wells up—this is not the person who used to share our bed and our body.

Sometimes it’s physical discomfort, or lack of stimulation, or fear that it won’t work. We may find ourselves very aware that we’re no longer driven by our hormones (which would have let us overlook all of this in the past). We may even wish we hadn’t started.

Anxiety doesn’t lead to good sex. The brain is our primary sex organ, transmitting physical sensations, desire, pleasure, and a sense of well-being. But anxiety short-circuits the pleasure and causes the “flight or fight” response—we’re on guard, not relaxed; ready to bolt, not receive pleasure.

This is not only an emotional reaction. Anxiety also sends blood away from our genitals—exactly the opposite of what we need at our age! Penises deflate, vaginas get dry and tight. A worried mind kills pleasure.

Performance anxiety—it’s not just for the young. As if we didn’t have enough to deal with at our age, inhibitions, fears, body image, and feelings of inadequacy are rearing their ugly little heads in our bedrooms and interfering with our sensual enjoyment. Here are a few worries you might recognize, and solutions for minimizing their impact.

Women worry that decreased lubrication will make sex painful, and our partners may think we’re not attracted to them because we don’t have that tangible sign of arousal. This is an easy fix—make lubricant part of the love play, and explain to your partner that you just don’t lubricate as much as you used to, but that has nothing to do with how aroused you are.

Likewise, communication is the best antidote to the embarrassment that comes with slow arousal and orgasm. Just explain that it’s physical, and give yourself more time. Tell your partner what you need.

Men have a much more visible issue to deal with. It’s natural for erections to be less hard and less reliable with age, and that causes men considerable anxiety, especially if they think that the only “real” sex is intercourse. “Erection is such a defining element of men’s sexuality that when it falters, many men find it unnerving and they think: I can’t do it anymore,” says Michael Castleman, MA, who publishes www.Great SexAfter40.com. “Older sex for men is less about erection and more about learning how to enjoy lovemaking without intercourse,” he advises. (Learn much more about this in chapter 12, Sex without Erections.)

• Be present and appreciate what is going on, rather than getting upset about what is missing.

• If erections are unreliable or out of the picture, spend more time on sexually exciting and satisfying activities that don’t require erections at all: stimulate each other with hands and mouth, use sex toys if you enjoy them, massage each other (not skipping intimate areas), and whisper racy words.

• Laughter is a great anxiety reliever. If you can joke and play, you’ll overcome the first-time anxiety more easily.

• If you’re nervous about sex, just cuddle and kiss without goals. You’ll feel closer and more relaxed by eliminating the pressure of what is supposed to happen. Concentrate on the pleasure and sensation that’s happening right now.

• Choose intimacy over anxiety. Tell your partner what about him or her turns you on. We all love to hear that!

It’s often a choice whether to let a sexual change be an ever-worsening problem or an opportunity for new, sexy discoveries. Which path do you choose?

I am fifty-six and I’m contemplating my first physical relationship in over fifteen years. I have a few more wrinkles, have put on a few more pounds, and have a few more scars and grey hairs. The thought of a man seeing me naked, or even touching me, has me paralyzed with fear.

The most common worry I hear from women about sex with a new partner is that they don’t see themselves as attractive enough. They’re fearful that the new lover will be thinking, “Huh! She sure looked better with clothes on,” or “Oh, dear, I had no idea she’d look so old.”

Men are nervous about getting naked with a new person, too. They often worry about performance more than appearance, but they can also be self-conscious about their bodies. Gay men, especially, who date and mate in a culture that prizes youth, may be fearful of showing their bodies to a new partner.

Whatever your gender or orientation, if this new partner wants to get sexually involved with us, he or she obviously finds us sexy and desirable. We defeat ourselves by worrying about this.

We—women, especially—make the discomfort worse by commenting on it. There’s nothing sexy about saying, upon or before disrobing, “I’m planning on getting to the gym more,” or, worse, “Let’s keep the room dark.” Please—your partner wants to enjoy the glorious sight of your naked body.

It’s not a contradiction to recommend regular exercise and healthy eating so that we’re the best shape we can be in. We’ll look better and feel better physically and emotionally, including feeling sexier because we like our own bodies. But whether or not we’re in shape on a first date, we need to accept our bodies with appreciation and confidence. Now that’s sexy.

I do a lot of online dating and have met a lot of wonderful women. Despite the protest on the Internet profiles, a common first date includes making love at the lady’s initiative. Most often I’m the boy toy and they want to use my body for their own pleasure. I think it’s wonderful.

This whole thing about being sexual with just anyone, even multiple times, and quite freely, just confounds me! I have always felt that sexual relationships only belonged within a committed relationship where there is love and honesty!

Both are comments from single seniors in the dating scene. (No, they’re not dating each other, whew.) Our views about sex are as widely divergent as our views about politics, religion, fashion, or anything else.

Some of us are eager for sex, the sooner the better, the more partners the merrier. Others believe that sex is only right in the context of a committed relationship or marriage. Between those two viewpoints is a range of attitudes about when and with whom it’s okay to have sex. It’s fine to have whatever experiences you want and whatever boundaries you choose. Just make your views clear to a date or a potential partner.

What if you’re not sure? You find your date attractive, fun to be with, and you’d love to bring partnered sex back into your life. But you’re not getting the “all systems go” signals from your brain and body that you’d like. You don’t want to get into something that you’ll want to get out of, and don’t want to regret it afterward.

Tip: If you find yourself planning your exit strategy before you’ve even entered the sexual realm with this person, it’s best to wait.

It may seem like everything has to go faster at our age, because we don’t know how much time—especially healthy time—we have. But we can still take a few dates or a few months before making these decisions if we want to. Someone who isn’t willing to wait will leave. Either decision is appropriate. Don’t judge others—just be true to yourself, and spend your time with others who share your view, whatever that is.

So there we were on our fourth nonsexual date, wondering whether to take the next step. We were both afraid to make a move, weren’t sure whether we wanted to. Finally I said, “You know, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. We can just kiss for now, without any goal.” He looked relieved, and after a few minutes of kissing, we had a nice dinner and I went home.

If you haven’t been sexually active for a while, and you’re feeling unsure of yourself—or of whether this is the right person to share your bed—it’s fine to slow down the whole process of becoming sexual. Instead of hopping from a platonic date into a sex date, do it in stages. Remember how sexy kissing and petting were in our youth? They’re sexy now, too. Give yourself time to get progressively closer.

It isn’t always the women who want to slow things down. Guys—you can let go of that old way of thinking that you must push for sex because that’s what men do. You’re not as driven by hormones as you used to be, and that’s a good thing when you’re getting to know someone new. You can take your time, make sure there’s an emotional connection if that’s what you desire, and let the physical part happen slowly. (That also lets you delay the awkward safer sex negotiations until you’re communicating easily.) If you and a new partner are not compatible in sexual pacing or values, you’ll learn that along the way.

TELL NEW OR POTENTIAL PARTNERS BEFOREYOU GET SEXUAL:

• True marital or relationship status

• Whether you’re sexually or emotionally involved with another or others

• STD status

• Your safer sex policy

• Health issues that affect your sexuality

• Whatever they ask

In a sweet article in the New York Times called “My Body Changed. So Did Intimacy,” the writer, Joyce Wadler, sixty-five, was about to get naked with a new man of sixty-six. He was fumbling through telling her that he had diabetes and needed to take pills a few hours before sex. She was fumbling through telling him that breast cancer had taken her breasts and she would reveal her new ones—with tattooed nipples. “We’d both had illnesses that could have killed us and left us scarred and that we had to talk about.” The result: “trust… intimacy…real connection.”⁹⁸

This is a moving example of how to turn embarrassment and fear into self-confidence and a deeper bond. It takes trust, risk, commitment to the truth, and ultimately just blurting it out and diving into a new adventure.

I was in a near-fatal accident a year ago at age fifty-nine. I broke nineteen bones, had a brain stem injury, and the driver (who was the “love of my life”) left me right after the accident. I wasn’t supposed to make it, died six times on the operating table, and was never supposed to walk again.

After being unable to move for nine months, I gained weight and got stiff. My breasts, once my most beautiful feature, became swollen and saggy. Before the accident, I was in fantastic shape, working out every day. I have struggled to regain much of my physicality, and am finally walking. On good days, you can barely tell the severity of my catharsis, other than my scars and limp.

I assumed no one would ever find me desirable again. Then, miraculously, a boyfriend from thirty-five years ago contacted me and wanted to get together. I was terrified because the pics he sent showed him to be in perfect shape, making 250-mile bike treks. Then he told me that on one of his bike excursions, he was hit by a car and left for dead on the road. He has struggled to regain his physical prowess and to adjust to his new normal.

We met, and the sex and communion were so powerful and true. I have never had sex like that. I hadn’t had a strong orgasm since before my accident, and it was such an eye opener to know I even still had it in me.

I started identifying that I was attracted to women in addition to men when my husband and I were watching adult videos as part of our foreplay.

Sometimes we’re not just attracted to someone new—we’re attracted to a different gender than in our past. Researcher Lisa Diamond described “sexual fluidity” in her groundbreaking book, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, as “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness.” In other words, a woman who considers herself heterosexual may, depending on the situation, a specific relationship, or a new life stage, find herself attracted to or in love with another woman. The reverse may happen with women who have identified as lesbians.

“Some women may be more likely to become aware of their capacity for fluidity later in life because often, at that point, marriage and childrearing don’t take up the same amount of time, energy, and attention that they do earlier,” Dr. Diamond told me. “Many women have told me that once the children were grown and out of the house, they finally had a chance to prioritize their own needs, interests, dreams, and desires. A growing interest in women—or often, one particular woman—blossomed in that context.”

I left the convent because it began to become apparent to me, in a foggy sort of way, that I was attracted to women. I’ve had sexual experiences with a few males, never satisfactory, and many more sexual experiences with women, very few of which were unsatisfactory. In my opinion, sexuality exists on a continuum. There are those of us that are totally on one end of the spectrum from birth, and we may discover ourselves at different ages after many different experiences.

I remember having crushes on female babysitters from when I was three or four. As a young girl growing up, it wasn’t about “below the waist,” it was emotional: a longing from my heart, and a desire to be a part of that other female’s heart. In my twenties, I was a closeted lesbian, terrified I’d be found out. Now, forty years later, I’m pretty open about my sexuality. Being a lesbian is physical, emotional, and spiritual.

COMING OUT CAN BE AGELESS

By Terri Clark

Though some of us in the LGBT community come out in high school or college, many more disclose and/or discover our sexual orientation later in life.

Q. How can someone who is gay live to age fifty, sixty, or beyond without coming out of the closet?

There’s no “right” age for coming out. Our elders and baby boomers grew up in a time when homosexuality was a crime, a psychiatric disorder, and morally wrong. The LGBT civil rights movement is still rather young. Power, fear, shame, and violence were used to keep people in the closet. Many of us still face rejection by our family or community if we disclose our sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Q. Does it really matter if you don’t come out?

For many, yes. Living in the closet is stressful and can be emotionally taxing—especially with the fear that you may be outed by someone else and lose friends and family. Many seniors seize the opportunity to come out when a life change occurs, such as children leaving home or a spouse dying. They feel circumstances have aligned to give them permission to act on their true attractions. They have an “aha” moment, maybe in conjunction with meeting a particular person of the same gender, and it all comes into focus.

Q. Does homophobia affect LGBT seniors?

Aging LGBT folks often face a double whammy: society’s ageism as well as homophobia/biphobia/ transphobia. Nongay folks often reject LGBT seniors based on the assumption that heterosexu-ality is the norm, i.e., that the only morally and socially acceptable relationship is one between a biological man and a biological woman.

Thinking about coming out? Here are a few tips:

• Educate Yourself—You are not alone. People discover their sexual identity and come out at all ages for many different reasons.

• Find Community—Connecting with others and discovering the same struggles and joys creates a feeling of solidarity. Find out if there’s a local LGBT community center.

• Find Support—Come out initially to people who you know will be supportive. The more positive reactions you get the better you’ll feel, and will be better able to gain confidence in coming out.

—Terri Clark, MPH, CHES
is Prevention Coordinator at ActionAIDS in Philadel
phia and Co-Chair for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Elder Initiative (www.lgbtei.org), whose
mission is to advocate for services that are inclusive
and responsive to the needs of LGBT seniors.

(For more resources on LGBT issues in later life, see Recommended Resources.)

In March, I reconnected with an old girlfriend who was also just finishing a divorce. We have now made a very complete connection that includes the best sex of our lives. We had been lovers and in love decades ago, drifted apart, had separate lives, and now have discovered each other in deeper and broader ways, including tremendous sexual gratification.

Thanks to Facebook and social networking in general, it’s easy to track people down from our past. I hear from people of our generation who have reunited with lovers from thirty, forty or more years ago. Sometimes the contact leads to nothing, but occasionally (and this is more frequent than you might expect!) it leads to a hot sexual encounter, even love.

In ways it’s better than the first time, because we didn’t really know who we were the first time around—or who we would become.

One man seemed to be caring, open, interesting, a good conversationalist, and fun to be with. When we finally graduated to having sex, he must have taken Viagra, because he proudly displayed a huge erection. We lay together naked after minimal kissing, which turned out to be his idea of foreplay. All he wanted to do was put his penis in me. Then he pumped and pumped. I tried touching, changing positions to enable fondling, gave suggestions for what would feel good to me.

Nope. The mission was to pump and pump and eventually climax. I was sore and tired and bored. Afterward, he glowed with success, seeming ready to do it all again. I asked for a time out. I said I needed to talk about it.

Nope. He was not open to discussion, taking offense that his fabulously long-lasting erection and performance were not to my liking. Then he sulked. I ended the relationship.

In chapter 5, Sex with a Longtime Partner, I discussed the term that Dan Savage popularized: “GGG,” meaning “good, giving, and game.” That means that a partner has sexual skills (“good”), is generous to a partner in bed (“giving”), and is open to new experiences that a partner might desire (“game”). GGG applies to new relationships as well.

Your aim during your sexual exploration with a new partner should be to find out what your partner needs or wants, and do your best to provide that, trusting that she or he will be doing the same for you. Communication is key—a partner who proceeds with what pleased a former partner will never know that you need something different unless you speak up. Likewise, asking, “What do you like?” will eliminate some of the guesswork on your part.

Sex columnist Walker Thornton, www.walkerthornton.com, lists these reasons that giving is as important as receiving:⁹⁹

But sometimes you get a dud in bed—someone who doesn’t care about your pleasure, just wants his or her own, or has delusions of being God’s gift to you, and you should be grateful for the crumbs. Ugh.

Can you salvage a bad first time? Maybe, if your partner really wants to please but doesn’t know what you like or how you like it. Make it a teachable moment. No, if he or she doesn’t care.

Please don’t assume that the lack of sexual generosity is a male trait exclusively. I also hear about women who are steadfast about what they will and won’t do, despite a partner’s request. For example, this email from a male reader:

I am sixty-six and single. I very much enjoy sex and love the female form. I’m dating a woman who loves cunnilingus but is opposed to fellatio. Unfortunately for me, this is a big part of my sexuality. I am clean, gentle, and not demanding. I focus on her pleasure and love satisfying her.

I tried to explain how important receiving oral sex is to me. I tried to do this without blowing it out of proportion. I feel that it is both the male’s and the female’s responsibility to provide as much pleasure as possible for their partner.

But for whatever reasons, she won’t reciprocate. This is important enough that I may have to break off this relationship. I just can’t see living my life in this one-sided manner.

My response: You absolutely have the right to sexual pleasure in your relationship, and doing without will sour the relationship. What did she say when you explained how important reciprocating oral sex is to you?

Suppose you ask her, “What exactly is it about fellatio that makes it distasteful to you? What can I do to make it more appealing?” Then the real issue might come out. If she’s inexperienced and lacks technique, you (or a book like The Ultimate Guide to Fellatio by Violet Blue) can teach her. If she responds with, “It’s yucky,” or “It’s not how I was brought up,” I’m afraid the relationship may be doomed.

Some may disagree, but I don’t think it’s superficial or callous to call off a relationship if your partner is unwilling to please you with the kind of sex you like best. Life’s too short for bad sex.

Maybe you don’t need this caveat—but maybe you do: Just because the sex is great and you have an amazing, partner-powered orgasm, it doesn’t mean this is your soul mate for the rest of your life. Realize that the bonding brain chemicals are at work, you’re realizing how wonderful partnered sex feels, and your delight is peppered with a dash of gratitude to your new partner for such fabulous sex. Enjoy it!

But love doesn’t happen in an instant. Enjoy the heck out of your new lover, but don’t sign any checks or apply for a marriage license on the basis of the sexual high, okay?

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