The Ultimate Guide to Sex after Fifty

Sex at our age can be better than ever—though very different! Our responses may be slower, our bodies may not always cooperate with our wishes, and the studly or juicy bodies and attitudes with which we strutted around in the past may be dim memories.

But that just paves the path for a new kind of sexuality—one filled with touch, self-nurturing, and the joy of slow, languid arousal. With creativity, solid information, communication, a sense of humor, and likely a drawer full of sex toys and lubricants, we can delight in our new old sexy selves.

Sexy is an attitude, an acknowledgement of our own sensual nature, which includes acceptance of our aging bodies and our need for touch throughout our lives.

What works for me at age fifty-nine is my attitude that sex is natural and fabulous, and that I am capable of great sexual pleasure. It is a daily practice for me, just like meditation or other practices. I think about sex as an integral part of who I am. I keep my brain engaged, enjoy self-pleasure, and am open to exploration with a positive attitude and an open mind. (A good partner helps, too, when available.) I find myself reaping the benefits in and out of a relationship.

If I had been born in the forties, I would have sublimated my same-sex feelings into male bonding, robbed jewelry stores with the guys, and gone home to the wife. If I had been born in the eighties, I may have chosen a guilt-free same-sex lifestyle. But having been born in between, I can honestly say that my complex sexuality has ruined my life. I am an honest but conflicted husband, a secretive father, and my career wasn’t what it should have been. I have been celibate for years.

It’s never too late to rediscover—or discover for the first time—how to live passionately, authentically, and fully. I don’t mean only sexually, but I do see sex (partnered or solo) as an important part of the joy and pleasure that we’re capable of at this time of life.

If your life now doesn’t bring you joy, what can you change so it will? Even if you’re not sure what you need, if you are sure what you don’t need, I hope you’ll make a change.

So many of us stay stuck in lives we don’t enjoy and relationships that don’t nurture us out of fear of the unknown. I remember deciding to break up with a lover of eight years because I realized how lonely I was when I was with him. “I’d rather be lonely alone than lonely with someone,” I decided. Despite the hurt and chaos of a breakup, I regretted only that I hadn’t done it sooner. The heart knows.

When I was a college student, I wrote in my journal, “I’d rather regret something I did than something I didn’t do.” Some of my younger explorations—sexual and otherwise—were vapid and tentative, others were life altering. Some experiences disappointed and embarrassed me, others enriched me and expanded my view of the world and my understanding of myself. My only regrets were when I didn’t speak my truth and when I hurt someone I loved. But through trying out different ways of living and loving, I learned what would become my core beliefs about how to live and love.

Looking back, I regret very little. Even when an experience or a relationship turned out to be wrong for me, or when I wished I had behaved in a different way, that’s how I grew into the person I am now. We can try on different behaviors (safely, please!) and finally settle into what works for us.

We’re never done with that journey. What worked for me at thirty-five was not what worked for me at sixty. Now seventy, I’m questioning and exploring again. We’re not stagnant beings—or at least, we can choose not to be, and it’s never too late to change. The older I get, the more firmly I believe that we need to use the years to go after a meaningful life.

Can that be scary, even at sixty, seventy, or eighty? You bet. But if we’re unhappy and we don’t make a change now, we’ll stay stuck in that unhappiness. If we do make a change, we are at least giving ourselves the opportunity to go after our joy.

We’ve confused genital prime with sexual prime…. Your sexual peak has a great deal to do with who you are as a person…. If you’re interested in sex with intimacy, there isn’t a seventeen-year-old-alive who can keep up with a healthy sixty-year-old!

—David Schnarch, PhD, author of Passionate Marriage: Keeping
Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships

Sex has never been just about body parts and how well they work. That’s even more important now. The best parts of sex at our age may have nothing to do with how easily or how fast we orgasm. It’s about what happens in our brains and our emotions.

Our sexual pleasure grows out of being mature enough to know who we are, what we value, what we can offer ourselves and/or a partner. It’s about knowing how to laugh at the unimportant aggravations and fix the important ones. It’s about accepting that our bodies may be slowing down, but our ability to enjoy life is not. And that includes sexual pleasure!

Desire like this, sexual, roller-coastal, liberating, and mad, does not diminish with age. Wrinkled, stooped, stone deaf, and feeble, you never lose the urge to merge…. The world may no longer take notice of me in my comfortable shoes and control-top knickers, but inside, where it counts, I’m baying at the moon, drinking Love Potion #9, and waiting for Godot—with his fly open.

—S.S. Fair, “Still Horny After All These Years” in Desire: Women
Write About Wanting, edited by Lisa Solod Warren

Let’s finish this book by turning it over to you. Here’s what you’ve told me about how your sexual expression and relationships have become better with age:

I am fifty-three years old and my “boyfriend” is fifty-two. We have the most incredible sex! I am a grandma and he is a grandpa, and we tease each other about that after an incredible romp in the hay. My body has gone through a lot of changes, some of which make me self-conscious. My hair is thinning and my breasts have changed: they are very large and squishy, and they make me feel old. But those things don’t bother my lover! We indulge each other’s long suppressed fantasies. I never dreamed that sex would be this way at this age.

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Sex is about communication, love, and trust. The older we get, the more we know about all these things.

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When it comes to sex, a woman over sixty brings so much wisdom, insight, experience, empathy, and sweet gentleness. That is what makes me love and adore her and makes me feel so excited to be in a relationship with her.

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I am a far better partner now than when I was, say, twenty. I don’t think I was bad—growing up in the “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” “Free to Be You and Me,” “ERA NOW!” period, going to college at UC Santa Cruz, I think I was probably a better partner than many. But with experience, practice, and the patience that you get as you age, I think I’m far better now.

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The older you get, the better sex gets. The more experience you have, the more likely you are to know what your body enjoys. The less focus there is on achieving an orgasm, the more focus on enjoying yourself.

Long-term relationships can take you on a never ending journey where something new, exciting, and sensual can be found around every corner. It can be the longest, most exhilarating ride in one’s life.

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I have never ceased being lusty. I outlived two husbands, pleasured myself, and joined an online dating service. At sixty-six, I met a man six years my junior. I told him right up front that I was looking for a vital man with a sexy appetite. He was doubtful about getting involved with an older woman. I informed him that I am healthy, strong, and believe in living my life. For me, it was almost love at first sight. He says our relationship is righteous. He believes we have another hundred years to share everything. I tell my new man that I love him every day, constantly.

What would you like to share with our community about sex and aging? I hope you’ll comment on my blog, www.NakedAtOurAge.com, or write an email to joan@joanprice.com. Let’s keep this conversation going.

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