Family
Why Sex Matters No Matter How Old You Are
How you, too, can get your sexual mojo back.
Kiersten Essenpreis
Last summer, I celebrated my 60th birthday. Not quite as joyous a milestone: it’s been almost three years since the last time I experienced intimacy with a man.
At first, there was no need to panic. Throughout my life, I’ve had natural, healthy periods of celibacy. Three years in college when I was puzzling out existential issues about the nature of men, alcohol and inner peace. Four sexless years in my 40s during the demise of a difficult marriage. Those were episodes of voluntary chastity. Others wanted to have sex with me. For various reasons, I did not.
This is different. I have a raging sex drive. And no takers. At least, none I want.
My pornographic little secret, as a currently sexless older woman, is that more than a few times, I’ve daydreamed about hiring attractive younger men to have sex with me. The term is “male escort,” though for the right price, dinner can turn into a night with lots of side dishes.
Gail Rice, a Sydney-based psychologist, faced a conundrum as her 70th birthday approached: “I was looking into a world of being invisible, a future where I would never be touched sensually or sexually again.”
Rice responded by hooking up with a man 30 years younger. This was a lover who valued the beauty of older women, and did, indeed, reignite the sexual/sensual pleasure Rice still desired as she entered her eighth decade of life.
Other celibate women my age don’t miss sex at all. Some rejoice in saying bye-bye to sex. My friend Lulu, 66, told me, “After 60, everything dries up and the thought of sex can make you want to vomit.” She was wrong about that, for me at least. But for her, the end of sex is welcome.
Intercourse, at this point, is purely for pleasure, not procreation. So why do some of us older ladies still crave it? Why do other women who used to love sex not miss it anymore? Is there a right or a wrong level of sexual desire as we age?
It’s an increasingly important question.
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There are more women over 50 in this country today than at any other point in history, according to data from the United States Census Bureau and the National Institutes of Health. One-third of women in their 50s haven’t had sex in a year. Fifty percent of women in their 60s haven’t.
This, despite the fact that older women can enjoy sex more and have more intense orgasms! Given that we no longer worry about unwanted pregnancies, and most of us have accepted our bodily imperfections, logically aging and sex should go together rather fabulously. And there are myriad health benefits to sex, whether alone or with a partner.
Although I must stress, you have to enjoy sex, not just go through the motions passively, and make sure your partner knows that you want to give and get pleasure. And beyond the sheer enjoyment of physical intimacy, staying sexually active through the lifespan is a healthy hoist for mind, body and spirit.
As Nan J. Wise writes in Psychology Today: “When we activate the brain’s reward system through sexual pleasure, we experience a boost in mood and motivation that can carry into other areas of our lives. Dopamine plays a central role here, but it’s the entire neurochemical cascade that contributes to greater emotional resilience and psychological well-being. Simply put: Good sex is good for your mental health.”
This is a crucial point to keep in mind as our birthdays build up. Good sex is good for us. Women in their 80s and upward are the fastest-growing segment of the aging population. So, while some cultural messaging tells us older gals that we are no longer sexy, we only have to listen to, and follow, our inner voice that says, “Hey, I still want it!”
We can even “be at our sexual peaks during our later years,” according to holistic sex coach Kim Anami, who is based in both Los Angeles and Bali. “Perhaps that is the gift and the beauty of aging is realizing: My time is now because there is no more time to wait.”
As for me, I’m weighing my options. Is there more sex in my future? Definitely. What I love most about being an independent older woman today is that there are so many possibilities, so many paths to pleasure and fulfillment. This, so long as we give ourselves permission to pursue our own definition of happiness, which often requires rejecting society’s definition of what we should want.
So, women. Don’t shut down the store just yet. Try to retrain your brain to see yourself as beautiful, your body as sensual, your sexuality as a gift for you to endlessly enjoy. Because just like wearing sunscreen, drinking plenty of water and eating our leafy greens, enjoying sexual pleasure is a foundation of aging well.
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