SEXIS WRONG

Inviting Elder Sex
Out of the Closet
Joani Blank
In 1997, as I approached my sixtieth birthday, I started to
wonder what people in their seventh, eighth, and ninth decades
were doing sexually. Sex jokes, sarcasm, and cynical
statements aside, just about the only words I’d ever heard
older women speak about sex were, “I’m too old for all that.”
Men didn’t say much either, but might occasionally suggest
that they couldn’t “get it up anymore” and therefore were
no longer “able” to have sex, even if they wanted to. At the
same time, heterosexual men in monogamous marriages or
other committed relationships often implied that they’d like
to continue being sexual but that their wives or partners were
no longer interested or willing.
Nonetheless, there were occasional intimations that an oldster
was “still doing it.” And I suspected that more older folks
were still doing “it” in one variety or another than the dearth of
frank talk about sex suggested. I’ve been in the sex field long
enough to know that very few people of any age, and virtually
no one over 60, talks openly and honestly about their sex
lives—even, in many cases, to their beloved
partners. But there is value in helping people
to begin talking about sex. And my experience
suggests another truth: Once people get started
talking, there’s often no stopping them.
I thought we needed something better.
I began to solicit stories for an anthology that would recount
the great sexual variety and whole-hearted erotic appetite
of real older women and men. That anthology, Still Doing It,
was published in 2000, with a foreword by the legendary sex
educator Eleanor “Ranger” Hamilton, my own introduction,
and 34 uncensored and exuberant first-person accounts of
sex after 60. I was surprised and delighted as the submissions
came in by how many of the accounts were not just
sexually open but frankly funny, even to the point of being
flip. Here’s Steve Hamilton, in his seventies, who lives and
volunteers in senior housing: “It can be even more fun when
your arthritis acts up. Wow! It took us two hours just to get our
clothes off! Or, we had to do it twice when we couldn’t get out
of the tub!”
Throughout my career, when I’ve recommended that an older
person try to start talking a little about sex, I’ve repeatedly
heard the lament: “Nobody in my family talked about sex
Nonetheless, there were occasional
intimations that an oldster was
“still doing it.”
As I flipped through the few books available on the subject
of elder sex, I found that for the most part the content consisted
of how to overcome the physical limitations resulting
from specific medical problems, as well as those associated
with healthy though aging bodies. Societal norms dictate that
older people, especially really old people, are not sexual creatures.
None of the existing books asked older people to simply
tell us what they do and how it feels. In fact, the tone of
many of these books is one of grim determination, exhorting
the elderly to keep going or to start again.
when I was growing up.” I usually respond that hardly any
of us grew up in a household where family members talked
about sex, no matter how liberal or conservative the family,
no matter which decade witnessed their growing up.
Why is this? Although our culture has generally moved beyond
the narrow moral strictures of sex-for-procreation-only,
a signifi cant portion of our population still looks askance at
sexual couplings between people who are beyond their reproductive
years and casts an even more critical eye on solo
INVITING ELDER SEX OUT OF THE CLOSET 53