L o v e , S e x & H e a l t h
The kids are gone. The house is empty. You know the moves. What better time to prove that you're ...
Still Sexy After 60
By Frederic Golden
January 19, 2004
Health
They are not yet eligible for Social Security or Medicare, but
you can tell from their sagging chins, receding hairlines and
growing paunches that they are on the verge of major changes in
mind and body. Yes, America's 77 million baby boomers are coming
of age—old age. In two years the first offspring of the
post—World War II generation (born from 1946 to 1964) will turn
60. What will that mean for the sons and daughters of the Age of
Aquarius? Will passion diminish? Will performance decline or
(gasp!) wither away?
Well, kids, take it from someone who has collected his first
Social Security check: the sexual impulse doesn't vanish with
age, even if—how to say this delicately?—execution sometimes
falters. There's plenty of evidence—scientific and
otherwise—that healthy seniors, even residents of nursing homes,
continue to have active sex lives. Consider the decision of a
Riverdale, N.Y., senior home to permit trysts among clients as
long as they are consensual. Or the buzz about the film
Something's Gotta Give, in which Jack Nicholson plays a
62-year-old roue who boasts of never having had sex with a woman
over 30, only to free-fall for Diane Keaton, his latest
girlfriend's mom, still steamy in her 50s.
And why not? Without fear of an unwanted pregnancy—or worries
about kids barging into the bedroom—older couples have much less
reason to be uptight about sex. They are also much more likely to
be adept at pleasing each other, knowing where and how to arouse.
Some sex counselors report that they see quite a bit of what
anthropologist Margaret Mead called PMZ (post-menopausal zest).
"Indeed, some women begin to have orgasms for the first time as
they grow older," write Dr. Robert Butler and his wife,
psychotherapist Myrna Lewis, in The New Love and Sex After 60
(Ballantine Books; 400 pages), the latest edition of their
classic advice book.
So what's to fret about if you're only edging 60? Well, there are
a few impediments. For all the cheerleading of sex-advice books
and the fervor of magazines like Modern Maturity, the AARP's
house organ (GREAT SEX: WHAT'S AGE GOT TO DO WITH IT? blared a
cover a few years ago that featured a voluptuous Susan Sarandon),
age does bring sexual changes for both genders. My father, who
flirted outrageously even after he turned 90, liked to tell the
story of the old guy who wants his doctor to "lower" his sex
urge. At your age, says the astonished physician, you ought to be
happy to have any sex urge. "You don't understand, Doc," the old
guy persists. "I want you to lower it from here [pointing to his
head] to there [his groin]." Erectile dysfunction is, in fact, no
joke; it afflicts about 1 of every 4 men over age 45 and half of
all men over 75.
Nowadays doctors can help many of them. Since Viagra's ballyhooed
debut in 1998, the little blue pills and their progeny (Levitra
and Cialis) have been doled out—thanks in part to former Senator
Bob Dole's TV huckstering—by the millions. They have been a boon
for countless men (and, one hopes, their partners) while reducing
demand for penile implants and other awkward mechanical aids. "We
took Mr. V on our cruise," an elderly couple recently wrote
Tampa, Fla., sex therapist Bonnie Saks from their post-counseling
trip. "Had a great time. Thank you very much." Still, these
wonder drugs won't do any good if there is no sexual urge in the
first place or if other health conditions impair erectile
function. As Saks points out, "The medications won't initiate
libido. The desire has to be there already in order for them to
work."
Yet sexual dysfunction isn't just about male impotence. Both
sexes experience failures as they age. And any number of health
factors may be at fault, including poor circulation, diabetes,
high blood pressure, heart disease, stress and alcoholism—to say
nothing of the medications often prescribed for them. For women,
the problem is often a decline in estrogen at menopause, usually
around age 50. That may cause disconcerting hot flashes as well
as dryness and a thinning of the vaginal wall that can make
intercourse unpleasurable, if not painful. Production of the male
sex hormone testosterone—which occurs in both sexes—also drops,
and with that may come a diminished interest in sex. Finally, as
wrinkles and cellulite accumulate, they can affect a woman's
self-image. She may not only feel less desire, she may feel she's
less desirable to her partner, who by this time is probably
having self-image and performance problems of his own.
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