LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Gay 'n Gray: Seventy Sex |
by John Siegfried |
No! That's not a typo of seventy-six and it has nothing to do with trombones. It is seventy SEX! Several weeks ago a gay friend in Pennsylvania e-mailed me and, in among the bits of news and chitchat, requested, "Now that I'm approaching fifty, tell me about sex after fifty." Well, truthfully fifty was so long ago that I responded more in terms of where I am, rather than where I was in decades past. In recent years when friends would ask, "How are you doing?" I had a standard reply: "Considering age, sex and weather, I'm doing fine. Age, I have too much of. Sex, I don't get enough of. And the weather I can't do a damn thing about." Since September 11th, however, I've discontinued my cutesy response and I now simply reply, as I'm sure most of us would: "In view of the World Trade Center, I'm doing fine, thank you. I have no problems at all." But my friend's request forced me to think about what I might share with him about sex after fifty, or sixty, or seventytime frames not frequently focused on by our sex obsessed society. There isn't much solid research on senior sex, gay or straight, and in its place is a vague societal awareness that sex and sexuality persist beyond mid-life in some ill defined infrequent form or format. AARP released the results of a sexuality survey of 1,384 adults aged 45 and older in August of 1999. The general consensus was that most seniors do, in fact, have sex on a fairly regular basis and they find it satisfying. The editor of Modern Maturity, the magazine which published the survey results, said, "What we found out with this study is that yes, there is a sex life after 45 and that the graying of the boomer generation is having an enormous impact on how society thinks, feels and acts in the bedroom." Then, of course, there are all the variations on the theme of the old codger who at 80 plus married a woman considerably younger and was advised by a friend to take several boarders in to his large Victorian home. The assumption was that the boarders could meet the new wife's sexual needs left unfulfilled by her antiquated partner. And he did. Months later, when the advisor and codger met by chance on a downtown street, the old timer thanked his friend for the advice and confided that he had followed it completely and taken in three boarders to share his home. His wife was now happy and pregnantas were the three boarders. In my response to my young friend (and fifty sounds pretty young to me) I said: "Two comments I'd make about sex after fifty and they probably relate more to experience and maturing, than they do to age per se. I find that sex now is more leisurely, less of necessity, and in many ways more enjoyable. The bunny rabbit "Bang, Bang, Thank you" approach of adolescence and most of my adulthood has, in retirement, eased into a pattern that allows sex any of the twenty-four hours of the day. And there's no hurry to reach a climax. We've got all day to enjoy the process so there's no rush for the final curtain. I was vaguely aware in earlier years that whether in the bars, the baths, or wherever, a strong dynamic of my sexual searching was to fulfill or complement the deficiencies I perceived in my selfbe that a beautiful body, or personality, or intellect, or whatever. Sex with my partner now reflects less of an ego trip and more simply a desire to give pleasure. It truly is "different strokes for different folks" but the strokes I use are soft, gentle and lingering. I'd never make it in the leather lingerie world. For me there's no turn on as powerful as giving pleasure and in the process of giving, I receive. Another lesson I've learned, although its come late in life, is to give up my preconceptions of what good sex should be and to enjoy the sex we have as good. And not surprisingly giving up the preconceptions allows me to experience the present. I can't begin to quantitate the psychic energy I've wasted worrying about the "norms" of frequency, adequacy, satisfaction, etc. of my sexual experience only to find that none of it matters. The norms for other gays or straights, for other ages, other groups mean absolutely nothing. What counts is what I share with my partner here and now. After seventy plus years of living and fifty plus years of sexual activity I suppose I should know more and be able to give my friend more insight. No longer, however, do I pretend to have answers to the puzzles of sex or anything else. But it is kind of gratifying to think that someone, anyone, wants to learn from my experience. John Siegfried, a retired association executive, resides (for now) in Rehoboth Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 15, November 21, 2001 |