A handful of times in my life I’ve had what I’ll call erectile lapses. In every case, the root cause was clearly anxiety, plain and simple. Anxiety over my partner or something about the circumstances at that moment. But in each case the moment was short-lived and the matter at hand moved on in a normal way from there.

Even so, sexual function and performance is the secret bugaboo of probably every man to some degree. One day I was getting a routine physical and in the course of things we talked about sex. It occurred to me to tell the doctor that, even though my sexual fitness seemed strong, I was beginning to have doubts and worries creep up on me because of my age.  He produced a handful of Viagra samples and asked if I wanted to try some. I told him that I was almost afraid to, because I feared that I might get dependent on them, a notion that would deeply trouble me. On the other hand, I mused, I was curioius about where I really stood. Had I lost anything over the years and not really noticed? A dose of chemically maxed erection would give me a benchmark, a baseline measure of where my natural function stood.

It took me a few days to work up my nerve to try one. Not wanting to experiment with my otherwise very healthy sexual relationship with my wife,  I took one during an afternoon alone at home and waited to see what would happen. Close to an hour elapsed before I felt something. Something. Yes, something was happening, a sensation of life burbling heatedly in my groin. Well. Once I focused on it, I began to swell, and it became unmistakeably clear that the pill was delivering as promised. But even at that moment I realized that if I hadn’t been predisposed to arousal – expecting it – it might not have happened at all.

And here is the thing that I suspect most women don’t realize. The pill doesn’t just automatically make you hard. It simply makes it easier to get hard. If you’re not in fact ‘turned on’ nothing is going to happen.  Many women I know seem to think that any guy, no matter how old, unhealthy, or generally disgusting, can simply pop a pill and then pop an erection. No. Like most things involving sex, it’s never that simple.  Men are vastly more fragile than women realize, generally.

So, in this dry run I got a pretty exciting masturbatory session, with a ‘partner’ running at full throttle. Sounds great, right? But at the end I realized that there was something just slightly off, a discordant note. It just didn’t seem quite right, and I couldn’t say exactly why.

At the next opportunity, without telling her what I was doing, I had a romp with my wife, and despite the unequivocal mechanical succcess of the process, I was once again left wondering what it was that made this something other than an ethereal flight to sexual nirvana.  One part of that was a very noticeable side effect – my face was flushed and hot, uncomfortably so. Very strange and disconcerting.  And though this may sound strange, I was almost too aware of my cock, which was slightly distracting. Not so bad, admittedly, but less desirable than a spontaneous, unassisted coupling.

The next time I saw the doctor, about a year later, I told him about my reaction and he offered some samples of Cialis this time.  Again, my curiosity roped me in. Well, much better. Little or no discernible side effect. Solid wood but without the urgent nagging of my dick demanding attention. But. That niggling sense that things just aren’t what they ought to be. For me it became a distraction from the intimacy, the special bonding that only comes from truly loving and deeply intimate sex. My charged up dick was simply getting a disproportionate share of attention, at the expense of the “connection” between my lover and me. And there was a side effect, heartburn. For up to three days after taking a Cialis I would get periodic bouts of scorching heartburn. Worth it? I guess so.

So now, some years later, I will take a Cialis every now and then, but only as a way of calibrating my erections. That is, as a way of comparing how I’m doing naturally as I get older. Fortunately I’m still going strong on my own,  and I definitely prefer sex without the chemical boost. But it’s comforting to know that if I find myself  slipping, losing my accustomed edge, I can remedy things with a little yellow pill. In the dark corners of my male psyche, that little bit of assurance can go a long way.

I can’t help but be troubled by all the guys in their twenties I know of who routinely use Viagra or Cialis regularly as performance boosters. No one knows the long term effects of using these drugs. I don’t think it bodes well for these men as they go deep into middle age in twenty years or so. Will sex be more about the pill or their partner? I shudder to think.

Got a question, vexing or otherwise? Send it to AskLibby@LibidoForLife.com

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Dear Libby -

I am fiftyish and my husband of nearly thirty years will see his sixtieth birthday this year. We have much to be thankful for and will be celebrating our happy marriage as well as his birthday milestone. We’ve been blessed with a loving sex life all these years, but recently things have been changing. For a variety (the details aren’t important) of medical reasons, we’ve not had sex in over a year and with his abilities flagging, my own curve has been moving the other direction. We still have all the loving, the cuddling, the caring. But I miss the sex, the sheer physical-ness of it. I’ve not made an issue of it at all but lately he keeps bringing up the idea that I should take a lover. He keeps assuring me that he would have so problems about jealousy, but wants to know that all my needs and desires are being attended to. I’ve been brushing off the idea but I do believe him when he says it wouldn’t bother him. And I actually know someone who might be a very desirable and accommodating match. Is there any really good reason I shouldn’t do this? Am I overlooking anything obvious?

(Signed)

Laura in St. Paul

Dear Laura

Here’s to your milestones and to the smart, loving spirit you and your husband very evidently share.

Your question ought to be easy to answer, but I could write a book. Actually, I did–and here’s what I know: as to sex, it’s seldom simple. That’s the obvious–but subtle–thing you may be overlooking: the good reason to think hard before you make a move.

If you were longtime tennis players and he had to retire from the game, he’d doubtless help you find a new doubles partner and cheer you on from the bench.  If you had to go easy on sugar, you’d still make sure he had the birthday cake of his dreams.  We may theorize that it ought to be the same with sex, but there’s sometimes a disconnect between the fantasy and the reality.

In the 70s, I knew many people in the Sandstone community,which was dedicated to sexual sharing as the wellspring of goodness; I knew open-marriage advocates and plain old swingers, who shared their mates and partners with loving grace and seemed only nourished by the experienced.  I also knew many people who spun fabulous fantasies of threesomes, group sex, don’t-ask-don’t-tell, and other arrangements but who were unexpectedly stricken if the fantasies turned into reality.

You and your husband know yourselves and each other:  That’s clear.  I don’t mean to suggest otherwise.  Given that you’ve seemingly conducted your marriage on the monogamous model, I propose that you consider and answer some questions before you step out.

What’s the comfort level–for both of you–as to shared information?  Like the typical polyamorous young couples of the day, would you rather know about other sexual partners…meet other sexual partners…perhaps confide details or even share the experience?  John Fowles wrote in The French Lieutenant’s Woman that the real infidelity is the lie to cover the infidelity.  But, as my father liked to say, the blunt truth can be a blunt weapon.  What would work for the two of you–the three of you?

I’ve argued with many a male psychiatrist who insisted that women necessarily–biologically–bonded emotionally with all their sexual partners whereas men could walk away.  I don’t agree, based on my own nature and some very unscientific sampling, yet I have to concede that it seems to be true more often than it isn’t.

I wish I could give you a simple answer.  I know you only through your words, but I feel a connection, if you’ll allow me.  As I said, I think sexual sharing can be a beautiful thing.  But there are no guarantees, alas…any more than than there are in a monogamous marriage.

Please, let me know how things go.  And if I come up with a fail-safe algorithm for adding partners to a marriage, you’ll be the first to know.

All the best, Libby

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Dear Libby,

My partner, who’s 20 years older than I am, is a true sweetheart and quite the lover, but he is dependent on Viagra and I miss spontaneity.  Any advice?  Thanks!

Sukie M., St. Paul, MN

Dear Sukie,

Great question.  So many of us equate spontaneity with having a free spirit, a larky soul.  For folks who came of sexual age in the 1960s, it’s almost a moral imperative!  But it’s definitely not the only way.

Tantric yoga, for beautiful instance, replaces spontaneity with ceremonial purposefulness.  Some Viagra couples develop code language.  “Let’s ski the blue diamond trail,” for instance.

One woman I know found a diamond-shape candy dish that she uses to offer her husband a Viagra when she’s in the mood.

While you wait for it to reach the bloodstream and do its good work, you might take a bubble bath together while listening to Sophie Tucker sing, “If He’s Over Forty, Don’t Make Him Wait too Long.”

Sounds like you have a good thing going.  Keep it up!

xo, Libby

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Hey, Libby, cool Website!. So here’s my question.  As a 74-year-old male, I have the predictable ED problems.  I’ve found my ideal drug, Cialis, and my doctor also prescribes Androgel.  Which do the trick, thank you.  But I cannot wear a condom. Just can’t.  It undoes the good work of the meds and my erection melts like an ice pop in the sun.   I have been a cautious serial monogamist and have never had an STD, but a lady I’m really interested in insists: No cover, no lover.  Can you help me persuade her it’s OK to skip the Latex?

Cheers, Vic O., New York City.

Dear Vic

And would you like me to persuade her it’s OK to drive without a seatbelt?

Look—we understand over here.  We too grew up in an age when both seatbelts and “rubbers” felt like killjoys.  So much easier for our children, who regard both forms of protection as axiomatic.

Your lady sounds like a smart cookie.  While we all would like to think that STDs happen to other people, it takes only one break in the chain of serial monogamy to put a great many people at risk for chronic or potentially fatal diseases such as HIV and HVP.            Consider the big picture.  It’s not the good old days, and aren’t you lucky it isn’t?  You’re a perfect example of the benefits of modern medical research and changes in societal norms.  Not to mention marketing.

When’s the last time you checked out the array of condoms for sale?  Since the late 90s, the various manufacturers have been trying to one-up each other in producing pleasure-enhancing condoms.  Extra thin, roomier tips, and super-lubricated are just a few of the features meant to entice reluctant users.

Shopping for condoms with your sweetie can be a turn-on in itself, whether you go to a pleasure shop or look on-line for what’s available.  And putting them on you can become a part of your lovemaking ritual.

Real is the new romantic.  Some couples go for HIV blood tests together and put the results in a keepsake box. It’s also fair for you to ask your new true love to show you the results of her Pap test, indicating (we hope) the absence of irregular cells suggesting HPV.  You’re not only protecting the two of you, you’re looking after future sex partners.  Don’t you wish everyone were that nice?

In case you’re wondering, the reason for condoms even if all tests are negative is that HIV antibodies may not show up for six months.  If after six months, you and the lady are still together and monogamous, she may be willing to revisit the condom question.             Here’s hoping you get to that day and play fair and square with each happily ever after.

xo, Libby

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Dear Libby,

My twin sister and I (age 42) have been arguing about Thanksgiving because of our Uncle Louis, known in the family as Louis the Feeler. My sister feels sorry for the geezer (he’s about 90 now and a widower for 30 years) and she just has a stiff drink before kissing him hello and getting the inevitable feel-up or bra-strap snap.  My husband says I should go to joke store and buy one of those electric-shock gizmos and wear it in my bra so the sparks really fly when Louis puts his hands where he shouldn’t. Don’t worry–my sister and I are both the mothers of sons and the youngest women in the family.

Thanks!  Alice (and Arleen)

Alice!  I’m dying with laughter!  The one in my family was a Louis, too!  And my mother gave me the perfect solution.

When it came time to greet my dear great uncle with the wandering hands, I would conspicuously cough into a handkerchief, shake my head in misery, then blow him a kiss off my fingertips and trill gallant words about not wanting to infect him with my dreadful cold.  If he wondered why I was always sick at the holidays–and my cousin Veronica, too, when I shared my ploy, he didn’t mention it.

I admit, I’m a born actress, I loved the prank.  If that’s not your style, you might take advantage of the looming flu epidemic and forego the pleasure of kissing all your relatives.  I imagine that will be happening all around the country, even where there’s no Louis.

Happy hols.  xo, Libby

Dear Libby,

As a lawyer I know the importance of words.  I need your help in finding the right word to describe my male companion.  We are both in our late  sixties and both lost beloved mates to illness.  He’s a former hippie (now a professor) and thinks it amusing to call me his “old lady,” but I am proud of my youthful appearance and don’t enjoy the joke.  ”Significant other” is bureaucracy-speak; “boyfriend” is ludicrous; “lover” is embarrassing; “companion” makes him sound like a seeing-eye dog.  Thank you!

JVMcL, Chicago.

Dear JVMcL, Esq.

I must have been mulling your letter last night, because I found myself searching for just the right word to introduce Himself as we worked a roomful of people I knew and he didn’t.  I variously tried “consort,” “beau,” “my Scrabble partner,” “my dear one,” and his name, without explainer.  Each was okay in the moment, but none felt so right I would always want to use it.  I’m beginning to suspect this is why a lot of people marry.  “My husband,” “my wife,” over and done with.

My best advice is to make your choice fit the situation rather than trying to find an all-purpose describer.  And I throw the question open to all readers.

Speaking of words—I think you’re too beautifully young to call yourself “youthful”!

xo, Libby

]]> http://libidoforlife.com/ask-libby/feed/ 2 http://libidoforlife.com/naked-at-our-age-book-review/ http://libidoforlife.com/naked-at-our-age-book-review/#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:46:12 +0000 Randall Stickrod http://libidoforlife.com/?p=926 Who among us can’t remember confronting the disquieting notion of our aging parents having sex?  The universal response?  “Ewwwwww!” “Aging,” of course, being a very relative term. As adolescents it’s hard to imagine people over forty relishing each other’s nakedness and taking erotic delight in intimate contact with flesh that may be showing signs of wrinkles and starting to droop here and their. And as the years go by, it gets even worse.

The stigma of perceived loss of attractiveness with increasing age seems deeply ingrained in our youth-obsessed culture.  But those of us who have crossed the threshhold of our fifties – or sixties or more – know how ridiculously ill informed those earlier notions were.

That stigma is nowhere more convincingly and fervently challenged than in Joan Price’s wonderful book, “Naked at Our Age – Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex.”  The author is a prolific writer, blogger, speaker and all-around advocate for healthy sexuality without age limits.  And she has no respect for taboos or the restrictions of polite convention of any kind.  Speak up, she says. Communicate. Don’t be shy.

She did extensive research here, amassing survey data from a large sample of people ranging in age from 50s to 80s, and no punches were pulled. The book is a compelling collection of personal narratives drawn from these surveys, bracketed by professional advice and observations from professionals in the field. Nowhere will you encounter more insightful reading on flagging or mismatched libidos, dealing with divorce, disease, solo sex, sexual toys and aids, dating, sensuality, surrogates …. the list goes on.

Naked at Our Age is really quite a remarkable book, as hard to put down as a well crafted thriller. There is not only something for everyone here, but there is a lot for everyone. Highly recommended.

My husband has had an affair. Or, rather, is having an affair. I never imagined he would let someone come between us. Yet he continues to love her. He doesn’t want to leave me; he continues to love me and want me as well. How to live with this predicament? I don’t want a divorce but I don’t want to live with him and the ghost of this affair either.

I continue to have dreams where I am in bed with two other people. It’s not him or her in the dream, but me and two strangers who are fucking next to me. It’s like I’m not even there. That’s how his affair was. It continued under my nose practically as if I didn’t exist. He says he never stopped thinking of me, loving me, yet he couldn’t stop himself. The consequences of losing me and all we’d built together were not enough to keep him from going to her again and again.

Even now, I know he can’t or won’t give it up completely. He is struggling.

She is cheerful and bright. Adoring, exuberant, full of life and love. For him. All for him. She asks for nothing. Commands nothing. Stays in the background in the compartment he built for her. He offers her vague promises of a future together. Long emails filled with dreams and fantasies. He can see her, touch her, soak in her love and come home to me. He comes home to a clean, well-kept house. An attractive (if overweight) wife who still cuddles him at night, and, yes, makes love to him as well.

But I am not adoring, I am not cheerful and bright. I have never been, truly. But I love  him as deeply and fully as I did 20 years ago, perhaps more. I waited while he dismantled his life with his wife and took care of his son so he could come to me. I was patient then and giving, for the most part, but terrified of living day to day with someone. We had difficult, often violent (on my part) fights. I had no idea how to be in a loving relationship. I had no idea how to give.

Over the years, this improved in fits and starts. I was not really good at it. I still struggle with this. I often retreat into my shell, and as a result kept him at bay. But we have made our life together, we’ve enjoyed our travels and experiences. Each was unique and wonderful in its way. We have often recounted what happened during one trip or another, those special moments and experiences on each trip and lovingly, happily re-lived those experiences together.

I have often felt very lucky as I compared my marriage with others. My husband complimented me, showed more affection for me than I for him. I was always confident in his love for me. His steady manner and even temperament left room for my mood swings and volatility. He cooks, I clean. He is outgoing and optimistic; I am neither. But it seemed a match regardless.

I thought we shared a special love. Like no one else. Does everyone think that of their partner? Probably. It seemed very true for us. Our mutual love and interest in literature and books in general bonded us from the very start. That, coupled with our mutually intense physical attraction was a powerful combination. It seemed to shore us up even in the worst times. I guess not so much. Because he responded to her. He went to her.

The combination of a sad, depressed, fat wife, financial difficulties and a cheerful, lovesick, slender, fit girlish woman has been the undoing of us. Now I’m here, months later, much thinner, but broken. I cannot get past the images of them together. The betrayal, the lies, and the worst: He will not let her go.

She now has expectations based on his emails to her. Perhaps she has blown his words out of proportion and is assuming a permanent place in his life because he won’t tell her to go away from him. I’m sure there are more emails and promises of love than I ever saw that defined a future for them together. They barely know each other and there are multiple hurdles to overcome. Why he would want to start all over again at his age is beyond me. But I know the excitement of an affair is intoxicating. Someone attractive and new to explore is irresistible.

It will keep him young. All the discovery of a new person can make one feel young again. I do believe that’s what he seeks. Her naïve love notes and heart texts are silly, but he enjoys it. My attempts at that were apparently not enough or too subtle. I think her goofy outlook on love embarrasses him, yet at the same time it’s something he has completely embraced. It buoys him up.

Her excitement and high school girl gushing make for a happy, delightful romance away from the travails of everyday life. But if he plans a life with her, what will each day be like?

There will be financial difficulties as well. She romanticizes this: “I will support you!” As if that’s something he does not have with me. Again, I’m invisible. She sat in my living room begging him to confirm his love for her as if I were not there. I don’t exist in her mind. If I did, she would have to feel the guilt of her actions. But I believe she doesn’t.

He acknowledges her faults: she can’t spell, she’s not particularly literate, she’s not exactly pretty, as if to convince himself that those things are reasons to fall out of love. But he hasn’t. It baffles him. He sees no real future with her. Fun, yes, at first. Someone to ski with. Someone active. He could soak in that adoration each day. She would cook for him (he’s often mentioned the meal she made for him the first time they fucked), they would cook together. I’m sure they’ve discussed that.

Every moment would be an adventure. More ways to feel young again. But I don’t think he would be happy with her in the long run. I think he would miss me terribly. Well, he says that. (At the moment I’m hard pressed to list what he might miss. The way I fold his underwear? The way I clean the house?) Yet, there are times that I think he wants to take that chance. I think there’s a part of him that wants to go to her and see how it would be. Just to feel the way he feels when he’s with her. That’s why he can’t give it up.

I don’t know how this will play out. But I cannot leave. It’s not the money. It’s not the house. I simply cannot leave him. I love him.

What we call chemistry in this case is more accurately biochemistry, and we can speak with authority about pheromones and dopamine, serotonin and neurotransmitters. But no matter. Biochemistry, at a full five syllables, is simply too unwieldy a descriptor for the gestalt of romantic attraction. So. Just plain chemistry. It has certainly been the determinant of my own romantic narrative.

The yearning for a romantic connection to a specific woman didn’t have to wait for the hormonal boost of adolescence in my case.  From my earliest memories there was always a girl who – invariably without her knowledge – was the object of deep romantic yearnings, an impulse for a very personal bonding with her.  My mother told me that when I was four I was infatuated with the only black girl in my neighborhood. I don’t remember much about her besides her name, Helen, and an awareness of the mysterious force of attraction that drew me to her longingly despite the absence of those glandular secretions that we associate with sexual awakening.

I can still remember most of their names, usually one girl in my class each year, from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade, when biology finally catapulted me into full sexual awareness. She was never the prettiest one or the most popular one, never the social queen bee of the class.  Sometimes as I look back on my elementary school days and think of those girls, I realize that some of them wouldn’t be considered attractive at all by my post-adolescent standards. It was all about chemistry. But chemistry is science, all reductive and deductive, whereas the phenomena that caused me to lie in bed night after night pining wistfully for the girl of my dreams, seemed an impenetrable mystery.

I felt like a late bloomer, with that full-blown hormonal onslaught not kicking in until the middle of my 13^th year in the little rural community of Fairfield, Montana. In December I was invited on a hayride by a girl in my class, but didn’t even bother to sit with her. Instead I sat with a bunch of other guys and thought nothing of it.  But just a month later another girl took my hand on a bus trip to a school basketball game and suddenly nothing seemed more natural or appealing to me than physical contact with a girl. Things had abruptly stepped up to a new level.

A few months later, on a spring night with new life bursting out of the prairie in a riot of fecundity, I found myself in the company of a girl I had secretly liked for several months and who, wonder of wonders, seemed to like me. We were with another couple from our class, though it wasn’t exactly a date, and we found ourselves lying in a field, thick with uncut grass, under a great splash of stars on a moonless night. She was confident and assertive, the perfect complement to my natural shyness and diffidence, and before I knew it we had our mouths together and arms around each other.  The kissing was predictably clumsy at first, the uncharted territory of making my mouth match up with another’s, worrying about my teeth, my tongue, my ability to breathe.  And then relinquishing control to my mouth, letting it find its way, to discover and be discovered by the other mouth, to experiment with pressure and motion. Before that evening was over I felt I had made a quantum leap in knowledge that seemed inestimably important to me.

This was the other dimension of chemistry to me. The warmth and gentle pressure of mouth on mouth, the unexpected sensory rush of another’s heated breath in my nostrils, even if, like many a teenager, it was scented with chewing gum. Kitty McCann, I never saw you after the 8^th grade, but I’ll always be grateful that you liked me enough to introduce me to the sublime joys of the kiss.

Some years later, after finally crossing that final threshold into adulthood with my first “real” girlfriend, I wrote of the experience:

Many people say that the first time they had sex was uncomfortable, or disappointing, or somehow negative, but I can make no such claim.  There was a moment or two of awkwardness, but things happened fairly naturally and I thought it was perfectly sublime

I credit all those prior years of kissing for this. Those endless hours of making out as a teen, on the eve of the Sexual Revolution, when I knew it would go no farther and had to accept that limitation and make the best of what opportunity I had. And what I had was an extended seminar on Woman, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, nose to nose, breath to breath. Even as I was grappling sweatily with my partner, it was a reflective opportunity, a time when it was natural to absorb all the details of this restricted experience and to think about what was occurring between the two of us.

It was about intimacy, of course, and I came to realize that kissing is the true metric of intimacy.  It is possible, sadly, to have sex without intimacy. But not kissing.  There is a kind of symmetry to kissing that makes for the most elemental bonding between two people, a balance between assertion and vulnerability. Mouth on mouth, eyes confronting each other from mere centimeters apart. Hearts pressed to each other. A perfection of vulnerability and trust. Kissing is the highest form of art for the connoisseur of intimacy.

In my experience, a failed relationship was almost always a communication failure. An inability to make that connection was correlated with something not quite right about our kisses. A hunger for kissing was correlated with a hunger for communication at all levels – in a word, intimacy.

In hindsight, looking back on loves and lovers, I understand now how it is possible to assess and measure those relationships in terms of our kisses. And this is where we get back to chemistry. Nowhere was chemistry better expressed than in the kissing. When the kissing was natural, unforced, luscious and deeply satisfying, when our bodies instinctively understood how to communicate from that first coming together, the rest tended to follow as a matter of course.  In a word, chemistry.

There is surely no better icon of sex-positive feminism than Susie Bright, though it would be a disservice to leave her with that single attribute. She has been a prolific writer (a dozen books so far) and editor (the acclaimed “On Our Backs”), performer, radical activist, teacher, speaker and more. For more on Susie, visit www.SusieBright.com

LFL Much of our audience is in the over-50 category. How do you feel about sexuality and sex after 50? Or do you consider it a silly question, a non sequitor, hardly worthy of a mention?

SUSIE I’m 53, so your question makes me laugh… of course it’s meaningful to me. What does “age” ever have to do with sexual desire and feeling? I remember how when we were youngsters, prudish know-nothings would say the same thing: “She’s only 14, how can she think about sex! They’re only 16, they don’t know what “love” means!”  Etc.

Whether you’re physically active or not, whether you have a partner or not, whether you are having orgasms or not, your mind is sexually vital from cradle to grave. We never stop taking it into account.

I also have to take note of what you said about being silly. It reminds of the adage, ‘there’s no fool like an old fool.” Well, you know, the “old fool” may be having a hell of a time in bed. You just can’t stay serious forever.

LFL In the time you’ve been a champion of sexuality, have you noticed important changes in public attitude and culture, or are we stuck?

SUSIE It’s more of push-pull… right now we’re in a more conservative time in many respects, in America in particular, because so much of public policy has been directed by sexual bigotry or aversion.

On the other hand, the cultural differences from my mother’s generation to my daughter’s have been extraordinary. My mom was told by nuns to put talcum powder in the bath water so she wouldn’t see the “sin of her body.” My daughter grew up atheist and has never even considered what it would be like to “burn in hell,” as I did when I was a child.

LFL We would like to know your opinion of Albert Ellis. He was writing radically about sex in the ‘50’s during the McCarthy era and was a friend and early mentor of our Dr. Joel Block. In many views, he was THE sex guru of the 20th century, breaking all convention. What do you think?

SUSIE Oh, of course, it’s a shame that Ellis’s name is not as famous as it once was. But I think what you could say about the 20th century is that it was a heyday of sexually liberated and innovative thinking. We actually had more than a handful of great minds on the subject!  They weren’t considered silly little sexperts, they were revolutionary thought leaders in sexuality, psychology, economics, politics. I want a revival!

LFL We’re curious what Susie thinks about during sex, sex of any kind. Is she in the “now,” is she drifting, is she thinking of someone else, perhaps all of the above? In other words, what is her view of the internal while the external is happening?

SUSIE Both. My unconscious and my fantasy life just blend with whatever and whomever is in my arms at the moment. It’s not like I’m checked out, nor am I conducting a realism drill.

LFL This question touches on keeping passion in a long term relationship. Boredom is the enemy, and in our view, radical honesty is the solution. Sexual acrobatics sells books but is a cheap solution. Stepping out is exciting but most people have an active jealousy gene that wreaks havoc. What does Susie have to say about keeping passion alive?

SUSIE Variety is something human beings crave, but we simultaneously want familiarity. We are brats; we want it all. I don’t think “variety” just means positions or gizmos. It means having fun and taking fresh interest in each other, whatever that might be. And you can’t “mandate” it. I don’t believe in compulsory  date nights or intercourse appointments. What you can do is arrange to not work so hard (the number one enemy of sexual passion) and have time to do things you both get a kick out of. That’s what makes the erotic attraction that keeps bringing you back…

I’m going to take this into another dimension, if you don’t’ mind. Long-time couples who have long-time sex are the kind of people who like to have sex with their “best friend.” That has to be attractive to you for it to be compelling.

But not everyone is alike. Some people find their sexual desire is vacated by domesticity. For them, sex is always about “the stranger.”  Close intimacy may bring love, but it empties their erotic anticipation.

Finding that out can be a heartbreak. But I don’t think there is anything abnormal about either position. To know oneself, honestly, is the crucial element. And this is an area where age really can bring wisdom.

LFL What is your take on our cultural disposition toward making women who run for office either into whores, or masculine women … what is the answer?

SUSIE It’s tiresome, isn’t it. And it’s an insult to dykes and prostitutes, on top of it all! It just seems when we want to put someone down, we characterize them as a failed female. That goes for men, too, calling them “pussies” and pejoratively gay-baiting.

If women were powerful in public life, in public policy, those epithets would be antiques.

LFL Do you find that women are less afraid to be dominant sexually? Do you find that women over 50 are discovering that they have a sexual power that they were never raised to believe they have? Not talking about being on top physically, but a psychological power that can help train a man to be more curious about, and less fearful of, the wild instincts in women (such as can be expressed by humiliation, bitchiness, tease, seduction, denial of orgasm)?

SUSIE My snappy answer is that women over 50 are less afraid of anything and everything. You may have noticed in the recent Indiana University survey that they’re the most orgasmic of all women’s age groups… you just don’t give a darn what other people think as you get older. Whether you feel like playing a top or domme role, I think that’s just a matter of individual pref… but older women feel more free to explore… whatever.

Susie Bright’s first memoir, BIG SEX LITTLE DEATH, is coming out in March 2011.

If you’ve been awake on this planet, you’ve heard of the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s the Number 1 best seller on Amazon, where it sports 5,143 reader reviews at this moment.

The big deal about this book is that it’s erotica, BDSM erotica at that, and it’s being read by a mainstream female audience — everyone from teens through their moms and, yes, grandmoms of our age, too. Many start reading it because everyone else seems to reading it, and we like to be shocked.

I didn’t read the whole book, but I did read quite a bit during a very long airport wait at JFK, where I found a mile-high display of all three Shades of Grey books. How did the author, E L James, come out with three books so fast? From the quality of the writing, I’d say she wrote them quickly, didn’t rewrite, and didn’t have an editor. Otherwise, how could she repeat herself all these ways, as an Amazon reviewer points out:

Ana bites her lip 35 times, Christian’s lips “quirk up” 16 times, Christian “cocks his head to one side” 17 times, characters “purse” their lips 15 times, and characters raise their eyebrows a whopping 50 times. Add to that 80 references to Ana’s anthropomorphic “subconscious” (which also rolls its eyes and purses its lips, by the way), 58 references to Ana’s “inner goddess,” and 92 repetitions of Ana saying some form of “oh crap” (which, depending on the severity of the circumstances, can be intensified to “holy crap,” “double crap,” or the ultimate “triple crap”)…Characters “murmur” 199 times and “whisper” 195 times (doesn’t anyone just talk?), “clamber” on/in/out of things 21 times, and “smirk” 34 times. Finally, in a remarkable bit of symmetry, our hero and heroine exchange 124 “grins” and 124 “frowns”… which, by the way, seems an awful lot of frowning for a woman who experiences “intense,” “body-shattering,” “delicious,” “violent,” “all-consuming,” “turbulent,” “agonizing” and “exhausting” orgasms on just about every page.

Readers recognize the bad writing — more than 1,500 reader reviews are only 1-star — but what the heck, it is sexy (of course “sexy” is in the eyes of the beholder). Anastasia gets lots of orgasms, and isn’t it a fantasy of women at any age to have an extraordinarily handsome, insanely rich lover who gives us endless orgasms — and, by the way, has inner turmoil that we’re convinced only we can fix by offering him our special brand of devotion?

Our age group is reading this book, too, and not just women. I enjoyed the reader review from “a male senior citizen, a semi-retired gynecologist,” whose “arthritis flared up just reading about Ana’s sexual gymnastics.” He had to take Viagra to stiffen his resolve to keep reading.

If you’re interested in BDSM erotica, there are plenty of well-written books you can read, with the sex you’re looking for plus skillful, non-repetetive writing and unpredictable characters and plots. For example, try the Sleeping Beauty Novels, a trilogy by Anne Rice writing as A.N. Roquelaure, or check out the many BDSM erotica anthologies from Cleis Press. If it isn’t specifically BDSM but simply well-written erotica you’re looking for, both Cleis and Seal Press do a great job. Starting with an anthology can introduce you to writers whom you particularly enjoy, and from there you can explore what else these writers have written.

What would Fifty Shades of Grey look like if it featured a woman our age, instead of a college student? We could title it Fifty Shades of Grey Hair, and our heroine would be a woman of, say, 68, who has left a long, boring marriage and goes to San Francisco or New York City to discover her hitherto hidden sexual kinks. She hooks up with a dom who is maybe 72 and in the best of health and vigor, who uses plenty of lube while he introduces her to his special brands of toys, fingers, tongue, and penis, to bring her to the ultimate heights every few pages. I say “every few pages” instead of “every page,” because we need longer foreplay these days.

Or maybe she doesn’t find a dom — maybe she’s the domme, exploring her personal power in ways she has only fantasized.

You see how much fun this could be? Fifty Shades of Grey Hair wouldn’t suffer in any way by being about senior sex. In fact, by featuring savvy, sexy seniors, we wouldn’t need any of the lip chewing and we could be more inventive with our reactions than “oh, crap.” What do you think?

(If you love the idea of senior erotica, I’m editing an anthology right now titled Still Naked: Erotica for Seniors, with Seal Press. I’ll let you know when it’s published!)

© 2012 Joan Price, all rights reserved. Published here with permission

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Ageless sexuality advocate Joan Price (http://www.joanprice.com) is the author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex – named Outstanding Self-Help Book 2012 by the American Society of Journalists and Authors and honored with the 2012 Book Award from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) – and Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty. Visit her zesty, award-winning blog about sex and aging at http://www.NakedAtOurAge.com.

First, Opening up your soul to your one and only.   A great lover lets the other person in. In special and unique ways. Early on , this permission to enter is granted through the eyes.  The eyes are the path to the soul. They show need, sadness, compassion, pleasure, desire, intelligence,  humor and grief.  Nuances we cannot  imagine are revealed in our eyes—if we allow them to look into someone else’s eyes without impediment, without hiding. Holding eyes and letting the information and feelings within them pour out and grace our partner’s heart is the first and most important element of being a great lover.

Second-  Being intensely present and feeling everything there is to feel. We accept the touch of our partner’s hand, the nearness of their body, the timber of their voice.  A great lover is aware of the physicality of the one they love, and accepts their body and face as gifts and lets their partner know how happy their presence makes them.  The smallest skin contact is celebrated. A cuddle is a  major comfort. The connection is electric sometimes, comfortable other times, but never absent or rejecting.

Third- The great lover listens.  They can tell their partner’s mood from body language, tone, content, a single word, the way a story is told.   They store information from what they hear and bring it back for conversation at the appropriate time. They are a student of the one they love and they study their subject with the same intensity and pride of scholarship that a doctor, preacher, golf pro, or artist has in his or her craft.

Fourth-  The great lover holds nothing back.  Passion is not only permissible, it is elemental.  In the best of times there is the sense that two forces of nature have united to explode into each other, matched in depth of feeling and pleasure.  There is a sense of no limits , and that feeling is welcomed, not feared.  The great lover gives everything, accepts everything, explores everything and enables their partner to do the same.

Fifth- The great lover is safe.  There is acceptance and that acceptance is enabled by well earned trust.  All things are possible because there is trust at the deepest level. One feels so well loved that few boundaries need to exist.  The safety of the partners is built on a foundation of respect and mutual commitment to upholding those elements of the soul, of the body, and of the journey together that first enabled love to grow.

Great lovers are not born, they are made. They are made through personal growth,  through commitment to the right relationship, and because of a deep desire to experience love at the most profound level.  What higher praise or accomplishment in life could we experience than to have the person we love hear this description of a great lover—and say our name and think of us….

Freud was spot-on in dubbing the clitoris infantile.  Like a little boy’s penis, it’s suitably placed for self-exploration and masturbation.  A pubescent girl needs nothing more than her fingers to produce a brilliant array of sensations.  Because she’s alone in her single bed, her mind roams freely, trying on various fantasies, eventually developing a virtual library of them.  And there’s the rub.

Throughout a woman’s life, clitoral stimulation harkens back to her childhood solo flights and goes hand in hand with fantasying.  If she’s by herself, the circle is complete.  But if she’s in bed with someone else, let’s say a man—a man whose fingers or mouth or nose or toes are nudging her towards ecstasy, he’s reduced to the role of a human Eroscillator. Doing his gallant best to mask his tedium and muscle cramp, he diddles his “partner” while she reruns her favorite X-rated films in the screening room of her mind. This is not the essence of lovemaking, no matter how lovingly intended.

Clitoral orgasms are delicious: hot sugar fireworks.  They do wonders for curing migraine.  But they are solipsistic—the very opposite of lovemaking.

Here’s a telling quote from Michael’s apologia: “’Intercourse is okay,’ says New York City sex educator Betty Dodson, Ph.D. ’But I much prefer a talented tongue on my clitoris.’”  Dr. Betty is an original and a star, an example for us all at age eighty; but she remains above all else the author of Sex for One, deservedly in print since 1974, a celebration of masturbation.

Sex is never just about anatomy.  There’s always a cultural component.  Mid-20^th Century feminists rose up against the definition of “frigidity” as the inability to have a vaginal orgasm.  As feminism, bi-sexuality, and lesbianism became cozy bed partners, the clitoral orgasm became the politically correct one—no penis required. The cruel irony is that the emphasis on the clitoris may have killed vaginal orgasm for a generation of heterosexual women.

Clitoral stimulation does nothing for the vagina; in fact, it may deflect arousal from the vagina.  It’s stimulation of a woman’s breasts that sets a vagina thrumming.  Anyone who has nursed a baby knows that sucking at her nipples echoes down below, deep inside, setting off waves of pleasure.  Don’t take my word for it: readTantric Orgasm for Women by Diana Richardson.

Speaking of babies—pregnant or not, a woman enhances her ability to have vaginal orgasms by doing the exercises invented by Dr. Arnold Kegel to abet vaginal delivery.  Voluntarily flexing one’s puboococcygeous muscle, on the pelvic floor, is a pleasure in itself…and promotes pleasure all around during intercourse.  Thus toned, a woman may delight her lover by gripping and releasing his penis while it’s inside her.  And the conscious pulsing will give way to involuntary contractions.  A vaginal orgasm, in other words.

But—enough about the body political and physical.  What is lovemaking, anyway?  It’s not just a drive toward orgasm.  It’s union.  During intercourse, the eyes can engage, lips kiss, words murmur back and forth.  There’s the amazing business of someone being inside someone else.  For a heterosexual couple—brand-new strangers or lovers forever—there’s nothing else quite like it.

Michael Castleman properly notes that after age forty, erectile capacity and vaginal lubrication diminish. But a man need not be fully erect to enter a woman. Any joining may be ecstatic; it’s not just about thrusting and ejaculating. As to lubrication, I think Michael sells short the new generation of Silicone-based slick-ums, (and he makes no mention of the power of kegels to get the juices flowing even after the estrogen years).

My clitoris, my orgasm.  My vagina, our secret meeting place, our garden of echoing bliss.

It is not exactly clear to me how we got here.  But we are indisputably here, and here is a hotel room in the early afternoon of a perfect autumn day. And yes, gentle reader, let me confess that I am married, but not to the woman who I am now coupling with in a heated frenzy. I have no defense for this infidelity, though for the record I want it noted that I have never sought casual “sport sex.” I love sex, but I insist on context, deeper context than merely attraction and opportunity.

What I am really marveling at is the stunning sexual precocity of the woman who is now lying sprawled across me, gleaming with sweat, the fine reddish hair at the back of her neck distinctly wet. I ask her in an awe-struck whisper, “How many orgasms did you have?” I wouldn’t normally ask something I consider sort of a gauche question, but something extraordinary has been going on here.

She closes her eyes and there is a long pause. “That’s like asking me to count raindrops,” she says. I am speechless. I’m certain that what she just said was unrehearsed and spontaneous, and there seems to me so much information in those seven words I’m not sure I can process it all. So I say nothing as I lie there stroking her and smelling her hair.

She is 54 years old, a professional with two degrees, teenage children and an affinity for the arts. For the last 26 years she has been married to a man who has never told her he loved her. She’s certain that he does, “in his own way,” that it’s simply a flaw in his wiring, some defect that’s quite beyond his control that he can’t manage to find the words for. She hasn’t quite connected that fact to the other fact, that they haven’t had sex in something like three years. And he is a perfectly healthy and active guy otherwise, I’m made to understand. None of this makes sense to me.

I tell her she has a gift, this orgasmic precocity, that I’ve never seen anything quite like it. She seems surprised. She says that she has always come quickly and sometimes often, though today, she admits,  seems more than exceptional. She admits to a short-lived love affair some years back, with a man who she experienced her first real sexual blossoming with, but it was very brief. We stop talking at this point and get back to the order of the day, which seems to be testing the structural integrity of a king size bed. Did I mention that she is very attractive to me, that the attraction between us is … I don’t seem to have the words. She asks me how it is with other women – it never occurred to me that she wouldn’t have a sense of comparison, but she doesn’t. How would I know? she asks. Good question.

Weeks later she emails me with a link to an article she stumbled on about the vagus nerve. I’d never heard of it and neither had she. Apparently the vagus nerve is sort of a meta- nerve that transits much of the longitudinal axis of the body. It also just happens to have come front and center in some recent research on femaale orgasm, and has been accountable for orgasm in women with severe spinal damage and all the other conventional pathways out of commission. “Vagus” is from the Latin for ‘wanderer’ because of the way it meanders through the body. Apparently it meanders differently for some than for others. It seems likely from this article that she has the blessing of a particularly friendly vagus nerve. Or maybe it’s something else. No matter; what she has is a gift, a gift that she has only opened a few times. She puts on a brave voice in a later email as she says, “It occurs to me that at my age and in my situation, I might not even have sex again. Ever.” There is a profound sadness to this blurting out that’s like a punch in the gut.

I am in no position to do much about it (not to mention a very long way away). I try to comprehend the injustice of having a talent that exceptional and such a dismal outlook for using it. Where does this kind of unfairness come from? She feels powerless about her options for her loveless marriage, a big tangle of “if”s. If she had more money, if her kids were through school, if she had somewhere to go, if she could conjure up a whole new career. She is conflicted about this fling with me, but feels empowered from it as well. The moral divide here is a thorny one, to say the least.

As for myself, I have no defensible rationalizations for my own behavior. I am no aging roué, seeking casual thrills. There are not the kind of deficiencies in my marriage that lead people to easy justificaions for affairs. So why am I here? Why do I feel so little guilt? What to do?