SEX OVER SEVENTY

How do people deal with sex after 70? 

I’d like to hear from you.

How do you separate the mythology from the reality? 

We know the myth about “dirty old men” — “it’s the last thing to go” —(snicker, snicker.) I suspect men delight in this fantasy. Somehow they got the message early on that its “manly” to brag about the old pecker. And when that ends, KATIE BAR THE DOOR! Life is over. Worse than turning in your Xerox pass or keys to the corporate restroom.

 On Netflix, two women — Frankie and Grace — both near 80, take lovers, invent dildos and talk to each other and friends openly and often about “serving themselves comfortably.” Then they wave around their invention that looks like a gigantic purple pickle.  

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this invention of theirs is so groundbreaking. But there they are. The script has them selling hundreds of these things to women in the “bloom of their years” with the promise that old age will be a million times improved with a little grind, a little yabba-dabba-do!  I don’t know a woman on this planet who has ever said “Gosh, my problems will be over if I just had a new vibrator in a perky color.” 

My life will be better when somebody invents a cure for flatulence!

My women friends and I used to talk about sex. One morning at coffee, one of my besties said “I’m exhausted. He nailed me at 3 a.m.!” Now she’s 72. She has chronic insomnia and listens to her radio until 3 am. Paul falls asleep in front of the t.v. at 8:30. They had sex once in 1998. 

I’ve been married to the same man for over fifty years! We have always “enjoyed each others’ bodies.” Once upon a time, when we traveled, we made room for the “fun stuff.” We are on a week’s vacation. One entire travel bag is full of pills, three pairs of glasses each (sun, computer, reading), and thirty pairs of shoes  — hoping to stave off back aches and bunion pain. We are still attracted physically to one another. Knee squeezes, pats on the bum, and spontaneous back rubs take the place of the frantic groping we once excelled at. 

Intimacy now is being the “plus one” at all doctor’s visits — asking questions and taking notes. Or discussing the day’s events while on the toilet, or checking his body for ticks! He helps me into my bras now instead of pushing them aside. I know when he calls “will you take a look at this?”, it inevitably will involve blood in one orifice or another.

Sometimes I think about yabba-dabba-do. When the opportunity arrives , he’s asleep, I have indigestion, he’s really tired, I need to walk the dogs, he’s chasing deer out of the garden, I need to “finish this one page.”

Maurice Chevalier: “Ah yes, I remember it well!” 

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(PS...I'M STRAYING FURTHER AWAY FROM MY ORIGINAL INTENT: TO WRITE ABOUT ART. I'M HOPING YOU STICK WITH ME ANYWAY...WE'RE TALKING MORE ABOUT 'ARTFUL AGING." I'M CONSIDERING RE-NAMING MY BLOG. WHAT DO YOU THINK?)