SEX FILES: Great sex doesn't have an expiry date

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My grandmother was married to my grandfather for more than 60 years before he died in 2014.

While helping my grandma clean out her home, my mom came across a surprising discovery: A stash of Viagra that my grandpa had been using well into his 80s. My mom, a senior herself, was left open-mouthed. “It was horrifying!” she told me, especially after my grandmother revealed that “great sex” and “those little blue pills” were the secret to their decades-long marriage.

“I don’t want to imagine that!” she said, voicing what I was already thinking. After all, no one wants to think about their parents or grandparents getting it on. But as unsettling as that image was, I couldn’t help but be strangely inspired by this story.

If we’re lucky, we’ll all grow old. Being single for more years than not, I can only hope to find someone that I want to be intimate with when I’m in my 80s. With that said, there still seems to be a lot of stigma and misconceptions around older adults having fulfilling sex lives.

“Sexually exuberant older people are still viewed with distaste, even disgust,” says Joan Price, author of the award-winning book Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex. “Our society thinks it’s acceptable to disparage and ridicule seniors for being sexually active — or wanting to be.” Price says the expectation that we “age out” of our sexuality is unfair and unrealistic – especially given that our experience of sex can improve later in life.

While writing about sex over the past decade, I’ve encountered many people who are 50+ and are having the best sex of their lives. “With age comes confidence, self-awareness, and a deeper connection with your partner — qualities that make intimacy even more fulfilling,” adds Katie Flowers, sex guru and relationship coach.

As I’ve reached middle age, the insecurities I had in young adulthood have fallen away. Flowers says this is common. “Aging gives you the freedom to explore your desires without the pressure of judgment. It’s liberating to let go and fully embrace what pleases you.”

With age, we also gain a better understanding of who we are as sexual beings, what works for us in the bedroom and how to communicate these desires to a partner. “Know thyself” (and thine partner) is a powerful path to having the kind of sex that pleases you/both of you most,” shares Carol Queen, PhD, the staff sexologist at Good Vibrations.

Often this means slowing down sexual encounters, instead of racing to the orgasm finish line. Queen says that older adults may need to take more time to get aroused “and this is actually good, because quick sexual experiences all the time don’t build erotic energy up to optimal pleasure for many people,” she says.

Age also forces us to get creative and evolve our ideas around what “great sex” looks and feels like. As Price explains, “If some parts don’t work as well or as pleasurably as they used to, we can explore what does work and expand our definition of sex to include all those activities – hands, mouths, sex toys — that give us sexual arousal, pleasure and satisfaction.”

When asked what advice she’d give older adults who are looking to reclaim their sexuality, Queen says it starts by acknowledging that sex changes as we age. “Refusing to deal with it doesn’t stop it from happening!” she says. Ignoring this shift also erroneously pushes the narrative that penetrative sex is the be-all-end-all, which simply isn’t true. She adds, “There is emphatically NOT only one way to have sex.”

Next, Queen encourages people to educate themselves and be curious. “Keep informed — many kinds of age-related changes are common and normal, and you can learn from others’ knowledge.” It’s also important to make space for erotic pleasure and exploration – whether that’s solo or with a partner.

Lastly, don’t shrink yourself. While popular culture erases the sexuality of older adults, “We as older people (I’m about to turn 81) can change the narrative by wearing our sexuality proudly and speaking out when we hear misconceptions and insults,” says Price.

Whether you decide to take a page out of my grandpa’s playbook or not, Price says, “With the right information, creativity, and a spirit of adventure, we can be sexual far into older age.”