SEXUALITY IN AGEING

One curious aspect of growing older has to do with sexuality. Your experience may be different from mine but when I see a beautiful young woman, now that I’m 76, I can appreciate her attractiveness objectively but I find that I’m not interested.

I used to be. But I find older women, women in their sixties and seventies, more attractive. Everyone is different.

Some people age quickly and seem to lose their interest in sex. In others libido remains strong. It’s a mistake to think older people aren’t interested in sex. Some want sex, but medications, surgeries or lack of a partner get in the way.

But there’s also a psychological barrier. Some older people think it isn’t seemly to want sex at their age. Younger people don’t help when they show surprise or disgust at an older person’s sexuality.

Sex can take you out of normal time and space and allow you to drift to a level where you move deep in your thoughts, feelings and sensations.

At times, it may even feel like a mystical experience. In this kind of sex we’re ageless, neither young nor old.

You may have to develop this “soul” appreciation for sex and approach it with the intention of making it deep and meaningful.

You may have to learn this lesson that sex isn’t just for the young and not just physical, that you can go so deep into sensation and emotions that you get lost in a positive way – the way a religious person loses herself in meditation.

You might even understand sex as a kind of meditation that serves a relationship and at the same time puts you in touch with the great mystery of life.