Sexual Revolution 2 of 3

Sexual Revolution 2 of 3
 
 
This landscape of standard sexual relationships among heterosexuals, which includes singles, married couples, and 'partners' partners behaving about like married couples having sexual intercourse leaves me asking:
 
What keeps that minority of people having frequent sexual intercourse into their 70s (and are they having fun)?
 
What are the large percentages of people who never or very rarely have sexual intercourse after their 50s doing about sex assuming that many still have the desire just not the opportunity?
 
There are many gurus of hot and frequent sex at older ages like Dr. Ruth Westheimer the wisecracking, publicity seeking, 85-year-old sex therapist who specializes in advice such as telling older women interested in fellatio to practice on a banana. A new book by Iris Krasnow! Sex after women share how Intimacy changes as life changes Gotham Books, 2014, reports interviews with 150 women from age 20 to 90. She discusses sexually active of women in their 70s and older in a chapter entitled, Giddy Golden Girls. It is one of many such books or articles. Books by Nancy Friday pioneered the genre of frank talk by women about their sex lives.
 
Are there generalizations to be drawn about what keeps older women hot? One woman gets a vibrator for the first time, begins having orgasms again after many years, and has found her answer. Women who report having their strongest orgasms starting in the 40s are describing a known phenomenon. Also, a percentage of women have a libido 'rebound' after menopause. Another meets a childhood friend last known more than 50 years ago and reports an immediate electric shock, like magic with a whole new sex life. Another, in her late 70s, reads Fifty Shades of Grey and reports more orgasms than she's had since her 30s.
 
Such accounts tend to emphasize, or trumpet, success stories--or no one would publish or read the books. A common theme is to the rebirth sexual woman who now wants others to know she's having the best sex of her life.
 
But I do see other commonalities and they raise questions. For example, among women who report renewed lust and fulfillment with a partner, the story is a new relationship. From what I've seen on Web dating sites catering to older men and women, even sites emphasizing infidelity of married people, a strong theme among women is in seeking a long-term relationship. My perception, and I doubt anyone will be surprised, is that men are seeking sex; if it is stimulating, then one continuing relationship or a string of relationships are both fine. It is a difference rooted in the distinct sexual nature of males in contrast to females that tends to define the sexual relationship—and conflict.
 
For the older woman who has long ago satisfied her exploration of sex, just 'getting laid' makes no sense. An attractive, very sexual British sex therapist was lamenting not finding a partner. I said, mystified, But you're so attractive! She replied, patiently, the problem is not to get laid Oh. She wants at a minimum a sustained, caring, monogamous relationship and marriage or the possibility. Considering the large percentages of single and married women who never, or rarely, have sex, I conclude that many put priority on the relationship and will provide sex, if requested. For them, the older married man seeking to continue or revive sexual excitement with other women has nothing to offer less than nothing because of the social consequences of getting caught.
 
And yet, the 'born again' phenomenon of women who report red-hot new relationships in their later years suggests that my generalization is merely that. For them, a new relationship later in life means above all finding sexual intimacy, again—although admittedly many emphasize aspects of that intimacy such as holding, talking, being understood, and being desired and needed.
 
For older women, too, there is the well-known 'sex gap,' not only because women live longer, often much longer, than their male partners, but because many men like, and are able to attract women 10 or 20 years younger. If a man's final decade of significant sexual activity is his 70s, and he is having sex with women in their 50s, who will partner women in their 70s? Only one in five women 75 and older has a partner. Joan Rivers, always a good sport, is reported to have said: It's so long since I had sex, I've forgotten who ties up whom.
 
Even in this brief, altogether informal look at sexual experiences of older individuals, I have tended to emphasize women. Reports on what women say about their sexual experience seem to be everywhere; but a bit of Google searching turned up nothing comparable about what older men say.
 
A Revolution in Trouble
 
I do not have original insights into how that minority of men and women in their 70s and beyond defy the statistics—and the taboo to continue the adventure of sex into older age. My point is that such sex already is a strong trend, an increasingly powerful one, because people live longer, are relatively healthier, and stay more physically active. All that yoga, running, exercise class attendance, biking, and health club membership has to be good for something. And a loud consensus of publications on health and lifestyles seek to dispel myths and stigma about older people having sex, positively cheering on elder lust.
 
Still more important is that lust and love into older age continue what my generation, the Baby Boomers, began with the sex revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The generation that defied conventions, took advantage of the new birth-control pill and abortion, wrote more openly about sex the Hite report, and overcame sex taboos is now the horde approaching retirement in America. Sex always has been a crusade for them and the question now is how successful they will be in this next phase of revolution against the stereotype of horny old broads and dirty old men. Already, attention to the trend, discussion of it, and above all advice are far in advance of actual practice. Tens of millions of older men and women are reading about sex and aging, daydreaming about it, listening to Dr. Ruth—instead of seeking sex.
 
I believe that the trend has a long way to go, that prejudice remains remarkably strong, and that one development today, the internet, encourages a lethal sexual passivity—the worst threat to the initiative and risk-taking required for older individuals to get up and DO IT.
 
Put it this way: All the limitations on finding, keeping, and enjoying a sex partner mean that tens of millions of men and women, including especially those 50 and older, are seeking sexual satisfaction or at least release outside of a relationship at least a relationship of the kind we have been discussing. We all know that it always has been so. The woman who buys Fifty Shades of Grey and experiences rebirth sexual ecstasy, and the man who scans magazine racks of publications devoted to sex to choose one for evening, are turning to the kind of sexual experience that dominates the sex lives of the majority of people: fantasy and vicarious sex.
 
Except in today's world of vicarious sex and fantasy would be incredible for anyone 50 years ago—or even 20 years ago.
 
The Kinsey Institute offers highlights from a dozen recent studies of internet sex. Unfortunately, for our purposes, there are limitations; most surveys focus teenagers because of concerns about dangers and damaging effects. But overall statistics on internet pornography indicate that it is a mind-bogglingly gigantic business, with one 2005 study reporting that half of all spending on the internet is related to sex. Internet porn revenues exceed the combined revenues of ABC, NBC, and CBS.
 
And that is spending on internet sex. As everyone knows, you can devote the rest of your waking life to surfing a different porn Web site every day and never pay a cent except perhaps to have viruses removed from your computer.
 
In another 2005 study, 25 percent of men reported visiting a pornographic Web site in the past 30 days, but only 4 percent of women did. Males are an estimated two-thirds of the users of sexually explicit sites and account for three-fourths of online time. Again, we have no way to separate out older men and women in these statistics because surveyors are worried about 16 and 17 years old boys and girls, not 70-year-old men.
 
Also, statistics on porn sites, paid or free, drastically understate use of the internet for vicarious sexual experiences and fantasies. Face book is not categorized as a porn site, but how much posting, finding, and surfing is motivated by sex interest? A lot
 
Internet sex is more private even than buying a sex magazine at a store. It poses none of the minimal dangers of patronizing a Broadway peepshow, topless bar, or massage parlor. Indeed, you don't have to leave home—or your chair. And it is cheap—free, if you resist the drumbeat of demands that you sign up to see more. The sex you see is more graphic, close up, varied, and kinky than you ever will see on stage or movie screen. The possibilities of interacting one on one, at least verbally -via video cams, for example-, far exceed any passive forms of sex entertainment. On the internet, you can watch true amateurs, the real people next door, doing virtually anything in any country at any age above 17.
 
By nutbuster