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Changing Bodies and Aging

Thinking in a detailed way about the physical changes you experience as you age can be a good first step to getting creative about how the sex you have might be different.

One of the difficulties with this is that we tend to bombard seniors with a depressing list of 'have nots' for them to expect. This is a typical medical model about deficits; it's all about what you don't have. Here's an example of a list we found on a popular health website that details changes in your body you can expect:

• Sexual drive and urgency decrease
• Spontaneous erections cease to occur
• Direct stimulation becomes necessary
• Continual stimulation is often necessary
• Erections take longer to achieve
• The pre-ejaculate diminishes
• Erections are not as firm as they once were
• The angle of the erection changes
• Erections become unstable
• Firmness might wax and wane
• A longer period of stimulation is needed to ejaculate
• A closing window of opportunity to ejaculate
• Ejaculations can become elusive
• The volume and velocity of the ejaculate decreases
• Diminished experience of orgasm
• A longer time is needed to recover after ejaculation

And this is just what men can expect! Needless to say, when confronted with this information from sexual health educators and the medical profession, enthusiasm for experimenting may wane.

We want to propose a different model. Rather than starting with what has changed, start with where you are today. Create your own "sexual blueprint." This means mapping out how your body feels in response to sexual stimulation.

If you don't have a partner right now, be your own guide. Because many people need more stimulation as they get older, and natural lubrication often changes with age, you might find a vibrator and some good quality lubricant helpful for the journey.

Unfortunately, it's easy for all of us to get weighed down by the things we're told we can't do anymore. Whether it's because we're too old, too fat, too thin, the wrong height, the wrong look, most of us are actually kicked out of the "beautiful people" category at one point in our lives.

The great thing about sex is that giving yourself sexual pleasure, however it works for you, can give us the energy and motivation to continue dealing with all the negative messages that are thrown up as obstacles in our way.