This week we were lucky to get the opportunity to speak with Joan Price, the award winning author of the books Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex and Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, to let our readers know that sex doesn’t have to stop at 60.
It only gets better!
Who are you, and what do you do?
I call myself an “advocate for ageless sexuality.” This means I talk out loud and write about senior sex. I offer accurate information to my readers and audiences who often don’t know that answers to their questions are available. I work to promote the idea of healthy, vibrant sexuality through our lifetime. I am the author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex — winner of Outstanding Self-Help Book 2012 from the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and 2012 Book Award from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) — and Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty. I just finished editing an anthology of senior erotica – stories by writers over fifty featuring steamy characters over fifty – titled Ageless Erotica, which will be published by Seal Press in 2013. I lead workshops in several topics related to sex and aging, including my most popular workshop for single seniors: “How the Heck Do I Date at This Age?” Find me at www.joanprice.com and I hope you’ll read my award-winning blog at www.NakedAtOurAge.com.
What are your particular goals and passions in the field of senior sexuality?
I’d like society at large and seniors in particular to understand this about older-age sexuality:
1. Our youth-oriented society’s view of seniors who enjoy sex as icky, weird, pathetic, or ludicrous is wrong, wrong, wrong! Our sexuality can be pleasurable and joyful throughout our lives.
2. If something emotional or physical is interfering with your enjoyment of your sexuality, there are solutions available! That’s why I wrote Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex, because so many of us just accept our changes as inevitable, unchangeable, and too embarrassing to seek help for – and don’t know that solutions exist that can totally change our experience.
3. We as seniors need to talk out loud about our sexuality. That’s the way we can change both society’s view and enrich our own enjoyment by seeking information, learning what’s possible, and sharing that knowledge.
How do we talk about sex as we get older?
We talk as directly as possible. If we’re in a relationship, and we’d like some changes in the way we interact sexually (or don’t interact sexually!), we need to learn to express what we need without blaming the other person. In other words, saying, “I love when you touch and nuzzle my breasts, and if you keep doing that, it really helps me get aroused,” is clearer and sweeter than if you say, “You almost never touch my breasts anymore.” Men, too, need to learn to say, “I need more stimulation than I used to. Can we explore what kind of touching helps me stay aroused?” We need to see our changing bodies and changing sexual needs as a wonderful journey we can take together – not a failure or a defect because we’re not living in 20-year-old bodies any more. Our bodies are fully capable of pleasure our entire lives through.
Sex toys…do they work?
Oh, yes! That’s why I devoted a whole chapter of Naked at Our Age to sex toys and why I’ve reviewed more than 60 sex toys from a senior perspective on my blog! A well-chosen and well-placed vibrator can mean the difference between an orgasm or no orgasm – it’s often that simple. Plus, they’re a lot of fun! Many of us don’t have partners, but we can still keep ourselves sexually healthy and give ourselves marvelous pleasure with the help of our vibrating buddies. Check out my vibrator reviews at www.NakedAtOurAge.com for specific recommendations.
What are the new rules for dating after 55?
The problem is that the dating rules we grew up with don’t apply anymore, and no one taught us the new rules, like how to navigate Internet dating, how to enjoy meeting new people rather than getting depressed if they don’t pass the dating/mating audition, and why it’s important to practice safer sex if a dating connection gets to that point. My main pet peeve about Internet dating is that too many people lie – especially about their age and their weight. Come on, aren’t we too old to play games? If someone doesn’t want us at our real age, weight, build, etc., then we move on to find people who do. Please let’s agree to stop portraying ourselves untruthfully! We have much to be proud of to offer a partner at our age.
Joan Price calls herself an “advocate for ageless sexuality.” Joan has been writing, speaking, and blogging about senior sex since 2005. Formerly a health & fitness writer (and before that, a high school English teacher!), she switched topics to senior sex with her spicy memoir, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty (Seal Press, 2006), to celebrate the joys of older-age sexuality. After hundreds of readers wrote Joan with questions and concerns about their own senior sex life, she wrote Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex (Seal Press, 2011), to address the problems of sex and aging. She is editing a senior erotica anthology (Seal Press, 2013) and continues to talk out loud about senior sex with seminars and workshops. Joan also teaches contemporary line dancing, which she calls, “the most fun you can have with both feet on the floor.” Visit her award-winning blog about sex & aging: www.NakedAtOurAge.com.
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