Mythbusting: Sex and the Elderly

Sex doesn’t stop as we get older. Let me refer you to a report by Patricia Bloom, MD of Mount Sinai-New York, expert on the matter of sexuality from the third age and beyond:

The level of sexual interest and activity among people over the age of 65 is as diverse as the individuals who make up that population. A survey of married men and women showed that 87% of married men and 89% of married women in the 60-64 age range are sexually active. Those numbers drop with advancing years, but 29% of men and 25% of women over the age of 80 are still sexually active. These figures would probably be higher if one or the other partner weren’t hindered by infirmities or if opportunity presented itself to widows or widowers

The older years are for many a time when children are no longer lurking in nearby bedrooms, and there is no longer a need to rise early in the morning for work. Older age can be a time of freedom to explore sexual expression in ways never before possible.

Recent studies showed that men who have more than two orgasms per week have lower mortality statistics. What is probably true is that people who are well, healthy and vigorous enough to engage in sexual activity are also healthier in general. Sexual activity, in its many forms, can be physically, intellectually, and spiritually fulfilling. It is often a good form of exercise, and it can stimulate the brain and promote good mental function. What is most important is to find the type of sexual expression that suits you best.

Some people, either by choice or by necessity, find much gratification in sexual self-stimulation. Many who have overcome resistance to this have been exhilarated by the experience especially with the availability of sex toys. Others explore sexual sharing in new ways with a longtime partner, or with new partners. Still others, especially elderly women, have discovered new intimacies with same-sex partners, even after spending most of their adult lives in heterosexual relationships. The key to satisfaction and sexual fulfillment in later life is individual choice.

There are many bodily changes as we age, and some can modify our sexual experience in later years. Both women and men experience slower arousal responses. This can lead to anxiety in people who do not understand that this change is normal. Women’s bodies change in some of the following ways: The lips of the vagina (the labia) and the tissue covering the pubic bone lose some of their firmness. The walls of the vagina become less elastic. The vagina itself becomes drier. The clitoris can become highly sensitive, even too sensitive.

The entire male sexual response tends to slow down in the following ways: there is a delay in erection. There is a need for more manual stimulation to achieve an erection. The “plateau” phase, or period between erection and ejaculation, is prolonged. Orgasm is shorter and less forceful. The penis loses its firmness rapidly after ejaculation. The refractory period can be quite long, even up to a week in very elderly men.

There are numerous ways in which men and women can adapt to aging changes and continue to be, or become, a sexually active:

• Realize that sexual arousal takes longer and requires more manual stimulation. Take all the time that you often didn’t have in younger years to pleasure each other or yourself.
• Share what makes you feel good with your partner.
• Take time to explore all the tactile, visual, auditory, and even olfactory aspects of intimacy.
• Make adequate lubrication part of your routine, to avoid irritation of the vagina or painful intercourse. A water-based lubricant is best; oil-based lubricants and petroleum products such as Vaseline may be difficult to flush out of the vagina, possibly causing irritation or infection. You should make applying the lubricant part of your lovemaking routine.

Some women with extreme vaginal dryness and irritation may benefit from vaginal estrogens, effects of estrogens, both positive and negative, should be discussed with your doctor. If you use estrogen cream, use as little as is effective for as short a time as possible to get the desired effect. If you are taking oral estrogens for other reasons, you will probably experience beneficial effects on the vagina.

For older men; be patient. Realize that more stimulation is required to achieve an erection. If you can’t achieve a satisfying or effective erection despite prolonged manual stimulation, you may be one of many men who experience erectile dysfunction. See your doctor, who may well be able to treat the problem. If you are taking medications that may be impairing your sexual performance, be sure to discuss it with your doctor. Let him or her know that sexual activity is important to you. Frequently, medications can be substituted that have less effect on sexual activity.

If the above suggestions are not sufficient to help you achieve the level of activity you desire, ask for help; your primary care doctor, urologist, or gynecologist may be able to help, or may refer you to a sex therapist.

“The human animal should be a sexual critter throughout life,” says Patricia Bloom. The key is understanding and rolling with the changes.

Information from Global Action on Aging, via Othniel Seiden, MD.

The Resolution

The word sensual falls from lips like a silk slip slides down a body to the floor. I don’t think “sex” conjures as much pleasure as “sensual.” Sex doesn’t have to be sensual. But sensual can be anything it likes.

sen•su•al: adj.

1. : relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of appetite : fleshly
   
2. : sensory
   
3. a: devoted to or preoccupied with the senses or appetites b: voluptuous c: deficient in moral, spiritual, or intellectual interests : worldly; especially : irreligious
   synonyms see carnal, sensuous

A word is like an ant, carrying the incredible weight of meaning on its back.

“Sensual” comes to us from the Latin sensus or sense. The senses are the body’s wonderful physiological methods of perception, the main five being, of course, hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch. And yet “sensual”, the word, wanders around lugging the excess baggage of a gruesome divorce—that of body, mind, and soul.

I would like to follow sensual through time and learn where it became synonymous with the deficiency in moral, spiritual, or intellectual matters. Isn’t empiricism a crucial aspect of the scientific method? On what does it run if not the senses? Does walking the difficult, righteous path not require equilibrioception? And what is nociception if not the ultimate trigger of mercy? The senses, after all, bring pain as fast as they deliver pleasure.

I hold St. Augustine nearly entirely accountable for the wall between body and soul. Even today, in an age where the West has largely been released from the obligation to religion, the vestige of the split exists, like an insurmountable wall.

Or perhaps it’s that we still have religion, only instead of an almighty father, now we answer to an almighty clock. Now, instead of being exhorted not to dare enjoy, we’re chained to a schedule so ruthless, it permits nothing.

HIGH ART

It started with Anthony Bourdain, the celebrated chef, renowned author, world traveler and fearless sensualist. Much like the word “sensual”, Bourdain conjures a colorful mixture of praise and blasphemy in the minds of those who know him or his work.

“Think of the last time food transported you,” he writes in his 2001 novel A Cook’s Tour.

Your first taste of champagne on a woman’s lips… steak frites when you were in Paris as a teenager with a Eurorail pass, you’d blown almost all your dough on hash in Amsterdam, and this slightly chewy slab of rumsteck (rump steak) was the first substantial meal in days… a single wild strawberry, so flavorful that it nearly took your head off… your grandmother’s lasagne… a first sip of stolen ice cold beer on a hot summer night, hands smelling of crushed fireflies… left over pork fried rice, because your girlfriend at the time always seemed to have some in the fridge… steamer clams, dripping with drawn butter from your first family vacation at the Jersey shore… rice pudding from the Fort Dee Diner… bad Cantonese when you were a kid and Chinese was still exotic and wonderful and you still thought fortune cookies were fun… dirty water hot dogs… a few beads of caviar licked off a nipple…

A few beads of caviar licked off a nipple. What a simple, gorgeous celebration of touch and taste. The idea stopped me cold. I haven’t been able to pick up the book since reading that. What higher glory could be found among the rest of its pages?

STOP

We stand at the edge of our senses, waiting for the sets of data to come in: hot or cold? Pleasure or pain? Nice or mean? Red or green? Too spicy? Too loud? Too big? Too slow! Hungry! Tired! When was the last time we stopped and touched something and focused on the brush against our fingertips? When was the last time we turned off the constant background noise of our iPods and pressed down on a piano key to hear the clarity of a single note? When was the last time we paused briefly before putting that snack in our mouths and committed ourselves to savoring the marriage of flavors in a bite?

OVERWHELMED

A few years ago, I went to a meditation session that involved the use of crystal bowls. These bowls are made of quartz and, according to those who indulge in the practice, each is tuned to a note that resonates with one of the chakras, the body’s energy centers. The idea is that as the superstrings of the universe vibrate, every atom, cell, tissue of the body absorbs the energy and you are filled and empty, bigger than big and smaller than small, dead and alive, Shroedinger’s kitteh, etc.

“In the beginning there was the Word and the Word is sound,” says Margaret Lembo, a spiritual workshop facilitator. “Sound, intention and thought create reality.”

I went with an open mind, but to a woman from the ADD generation, sitting in the darkness of that room listening to each bowl amplify every note without a seeming melody was, well, incredibly boring. I fell into a sort of lethargic trance, glad to be spiritual enough to do this, but eager for it to be over so I could say I had done it and move on with my life. As soon as I had that thought, though, what could only be described as a conscience berated me: “living through things isn’t the same as living those things.”

Feeling a little ashamed, I focused my attention on a single note and started going along with it. I don’t know what I mean by that because I was engaging in no physical action. I was merely mentally following this note as it rose and stretched across the ether.

Call it the power of quartz, call it the power of suggestion, call it what you like: I started vibrating. Again, it wasn’t physical, but I could feel every pore, open, alive, like a mouth, receiving the the flow of a powerful charge that washed over me like an ocean. No sooner had this started that I had a powerful mental image of my hands reaching up to my chest and ripping my clothes, then my flesh, then my muscles until all that was left was a brittle rib cage that I easily pulled apart before taking hold of my heart and ripping it out.

My eyes shot open, my heart pounded in my chest, my skin on fire. Unable to calm down, I failed to get back into any kind of meditative state. Later, when people talked to one another about the wonderful relaxation they’d experienced, I bit my tongue. I could only conclude that I was not used to that level of focus on sensory perception.

Even I, the self-proclaimed voluptuary, had neglected her own receptors.

LIVING SEX

Let’s go to the carnal aspect of the definition of “sensual.” What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Sex.

When was the last time you had sex for the sake of your senses? No, think about this. I am not talking about orgasm. I am not even talking about pleasure in and of itself. I am talking about using every given sense receptor, focusing your energy on it and really, truly experiencing what that sense tells you, not just whether it feels good or not, harder, baby, harder, deeper, deeper, faster, faster, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. No. I mean: when was the time you lived your sensory data?

When was the last time you took down the filters engendered by the need for efficiency? When was the last time you let yourself experience everything? Do you even remember? If you were able to remove the filters as one opens a window, do you think you would be able to handle it?

THE BIGGEST ORGAN

A man may have a massive organ, but his skin is still his biggest organ.

The talent with touch—like the talent with sight (art), the talent with sound (music), the talent with taste (food), the talent with equilibrium (dance)—is granted arbitrarily, at birth. Sometimes those who have it use it and sometimes, like me with art, they ignore it. Sometimes they don’t deserve it. But it’s there regardless.

I think most of us are born with the talent of touch, if only we let ourselves go there.

I knew a man once who could orchestrate wild symphonies on flesh. At 31, he was an architect of sensation. The way cooks move around their kitchens, knowing exactly what flavor is missing and how to integrate it—that was how he moved around a body. A fine instrument, the body, and he knew how to play it. Fur, feathers, silk, leather, sand, cold water, chains, liquid latex, hot wax, duct tape, pudding, mud, rope, splintered wood—the body as merzbau, everything was welcome.

There was nothing that couldn’t serve some purpose. But the magic wasn’t in the creativity, it wasn’t even in the way he handled his tools. The magic was in the understanding of reaction, learning to balance pain, temperature, pressure and pleasure in every body he encountered, like tuning the instrument. He pushed the senses to the limit, but never crossed the line.

He understood sex was more than just getting off–it’s about tuning in.

So tune in with me. Put your fingers on the back of your hand. Right now. Run them lightly over it, from the knuckles to the bone gently protruding from your wrist. Be the skin that feels the fingers and be the fingers that feel everything under the skin.

You don’t need to awaken your senses. They were never sleeping. You just have to pay attention. The next time you eat, let your taste buds overwhelm you, let your mouth feel the texture of what’s inside it. The next time you hear a song, let the notes carry you. The next time you kiss, let your mouth become your hands. The next time you have sex, let yourself become the skin throbbing inside you or wrapping around you.

Open up. Living through things isn’t the same as living those things.

Let that be your resolution this year.

Happy New Year! Let’s Boink!

As usual, the folks over at someecards have us covered. Send your own slutty little greeting right here.

Too forward for you? Baby, it’s a blue moon! Not only is a blue moon a somewhat rare phenomenon (occurring every two and a half years or so), but this is a blue moon on New Year’s Eve! According to NASA, we haven’t seen a blue moon on the cusp of the new year since 1990! And we won’t see another until 2028!

So get over yourself and send the e-card. Or text that person and tell them to get their asses over to you and kiss you like they mean it. Yes, I’m talking to you, Colleen.

Information about the blue moon from Mashable. Thanks Sean Percival for the tip.

Eroge For The Soul: Record of Agarest War

Finally! A game that understands what it’s all about!

Geeks everywhere rejoice. Well, no. Geeks in Asia and Europe have had Record of Agarest War for a one or two years already. Aksys Games, which is set to release the strategy, role-playing game here in North America recently announced that they were pushing back the date for sometime next year.

Good thing next year’s tomorrow, huh?

Image from Aksys Games. Trailer via The Escapist.

Rachael Ray on FHM’s Top 100 Sexiest Women of 2009

In 2003, Rachael Ray did a photo shoot for FHM at the behest of the Food Network.

She was not paid for it, but remarked that she thought it was cool that college guys brought copies of the issue to book signings.

“I thought, I’m a cook, I’m over 35 and these young guys love it,” Ray told the New York Times two years later. “When I’m 80 I’m going to look back and be like, “I represented!’”

Now, Ray is 100 on FHM‘s Top 100 Sexiest Women of 2009–proof positive that the fastest way into a man’s pants is through noms.

Image via The Glamorous Life. Information from Zennie62.

Apple’s Anti-Porn Stance Blows, Encourages Scamming

Here’s an excellent argument on the suffering we’re enduring at the hands of anti-porn Apple, by Gizmodo‘s John Herrman:

Apple has a ratings system in the App Store. It has a 17+ rating, for apps with violent, crude or sexual content—or app that have a browser function, which could be used to access objectionable content. Most of the apps above are 17+, which means that if parents so choose, they can block their iPhone-having children from even being able to download them. It follows that they could do the same for 18+ apps, so why haven’t they?

I can understand Apple not wanting to get into the porn business, which, by taking 30% of developers’ revenue, I guess they would sort of be doing. But the current setup just doesn’t make any sense. You can buy an app with a built-in browser, which can access the most horrible smut on the web, and get a 17+ rating. But if you link said app to one of those sites, and disable general browsing, suddenly it’s verboten. Again, I can understand how we ended up here, but the results, as you’ve seen, are depressing.

It’s fair to say that most people just assume there are porn apps, when there really aren’t. But there are hundreds of apps that look like porn apps, cost money, and that are, effectively, bait-and-switch scams. Apple can fix this in two ways: they can open the floodgates and just let people have their real porn apps, which would effectively kill these in-between semi-porn apps, or they can revise how the App Store works: by instituting a 24-hour open return policy for paid apps, like the Android Market has, people would simply return these worthless apps, and developers, now unable to trick people into giving them boner money, would stop making them. They would tumble down the rankings and into oblivion.

Anyway, no matter what Apple does, people will continue to look at photos of naked humans on their iPhones. It may make the company squirm, but there’s no reason to pretend it’s not happening, and to let scammers screw up the App Store more than they already have.

The system is broken, Apple. Please fix it.

Image from MapData. Information from Gizmodo.

Failed Bomber Was Plagued by Desire

On Christmas Day, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. He had tailored his briefs to hold a pouch containing 80 grams of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a powerful, if difficult to detonate, explosive.

The New York Post, always eager to get to the root of things went through postings on gawaher.com, an Islamic forum frequented by Abdulmutallab.

“The bomb wasn’t the only thing burning in his pants,” they report, offering the following selection of posts from the knicker-bomber:

“As i get lonely, the natural sexual drive awakens and i struggle to control it, sometimes leading to minor sinful activities like not lowering the gaze [in the presence of unveiled women].”

“And this problem makes me want to get married to avoid getting aroused . . . But i am only 18 . . . It would be difficult for me to get married due to social norms of getting to the late 20′s when one has a degree, a job, a house, etc before getting married.”

“The hair of a woman can easily arouse a man.”

“The Prophet advised young men to fast if they can’t get married but it has not been helping me much and I seriously don’t want to wait for years before I get married.”

“So usually my fa[n]tasies are about islamic stuff. The bad part of it is sometimes the fantasies are a bit worldly rather than concentrating in the hereafter.”

Information from The New York Post.

Let’s Sanitize Our Movies in The Name of Sales!

Sex doesn’t sell–we’re too jaded.

That’s what a recent study titled “Sex Doesn’t Sell — nor Impress! Content, Box Office, Critics, and Awards in Mainstream Cinema” is saying, after analyzing the box office success of movies containing explicit sex scenes between 2001 and 2005.

“Sex did not sell, whether in the domestic or international box office, and even after controlling for MPAA rating,” said co-author Dean Keith Simonton, who is also a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis. “In other words, even among R movies, less graphic sex is better.”

The study was prompted by an experience almost a decade ago of its co-author, Anemone Cerridwen, who, when taking acting classes, increasingly became uncomfortable with the sexual content in films.

“I assumed sex sold, and wanted to know by how much,” Cerridwen said. “I braced myself for the worst, and got quite the surprise.”

Why?

“Nothing is as shocking anymore,” says Craig Detweiler, director of the Center for Entertainment, Media and Culture at Pepperdine University. “You can see it in Britney Spears’ kiss with Madonna and Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl performance. Things that were a big controversy among some, the next generation kind of yawned at it.”

Detweiler told CNN he bears witness to a revolution by the new generation against those of time past, whose goals are “not doing drugs, not sleeping around and not getting divorced.” He thinks this is why Jane Austen films and the Twilight series are so popular today.

“Those stories are really about sexual separation,” he said. “They are all about wooing, not winning.”

The authors of the study hope that Hollywood keeps the research in mind.

“I do believe that there are a fair number of people in the film industry who want to make better films, and this study may give them some ammunition,” Cerridwen said. “I know that Hollywood has been trying to make more family-friendly films for a while (since the ’90s) and it seems to be helping ticket sales, so my guess is that this research would complement that.”

When did the presence of sex in a film make that film “bad”? Sex is human. It merits representation in our art, and that includes film.

Information from CNN, via Rita Arens.

If TMZ Had Existed In The 1950s…

JFK may have never been president. They might have known better. Look at this photo:

This is what TMZ said about it:

We believe the photo was taken in the mid-1950s. It shows two naked women jumping off the boat and two more naked women sunning on the top deck. Just below the top deck — a man appearing to be John F. Kennedy is lying on a deck, sunning himself.

TMZ had multiple experts examine the photo — all say there is no evidence the picture was Photoshopped. The original print — which is creased — was scanned and examined for evidence of inconsistent lighting, photo composition and other forms of manipulation. The experts all concluded the photo appears authentic.

There are numerous articles and books on President John F. Kennedy which mention a 2-week, Mediterranean boating trip that JFK — then a Senator — took in August, 1956, with his brother Ted Kennedy and Senator George Smathers. The trio reportedly entertained a number of women on the yacht. Jackie Kennedy was pregnant at the time and was rushed to the hospital while JFK was on the boat. Doctors performed an emergency C-section, but the infant was stillborn.

TMZ is, however, wrong.

They have posted a correction, reporting that the man is not JFK:

We’ve now confirmed the photo was part of a Playboy spread in 1967. A rep from Playboy tells TMZ the photo ran as part of story titled, “Playboy’s Charter Yacht Party: How to Have a Ball on the Briny with an Able-Bodies Complement of Ship’s Belles.” She says the photo was taken on one of the islands that make up the Grenadines (Petit Rameau).

Image and information from TMZ, via OpenSalon. Thanks to Rita Arens for the tip and Sara for the update.

Weirdest Sex News of 2009

In February, Sheyla Hershey of Houston, Texas, proud owner of 38KKK-sized breast implants, announced she will continue to have breast augmentation surgery until she takes the Guinness World Record for biggest implants, which is currently held by 36MMM-sized Maxi Mounds.

And who could forget that April afternoon when news broke that Vince Shlomi–better known as the ShamWow Guy–got his tongue bitten by a sex worker, leading to an altercation that resulted in both parties being arrested?

When the British retailer Marks & Spencer started charging extra for bras sized DD and up, Beckie Williams–who’s a size G–started a series of protests called “Busts 4 Justice.” Her Facebook group, with some 17,000 members, forced Marks & Spencer into a frantic backpedal. In May, the policy was dropped.

In June, a woman having a torrid love affair with her boss accidentally bit off his penis while fellating him when a car rear-ended their vehicle in Shanghai. The 30-year-old managed to cough up the tip of the penis and it was successfully reattached in a hospital.

And in September, Julia Grovenburg and her husband, who’d been trying to conceive for what felt like forever, found that Julia had become pregnant… while pregnant. Superfetation, as the condition is known, is so rare, doctors know of only 10 other cases in recorded history.

And speaking of pregnancy, just this month Chilean weightlifter Elizabeth Poblete gave birth while training–without having a clue that she’d been pregnant.

Then there is Adam Manning who fondled his girlfriend’s nurse while his girlfriend was giving birth to his first-born in October. By the time his baby was born, the nuclear douche was sitting in a Utah county jail.

How about some liberty? In October 29-year-old Erick Williamson was convicted of indecent exposure for being seen by neighbors cutting through his yard while he was sipping his morning coffee in the buff. The judge did not fine or sentence him.

In November, Allison Henry, a 39-year-old school psychologist from Kenmore, Washington, came forth with her story about living through a vaginal prolapse, a condition in which the vagina, uterus, rectum, bladder, urethra and small intestine shift and may “fall out of the body.”

Also in November, a man by the name of Rodell Vereen, who’d to register as a sex offender after being convicted for getting down with a horse in 2007 was caught again–with the same horse! The 50-year-old was sentenced to three years in prison, and the judge has banned him from going near a stable for life.

Information from The Sphere.