OPINION
Those who assert age is no barrier to sex don’t seem to have heard of creaky joints, hypertension or dental plates, writes Jane McKenzie.
It was with great pleasure that I settled down to read a recent Listener. But after wading through “The Pleasure Gap”, I felt increasing dismay. You can’t leave the house these days without tripping over menopause, and it all boils down to the same message: have more sex, age is no barrier, and you owe it to yourself (and your partner).
I am one of those women who lived through the first wave of feminism in the 60s and 70s and, yes, I was rolling my eyes at this point.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that every man, no matter his age, wants to know he can still get it up. It is a truth universally ignored that many a woman reaches a point where she simply can’t be faffed. Menopause certainly plays a part but it’s not the full story, and yet, there it was: more advice on how to rev up your hormones (testosterone? really?), get to know your clitoris (we are intimately acquainted, thank you), and buy toys and creams (been there, done that).
There comes a time when we’re all on medication of some sort – blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes – and our hips hurt and our joints ache. The fear that our partner is going to collapse on top of us, or under us, or behind us, is very real. And that’s assuming we get that far after having sorted the hearing aids, the dental plate and the distracting cramp that strikes without warning. Men might joke that they wish to die “on the job” but believe me, women don’t.
It’s lovely to be told you still have great legs, but distracting when you’re trying to put your undies on one leg at a time without groaning. And as for bending over, or sinking to your knees, forget about it: your back goes out more often than you do.
Nice idea to have a bath together and light a sexy candle, but these days, getting out of the bath is a very undignified exercise, and if one of you lights a candle, the other is sure to say, “Oh, Christ, is the power out again?”
It wasn’t always like this. Back in the day, we read The Joy of Sex, snuck off to Last Tango in Paris, and watched Debbie Does Dallas (most of it). We were led to believe that everyone else was doing it. And we are now led to believe many people over 80 in retirement villages are still doing it – sometimes more than young people.
Who on Earth does those surveys? Who trusts such self-reporting? It’s a hard myth to dispel – that everyone else but you is at it, like some frightful sexual marathon – but it wasn’t true then and I bet it’s not true now.
It’s true that menopause is a marker for all sorts of things, and many women “realise their sexuality around that period”. Check out the number of lady couples bobbing up in ‘burbs around the country. The rest of us, still happily in our long-term relationships despite (or maybe because of) having navigated the occasional patch of treacherous water, find ways to keep both ourselves and our men in fine fettle without the threat of a date night with its unspoken but inevitable outcome. And we manage to enjoy an evening out with friends unconcerned by the knowledge that one of us, at least, will be snoring by 9pm.
So take my advice on how to keep love and intimacy alive without resorting to more pills, potions and devices. Take walks together, hold hands, play “Remember When”, be generous with back rubs, and make each other laugh. Frankly, that’s the biggest factor – it’s largely in the mind.
If all else fails, just get on with it and sooner or later you are likely to discover that you do, in fact, still enjoy sex with your long-term partner. But in the meantime, hands off my fanny. I’m not a Boomer for nothing.
Jane McKenzie lives in rural South Canterbury and works as an associate editor for Quentin Wilson Publishing.
