AR: How has your idea of what “sex” is changed over your lifetime?
JP: In my teens and early twenties, I was trying to shed the restrictions I had been taught by family and society about sex being bad until a wedding band somehow transformed it, so sex was rebellion. Although I willingly shed my virginity at 17, I didn’t have an orgasm until two years later. Being a child of the 1950’s, I didn’t even know what/where my clitoris was or what made it work, until a more experienced college boy showed me. I haven’t stopped enjoying it since!

From my mid-twenties to early-thirties, sex was both an expression of love and an exploration of what turned me on. I was in two committed relationships (serially) during that time, and I loved the high and the bonding of sex.

In my mid-thirties and through my forties, sex was the Big O: orgasm, as frequently as possible. I was in a love relationship for part of that time which was sometimes exclusive and sometimes open, and after that broke up, I went a bit crazy with the excitement of multiple partners. This was my real coming of age, sexually. I discovered the glory of powerful orgasms, whether alone or with a partner (or series of partners), filling my drawers with vibrators and my datebook with eager men.

During all this time, my hormonal, biological urge was propelling my sex drive. After menopause, all this shifted.

I was a post-menopausal single woman, needing lubricant, taking longer to get aroused and reach orgasm, and as eager as I was to keep my sex life going, often I felt invisible to potential partners. I still felt youthful and vibrant in my mind (still do, at 64!), but my face started showing my age, and boom, men were no longer interested. It was amazing to me, really.

Then at age 57, I fell in love with Robert, who was then 64. Our love affair was the reason I wrote my book, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty. My sex drive was no longer hormonally driven. Rather, it was driving by love, the yearning to bond deeply, and a deep commitment to my lover’s pleasure as much as (sometimes more than) my own. We married when I was 62, he 69. Ours has been the great love of both our lives. It has also been the best sex, because joining together is a culmination of everything we’ve experienced in our lives as well as our deep love for each other. It’s spiritual as well as physical.

AR: What is one thing that surprised you in the course of doing research for your book?
JP: I was surprised at how much women my age and older wanted to talk about their sexual experiences and attitudes. I thought – since society was not (at that time) talking out loud about older-age sexuality, that it would be difficult to find women willing to be interviewed. On the contrary – they said over and over, “Thank you for asking! I’ve been wanting to talk about this!” It was very gratifying to help give voice to these older women and shake the stereotypes loose.

Recently there have been a number of reports of the increase in sexually transmitted infections among people over the age of 50. What do you think of this? What do you think the most viable solutions are?

The new book I’m writing has a big chapter about this. The problem is that many sexually active older people think that STIs and HIV are diseases that happen to younger people living a different lifestyle. Many don’t use safer sex precautions – they don’t think they have to, or they ask a potential partner a perfunctory question or two, and accept that the person could not infect them with anything worse than the common cold. If you read my blog where we discussed this – such as the reader comments at http://betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-do-you-handle-sex-and-dating.html – you’ll see that my age group is really in denial about the risk they’re taking. We – health educators, the media, doctors -- need to talk out loud about this much more than we’re doing.
Consider this:
· About eleven per cent of all newly diagnosed HIV infections are in people older than fifty, and a quarter of those are older than sixty.
· The risk of AIDS is increasing at twice the rate in people over fifty as compared to the increase in people under fifty.
· Heterosexual HIV transmission in men over fifty is up ninety-four percent, and the rate has doubled in women since 1991.
· An Ohio University study found that about twenty-seven percent of HIV-infected men and thirty-five percent of HIV-infected women over fifty sometimes have sex without using condoms.
· Older women are particularly at risk for blood-borne diseases like HIV or chlamydia because their thinning vaginal lining and lack of lubrication lead to tearing during intercourse, permitting easy access to the bloodstream.

By the way, I’m seeking interviews for my new book. My solicitation is below.

Seeking Interviews for Joan Price’s New Book
Wanted: Women and men over 50, single or partnered, straight or gay, willing to write candidly about your personal experiences and attitudes regarding sex and aging for my new book. I’m seeking your written comments and stories about the trials and challenges as well as the joys of sexuality after 50.

This will be a follow-up to Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex after Sixty and will include stories from singles and couples, women and men, along with strategies for improving those situations that challenge us as we age. It will be more solution-oriented than Better Than I Ever Expected, dealing with the health and relationship problems in greater depth, with more expert tips. While Better was geared towards women (and those who love them!), this book will represent men and women equally.

Would you or any of your age 50+ friends like to be a part of this book? You will be identified by a first name of your choice and your age. Your true identity will be kept strictly confidential.

Interested? Please contact Joan Price at joan@joanprice.com now and I'll email you the questionnaire.

Please copy or forward this to everyone you know who might be interested, or who might know someone 50+ who would be interested.