Photo by Flickr user avdgaag. Used under a Creative Commons license.
SadieStein at Jezebel says
Slate’s recent piece on the forbidden love of a couple suffering from dementia has hit a nerve. The pair (82 and 95, respectively) met at an assisted-living facility and embarked on a relationship that quickly grew passionately physical. When 95-year-old Bob’s son walked in on his father receiving oral sex from his girlfriend, Dorothy, he pitched a fit, complained to the home’s management – who separated them – and then summarily moved his father to another facility, citing concerns for Bob’s health – after which Dorothy went into steep decline.
...
The article suggests that Bob’s son’s reaction was as much “ick factor” at the thought (and sight) of his nanogenarian father’s active sex life as reasoned concern. It is certainly true that as a society we’re conditioned to think of old-folks’ sex as automatically risible and somewhat grotesque.
OWCH at Daily Kos says
In light of kos’ display of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, John McCain’s campaign has released a rare glimpse of the Republican candidate’s own birth certificate.
...
Thought lost for the ages, the document was found in a clay jar, in an abandoned cave, on the outskirts of Sedona, by a shepherd boy in 1947. The desert climate and the dry atmosphere in the caves kept the parchment remarkably well preserved.
Just a word to the wise: making jokes about John McCain’s age is sort of like making jokes about Hillary Clinton’s gender. You can be a twit and focus on superficiality instead of substance if and only if you’re prepared to claim that your only problem with individual X is his age, or her gender, or his orientation, or her drunk-driving conviction. Since, at least with John McCain, if age really is your only reservation then…
Good luck getting past your kid’s “ick factors” when you’re looking for a little privacy some time after age 82. It might not sound that hot now but… I’m pretty sure it won’t seem like nearly such a bad idea when you get there yourself. M’may?
Submitted by 2238 (not verified) on Wed, 2008-06-18 01:34.
I believe gender comes into ageism too. Do you think anyone would take a woman seriously as a candidate at McCain's age? And yet I know many admirable and capable women of that age. And I think women are regarded as asexual at a much younger age than men. Everything, but everything, is expected to stop after the menopause. It certainly hasn't in my case :)
[Not even menopause since there's the whole "over the hill" at 25, or after the first child, or after the first gray hair, or whatever for women. On the up side, one of the original "scorched earth" conservatives, and one of the first expressed, organized anti-feminists in the U.S. was Phyllis Schlaffley who, well into her 70s, is still being recognized and awarded honorary university doctorates. Not the person I'd have picked to pioneer the process but there she is. Thanks, A. --fl]
Submitted by 2238 (not verified) on Wed, 2008-06-18 07:31.
I honestly don't know why people get their panties all in a wad about elderly people having a sex life. I hope that once I'm that old I'm still capable and willing to have that sort of fun myself. Everyone who wants to should be able to have a fulfilling sex life, whether solo or with someone else, no matter what their age.
My grandmother just remarried (at 73, to her 80 year old brother in law, which entertained the rest of us to no end, especially as they've spent the last 50 years barely tolerating each other's company) after being a widow for two years and going without for a good long time before that, as my grandfather was bedridden with cancer for almost a year before he died. They are absolutely adorable together and act like teenagers again. We teased them about the wedding night, and they both took it well, blushing and with a twinkle in the eye, but really everyone was incredibly happy for them. And good for them, really.
[Wonderful case in point. It won't seem so bad when we get there either. Thanks, ks. --fl]
Submitted by 2238 (not verified) on Wed, 2008-06-18 10:23.
But it's this "when we get there" that gets me down. We don't "get there". We feel exactly the same as we ever did but people judge us from our outward appearances, or our birth certificates.
[By "get there" I mean "reach the age when *other* people tell us what we can or can't feel." My father's exactly 30 years older than I, and I remember him saying on my 30th birthday that he didn't feel *any* different than he did when he was 30, or for that matter 13 or even 3. And it's true, we *don't!* Sure, we *look* different but until *very* late in life that's not at all the same things. Thank you, A. --fl]