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Sex Ed for Seniors: "You're Going To Get Laid For the Rest of Your Life"

Sat, 2009-05-02 20:32 — figleaf

I’ve been meaning to mention this video from the National Sexuality Resource Center called “How to Have the Best Sex of Your Life after Fifty.” It’s an interview with sex educator Karen Forsythe from Second Wind, a sex site for sexually active men and women ages 50 and up.

I can’t embed the interview here but you can go see for yourself.

Notable Forsythe quotes:

“Get away from the idea of “intercourse” as the biggest kahuna in the world because it’s not. At our age intercourse becomes only one of several options you can have.”

“You’re going to get laid for the rest of your life.”

And since, by the way, you are going to get laid for the rest of your life (if I don’t get that point across I’m not doing my job!) you ought to check out Second Wind. It’s a cool site whatever your age.

Sat, 2009-05-02 20:46 — 2908 (not verified) #permalink

Crap! Doesn’t it at least take two?

Sat, 2009-05-02 23:29 — 2908 (not verified) #permalink

This is awesome. I’ll definitely be writing my own post on this soon. I used to do sex ed at retirement homes. Did you know that people over 65 are actually the fastest growing population to contract AIDS? When they get divorced or widowed and find a new partner, they very often don’t use protection because a) they never had comprehensive sex ed in their day because it wasn’t something that people talked about and b) the risk of pregnancy is no longer there.

What a great site. I’ll definitely be writing more on this over at my place and will link to you when I do.

[Thank you Britni. Based on my own peripheral knowledge of retirement centers (old roommates who worked at them, mom who worked with geriatric and now lives in one) they’re a lot more, um, easygoing themselves than they were on, say, their boomer-era children. Still, I’m dismayed that HIV is making inroads. For the record my uncle died from AIDS at age 63 in the mid-1980s… relatively soon after it was identified. He was fairly openly gay but he was pretty insistent that he actually got the infection from blood transfusions he received getting, no kidding, treatment for some kind of complications from syphilis. Anyway, yes, no doubt sex-ed for seniors remains a good idea. —fl]

Sun, 2009-05-03 10:00 — 2908 (not verified) #permalink

“Get away from the idea of “intercourse” as the biggest kahuna in the world because it’s not. At our age intercourse becomes only one of several options you can have.”

Of course the other options have been there the whole entire time, even if you are a young person. Sometimes it’s not easy for the young either.

There’s one thing (among many) to keep in mind about when you make this statement to someone who hasn’t been confronted with the idea before. This comes to mind first.
The person you’re saying it to might be very bitter for awhile, for not having been told sooner, and so having had less enjoyable sex for a long time up to that point.

[Hi K! Forsythe is considerably more diplomatic than the excerpts I pulled from the actual interview. And yes, those other avenues have been there all along. I’m not sure everybody would be pissed to have missed out as they might have been ruffled at the suggestion that they might. On balance, though, I’m pretty sure if any of the alternatives appeal at all Forsythe’s presentation may appear more like giving permission to people who grew up when, seriously, only hetero intercourse was legal (i.e. before 1990 in some hold-out states in the U.S., sure, but also almost everywhere in the U.S. before, say, 1970.) Thanks. —fl]

Mon, 2009-05-04 23:18 — 2908 (not verified) #permalink

Excellent post, I found it via Britni’s blog, which referenced you. Thank you!

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