At last statistics have proved what I've known professionally for decades and am increasingly coming to know on a personal level... sexual desire does not fade with age. The myth that sex stops at 40, or with the twentieth wrinkle, whichever comes sooner, is just that - a myth.
A survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and covered in almost all the national newspapers today with varying degrees of seriousness, shows that older people still want, need and love sex - and most of them, despite the occasional erectile or lubricative glitch, are still getting it. The majority of those under 74 are making love regularly and happily.
The flipside - for sadly, there is a flipside - is that they may well be making love unsafely. For after all, these nasty STDs don't affect anyone but the young, do they? (Of course they do, one of the biggest rises in infection occurs among the older cohort, who think that anyone they sleep with has been celibate or at least faithful for the past several decades. Dream on.)
But safe sex warnings apart, I'm delighted that at last those of us in our middle years are finally being appreciated for who we are. We are not ony warm blooded and passionate, - but also knowledgeable about our own bodies, about how to turn a partner on, about how to make sex not only loving but also lustful. What's not to like?
Showing posts with label death love sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death love sex. Show all posts
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Morbid - no, necessary
Nice piece by Bel Mooney in the Mail this morning on the upcoming ITV documentary which shows, on primetime television, the last moments of a life. There's been a lot of controversy about this programme - as there was a decade ago when the BBC showed a death on The Human Body. Like Bel, however, I'm absolutely in favour.
Of course if a 'real death' is shown disrespectfully, humorously or violently, we should condemn it. But actually, we see 'pretend death'shown in all these ways, many times a week on the media, and barely an eyebrow is raised. This showing of real death in a serious, reverent - and above all, honest - way is to me a huge step forward.
I saw my father die. He was 78 years old, and he died of terminal lung cancer in a hospital bed with me and my uncle at his side. It was an unbearably upsetting moment - but nevetheless I am glad I was there. I had not been there when my mother died and I had always felt somehow cheated at that. We need to witness the moment of death.
But surely we only need to witness when the dying person is close to us? Surely when they are a stranger, as is the case on the upcoming documentary, our interest is morbid and voyeuristic. Not at all. Death, like sex, is something we rarely see in person - yet it is one of the defining elements that makes us human. We will all die, will all lose loved ones to death. We all want to know - and arguably deserve to know - what it looks like.
Seeing my father die has not removed my fear of being dead, because I don't know what follows. But it has removed my fear of dying - and thus made me far more able to live fully. If the upcoming documentary does that for even a handful of its viewers, then it will be worthwhile.
Of course if a 'real death' is shown disrespectfully, humorously or violently, we should condemn it. But actually, we see 'pretend death'shown in all these ways, many times a week on the media, and barely an eyebrow is raised. This showing of real death in a serious, reverent - and above all, honest - way is to me a huge step forward.
I saw my father die. He was 78 years old, and he died of terminal lung cancer in a hospital bed with me and my uncle at his side. It was an unbearably upsetting moment - but nevetheless I am glad I was there. I had not been there when my mother died and I had always felt somehow cheated at that. We need to witness the moment of death.
But surely we only need to witness when the dying person is close to us? Surely when they are a stranger, as is the case on the upcoming documentary, our interest is morbid and voyeuristic. Not at all. Death, like sex, is something we rarely see in person - yet it is one of the defining elements that makes us human. We will all die, will all lose loved ones to death. We all want to know - and arguably deserve to know - what it looks like.
Seeing my father die has not removed my fear of being dead, because I don't know what follows. But it has removed my fear of dying - and thus made me far more able to live fully. If the upcoming documentary does that for even a handful of its viewers, then it will be worthwhile.
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