Senior Dating & Sexuality Support Group
This community is intended for senior to discuss senior dating and sexuality, and the specific issues that arise for seniors, such as starting over as a widow or widower.
Lots of ladies post on here about how nervous they are at the idea of sex again after many years without it, and lots of replies say relax, take it slowly, don't let him rush you etc, the same as we were being told when we were dealing with amorous 20 year olds. I've found the reality to be very different. At age 50 I took the plunge back into the dating pool. Before that my oldest partner had been 45. This is my experience and what I've learned.
I was 52 and my partner was 62 when we met. I was very naive about impotence before I met him. I thought it was something that happened to a few, very old men, at least aged 80 or older. The wheelchair-bound husband in Lady Chatterlys Lover was impotent so his wife was unfaithful with the young gardener. I saw articles about 90 year olds becoming fathers. A middle aged friend's father was 75 and in sitting a wheelchair when she was conceived with his much younger girlfriend. My own father told me when he was about 70 that he 'could keep going for much longer now' and that my mum 'didn't seem to mind'! (Thanks for that info Dad!) All I'd heard was that it could take older men a bit longer before they could do it for a second time! Even now when I know so much more I'm confused by statistics that say '40% of men over 40', '50% of men over 60', '60% over 75' when in real life men say that 'lots of over 70s can still get it up' and others say 'in his 60s he's lucky he can get it up at all'.
Aged 63 my partner's words to me were 'I sometimes have a bit of a problem, but that's normal for men my age' and in my innocence I smilingly said it's ok, we can do other things. I had no concept of what that would mean and the toll it takes on you both when you're both in the moment, both really do want real sex and it goes soft AGAIN, or he gets it in and it goes soft within 30 seconds, no orgasm involved. AGAIN. Every time.
People have strange concepts regarding Viagra too! They think it actually gives men the desire even if they aren't interested. They think that it gives them a continuous erection for hours and hours even when they aren't having any sexual contact. You see jokes on TV of men walking round with a hardon at work because their mates spiked their coffee. It doesn't do that, it doesn't work on its own, the men still need some stimulation to get hard, and they'll still go soft after sex or if the stimulation stops. All Viagra does is make the erection last while sex or stimulation is happening by stopping the blood leaving the penis. And even that won't work if the man doesn't want sex.
I wish we were all more open and better informed about impotence and its treatment, and that it didn't have this stigma attached to it. Then men wouldnt feel like failures or be too embarrassed to get it checked out by the doctor, as so often there is an undiagnosed medical reason causing it. Then women fresh back in the dating pool in their 50s, anticipating the same 'new relationship' sex we'd had in the past, wouldn't be quite so blindsided by things having changed so much. Lots of older women are only interested in friendship, but lots of women do still like sex, especially as part of a new relationship. My experience of younger men was that they were ever ready and unstoppable, and that made me feel attractive and sexy. I wasn't prepared at all for how old and frumpy I would feel just because a man didn't get an erection with me. Too much pressure on the man, but deep ingrained attitudes.
My girlfriends are a many-and-varied mixture, some married 30 years, some single and dating, some single and not dating, some living with partners and some like me in a live-out relationship, but we're all in our 50s and early 60s. When this subject comes up as it often does (no, chaps, contrary to popular belief, women do still think and talk about sex a lot), we say how unprepared some of us were for the changes. It's the friends in the long term marriages who seem to cope better, maybe because it's been a more gradual process. Their lives are filled with family and hobbies, and sex is all in the past thank goodness - they got bored with all that! One of my 59 year old single friends still says it's all a matter of the woman's technique, and that no man would need Viagra with her! But she's been on her own for 10 years!
I wish I'd been more prepared for the realities and how nature seems to turn the tables on men and women sex wise.
I was 52 and my partner was 62 when we met. I was very naive about impotence before I met him. I thought it was something that happened to a few, very old men, at least aged 80 or older. The wheelchair-bound husband in Lady Chatterlys Lover was impotent so his wife was unfaithful with the young gardener. I saw articles about 90 year olds becoming fathers. A middle aged friend's father was 75 and in sitting a wheelchair when she was conceived with his much younger girlfriend. My own father told me when he was about 70 that he 'could keep going for much longer now' and that my mum 'didn't seem to mind'! (Thanks for that info Dad!) All I'd heard was that it could take older men a bit longer before they could do it for a second time! Even now when I know so much more I'm confused by statistics that say '40% of men over 40', '50% of men over 60', '60% over 75' when in real life men say that 'lots of over 70s can still get it up' and others say 'in his 60s he's lucky he can get it up at all'.
Aged 63 my partner's words to me were 'I sometimes have a bit of a problem, but that's normal for men my age' and in my innocence I smilingly said it's ok, we can do other things. I had no concept of what that would mean and the toll it takes on you both when you're both in the moment, both really do want real sex and it goes soft AGAIN, or he gets it in and it goes soft within 30 seconds, no orgasm involved. AGAIN. Every time.
People have strange concepts regarding Viagra too! They think it actually gives men the desire even if they aren't interested. They think that it gives them a continuous erection for hours and hours even when they aren't having any sexual contact. You see jokes on TV of men walking round with a hardon at work because their mates spiked their coffee. It doesn't do that, it doesn't work on its own, the men still need some stimulation to get hard, and they'll still go soft after sex or if the stimulation stops. All Viagra does is make the erection last while sex or stimulation is happening by stopping the blood leaving the penis. And even that won't work if the man doesn't want sex.
I wish we were all more open and better informed about impotence and its treatment, and that it didn't have this stigma attached to it. Then men wouldnt feel like failures or be too embarrassed to get it checked out by the doctor, as so often there is an undiagnosed medical reason causing it. Then women fresh back in the dating pool in their 50s, anticipating the same 'new relationship' sex we'd had in the past, wouldn't be quite so blindsided by things having changed so much. Lots of older women are only interested in friendship, but lots of women do still like sex, especially as part of a new relationship. My experience of younger men was that they were ever ready and unstoppable, and that made me feel attractive and sexy. I wasn't prepared at all for how old and frumpy I would feel just because a man didn't get an erection with me. Too much pressure on the man, but deep ingrained attitudes.
My girlfriends are a many-and-varied mixture, some married 30 years, some single and dating, some single and not dating, some living with partners and some like me in a live-out relationship, but we're all in our 50s and early 60s. When this subject comes up as it often does (no, chaps, contrary to popular belief, women do still think and talk about sex a lot), we say how unprepared some of us were for the changes. It's the friends in the long term marriages who seem to cope better, maybe because it's been a more gradual process. Their lives are filled with family and hobbies, and sex is all in the past thank goodness - they got bored with all that! One of my 59 year old single friends still says it's all a matter of the woman's technique, and that no man would need Viagra with her! But she's been on her own for 10 years!
I wish I'd been more prepared for the realities and how nature seems to turn the tables on men and women sex wise.
Good point that Viagra isn't 100%! It did always work when my partner was able to take it so I didn't think to add that.
Even these days this idea hangs on that we shouldn't discuss our sex lives, and that somehow we're being disloyal to our partners if we even hint that they're anything less than an amazing stud, even in their 60's! I have friends whose mouth goes all pursed up when the subject crops up. Ssshhhh, sex lives are private!
I guess what I'm getting at is that this attitude just perpetuates the myth that all men are still at it with gusto into their 80's and beyond, and that we women with our buttoned up misplaced loyalty have been partly to blame for this idea.
I've already given my daughters an idea of what might lie ahead in the future. They laugh at me when I say enjoy it while they're young, your young men do have their good point! I don't want them to learn the tough way like I have.
I agree, impotence comes as a shock after all the previous importance put on penetration as the raison d'tre of sexuality. Ironic that the very people who insisted on penetration (even if it hurt terribly or could result in an unwanted pregnancy!) are now heavily invested in substituting the oral sex they refused to perform in their callow youth. As I age, irony engulfs me.
I am very interested in sex and have found that many men on a xxx rated site have full erectile capability at even a late age. I have seen some erections on guys in their 70's that are really magnificent . So capability exists in that triple x context anyway.
My problem, at 62 years of age, with that is that I am not interested in a sex only relation, and the obsessed freaks at the sex site have no other human capacities I can recognize, many being sex and porn addicts, incapable of relation of any kind with others They are stone sex junkies and nothing more. Their conversations are just ... grim.
So they are erect and lunging about seeking any aperture, just as one remembers, but... but penetration is their only capacity. They can't even pretend attachment or interest in others.
So... in my experience, ultimately it comes down to:
you (perhaps) can get a man without a workable erection, or... an erection w/o a workable man. Great. Being a full service emotionally available and physically responsive female is REALLY not paying off for me, is it? Actually, the workable man w/o erection remains a rumor to me. I would try and work with someone who was worthwhile in other ways, ED or not, IF that opportunity ever presented. Never has yet.
Yes, I have started seeing men half my age, finally. Most men my age would have done that in a minute if they had my offers over the years. I attempted peer loyalty for five screamingly boring years, but have met only human dregs in mansuits in my age group.
To be clear: These are the men whose wives found out they did NOT "have to take it any more" and the (the wives) could take half of what wealth was accumulated during the nightmare marriage and clear the Hell out. These women are out of there like a shot... and these POS are what I get to audition for my next partner. Abusive, selfish, Narcissistic, uninteresting, characterless and now... flaccid too.
I know many many wonderful men, attractive, intelligent, decent, engaging... and they all have partners.
Not one exception in my area has ever presented in years.
I realize I will find myself on my deathbed asking myself WHY I kept trying. I honestly don't know why I continue to believe in love. I am ware I am not supposed to even WANT sex. Quaint.
I've posted before about the irony of men telling us that at 50+ we should be happy with what the so called experts are now calling 'outercourse', when for the whole of our lives we've been labelled a pricktease for doing what they do to us now! They said we led them on if we wouldn't go all the way. By the same token they are now leading us on by not going all the way!
The sex mad guys on that site sound vile. Let's face it, erections are great if attached to a fit young male body or to an old, ordinary, guy who is yours and that you have feelings for. Not sure about grizzled old men I don't even like. Oh dear :(
The only difference between us is that I have found a man with lots of other good things going for him, well, he found me. He has the usual old man a bit stuck in his ways issues, with an inexplicable interest in the life cycle of root vegetables and inspecting seed packets, and he's a charmer who loves to give off the impression that he's still a stud, but he's intelligent, funny and very tactile. (He actually sounds quite a catch after what you've said!) if only it weren't for this wretched impotence problem (and that he's not a great kisser!) I'd be in heaven.
But I'm aware that because I married very young a part of me is trying to make up for the time I think I lost. When I get over that I hope I'll be more content and able to settle for what's on offer.
Good luck, I hope you find what you're looking for :)