With a third of over-70s admitting they still feel sexual desire, we reveal the truth about sex as we age
WORDS: ELAINE KINGETT, LIZ HODGKINSON © DAILY MAIL. MAIN PHOTO (POSED BY MODELS): GETTY. OTHER PHOTOS: DAILY MAIL/SOLO SYNDICATION
Sex after 70. It’s happening – and much more frequently than you may have imagined. A new study has revealed that one in seven of those aged 80 to 84 still enjoy an active sex life, while 36% of the over-70s say their libido hasn’t disappeared at all. Here, two women – both in their eighth decade – offer a candid view of what really goes on behind their bedroom doors…
‘USE IT OR LOSE IT’
Elaine Kingett, 74, lives in Brighton and runs life-writing holidays in Spain (write-it-down.co.uk/spain).
More than a third of men and women in the 70+ age group say their desire and libido has not diminished with age, according to a recent UK study. How reassuring – I had been beginning to think, at 74, that it was only me. Mine has never left the building. For 32 years, from the tender age of 17, I had a loving, fun and satisfying relationship with my husband, until he died at 53. We always fancied each other, shared hopes, dreams, adventures and, of course, arguments, but we never reached the dreaded state of disillusionment and disappointment that I’ve witnessed in some other long-term relationships. I was very lucky that the painful reality – due to diminishing hormones after the menopause, which, understandably, puts so many women off sexual intercourse – never happened to me. I took HRT from the age of 50 to 60, and my creative imagination and vibrator satisfied my single status. My gynaecologist was insistent that, whenever I didn’t have a partner, ‘You should use it or lose it, madam!’ The term ‘libido’, from the Latin for desire and lust, was first employed by neurologist Sigmund Freud in 1894. Desire is a much better description for what I continue to feel. Desire for physical closeness, intimate contact, an urge for the warmth of a man, skin to skin. I miss a good man in my life. I miss their different energy. I miss the scent of a man.
Lust is too fierce a word. Making love is what it’s all about; having sex sounds like a cold, calculated act carried out between two emotionally uninvolved individuals, without even a cup of tea afterwards. Of course, one’s libido can be adversely affected by so many fac
