Sex can reach a climax after 45

Published Jun 28, 2010

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By Linda Kelsey

The problem with writing positively about sex if you're a mature woman (some might say old woman, I'm 57 after all) is that you will be seen as either an ageing exhibitionist or a liar.

I'm aware that the mere thought of older people doing it, let alone talking about it, is likely to put sensitive, younger and firmer readers off their morning cornflakes.

But given that a new survey has declared that once you're past 45 it's all over bar the cocoa, I feel compelled to put my head above the parapet - or at least the duvet - and declare that not only can sex in later life be good, it can be even better.

According to this survey, when it comes to sex age is a passion killer. By the time you're 45 you loathe your body (or his) so much that you can only bear to do it in the dark, if at all, and that you're quite likely to nod off before it's over.

The average 45-year-old makes love once a week, which is not so bad an average, I would have thought, if you've been married for a couple of decades.

But then the respondents count themselves lucky if the whole experience lasts 22 minutes. Hmm. Might not turning off the stopwatch be one step towards revving things up between the covers?

This survey makes pretty depressing reading, but it strikes me that the men and women who answered it are misreading their own responses. It's not age that's responsible for their lacklustre love lives, it's stale marriages. It's not sagging or excess flesh that's to blame, it's boredom. It's not too little energy, it's too little imagination.

I may not be a sexual siren, and my flesh is certainly more southerly than it used to be, but since my marriage ended two-and-half years ago and I embarked on a new relationship, I have re-discovered just how thrilling good sex can be.

More frequent, more fun, more naughty and less inhibited than it has ever been. And the menopause in this respect has been more of a blessing than a curse - no chance of getting pregnant, no monthly PMT.

Like most of those questioned in the survey, my sex life had also dwindled in my 40s. And yet my husband - we had been together for more than 20 years - was as attractive, albeit older, as when I first met him. And even if I was more wrinkled than at 30, I hadn't let myself go physically - I was still a slim size 10.

What killed off sex were the same things that killed off our marriage - anger, resentment, lack of communication, loss of affection, of caring, of noticing one another and paying attention.

For women, seduction starts with conversation, with being told how pretty or sexy you look, with being appreciated. As our relationship soured, I noticed that even when I made the biggest effort - with my hair, with my make-up, my clothing - my husband would say nothing at all.

"Look at me, look at me," I wanted to scream. No wonder I lost all sense of my sexual self - I barely felt I was a woman at all. I don't doubt he felt as uncared for as I did, and so the distance between us grew greater, both in and out of bed. Even if your relationship is sound, it's so easy to get into a sexual rut. It's not surprising that couples, once they have children, stop doing it in the kitchen/ hallway/living room and resort to predictable, bedroom-only lovemaking.

But once the kids have left the nest, the house can be your oyster again. The problem is that you feel silly behaving like you used to once you've settled into a dull routine. It seems unnatural - and perhaps not very grown-up.

But there are as many ways to spice up your sex life as there are sexual positions. You just have to treat it as a game, as I have belatedly discovered.

If feeling fat, as 70 percent of the respondents claimed, is a barrier to good sex, how come merrily obese young men and women trot down the marriage aisle every day?

In the throes of sexual passion, it's intimate caresses, delicious kisses and sweet talk that make for sustained excitement. It's about abandoning yourself to the moment. With all that in place, you no longer notice - or at least care - about the failings of the flesh (yours or his).

Those of my newly single friends - like me, emerging from long relationships - have all discovered the joys of late-blooming sex lives.

I admit there's a slight Sex and the City vibe to our conversations that we tend not to indulge in when we're with our still-married friends, many of whom confess they have allowed sex to slip to the bottom of their to-do list. But even if we don't envy them their sex lives, we do have the wisdom to recognise that their enduring relationships are rather more precious than our last-flush sexual exploits.

One of the best things about being an older woman of this generation is that we no longer have to be embarrassed about the fact that we are still fully functional sexual beings.

That lust and libido and sexual desire do not die with the menopause is (almost) acceptable. And if it should fade away, that is nothing to be ashamed of either.

I don't just enjoy sex in my 50s, I love every moment of it. It makes me feel youthful. It makes me feel attractive. It doesn't sap my energy; it increases it. It makes me feel fully alive.

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