By Sarah Doherty, a Relationship counsellor and sex therapist. Since 2009 Sarah has been helping hundreds of couples and individuals to create more satisfying relationships and sexual intimacy. Everyone deserves to have happy relationships and sex. To help you we have our expert Sarah on hand to share advice.
Fewer hang ups, greater satisfaction and more intense orgasms, sex really can get better as we age! What great news, the horizon looks deeply satisfying sexually for couples and pleasantly orgasmic for women.
Age UK research fellow at the University of Manchester, Dr David Lee concludes:
“There’s this misconception that sex belongs to young people. The reactions of the young to older people having sex range from humour and disgust to disbelief that over 50s are having it at all. But our study breaks down these generational barriers. Even though the frequency of sex declines, as we grow older, sex remains an important part of our lives. It doesn’t stop or go away, it just changes.”
Fewer Hang ups
Even if you are a few pounds heavier and can see the effects of the night before when you wake up, who cares? Young people in their 20s are so self-obsessed that they’re too busy scrutinising themselves to really let go and enjoy what they are blessed with anyway. In addition to that, younger people are often too conflicted and obsessed with comparing themselves with others to really be available for any type of truly erotic encounter and use sex as point scoring exercise and the 30 something’s is just to damn knackered! The demands of nest building and childcare mean that the time, energy and desire to have sex is at an all-time low.
Time and time again couples come to sex therapy to fine tune their relationship and explore deepening the eroticism between them. I am seeing more and more couples in their 40s, 50s and 60s overcoming myths and seeking new heights of sexual satisfaction with their partners and what a joy they are.
As we get older we are more into what pleases our partner and us and aren’t scared to embrace our sexuality and let go and truly have fun. This may mean exploring your inner sex goddess by acting in a way you wouldn’t elsewhere or with someone new, not caring about being “selfie” ready and being healthily selfish. By that, I mean able to focus on one’s own pleasure, as well as just being completely focussed on your partner.
There’s nothing sexier than an encounter with someone who can get them self off physically and mentally, someone who doesn’t need to give precise instructions in a tight-lipped way. Or the couple who’s sex life can one day be sensual and nurturing and all about caring and the next a raw primal urgent interaction. It takes age, confidence and self-esteem to do that.
Greater Satisfaction
If your relationship has survived the financial demands of a family and young children and got through the inevitable stage of resentfully feeling this wasn’t what I signed up for, you are likely to be closer than ever. You can communicate in a way that means sex is more intense and symbolic of an incredibly deep bond and partnership. You are long past using sex to prove your self worth or to soothe yourself. You are available for a deeply loving experience looking into the eyes of someone you really know at a soul level.
Better Orgasms
Many body parts age, sag or droop but it appears the clitoris does not. Packed with nerve endings, it can still be ultra sensitive regardless of age! But just as important is the confidence that goes with it. Older women know how to touch themselves and what arouses them. They don’t tie themselves up in knots, feeling not good enough and don’t feel overly pressurized to please a man by having an orgasm just to make him feel better.
The more you know your body and like yourself, the more you can have an orgasm just as you like it or not and don’t get entangled in the pressure cooker of needing to orgasm for someone else. The connection has weathered so many storms that the need to judge it by an orgasm or erection seems ridiculous. Less stable and newer relationships can fall prey to this intense pressure, there’s nothing less sexy than needing to have an orgasm because someone else’s pleasure depends on it.
Older men in relationships have learnt one way or another, either by coming to therapy or by themselves, that her orgasm isn’t about him and has stopped pressurizing his partner to have an orgasm to boost his ego or by making her feel bad if she doesn’t! Now that’s called a mature, wise and highly evolved man and many of you are in relationships with men just like this.
So let go, embrace your age, your experience and your body and you can look forward to decades of pleasure.
