Sex and the Boomer Legacy

By Corinne Farago

If you’re reading this and you were born between the mid 40s and the early 60s, you are formally an aging boomer. Congratulations!

Let me ask you, do you view aging as a curse, or a privilege?

An approaching end to your book of life, or the beginning of your next chapter?

Your answers will depend on what your life looks like mentally, physically, spiritually, and sexually.

No one prepared us for the very real existential challenges of facing our own mortality or relinquishing our youthful bodies and all they were once capable of. Aging is a confrontation to our sexual selves and it can also be our greatest teacher. It invites us back to school. 

Just as we grew into our adolescence and learned how to have sex then, we are now called to grow into our senior years by learning how to have sex now. And by the way, you may end up discovering your best sex yet! And we can thank our changing body for offering up the wisdom this stage of life has to offer.

The time has come to reimagine who we are as baby boomers. The post-war generation, still representing nearly 20% of the North American population. Our sheer numbers have challenged cultural norms throughout the decades.We’ve proudly worn the boomer badge leading the way into sex, drugs and rock and roll.

No one can say we were boring.

But what do the boomers have to say about life these days?

We’re no longer riding the wave of designer drugs, and the music scene may leave us longing for the days we knew every song on our favorite album, but sex on the other hand is a subject we still have much to contribute to.

After all, weren’t we the ones marching with our ‘free love’ signs?

Didn’t we usher in the age of birth control, sex toys, swinging and orgies, naked hot-tub socials, Tantric sex practices, BDSM (No it didn’t start with 50 Shades of Grey)?

What do we have to say about sex now that our hair has turned 50 shades of grey? What wisdom do we have to offer the world and our children’s generation? What wisdom do we have to offer ourselves?

This is a conversation I have with clients who have lived half a century and more.

The ones who can no longer pretend that aging will happen in future time. Fortunately our bodies can’t deny or pretend. They are the noble truth-sayers that keep us ‘real’. Because when erections stop being reliable, fantasies aren’t regularly occupying our thoughts, and juices don’t flow like they used to, our bodies are communicating loud and clear that, with or without you, life is moving on.

When we’ve finished grieving our changing body (yes, there’s grief in letting go of our old selves), we have a choice. We can bid a fond farewell to sex (as we remember it), or we can make a choice to reinvent our love life as ‘seasoned sensualists’. Sexual explorers understand that sex encompasses a vast landscape of pleasure producing activities to engage with a partner.

Obviously, it’s my opinion that stepping into a new sexual you is the path to choose.

Why?

• Because our changing bodies still crave touch and closeness.
• Because sex keeps us strong and vital, emotionally healthy, and mentally energized.
• Because pleasure, and our desire for it, is our birthright until the day we die.
• Because we never stop learning and yearning to love ourselves and others.
• Because there’s nothing better than giving and receiving pleasure.
• And, because there’s nothing more healing to the heart and soul than intimacy.

Sex offers us all these things. And the outdated notion that sex is no longer ‘necessary’ beyond a ‘certain age’ is a puritanical and repressive attitude that needs to be banned from our culture for good!

So, before we all fade off into the sunset waving our ‘free love’ signs, let’s make a final contribution to sex on this planet, and pave the way for younger generations to embrace sexual pleasure as part of life, to the end of life.

That begins with your personal journey.And your personal journey begins with an open and honest conversation about sex, what it’s meant to you, what it means to you now, and what you want it to mean going forward.

Most of my clients these days are over 50. It took many of them until now to start looking for help in making sex and intimacy better. Erectile issues, hormonal changes, lack of lubrication are all our body’s way of saying, “There’s more to sex than you’re used to!” Time to start learning again. Your sexual (r)evolution begins now.

Give me a call. Let’s talk about what can make your sex better, or even the best yet! 

Schedule a a free Discovery Call with me and we can explore how to cultivate empathy in your relationship.