Sex after 60: Expert advice on staying safe and enjoying intimacy later in life

Experts say sex after 60 can be safe, fulfilling and more enjoyable than ever. Photo / Getty Images

Most of us don’t think about the kind of sex we’ll be having in later life until we see the back of 60. Perhaps that’s why many people have thought that a sex life, and one filled with enjoyable sex especially, is something to be clung on to in our forties and gracefully let go of afterwards. In reality, though, 89% of men and 60% of women in their sixties in England report being sexually active.

This could be attributed to midlife divorces, which have more than quadrupled in the over-fifties since the 1990s. Thus, many are keen to get back in the saddle after a long marriage. Around 14% of online dating users in the UK are aged 50-64 and plenty of over-65s are venturing on to the apps too.

Being single can reignite your libido, whatever your age. So why is there such an enormous taboo around sex after 60?

Professor Sharron Hinchliff, 54, has never viewed sex in later life through that same judgmental lens. Indeed, she has spent the past 25 years studying the sex lives of the over-sixties: what they get up to in the bedroom (and in care homes), how our desire for sex and our sexual tastes change across our lives and why the idea that sex turns bad in later life is simply untrue. Now, she spends most of her working week talking to seniors about their sex lives.

“There was a very steep learning curve to begin with,” Hinchliff says. “I’d never spoken to strangers about their sex lives before, but I learned very quickly how to have those awkward conversations about vaginas and erections.”

Hinchliff has recently worked with Together TV on the Silver Sex Guide, a package of information and advice about how to have safe and enjoyable sex in your later years. Here is what she knows about how sex changes – and how to make sure it isn’t the end of your fun.

Some women experience an increase in desire

By 55, many women struggle with having orgasms, or with becoming aroused in the first place, because of the hormonal changes that come with the menopause. Men, on the other hand, experience a 10% greater chance of experiencing erectile dysfunction in every decade from 40 onwards.

All of this can mean that people of both sexes feel less inclined to have sex. But that isn’t true of everyone, Hinchliff says. “Women especially can experience an increase in desire. Sometimes that’s to do with leaving a long relationship that has been stifling, but for other women it’s about reaching greater acceptance of their bodies and feeling more comfortable in their skin.”

Either way, Hinchliff says, we need to be prepared for change – physical, mental and emotional, too. “What you liked when you were 20 probably won’t be what you like now that you’re 50, which won’t be what you’ll enjoy when you’re 80,” she warns.

Casual sex is more common than you think

This can be down to body changes and difficulty getting into the creative positions you might have enjoyed in the past, but it can also be down to the psychological change and growth that’s normal across our lives. Some research suggests that while interest in frequent sex might decline as we age, older adults can often be more sexually explorative.

“Through our research, we have talked with women and men in their sixties and older who are sexually active and enjoy a diverse array of sexual activities and lifestyles,” Hinchliff says.

She remembers one woman in her sixties (that she calls Claire) who had “four concurrent sexual partners” when Hinchliff interviewed her. Claire “chose who she saw according to her sexual need”. “It is also common for older people to have a greater focus on using sex to feel closer to their partner, rather than having sex solely for pleasure.”

Her research, later published in the Silver Sex Guide, found that for the over-50 age group, “their most important aspects of sex were emotional connection, physical pleasure, and then trust and openness”. For people with all sorts of interests and relationship backgrounds, “the intimacy that comes with sex only gets more important with age and that’s important to factor in too”.

The world has changed a lot since today’s over-60s were getting married (the average age for which, in 1985, stood at 25 for men and 23 for women). “In the past the expectation was that you’d settle down and get married, and there was a big focus on staying married,” Hinchliff says. “It’s very different now.”

Divorce rates are much higher now than they were in the eighties, and while the rate of remarriage is increasing too, “older people absolutely do have casual sex”, she notes.

“It isn’t unusual for older people to have multiple sexual partners, and for that to work very well for everyone involved,” Hinchliff says. Attitudes have not yet caught up with the actual behaviour of older adults, however, even in their social groups.

“One of the issues that strikes me is how the “sexless older age” stereotype still holds, despite the fact that they are not adhering to this stereotype and in fact they are challenging the notion themselves,” Hinchliff says. Claire had tried to gently inform her friends of her new lifestyle preferences, “by mentioning multiple partners generally and not in relation to herself, but had received a frosty reply”. Claire felt that “the message was clear not to go there”.

Safe sex is even more important after menopause

Knowing that your sexual desires will change in kind as well as intensity is an important part of maintaining a fulfilling sex life, but so is acceptance of your changing body, particularly if you’re venturing outside of the monogamous relationship of your early or midlife years.

“The thinness of vaginal tissues that comes after menopause can lead to pain during sex and it can also lead to a greater risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections and HIV,” Hinchliff says. “It’s just as important as ever to take precautions, but many people over 60 think that they don’t need to worry about sexual health in this way.”

People want sex in rest homes

This leads to the difficult and much ignored issue of rest-home sex. Through her work, Hinchliff has also seen “examples of new relationships that are started in the care home, where older people make a connection with someone who then becomes a sexual partner”, whether a new boyfriend or girlfriend or simply a friend with benefits.

It is not unusual for rest-home workers to walk in on people in the middle of an intimate moment. “People often want to watch pornography after they’ve gone into a care home,” Hinchliff says, “but they might lack the privacy they need.” Or they may have access to it withheld by concerned staff members.

The best rest homes will have policies in place that help older adults to have vibrant sex lives in privacy. That can mean “letting their family know that they’ve started a new relationship, if that’s the case, and the potential risks but also the benefits”, Hinchliff says – though families are sometimes not so open to their loved ones’ new arrangements.

Men are embarrassed about erectile dysfunction

Far from making us more uptight and reserved, older age can be a time when we are freed from societal expectations and care less about what others think. When she began her work, Hinchliff was “really surprised at how open people were about their bodies and about their sexuality”. “Sometimes people in their fifties, sixties and seventies were more open about their sexuality than younger people.”

That doesn’t always translate into seeking support for the sexual changes that can come in later life. “I remember seeing a man, who I call Stan, who was a really fit and healthy guy in his seventies. He did a lot of running and was probably fitter than I was,” Hinchliff says. “He had started to experience erectile dysfunction and he went to the doctor, which took a lot of working up to. The GP just said to him, well, what do you expect?”

That sort of response “had the impact of ending that man’s sex life”, Hinchliff says. “Psychology tells us that we’re hypersensitive when it comes to sharing information that we feel makes us vulnerable and even if the doctor didn’t intend to dismiss Stan, that’s what they ended up doing.”

But erectile dysfunction is not an essential part of ageing and there is help available for difficulties like this, regardless of how old you are.

While GPs may, on occasion, be dismissive, “a sex and relationship therapist will be open to working with older adults and very much supportive of them too”, Hinchliff says. She would recommend contacting the college of sexual and relationship therapists to ensure that you are working with a fully trained professional.

There are also a number of charities that can provide support, such as Relate, and of course there is Hinchliff’s own Silver Sex Guide – with advice on dating, sex toys, safe sex positions for older people and everything else that you could need to embrace sex in later life.

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