I Miss Sex

Let’s talk about sex and why I don’t smile at old men anymore.

By Marilyn L. Pinsky

I suddenly realized that for someone who is not partnered, and no longer a spring chicken, I seem to be thinking a lot about sex.

It began over the summer when I had time to watch television and started streaming “And Just Like That,” the sequel to “Sex and The City,” a show I remembered enjoying over 25 years ago.

So maybe I wasn’t a spring chicken even then, but at least I wasn’t a “biddy,” which is what came up when I googled “name for an older chicken.” (I’m trying not to take it personally, not just for myself, but for all the biddies out there, both human and poultry.)

Recently a friend and I, both widowed, left a meeting together and stopped at a restaurant for dinner on the way home. There weren’t any tables available, so we sat at the bar and ordered. I was telling her about the “And Just Like That” show and how I thought the explicit sex was just a little too much. I wondered if that was an age divide thing because my daughter loved the show. Then she said, “I miss sex” and I said “so do I.”

Well, the two young guys sitting next to us almost fell off their bar stools when they turned around and saw that those comments came from the two old ladies sitting next to them.

I have now asked a number of women in my generation if they talked about sex with their friends when younger. No one did. One friend said, “our generation wouldn’t even discuss pregnancy until we were showing but our children’s generation talk to their friends about trying to get pregnant.”

When I asked one of my daughters if her friends talk to each other about sex, she said “all the time.” I won’t even ask my grandchildren — all you have to do is look online to see what they’re seeing and doing (and besides I don’t want to know the answer.)

What I am hearing though is that my generation of women feel like they missed out on the discussion and now they do want to talk about it. And it is a subject to both laugh and cry about. Laughing at ourselves and the era we grew up in and how anything connected to our bodies was not something we were taught about, much less talked about; so when we got married we were relatively ignorant about sex. Even the words young children learn now for body parts were not words we would ever say out loud.

And then there is the here and now — and where does passion fit in our lives? From a very small survey of older women (I don’t just bring this topic up waiting at the checkout line at the grocery, so it is actually a very small survey,) passion is wonderful and lots of fun, but not totally essential to a loving experience. I think the word for what we miss as we get older and are no longer partnered would be “intimacy.” Intimacy covers not just sex, but the feeling of being close to someone both physically and emotionally. From being able to reach over and hold hands in front of the TV, to snuggling and tangling feet in bed at night, and of course, at any age, the endless variations of what constitutes physical sex.

There are health and mental health aspects to showing affection, support and comfort that are important at all ages. When I was at the Onondaga County Office for the Aging there was a wonderful minister on our board and I often think of a discussion we had one day after a meeting. We were talking about what clergy do during the week and he told me he often had visits from older, lonely, women parishioners who just wanted to have someone listen to them and then give them a hug. He talked about the importance of just being held and feeling someone cares about you. Now there is even science to back this up.   

For a variety of obvious reasons, when writing this article I didn’t bring this subject up with men friends, most of whom are married, so I can only assume their experience of discussions with their male friends about sex were and are very different. Which doesn’t mean we wouldn’t love to know what those discussions were, and are.

And now, why don’t I smile at old men anymore?

After my father died when I was in my 50’s, I started smiling and initiating conversations with older men. Mostly because they reminded me of my father and also because I felt they had become invisible to the world and a smile is recognition you still exist. But then as I got older myself, I realized I had entered the age range where what I was doing could be seen as flirting. Now I don’t smile at old men anymore. How sad. For both sides of that equation.