Sex Without Shame: Senior Women Share Their Stories of Finding Sexual Freedom

As a girl, I was taught everything about how babies are made and nothing about why we choose to have sex—nothing about attraction, desire, satisfaction, or lust (except male lust, which was taught as something to avoid triggering).

And—I laugh because it’s so ludicrous—I was taught nothing about female orgasm, or even that the clitoris exists. Neither our local library nor my father’s medical library had any clues as to why women might enjoy sex (other than as a means to becoming a mother) or what organ held the answer to the mystery.

I wonder if the reason the word “clitoris” has two accepted pronunciations (CLIT-or-is and cli-TOR-is) is that several generations of men, women, teachers, and doctors never said the word aloud.

My father was an obstetrician and saw many teenaged girls’ lives derailed by pregnancy in the years before abortion was legal.

It was drummed into my sexually vacant mind that boys wanted to have sex and that girls had to stop them, because it was the girl who suffered the consequences. I had no idea—until a shockingly wonderful, three-hour kissing session with my first love in the tenth grade—that girls could feel aroused. That was never part of my sex education. I never had an orgasm until I was nineteen, although I started having sex with my boyfriend at seventeen.

As a girl, I was taught everything about how babies are made and nothing about why we choose to have sex—nothing about attraction, desire, satisfaction, or lust.

Many of the people who shared their stories for this chapter were stuck in their upbringings for many decades. Most have found their way, educated themselves, and shaken off horrible memories, negative self-images, and bad relationships that happened for the wrong reasons. Some are bitter about the lack of information and the misinformation they received in their youth. It’s enlightening to read their stories now and to see how their ideas about sexuality have matured.

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Women of our era grew up knowing little about sex, feeling shame about our sexual feelings, and—unfortunately—sometimes subjected to abuse or violence. Often our sexuality in adulthood was formed by these negative influences. But if we’re willing to do the work and make changes, with aging comes wisdom, which allows us to move on and forge a future of our own choosing.

Kate, age 58
I grew up with a tyrannical, abusive father who scared me to death. He made me a shy, nervous girl who was depressed and insecure. My mother, who feared and hated my father, told me that sex was highly overrated and that men use it to control women. She hated sex, and this colored my perception.

When I reached puberty, I had an enormous sex drive, but always felt ashamed of this. I lost my virginity at fourteen and had twenty sexual partners by age twenty-two. I never once enjoyed sex during this time; it was all about getting a man to love me. I needed a man, any man, to provide the love I was lacking. To get a man to love me, I needed to have sex with him.

My father sexually abused me once when I was sixteen. I blocked it out of my mind for many years. Then, one day in my early thirties, I read a story about a woman who was abused by her father, and it all came flooding back.

At twenty-two, I fell madly in love with a man who taught me to enjoy sex, but still I felt guilty, because we weren’t married. We broke up after four years. I married a man on the rebound, for all the wrong reasons. I never truly loved this man and hated having sex with him. This produced more guilt, because I knew I was ruining our marriage. After twenty years of living like roommates, we divorced.

Two years later, I had a nervous breakdown and finally got the medications and counseling I needed. My newfound self-esteem led me to meet my current husband. I have been head-over-heels in love with him since our first meeting, and sex with him has been wonderful. I think we both were love- and sex-starved! The best part for me is the complete lack of guilt when we make love.

We are both middle-aged and have wrinkles, saggy skin, and graying hair—but it doesn’t matter! We truly love each other—what better way to share our love? Now, in my fifties, for the first time in my life, I enjoy sex without guilt.

Tory, age 65
I was drawn away from sex by my religious teachings and drawn toward it by my own body, so I was abysmally ignorant. I got pregnant at eighteen. I was so ignorant that I thought one had to want to be pregnant in order to get pregnant!

I had an illegal abortion without anesthetic. The doctor was under threat of losing his license if anyone found out that he was performing abortions. The pain almost knocked me unconscious. The agony of not crying out through such pain—so that the other patients in the waiting room would not be alarmed—was one of the hardest things I have ever done. The bleeding afterward almost sent me into shock.

The father hightailed it out of town as soon as he heard, with an “I hope you’re okay.” After that, the threat of pregnancy made me extra careful, and I think I shrank away from men as a consequence. I was attracted but afraid.

I left the church and delved into travel, education, and a profession. I didn’t bother to form an attitude about sex. I just did it, though I still felt it was wrong. The risk of pregnancy continued to be a major threat to me. I was assiduous in the use of my diaphragm.

Then I read The Happy Hooker, by Xaviera Hollander, and my attitude changed. Sex was good. Sex was fun. Nobody was harmed by a little nookie. Even extracurricular sex was not such a bad thing. It was much more fun if it was tailored to your taste, and nothing should be out of bounds, as long as nobody was hurt.

Now I teach in the Unitarian/Universalist OWL (Our Whole Lives) program, in which children are taught the facts of life at different ages. The little kids are taught the basics, with sex becoming more detailed and serious as the kids get older. They learn about birth control, the way the body functions, homosexuality, legal considerations about sex, dating, relationships, what makes a good marriage, and how you get there. The kids are treated with respect, and they have fun, as with the Condom Olympics, during which condoms are blown up and never burst, illustrating how safe they are.

As a teacher in the OWL program, I teach what I wish I had learned as a child. I would have had much more respect for myself as a sexual being. I doubt I would have had my unintended pregnancy and abortion.

Sadie, age 71
The only sex education I received as a female was in high school PE, and the teacher sexually molested me. She was the first one I stood up to and said, “Keep your goddamn hands off of me.” She was not my first predator—there were several in my childhood, including my brother. Standing up to this teacher was the beginning of knowing I had to learn how to take care of myself on my own.

If we’re willing to do the work and make changes, with aging comes wisdom, which allows us to move on and forge a future of our own choosing.

I had sex for the first time at fourteen, with a woman who was eighteen. It remains one of the most exciting memories of my life. She was gentle and kind. However, as I grew up and moved out into a homophobic world, I began to take on fear and self-loathing about being lesbian. I joined the Navy in 1957, when I could be dismissed and shamed publicly for being a lesbian. My sexuality felt like a mixture of wonderful feelings that were often shut down by shame.

I succumbed to society’s homophobia and shut down sexually. I tried to pass as a heterosexual in the service, terrified of being found out. I became depressed, anxious, and afraid.

After leaving the service, I had three long-term relationships. I was totally closeted in the first one, came out within the feminist movement in the second, and finally came out publicly during the last one.

It wasn’t until 1996 that I decided to be alone and on my own. I got to know myself and really did come out sexually, striking down the demons of shame. Therapy helped me sort out who I was and how I got so confused and hurt about being sexual. My therapist helped me understand my anger and rage. I began to own my right to be myself, no apologies.

I’ve been asked if being sexually molested by a woman made me a lesbian. Being sexually molested doesn’t make you anything but scared and confused. All of us are who we are because we were born that way—a part of the mystery and gift of life.

My path to sexual pleasure and freedom came through understanding that I had to give myself permission to own my desires, fantasies, and sexual feelings. Now I love who I am as a woman, and I can experience the joy of finally setting myself free, at age seventy-one, to fully enjoy sexual pleasure. I have a dream of a healthy, fulfilling relationship with another woman, full of fun, laughter, and joy. She’s out there. We just haven’t met yet.

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Excerpted from Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex by Joan Price. Copyright © 2011 by Joan Price. Available from Seal Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.