Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Sex In Old Age: Myths, Toys & Desire

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

As taboos go, sex between two consenting adults should not be up there as one of them.And yet! When we talk about sex in old age many people have an awkward reaction to it. Ask yourself this - is there an age when you intend on stop having sex?Joining Kate today is senior sex author and advocate of ageless sexuality, Joan Price, to tackle the myths and challenges that come with sex as you get older, and explore how this has been depicted historically.For more information on Joan’s work, visit her website here.This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith and the senior producer was Charlotte Long.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code BETWIXT. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Lovely bit tricksters, it's me, Kate Lister. I am here to help you help yourselves. To help you, help me, help you help yourselves. And we're going to do that by letting you know that this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty subjects in an adulty way,

and you should be an adult too. Actually, today we are being super adult. We are being as adulty adults as you possibly could be because we are talking about sex you have when you are older. Absolutely. Senior sex, older people having sex, what your grandparents are up to. So when we say this is an adult conversation,

it is about as adulty as an adult conversation could get. And now that you have been warned, you can't get upset with us if you happen to be offended when you keep listening because fair do is lovely betwixters, you have been warned. One thing we absolutely love doing here on Betwixt is tackling the taboo subjects, especially the ones around sex. And for the longest time, the idea of older people having sex has been a taboo. It's something that would cause shock, probably if you giggles, definitely surprise. But why? Why should that cause any kind of discomfort? As far as I'm concerned,

anyone having sex into their senior years are the lucky ones. We love the few films that are out there depicting older people having romances, such as Jack Nicholson in Something's Got to Give, or Jack Nicholson in as good as it gets, or Jack Nicholson in the Witches of Eastwick. They're all quite a lot, but I love those films, and I'm sure that you do too, but why are we still so uncomfortable at the idea of people having sex when they're older?

If you're lucky enough to make it to a ripe old age, then you will be doubly lucky to be still enjoying sex. Have at it, I say. Keep going as long as you possibly, possibly can. Today we are exploring what it means to have a sex life in your golden years. The challenges that you might face, the ongoing stigma, and why the hell do we think it's just young people that should be having all the fun anyway? What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult... speaks to you. I make perfect coppents of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing

but... Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness, has nothing to do with it, Derry. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal and Society with me, Kate Lister. Going back through history, sex as an older person, is almost always the butt of a joke. It just is, isn't it? It's still something that makes us distinctly uncomfortable, but this is ridiculous, because at what point are you planning on hanging up your sex? Do you think that you just hit 65 and that's it? It's all done for you? Is it hell? You should be having sex, but for as long as you possibly can be, I certainly intend to be, the fun should not be stopping in your twilight years. It's as if that we've assumed there's an age

where you just, you just stop, you just become completely desexed. Not true betwixters, not true. Today, our fabulous guest, you are going to love her so much, is Joan Price, a trailblazer when it comes to writing and talking about sex when you're older, bringing a whole new meaning to the line, do not go gentle into that good night. What are the myths around sex as you age? In what ways can you overcome them? And how has sex when you're older been viewed historically? I am ready to get betwixt the sheets if you are. And welcome to Bit Twix the Sheets. It's Joe Price. Hi, Kate. Oh, if we're recording, I better stop talking and get serious here, right? You should do exactly the opposite. Don't get serious.

I'm so excited to have you on the show. I've been such a fan of your work for such a long time. And I have yours. Oh, for anyone that's listed that might not be familiar with your work, how would you describe the work that you do? I describe myself as a senior sex author and speaker, an advocate for ageless sexuality. And by that I mean, I talk out loud about senior sex. I love it. And what brought you to this work? Was there a moment somewhere along the line that you were like, old people are having sex too?

I need to write about this. Or was it, were you always interested in sex and it just kept going? Or like, what was the story? Yes, there was a moment. I was sitting in bed after an absolutely wonderful afternoon delight with my lover, whom I had met at age 57, and he was 64. And we were at this point a few years into this amazing relationship. It was amazing on all levels.

It was just the best relationship of my life. And I've had a few. Wow. And the sex was astound. not like young people's sex, absolutely astounding. And we had had no idea that this was even possible at our age. There was nothing out there about it. And I said to Robert, why aren't there books that describe this kind of experience? Where are the books? I'm a reader. I'm a writer. I wanted books. And he said, well, you're a writer, write your own. And that was the beginning. at age 61, I published better than I ever expected, straight talk about sex after 60. And I thought that was going to be the senior sex book. And then I would go back to writing about fitness, which is what I had been doing.

And then people came up to me and they kept asking me questions about their own sex lives. And usually it was because they were not having great sex. They'd even say, well, bully for you having great sex. but I'm not, and here's why. And I thought, oh, I've just started this work. It's a huge subject, isn't it? I know. And now several books later, and I'm about to turn 80 and still doing this work.

And I love it. I mean, I just love being able to help people to be able to learn new things all the time, to be the one that people ask questions. of that they can't ask anyone else. Their doctors don't know the answers. They don't know where to go. And somehow they happen upon me. And here we are.

What was it that was happening in that relationship? Because you said, I'm interested in there that you said that you were having amazing sex, not like sex like young people, but something was happening about this particular sex that made you think, I need a book. I need a book. Like what was the difference between that sex? sexual having when he were younger? The difference was that we were no longer hormone propelled. Ah, okay. That our sexual interest in each other, our sexual arousal, our sexual satisfaction

didn't depend on the surge of hormones that we'd take over and we didn't have that. Instead, what we had was learning how to arouse an older body, our own anti-eastern. others, learning how to take the time it needed to slowly get there instead of the, okay, you know, I'm ready, I'm hot, let's go, it's done. We didn't have any of that. We had really slow, lovely communicative sex. And in fact, I tell this story in better than I ever expected when our relationship was new and we were just getting to know each other sexually, I was embarrassed that it was taking

me so long to get aroused and reach orgasm. And I thought, silly me, I thought, oh, he's going to get bored. And of course, having that anxiety slowed things down even more. Right. So I finally got up the nerve to tell him how I was seeing things. And he looked at me and he said, I don't care if it takes three weeks as long as I can take breaks to change positions and get something to eat. It's the best sex advice I've ever heard. That's amazing. Oh, dear. Why do you think that because I've been looking through some of the history of this is sex when you're older, sex when you're not in your 20s. And we have a horrendously long history of just, I'm not even sure what the cutoff date is, but at some point, it's like you become completely sexless

when you're, like, the popular culture around it. Or if it is discussed, it's like a punchline. Like Chaucer in his medieval tales from 1400 uses older people having sex with younger people as, as you know, like, it's a funny joke. It's something to be laughed at. It's derogatory. Yeah. And in fact, I know when we were preparing for this interview, And you said, well, is there a historical angle on senior sex that we can talk about? And I said, I don't know one because we've never talked out loud about it recently. And you said, well, maybe that's the angle. That's it, right?

Why do you think it's been such a taboo? I mean, I know that that's a difficult question to answer because hopefully we're all going to get to be older. If we're lucky. If we're lucky, right? If we're lucky, we'll get old. If we're not lucky, we'll die young. there's really nothing in between. No.

There's no way to get older and stay young. Right? And nobody at any point, like no one listening will be thinking, like, did they expect to just stop being sexual or having sexual pleasure at some point? So why do you think that we do that to ourselves and getting older? Well, you're reminding me that at one point, after my first book came out,

I was being interviewed by a male reporter, and he said, you know, I get everything you're saying, but I just, I can't imagine my, parents still, my grandparents having sex. And I said, at what age do you plan to retire your genitals? Yes. And see, that's the thing. Younger people see older people as other. I'll never look like that. I'll never get wrinkly. I'll never get roly-poly. This will never happen to me. Oh, well, I'd rather die before. No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. Aging is my. I celebrate that I'm about to turn 80. gate. I'm about to turn 80. I mean, my parents died at 45 and 65. Wow. Yeah. I think it's wonderful. And to be still sexual, sensual, active, to be in my body, yeah, I mean, there are problems. Something's hurting all the time. My partner and I laugh about old people's sex, you know.

And let's see, this is what I'd like to do, but I can't get on my knees. And, oh, my wrist hurts and my back. My arthritic neck is acting up. And, oh, I have to change positions. Okay, take your time. It's hilarious. I think old people's sex is really funny. But we have to accept ourselves to come to that attitude.

I think I lost your original question in my meandering here. No, no, but you've been amazing. I was just thinking why? You said that young people. other older people. And I think that to the heart of it is we like to think that this will never happen to us. That's right. And we don't revere our elders. We don't think there's any wisdom. People ask me questions all the time because that's what I do. But for most older people, no one asks them anything about, well, you know, when you were my age, how did you feel about this?

Or how did you, can I tell you something I'm having problem with? Maybe you've had experience. We're not ask that. And I say to young people, I've been your age. You haven't been mine. Yes. So use me. Use the experiences and wisdom I've accumulated along the way. I'm willing to share, ask me questions. I have one talk I give that's called what I wish I'd known about sex and relationships when I was your age. Oh, go on. And I give this to college students because I find that as different as our generations are, with all the access to information that we never had, I didn't even know the clitoris existed until a boyfriend pointed it out to me when I was 19. I'm serious.

I did not know that. How did he point that out? Well, he quite literally said, let me show you. Because we were starting a relationship and he said, what does it take to reach orgasm? And I said, I don't think I ever have at 19. I don't think I ever have. I didn't even know. I didn't know what it felt like.

And he said, okay, let me show you. He was very proud. Oh, boy, I'm going to give you your first orgasm I am. And I'd had sexual relationships since 17. But they never resulted in orgasm because we didn't even know how. And I didn't, I didn't understand my own arousal. I was aroused and I stayed aroused afterwards too, but I didn't know what to do about it. I mean, isn't that sad?

And that isn't the problem that young people have now. I mean, they know all about that. They can find anything. They would laugh at, they do laugh at that, in fact. But what they don't yet know how to do is especially young women. is communicate their desires, what they wish their partner would do, what they'd rather their partner didn't do or didn't do in that way. They're frightened.

Now, I don't know if I can generalize. I just know from the people who confide it in me either during or after these talks that I give. But it's often the same. I'm afraid my boyfriend will break up with me or will be disgusted if I share. if I share that I want to do this thing. And I say, well, if you don't ask the answers no. Yes. If you do ask, it still might be no, but it might be yes.

Yes. So they don't really know how to ask for what they want, how to advocate for what they do and don't want. And I say the girls because the girls are the ones that will confess that they're afraid that they'll be left. Their boyfriend will break up. with them. The boys tell me that they also don't dare express what they want. They think, well, you know, everything should just work. Just happen. Yeah. Just should happen. And if I'm really

wishing she'd do this instead of that or do it this way instead of that, then they're afraid of asking because they're afraid of being laughed at, of being ridiculed, of shocking the partner. But They don't seem to worry that they'll be broken up with the way the young women do. You know, I worry because here I'm generalizing on the basis of having given this talk about four times and having people reach out to me afterwards. So I could be totally off. I don't think you're off, Joan. I think that people actually directly saying to a lover what they want, or this is the really tricky one, could you not do that? Yeah, yeah.

That seems to be the hardest. of like the thing that you're doing at the moment that no do less of that I think that that's really really common and I'm not sure why we have so much trouble speaking to this person that we're very intimate with and asking actually asking for what we'd like if we could all learn to invite someone to ask for what they want you know just say how how can I pleasure you right now yeah what would you like me to do right now you know I'm not saying describe I have a whole scene for the whole afternoon. Just this in this moment.

And that would get things started. And do you like it better when I do this or do you like that? I've been calling it the I chart kind of question. Do you like A or B? Does it work better with B or C? Do you have the same eye charts in the UK that we do here? Am I making sense? I think we're going to now.

I don't know if I'm making sense here. It's like we all expect ourselves to be brilliant in bed, but without ever having checked in with the other person if this is what they want. If he loved me, he'd just know. He'd just know. He just know. And they don't.

If they don't know where their socks are, they're not going to know where the G-spot is for a place. Oh, absolutely not. And with my generation, it's much worse. Because we were raised, not only not being taught to ask for it, but being taught we shouldn't even feel. desire. Our sex drive is something threatening. It gets people into trouble. And so I grew up,

my sex education was, here's how girls get pregnant, here's why you shouldn't do it. That was pretty much it. And my father was a gynecologist. Did he ever, I was going to say fill in any blanks, but did he explain anything? No, he gave me a pamphlet. He gave me a pamphlet about reproduction. And then he gave me a lecture about why I shouldn't I shouldn't let a boy have his way with me. Now, to be trying to be fair, I mean, I really resent that he did it that way. And my mother never spoke at all. I resent that. But I do understand that he had teenage girls coming into his office for pregnancy tests all the time.

And he saw the tragedy of it. And he was trying to keep his own. little daughter from that tragedy. But in the way he did it, he never acknowledged that I would feel desire, that I would feel, because my response to that, I didn't talk to him, because we just didn't talk about it, but I talked to my friend, my best friend about it. I said, well, why would we even want to do that? That was a serious question for me. Well, why in the world we want to do that? And what did, did Did your friends have any more information? It's just mad to think there's an entire generation.

Well, probably centuries and centuries of this, of people not really knowing that it was okay to feel sexual desire or what was going to happen or anything apart from, don't get pregnant. My best friend didn't have many clues, though I'll tell you there was one thing. This is going to really amuse you. The pamphlet that showed the reproductive system

and how the sperm gets to the egg and then da-da. And I said to my friend, but how does the sperm get to the egg? That had been left out. That's fair. And she said, she was much more knowledgeable. And she said, he puts it in. He what? He puts his penis in.

Oh my God. How would anyone want to do that? You're sort of taking me back to when I was getting my sex ed, which it moved on slightly from don't get pregnant, but not by much. And I do remember that sort of very strange. like a sensation of like, I have a what and it's going to do what? Like suddenly just like it's going to bleed. It's what? What?

Like it seems so bizarre. Like this thing that was being described to me. And again, it was never actually explained that you would want to do this or that it might be pleasurable. It was a really weird thing to take in as a child. And that lack of information was very dangerous. So I mean, sex has to change as you're getting older. I think it's amazing the work that you're doing and that reminding people,

that sex is not just for the young, for God's sake, the young and the beautiful and the able-bodied. It is for everybody. And by the grace of God, you will get to be an older person. And hopefully, you'll still be getting laid. But sex has to change as you get older because your body changes. And what are some of the major changes that you encountered in your work and the things that people report back to you? There are body changes. and these body changes, vaginal dryness, sometimes vaginal discomfort, intercourse, if that was their go-to form of sex in the past might not be comfortable or the most pleasurable thing anymore.

It might not even be possible. There, you know, all sorts of things can happen. Erections are not always dependable, and sometimes they don't happen at all. And so people go, well, wait a minute, this is what we thought sex was supposed to be. So I guess it's over. And what they don't understand or don't have enough information about is our whole body is a playground of sensuality. And there are many, many ways to arouse each other with fingers, with mouths, with, certainly with vibrators. And we got to talk more about vibrators that don't require.

an erect penis or even sometimes an invitational vagina. I love that about your work. It was one of the first times that I'd really properly considered it when I was reading through your work is that this idea that unless a penis is going into something, unless there's penetration, for some reason we almost don't count that as sex and that the people that you're encountering that because they can't get an erection, they can't push it in. Therefore, it's just, oh God, it's all over.

It's all over. And then you come along and you're just like, no. And I thought that was so radical of just sex is not just stuffing body parts into one another. And thank you for saying that. I see that as inviting a journey of exploration to see what does work now. That instead of just thinking about what doesn't work, okay, what does work though? How do you like being touched now? What arouses you?

Are orgasms possible in other ways? I'm not saying that PIV, penis, and vagina is not possible for a lot of people. It is. But for also a lot of people, it is either not possible if it's not just not the most pleasurable thing. It isn't what they desire to do when they think about being sexual. Or they may say no to sex because they think that's what they're saying yes to. And as in the article you wrote about FIagra, we talked about that. It was really a wonderful discussion.

That is a very recent point in sex history that I think sometimes, but there are generations growing up now and they've always had Viagra. They are Viagra natives. It's part of our cultural background. But I mean, I was in my teens, but I remember Viagra arriving. I remember the buzz and the hype and the, oh my God, there's this thing. And as somebody that writes about sex, especially sex for older people, what do you remember about when this thing landed Viagra?

Planet Viagra. When Viagra arrived, I remember many penis owners, most penis owners, seeing it as almost salvation. Yay, they could get hard again. They could count on being hard enough for penetration. And I remember some vulva owners saying, oh, good, I've really missed this. I love it. He takes a pill.

We spend a lot of time in arousal. It's really wonderful. We can have penetrative sex whenever we want to. And then there are the partners of penis owners who say, now it's all about the penis. It's no longer about my arousal. It's no longer about my orgasm. I don't reach orgasm with his hard penis. I reach orgasm with my vibrator in his fingers or whatever it might be for them.

And now it's all about it. almost as if, well, look at this wonderful thing again. Let's not waste it. Let's not waste it. And so they feel like they're in a threesome that they didn't consent to. Wow. Him, his erection, and her. I'll be back with Joan after this short break.

We never hear enough about the partners of the people that could suddenly get a huge stonking hard on again We're always led to believe that they would just be deliriously happy at this new turn of a men. And many are. Many are. I mean, often women write to me and they say, my partner has trouble getting erections that last long enough penetration. But now that we use, he takes a little pill and now we can count on it and it's marvelous. But then they talk about and we do these other things.

You know, not that's the end all. That's the beginning, the middle and the end. that's that's not what works because as you write about in your work is penetrative sex is just one type that's just one type and there are other ways and we've got to talk about vibrators because one of the things I always say and forgive me if I'm repeating this from everything you've read from me already a well-placed well-chosen vibrator can sometimes be the difference between orgasm and no orgasm And it's sometimes that simple. Amen.

We need extra sensation. You asked about what some of the changes are. We need extra sensation. Sometimes we can be doing the same things that used to just bring us over the top, and we can barely feel it. It just isn't, it's as if there's a barrier somehow, some either physiological or neurological. We don't know what's going on,

but we're not. getting the sensation, it's muted, I guess we could say. I described it in better than I ever expected. Even the orgasm can be muted as it used to be feeling waves crashing. And now I described at that time, it's more like watching the waves crashing through a dirty window, a smudged window. And I would say that is what it was like when I was writing it, but orgasms have actually improved since then for me. How come, Don't? What have you been doing? Tell everyone. Well, a lot more non-penetrative sex and a lot more use of vibrators within that whole process. When my partner comes in to the bedroom to see what I have planned because we always plan sex ahead,

that's another part of it. Oh, I love that. Do you like put little post-it notes on the fridge? How do you plan? Well, what we do is we have long-standing idea of times that we don't live together, the partner that I'm with now, Robert, the person I talked about before died in 2008. And I have a partner now. We don't live together. And that is our choice and will always be our choice. when I'm staying there, we have certain times of the day that we know are work for us the best, that I'm most easily arousable. He's most easily arousable at the time. I'm not going to wake up, so that's just too bad.

But he rises to the occasion, shall we say. And so we have this longstanding date that when I come to his house in the evening, I'll stay overnight. Then in the morning, after I've been up a while, had enough coffee, feeling active again, then we'll plan our date time. And that might be 11 a.m. That might be noon. That might be two in the afternoon. And we plan that. We know to anticipate, before we've even planned, I'd like to come stay overnight. So we have that mental anticipation. We have that anticipatory foreplay going on. Yes. Where our break, our most important sex organ is saying, I'm going to look forward to that.

And part of that, then that anticipation is once we've set the sex date time, then I'll make sure to charge the sex toys. And if he wants to use a particular one, because we use penis toys and vulva toys, then he will leave it at my charging station. I have a special shelf that's a charging station. And he will just put it. there. And then I'll go, oh, he wants to use the vaulted tomorrow. Okay. And I'll make sure I have that charged. And then on the bedside table, there will be an assortment of lubs. There'll be flavored loops for fallatio. I like that a lot. And there will be water-based lubs for use with toys. And we'll have whatever we might want is in baskets along with the vibrators. And we'll have more. And we'll

have more in the basket than we're really going to use probably because we don't want to get, oh no, I forgot the this. Let me get up and then we just, we got to keep the mood going. We're old. Absolutely. You said just there that you lost a part. Yes. And I'm so sorry that that happened, Joan. But one of the things that you have written about is sex and grief, is sex after grief or going dating after grief or getting back out there. What has been your experience? Oh, I'm so glad you asked that because that is, to me, my most precious book is sex after grief navigating your sexuality after losing your beloved. This was my latest book and it's won some awards and I've gotten such heart-wrenching and heart-warming emails from people who have read it.

And one person lately said, I got your book and I read it twice, just finished it and started it again. And someone else said, well, where were you five years ago when I needed this? For me, I went through such agony and distress for many years. Some people pop back soon. I did not. Grief is not linear. It is cyclical. I described it as a spiral that at first it was moments of joy and deep, horrible, grief, despair. I'll never be happy again. And then, oh, I just laughed. How did that happen? And back down. And the spiral keeps happening. But over time, there's more time spent above the water than below the water, if that makes sense.

More time spent sailing than drowning. And at a certain point, whenever that is for us, we feel the need for human touch. We may have been giving ourselves orgasms all along with our hands and our vibrators, or we might not even have because we just feel numb. Our body feels numb. For me, I mean, it took me a very long time, and it took me several grief counselors and a lot of journal writing, which I really recommend, and a lot of trying, you know, okay, I'm ready to date again, or I want to have sex with one of my friends. You know, can we just have sex and pleasure each other will still be friends. Did you do that, Jane? I eventually did. I tried to with a very good platonic friend of mine. He was a dear, dear friend all the way through my grief process.

We'd take walks together. We'd take Pilates classes together and we confide in each other. And he was just wonderful. And we would kiss sometimes. Sweet kisses. And then he would stop. And he said he just treasured our friendship so much, he was afraid that it would ruin it. If we had sex together and then that didn't work out, then the friendship would be over. And I said, no, I have a history of having sex with my friends. I can do this. Please, let's do it. I trust you. I would really like to do this, but he could not go through with it. And I respect him so much. And in fact, that circumstance is in the book, Sex After Grief, which is a lot of it is my own grief journey coming back to being able to have joyful sex with other human beings and what I did along the way and what I

learned that really helped me from grief counselors. And I have a lot of other griever stories because the point is we all grieve differently on our own timeline. Some people, they're horny at the funeral and they need to release that. They're looking to. for sex after the funeral. I had a friend like that. Whoa. Yes. His husband died and he had been a caregiver for a while. I don't remember whether it was months or a year. And at the end, he just, he was so full of tension. It wasn't that he was desiring someone else. He was just so damn full of tension. Help me. And he just went and I had a hookup, right? The evening after the funeral. Just again, okay, that's done now. I can get back

to mourning. Wow. People deal with grief in very different ways, don't they? But while I was writing sex after grief, and I was writing about that one experience with my friend, and I said, hey, would you write your point of view for it? And he said, okay. And so he did. He wrote up a little A few paragraphs of what his point of view was, and I put that in the book too. And it's a way to have a community on the page. If anybody is listening to this and they have recently lost a partner, what would be your recommendation for somebody like that? For somebody who, maybe they're not thinking about dating and sex yet, but they're wondering if they're ever going to find their way back to that. Yeah. Please read sex after grief. I definitely have to.

to say that. Realize that your timeline is your own. Be real with yourself. Acknowledge your feelings. If writing is a natural thing for you to do, keep a journal. And I, in fact, recommend keeping two journals. I learned this the hard way. During the hardest part of my grief, I knew I wanted to write, and instead of writing on the computer, which I do all day, I wanted to suddenly have a pretty journal and have a pen in my hand and to have slower thoughts than, you know, at the keyboard, you go, but when you have a pen in your hand, your thoughts are going to go faster than you can write and therefore you're going to slow your thoughts down. And that was peaceful making for me to have that happen. But I was stumped at first because I wanted to write about the beautiful memories. of Robert. But then I kept intruding, what kept intruding were the horrible memories of how

distraught I was and how horrible I felt and how terrible the ending was for him. And so I couldn't write anything. And then it came to me two journals. One is the memory journal. It is only for good memories. The other is the grief journey journal, and it's for everything else. That freed me, and I would often start the day sitting in a comfortable chair, my cup of coffee by my side, in a cup that he had bought for me, and I would pick up the memory journal, and I would write a memory of something wonderful. Or sometimes I would just read some of the memories, and then I would close it, and I pick up the other one, and then I'd write about it. how hard it was for me right now. And some of the really awful things that happened while he was dying

that I didn't want to record, but I couldn't get out of my mind. And by recording them, I could help to move on from those memories. I would also write about my own urges and wishes and desires and wondering in my over the years, because I kept these journals for years, over the years it would be my attempts at dating or my fantasies or even I, my friend and I walked for an hour after Pilates and then we stopped at his house and we sat down and we talked and I just wanted to take him to bed. But he said, oh no, Joan, it's your grief talking. That was the other thing. He saw me as vulnerable.

He saw me as too vulnerable and he thought he'd be taking advantage of me. He just didn't know. And yeah, I was vulnerable. You know, in retrospect, he was probably right because he was not fully into it for those reasons. I could get pleasure, but how could he? How could I give pleasure in the same way if he was always, oh, no, I shouldn't have done that. So it was okay. I mean, the friendship lasts to this day, but it would have any way, in my view.

I'm fully agree with you, Jen. I think he missed out that, quite frankly. Yeah, but that wasn't for me to decide. It was only for me to express what I wanted. Yes, you are very wise. Yes, you are. Yeah, that's quite right. Bad Kate.

Yes. I read a statistic that said the age demographic that is seeing the fastest spike in STD's, STIs, is the over 60s. Is this true, Joan? And why is this happening? Oh, so happy you brought that up. There is a free webinar that is on YouTube that's called Safer Sex for Seniors with Joan Price. And in that, I talk about it.

I show safer sex methods. I even demonstrate with the aid of a packer and a condom how to put a condom on a soft penis with your mouth. Amazing skills, Joan. Because often penis owners will say, well, I can't use a condom because I can't use a condom because I can't keep an erection. So therefore, therefore we will have condomless sex. And I teach people how to talk about it with each other. So that's out there as a resource that I hope people will watch safer sex for seniors with Joan Price. But in answer to your question, why is this happening? We can't get pregnant. So we don't have that first reason for almost the fear-based use of safer sex.

We're not cognizant of the rise in STIs and how that applies to our age group. We have a lot of trouble talking about it. If we even think about this at all, we think, well, could we get tested and then we'll have sex? Well, wait a minute. If you're just dating and exploring sex together, just use condoms. Just do. If you're saying, let me see the results of your last test, but you're not requiring condoms, then let's say the person who is having condomless sex with you had condomless sex with last week's date,

and that person had condomless sex with whatever other dates that person had. And do you want to have all these people in your vagina? No. I mean, simple question. Is that what you want? And so just, just you say for sex. And at the point where you've decided if this happens, and it usually doesn't happen, that you want to have committed relationship and you want to be monogamous and you want to

not have to use condoms, and well, at that point, get tested. But getting tested doesn't show you whether you were exposed to an SDI last Saturday. So just use safer sex Just use condoms Everybody Do you know what I could honestly I could talk to you forever

Well they're let's Well I might keep talking to you After we've had to end the podcast And everyone else can just Everyone else can just miss out But my final question to you Is when we're talking about How important vibrators are to you

What was the first vibrator that you ever got And how did you come to learn about them. Was this like a relatively late thing? Or was like, how did you know about them? The audience can't see me, but I'm doing a happy dance right now. Okay. I discovered my first magic wand in the personal care department of Macy's department store.

At that time, Vibrate, there were a couple of, of options. I actually, maybe two options. One was, I think it was the wall, W-A-H-L. It fit on your hand. It had metal stretchy things that attached it to your hand and then it had this big lunk of stuff under your hand that you put on a vulva and it vibrated everything. Or you just left it on, you put it on the top of your hand and then your fingers became vibratey. And then there was the magic wand, which I have the original magic wand. I think it worked until recently. Those things were not designed to die.

What year was that? I was in my 30s. So, geez, that was easily almost half a century ago. Wow. And he bought it in Macy's department store. That's right. There were sex stores. They were so-called adult.

stores. And they were seedy and only men went in and they were dark and sticky floored and not the kind of place that I as a young woman would even find. And they were only in big cities too, unless I just didn't know about any locally. But Macy's, they had these things and they were supposedly for massage and there were even pictures on the packaging of the magic wand of a woman brightly smiling and holding the magic wand up beside her, and she had rosy cheeks. I said she did. And it didn't take long before I would just go, huh, I know where I might put that. And I did it.

I was, okay, this is, this is from now on, we are pals. This is going to be in the top drawer. Did you know what it was when you first saw it? Did you go in to purchase it for that? Or did you see it and go, hang on a minute? I didn't know about it until I saw it. I don't know what I was in there for. Some sort of personal care.

I love that, Joan. Oh, you have been far too much fun to talk to, quite frankly. It just been wonderful. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? They can find me at Joanprice.com. And from there, they can find my blog where I review sex toys from a senior perspective and also give my views about other things. From there, they can also sign up for my newsletter, monthly, free, where they get news and views,

and I publish links to articles that I may have written that month or other items of interest in the senior sex arena. And I would say, for anyone in the audience who's saying, well, I'm too young to need that, wouldn't you rather know about it now so they don't have to suffer through, oh my gosh, this isn't working. What do I do now in the future? Just get on the train right now. And you on Twitter, X.

I am on X Twitter at Joan Price. I have a Facebook page, Naked at Our Age with Joan Price. Naked at Our Age is the title of one of my books. and we don't get naked on the Facebook page, but we do talk about it a lot. Oh, Joad, you have been an absolute treat. Will you come back again and talk to us again? Oh, please. Let's do it.

Oh, thank you. And it was funny that I was thinking, how can we get a historical perspective? And then I realized, I am a historical perspective at 80. I don't know why that didn't occur to me until this moment. That's it. You are the history. Oh, Joan, thank you so much. My pleasure, Kate. Thank you for listening, and thank you so much to Joan for joining us.

Wasn't she great? I told you that you were going to love her. She's just fabulous. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or perhaps you just wanting to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. We have got episodes on everything from. scandals at Hampton Court to the history of Polari, the hidden gay language. This podcast was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.