“They Don’t Call them Sexagenarians for Nothing!” The headline of the AARP story punched me in the face when the latest issue arrived at my house.
I shook my head and threw it directly into the recycling, saying out loud, “No one who is editing this magazine is older than thirty-five.”
Honestly, some things are best left as memories. As I have advanced, decade by decade, I have had to come to terms with many things. I could probably no longer win a kicking fight in a parking lot at Safeway, I have to sleep on my left side or face the consequences of drowning in an acid reflux lava flow, and only 5 percent of the population understands the joke when I call my husband Gilligan. Those parts of me have transitioned, and it has been a challenge to accept my new lifestyle changes. But with every new gift gained by reaching an advanced age, you lose something, too.
Here’s the deal: Old-people sex is so much harder than young-people sex. Both my hips click. My knees make a sound when I bend them that has been mistaken for the crushing of saltine crackers. My hands fall asleep when I don’t have my wrist braces on and I have to clap to wake them up. “They Don’t Call Them Sexagenarians for Nothing”? Every time I think about even approaching that kind of activity I wince, picturing a rotisserie chicken simply falling apart as soon as you move the leg a little outward.
I’m the original Barbie whose legs just snap out, instead of the new Barbies that stretch with the aid of a rubber band. These ligaments are barely holding my pelvis together like old leather buckles on a steamer trunk. They have the elasticity of old balloons you find in the garage fifteen years after your last party that have all melded together into one shredded mass. That’s what I have going on. In fact, I think they actually disintegrated fifteen years ago and my belly fat is the sole reason I can even stand upright. It’s like an inner Spanx that’s three inches thick and has the tenacity of permafrost.
Ever meet a sixty-year-old human who has never had back problems? No, you haven’t. That’s basically because science has tricked us into believing we should rightfully be living this long. It’s not true. And if anyone under that age thinks a quick diddle is worth six months of sciatica, I’m going to tell you to get in all the diddles you possibly can because, where I am now, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t thrown their back out while they were sleeping. Bringing another person into that situation is just striking a match near a gasoline spill.
Listen, I’m not trying to be a bummer, I’m really not, I’m just giving you the heads-up I never got. There are so many things you have to adjust to at this stage because things don’t work like they did. For example, I wouldn’t drive a sixty-year-old car anywhere but within walking distance of my house, and that’s the same kind of danger we have here. Parts wear out. They get rusty. You have to order them and they’re on back order or not even made anymore at all.
In addition, the prep work for such an activity is just exhausting to think about. True, I came of age in the eighties and nineties, when even the porn stars didn’t wax. But now everything is different. Even though most of your leg hair has fallen out either from chemo or just because you’ve had socks threading those surfaces for an eternity, that hair-growth energy is most likely going to pop up in a different area where the resistance is low.
Here’s the deal: Old-people sex is so much harder than young-people sex. Both my hips click. My knees make a sound when I bend them that has been mistaken for the crushing of saltine crackers. My hands fall asleep when I don’t have my wrist braces on and I have to clap to wake them up. “They Don’t Call Them Sexagenarians for Nothing”? Every time I think about even approaching that kind of activity I wince, picturing a rotisserie chicken simply falling apart as soon as you move the leg a little outward.
I’m not going into details, but I am follicularly functioning on my pelt where only men should be. My sister recently looked at me and commented, without expression, “You have Pop Pop eyebrows. Do something!” I also found a nose hair that I had earlier mistaken as the start of a mustache; it was grazing my upper lip. What kind of god allows THAT to happen? Additionally, if anyone gets so close in proximity that they can touch me, I want them as sterilized as a scalpel on an operating tray.
Old age comes with old smells, and forgive me if I’m being a prude, but I’d rather sit through the movie version of Wicked again than put my face inches away from a body part or folds that have acquired the scent of something that emerged from a cheese cave in France. However, if you’ve used as much Zicam as I have and have had the special flavor of COVID, your sense of smell was eaten away a long, long time ago, so there’s a plus.
We all grieve the dimming of our senses, but here it’s a godsend. Forget about daytime rendezvous, unless your partner is a candidate for cataract surgery, has a nice case of macular degeneration, or is extremely far-sighted. You can also now fart during sex because no one will hear you, although should you have a request during an attempt at an intimate encounter, it may be more effective to employ flash cards than to whisper it.
At this age, you really have to set boundaries, because your life may very well depend on it.
Our safe words used to be “What are you doing?” but now it’s “Call an ambulance,” especially when, in the dark, you have mistaken Icy Hot for another, very similar container. My suggestion now when you purchase Icy Hot: Superglue those spikes on top that deflate tires. As painful as that might sound, it’s child’s play compared to the fiery depths of hell you have now encased your nether regions in with a very generous application. The worst thing was that some people (and I won’t say who) didn’t say anything; they just thought this was the new kind of trendy “helper” and suffered in silence until one of the participants couldn’t take it anymore and ran away to rinse it off. It turns out that Icy Hot cannot be stopped after it has been activated, and those people woke up the next day with thawed-out bags of peas between their legs.
Chances are you are never going to get that far, anyway, because you’ll get a cramp or pull your back out when trying to remove your underpants without holding on to something steady. The days of envisioning a passionate fantasy of love are replaced with scenes that make frequent use of the word ow, “That’s not what you think it is,” “I need to have more PT before I should do that,” or “I see a weird mole you should get checked out.”
AARP, however, is adamant that your sex life can be as active as it was in days gone by, I discovered when I fished the magazine out of the bin. It even gave out advice to get the mojo activated:
Lifestyle and home remedies
Exercise. Regular aerobic exercise and strength training are great for you in general.
Me: No. You want me to train for sex? I’m not going to the Olympics. This is not a profession. Dangle a signing bonus in front of me and I’ll consider it, but I have planned my life so my golden years are not spent perspiring—until, of course, I die in a climate-change heat-bubble death wave. Plus I’d really like to save my final burst of energy for that last inevitable fire. I might really have to shuffle. A Zelda Fitzgerald death is not for me.
Stress less.
Me: You know what would make me stress less? To not have to exercise, to not have to plan exercise, buy clothes for exercise, go someplace to exercise, get into fights over the fan with other exercisers, or wonder what diseases I just caught on shared exercise equipment. Do you know what it takes for me to get off a couch? The energy concentrated in that one little movement could smash atoms if strategically applied.
Talk with your partner.
Me: Oh my God. Why? So I could repeat “Hey. I have an idea . . .” forty-five times and then have to resort to a filthy playground hand gesture just to get my point across? I can tell you right now what the answer would be: “Sure. Who did you have in mind? I walked the dog today. I’m out until at least tomorrow at noon.”
Set aside time for intimacy.
Me: Okay, so what do you suggest I give up? Do you know the time I have to invest just to keep myself functioning? There’s chin hair time. There’s “Oops, I peed my pants” time. There’s “How do I get to my photos on my iPhone?” time. There’s “Did I just have a stroke or did I get up too fast?” time. There’s “How do I get to BritBox on Roku?” time. There’s putting on my shoes time. There’s “I know I left my keys someplace weird, but what is that place?” time. There’s “Waiting for the even older lady ahead of me in the pharmacy line to figure out her shit” time. There’s “Do I swipe, tap, or insert at the credit card terminal?” time.
There’s trying to remember my password and PIN and checking my texts for two-factor authorization time. There’s “Who called me and didn’t leave me a message and fuck you anyway I’m going to block you” time. There’s “How do I block you?” time. There’s “That asshole from high school replied to my comment on Facebook and I cannot let that go” time. There’s “I have to check my Instagram reels for any new hexes and curses” time. I didn’t have to do any of this in my twenties and thirties and sex just happened in the dark after you left the bar. I didn’t have to schedule it. I never had to make a decision between wearing shoes and diddle time.
Add a little spice to your sex life.
Me: I have all the spice I need when a hand gets tangled in my hair. I’m at spice level Garlic Salt. I don’t need to go to Red Pepper Flakes. I don’t even want to imagine myself in a Red Pepper Flakes situation; it’s disturbing and I’ll need a lorazepam if that vision lasts for more than a second. If the suggestion is toys, hands down no. It’s just one more thing I have to clean after every use like my Hydro Flask, and even that’s too much of a commitment. If it’s not dishwasher safe, get it out of my house, and to be honest, after something has been in a dark place, I seriously have zero desire to fiddle with it any longer in a situation where it might come in contact with a glass or fork.
Try vaginal lubricants and moisturizers.
Me: We’ve already covered this (See: Icy Hot Incident).
Be aware of your habits.
Me: I don’t even know what this means. What does this mean? Are we talking about the cheese cave? Are we talking about shaving? Because there are some parts I can’t reach anymore. Does this apply to established partners or only new ones? What habits? I do have a warning for any dude who asks a lady who’s sixty or above if he can knock on the back door: She will flip over and slice your belly open like a fish with an extra-long toenail that evolution has created for this exact purpose. We’ve finally worked out the careful balance between Align, Metamucil, and psyllium husk capsules, and no man is worth disrupting that. I have priorities. Plus no one thinks that’s fun but dudes.
So AARP, please shut your big bitch mouth. Stop telling people who have outlived their physical flexibility that all of this is possible. Stop teasing people. Stop telling us that it’s our fault we can’t do the splits anymore. I just can’t. I may have lost that ability, but like I said, I’ve gained a new one, and that’s sniffing out bullshit with my Zicam-disabled nose.
I’m not saying everyone can’t do it or it isn’t worth trying. I’m saying weigh the pros and cons. Decide if a roll in the sack is literally worth six months on your back and exhausting your Netflix, Prime, and Hulu watch lists. Can you imagine a life like that, when there’s nothing left to watch?
And if that’s not bad enough, there’s still a sex toy in your kitchen sink that you cannot walk to, waiting to be washed.
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