2 Mar 2023 · 10 min
Michelle Lizenberry Christensen (host of the Sex Love Power podcast) answers a listener question about how couples in their 50s–60s can have "hotter sex" despite changes in libido and physical response. She reframes the issue as a shift rather than loss, critiques phallocentric/performative cultural definitions of sex, and recommends expanding erotic practices (non-penetrative play, sensory focus, toys, lubricants, optional medications) while dropping goal-oriented performance expectations. The episode closes with listener engagement prompts (DMs, show notes, reviews, subscribe).
I'm Michelle Lizenberry Christensen. Since 1997, I've been coaching powerful, purpose driven, world changing leaders who are ambitious.
In every area of their lives.
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Let's go. Today, let's talk about having hotter sex in older bodies. I got a wonderful question from someone who's been married for nine months. She says he's 61 and I'm about to be 55. Our desires to make love are high, but our libidos, quote unquote, seem low. Like our bodies are past the point of wanting or being able to do it. What can we do to get back to how we felt stimulated sexually back in our 30s and 40s? So there's this distinction, right, that she's making between desire to make love, the desire to be connected to each other, the desire to be together and share pleasure, and then that sort of animal level urge that manifests as erections, as lubrication, as an intense engorgement. We change through time. Our bodies respond differently. Even if our hearts are still in the same place and our imaginations are in the same place, our bodies are different. So I just want to go top level. The first thing that we need to do to create yummier sex if our bodies have begun to respond in a different way than we're used to, is to break the notion that we may have that the way that we got sexually stimulated back in our 30s and 40s, to quote the question, is the ideal? We have a really strong message in our culture that sex looks a particular way and that particular way is based on like 18 year old bodies. It's this ideal of a rock hard erection and quick orgasms for women. But boy, a man who just lasts and lasts as long as he wants to and then has an orgasm. And that's based on the definition of sex as penetration. It's a phallocentric definition that says that penis inserted. And obviously this is a heterocentric definition of sex too. So it leaves out many, many people on the planet and many, many acts that even a heterosexual couple might engage in. But it says, you know, the ideal of sex is that we have penile vaginal penetration and that ends with the penis ejaculating and that's the end of the act and the beginning is the insertion. Everything before that is foreplay. So can you see how exclusive that is, how penis centric it becomes, or phallocentric, and how that really dishonors the essence of sensuality. Because that felocentric notion is oriented around masculine energy. But in fact, feminine energy, even for male persons and masculinely identified people, is the essence of eroticism. We all go into an embodied state and the embodied is intrinsically yin, feminine, receptive. Focusing on what things feel like rather than on how things are performing, focusing on the sensations not just physically, but emotionally. The energy that's moving between the two of you is the essence of eroticism. And turn on. But because we've been all our lives conditioned to and then engaging in sex in such a fellow centric, overly masculine, overly performative way, and we can't even see it, we're like fish with water, you know, we think like this is how it is and this is what success looks like. So we've been doing sex in this successful way, and then our bodies don't perform in the same way they did when we were 18 or 30 or 40. And failing to perform in that way, we think we're not successful anymore. So let's break that definition for starters. Let's step way back from it. And just as we can see in other parts of our lives, financially we're in a different place. Intellectually, we're in a different place. We may have spent time raising children or growing a business, and we're in a different space with that. So. So it only makes sense that as we get into our 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, that we would be in a different place erotically. And if rather than grieving that or thinking that it's a loss, if we can recognize that it's a shift, it's a change, it's like the difference between parenting and grandparenting, perhaps, or the difference between having a stable business versus a startup. We're in a different, perhaps slower, perhaps quieter space. But there are new nuances to be explored inside that space. So what I recommend, when you're finding that your bodies aren't responding the way that they used to, and like they say, the. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I don't believe that that's a weakness, but the flesh is responding differently, then what we look for is first that redefinition and then what is it that we desire now? How do we really desire to feel? What's the experience you really want to have with each other? And what are different ways to create that than you might be used to now? Sex gets so fraught for people because of that performance association that we've had with it, the notion that there's a successful way to do it and you're able to produce an orgasm, they're able to achieve an erection. Do you hear how the language around it is so oriented towards success or conversely, failure? And if we can break that and say, oh, no, this is a way that we're playing together. If we are having a picnic, we're not trying to achieve picnic, you know, we're not trying to cross some sort of finish line. We go out, we lay down a blanket, and we chill in the sunshine, have a little snack. So I want that same kind of vibe to suffuse your erotic time together. Can you break your goal orientation? Can you look for ways to play together? Can you pick a different area of your partner's body to explore? How does this respond to a softer touch? How does this respond to my tongue? How does this respond to pressure? What happens when I breathe on this part of your body or tease it or put my eyelashes on it? How do we get closer to what's here, both flesh and spirit? What's the heart that's pulsing here in this moment with this body as it is today? So if we can get out of the goal orientation, then we don't feel as acutely that loss of the way that we were used to performing in our 30s and 40s. And that opens up the doorway to the kind of sex that's possible now. So it can actually last longer because there's not necessarily a goal. It may not involve an erection that's so hard that you have penile penetration, but that may make more room for oral stimulation or for hands or for toys that actually may be more intimate because it's easier to have more eye contact and more energetic contact. Or you may choose to supplement your organic erection with a medication that creates more engorgement and allows for more hardness, like you might have been used to in the past, and play with that. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just makes sense. And as we get older, we do a lot of things like aspirin to keep our blood thinner. So don't be ashamed or feel like you're using a crutch if you supplement with something like Viagra. Also, physical lubricants are sort of a feminine equivalent where we can create lubrication if our tissue is not producing it. There's lots of ways to create slipperiness, and they can be really delicious. So embracing where we are now, not trying to recreate the past and pulling out of a performance mode are the places I would suggest starting. I'm so thankful for the question and I look forward to hearing any follow up questions that original ask her or anyone else has around creating hotter sex in aging bodies.
I'd love to hear what you're going to take away from this episode and what questions you have. Where do you feel this conversation in your body? Drop me a DM on social media anytime.
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Hit that subscribe button in the app so you'll always get notifications of new episodes when they drop. Thank you so much for being here. I'm Michelle Lisenberry Christensen and this has been Sex Love Power. I'll see you on the next episode and until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around you.