Episode 66: Misaligned Sex Drives in Later Life

Hello, I'm Suzanne Noble, and I'm Zoe Noble, and you are listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. And this week's discussion was prompted by a message that I received during a phone-in on an Irish radio station that I was on late on Friday night. I think it was Friday night or something. No, maybe it wasn't. But it was from a woman, an older woman who was in a long-term relationship and she was much more sexual than her partner. And I thought that was really interesting because so often, so many of the messages we get are from men saying, I'm still feeling sexual and my female partner is not.

How—

what can I do about it? But what happens when that older woman is the one feeling sexual and her partner is not? What happens then? And also, I think it's kind of quite an interesting topic that comes up a lot, which is how do you bring back or maintain the intimacy in long-term relationships? Over to you, Zoe. You're the sexologist.

I was just gonna say Well, that's a very big— I mean, this is like we could have a Netflix series on this topic and a book to go with it. It's a big topic, isn't it? I will say that of any age, like of all my clients and across the board from, from people in their 20s to people who in their 70s and 80s, there's definitely a whole percentage of them in which the female heterosexual couples we're talking about, the female is the higher desire partner. I mean, this does exist for sure. And I think that, you know, when we're talking about, you know, sex for seniors, you know, over 60, maybe that percentage switches a little bit. I think that there are plenty of older women who are actually really sort of coming home to themselves in that area of their lives. Whereas I think that there are many men who, like many men who have lived a very fulfilling sex life or very active sex life, and that was part of their identity when they were younger. In their 60s, their testosterone is lower, the circulation is not as, as good. And so there are a lot of reasons why the sex drive might diminish in that time, you know.

Yeah, and I know that when I was in my marriage, I was definitely the more sexual in that relationship, and, and in most of my relationships I was. And part of the reasons why guys used to tell me that they liked me was because, was because I like sex. And they say that, I mean, as I've gotten older, I definitely don't have the same high libido, but that's not to say I don't want it. And certainly, like, at certain times of the day, like the morning, for instance, I'm still really horny in the morning, but not so much in the evening, which makes dating difficult because really I just want guys to come over in the morning and then I want them to leave so I can get on with my work, which means I really just want them to turn up at about 7 AM and then I want them to piss off by 8 so I can take a shower. But, but, um, One of the things that I suggested to this woman, and it was, and it was a suggestion that was kind of from Esther Perel, who is my queen of like great little games and things that you can play to try and encourage your partner to feel sexy or to express your desire to your partner. Because I think one of the things I said to this woman is it can be really difficult to have that discussion. If you are not a person for whom talking about sex comes easily. So one of the things I suggested was like a little sexy Post-it note that she could put on the bathroom mirror that just says, you know, like, I'm feeling really horny for you today or something, you know, just like a little suggestion of something that might just be discovered. I thought that's something I'd feel comfortable doing. And is a kind of bit of a tease.

So yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple things going on. One is like, if you're in a long-term monogamous relationship with someone over the long haul, and, and you now are in your, you know, like, let's just say in your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, like, you know, the the whole purpose why we're here talking about this stuff. I think that it's, you know, if there's— if you're having sex occasionally and you want more sex, then that's a pretty easy thing to address with Post-it notes. That's one of my go-tos as well. And, and just, you know, popping— if you're tech savvy or, you know, texting, then text each other, you know, not necessarily dick pics, but little sweet, sexy reminders, you know, like just sort of stoke the fire a little bit and remember who you used to be around sex and inspire your partner. You know, I think that's great if it's been a while, like for so many couples that have been together for a long time and through many seasons and many phases. And, you know, there are times we feel very close emotionally. There are times we are having more sex than others. If it's, if it's been a drought for a while, there's usually something more than a Post-it that's going to need to happen. So maybe we should name some of those things. One of them, one of the biggest things is identity. Who are you? How, how, you know, are you still— can you imagine yourself as a sexual older person? For many people, that feels really pathetic. They feel pathetic, or they feel like sex is for young people. Or so there are some ideas that, that maybe we've internalized around sex and what it means to, to have sex in your older years. And so, um, there's some of that. Um, if you're, you know, if you're a person with a penis and your partner wants more sex than you do, It could be because your erections are not as reliable or not as hard. And what does that mean for you? Like, there's a lot of sort of, you know, stories you might be telling yourself about that, or shame or anxiety, you know. So, you know, I think what I'm getting at is that, you know, I'm not the first to say that the brain, you know, our minds are our biggest sort of sex organ. And when I talk to couples really of any age who have desire discrepancy, right, where one partner wants sex more than the other, which is virtually 100% of couples, because what are the chances except for the first, you know, 6 months, what are the chances that both partners want the same amount of sex at all times, right? The willingness to talk about it, to experiment, to be playful, to be open, to ask, what do you need to feel sexy? You know, Emily Nagoski, who wrote Come As You Are, has— she uses the term brakes and accelerators, you know, and on-ramps. Like, what are your accelerators? What are the things that, you know, you are, you know, turn you on or make you want more sex or get out of your head and into your body? Like, what are those things? And think about that and then have a conversation together. If you're close and you're good friends, then maybe you can help each other sort of identify those things. Okay, that's a lot of words. What do you have to say, Suzanne Noble?

Well, there's a few things around that. I suspect that there— and I know that there's a lot of women that I hear from that feel their body in the same way that men might feel that their erections are not reliable. Look down and see that little tire around the middle that wasn't there before and other aspects of their body that make them feel old and less desirable.

So I think there's something around people acknowledging that each, each partner is still desirable despite the wrinkles, despite the saggy boobs, despite all of that sort of stuff, right? And some of the things that I've always found for myself that I— that make me feel sexy is just around, um, like putting on a nice nightgown or, you know, something a bit flesh, flesh-revealing, but still covering up stuff. And I think that, again, if, you know, those are sort of—

if you, if your partner comes back from work or wherever and you're in a—

and you look sexy and you've obviously done something, because for me it's all about the prep. Like, everything for me is about the prep. I have to, I have to, like, I have to put on something that makes me feel horny. I have to wear, like, my sexy shoes. I have to, like, everything is a little, like, a little As soon as I do that, it's like I'm stepping into the role of my sex goddess, right?

Yes.

I'm— I— in order for me to feel that way, because I don't walk around feeling that way, I have to step into the role of sexy Suzanne. And sexy Suzanne looks a certain way, and she behaves a certain way. And there is a sense, I think, of, you know, if you're a sexual woman and your partner isn't, one of the cues you can give them is look at— look your sexy self, right?

Just like be, be your sexy self. And so that you're—

because I hear a lot from men like, well, I don't know, I don't know if they want it or not, I'm not clear about the messages.

Like, be clear. Like, yes, just be here, right?

Put on your stockings, like put on your shoes, do something sexy. Like, these guys are not mind readers. Like, if you're a highly sexual woman, your partner may respond more favorably towards you if they get, like, all the green lights are flashing. They're not, they're not just gonna get the fact that, oh, she's got, you know, she turns up in her jogging pants and, and she's up for it. No, do your sexy thing. Tell them, like, just— or just be your sexy self. So that's, that's, that's my kind of one of my little tips is just like, be— if you're not good at being articulate, just like get into the role. Just—

yeah, that's right, that's right. And, um, you know, this thing, this dance that we do around initiating, um, I mean, one of the reasons why people are like, you know, tend not to want to think about it or talk about it or say it or ask or, you know, make that sort of bid for connection or, you know, physical intimacy or emotional or any of it is for fear of rejection.

Yeah.

So there's a little bit of like, you know, attitude adjustment around that and realizing that it's not personal, you know, it's not— it may be disappointing, it may, but Your partner's sex drive is not a reflection of your worth as a, as a, as a woman, you know, or the opposite. Um, you know, I mean, you just, you have to be willing to discuss and to get curious with each other. I mean, we're really so conditioned not to talk about sex, and so that leaves all of this wondering and story making and you know, all kinds of things that don't need to be there.

Yeah, I mean, that sort of really prompted, um, a, you know, a memory for me, which was that I have been in relationships where I always seem to be the initiator. And I think, and that's kind of, I suspect that's quite unusual in heteronormative relationships. So and I did find that after a while my self-esteem sort of went through the floor where I felt like maybe, you know, I wasn't as desired as I wanted to be because they just, my partner was just never initiating. And I do think that we can fall into these patterns where women might expect the men always to initiate, for instance. Or, you know, conversely, maybe it is the woman, but I suspect that's less frequent. And there is something to be said for sharing that responsibility. And one of the things that I was going to ask you, because I think it's contentious, but I've heard it said quite often, is that sometimes between long-term couples, if you want to keep your sexual life, you know, active and alive and fruitful, sometimes you just have to do it when you might not want to do it that much. How do you feel about that?

Yeah, I think, you know, look, there's, there's a sort of, um, I mean, this is true in areas other than sexuality as well, where you have, you know, the needs of each individual partner and the needs of the relationship itself and the relationship. It's a common sort of couples therapy technique where you have the relationship as a third entity. And so you're both taking care and nurturing that relationship. And there are, there are ways— that sounds very simple to summarize it that way. There are ways of really growing the awareness and the sort of feeling sense of the connection itself and how to nurture it. It can be quite beautiful work to do around that, right? I sometimes I have You know, my clients name their relationship itself, you know, and sometimes it's a combination of both. Um, you know, like our, our relationship name might be Suzanne or, you know, yeah, I have a couple whose, whose name is Shirtless Bob Dylan is their relationship name because they met at a Bob Dylan concert. They were standing next to each other and didn't know each other. And, and Bob Dylan's in his 60s with no shirt on and they looked at each other and said, I can't believe Bob Dylan is shirtless. So that became their relationship name anyway. Yes, of course, there are times where you, you know, it's like, God, I really don't feel like having sex, but we feel so good afterwards. We feel close. My partner, my husband, my partner, my wife, whoever it is, you know, they— this is the way they feel connected to me. Yes, of course I can do this tonight. I, you know, there's a way of, you know, I had a— I tell a story in my book where the husband's outraged that his wife isn't sleeping with him and he's like, can't you just sometimes take one for the team? Yeah, it's a little like that. I'm like, well, yes, in some respects it's also not okay for, you know, look, like coercion is not, or, you know, violation, none of those things. Manipulation, like none of that is okay to do, you know.

No, no, no.

But yes, of course it is. It's definitely can be a really healthy thing and good for what we sort of call relationship self-esteem or relationship esteem, I should say, the, the, the esteem of the actual relationship, the connection. Sure. Totally.

And, um, and that sort of brings me on to another message that I received on the same radio program, which was from a woman who said that every time she has sex with her husband, she wants him to ask for her consent. And if he doesn't ask for her consent and he just sort of goes for it, she gets quite angry, right? And, and how you know, what were my thoughts on that. And I sort of said, well, you know, if that's your requirement, and that's your relationship, and you've said to him, look, you know, I've got some issues around consent. And so, you know, I would like you to ask— I said, you know, personally, for me, I think you can be quite playful with it. And you can be kind of almost kinky with it. Because there's a bit of a power dynamic there where you're asking permission, and there's a there's a give and take around that. And so I said, you know, I don't see that personally as problematic because I— that's, you know, if somebody says that's my thing, that's what I want, then, you know, if that's really difficult for you, then you probably aren't in the right relationship. And if you're okay with it, or you can play around with it a bit, then I thought it was okay. But I do think there is something to you said about, you know, again, going back to more sexual women, like, being playful around their desire, being more kind of fun around being, you know. And one of the other things I suggest to is just like, if, if you, if your partner comes in and you give them a hug and that hug lingers a little bit longer than it would do normally, and it becomes, you know, you sort of settle into each other's body in that way that a longer hug does, then that creates all the endorphins and things that go on in your body. And, you know, and that might also just get things kind of, you know, starting to get spicy again. So, you know, I don't think that these things have got to be like big mountains that we need to climb.

We need to think about what are the small little steps that we can take to get back to intimacy.

And I think that's the difficulty is that I know for me, I didn't have sex the last 4 years of my marriage. And so it just felt like too hard to, to try and get back there. You know, I just, I didn't know how.

I just didn't know how.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It again, it's, you know, all of that is such great advice. And, and I think We take ourselves so seriously and we take our partners so seriously. And it's like, sometimes I just, you know, my, my best advice to couples is, is to just like lighten up. You're normal. You're okay. You're, you're a human being. It's all good. There are parts of your relationship that work beautifully. Like just like cut yourselves and each other a big break and talk about what you want and don't judge each other for it. You know? One of the other things I think that is maybe sort of a sidebar to all of this is the idea of spontaneous and responsive desire. And some people are initiators and some people aren't. And some people are sort of spontaneous, spontaneously feel like having sex. Those are usually what is perceived as the higher desire partner because they they are in touch with their desire for sex. For a responsive desire person, um, and by the way, we can have both. We can, we, we, all of us are a little bit of both, but very often somebody is, is much more of the initiator and, and somebody needs a responsive desire person needs to be engaged in sexual activity to feel the desire to have sex. They're never going to on their own. All of a sudden feel like having sex, right? Like, I'm gonna— oh, I'm horny. I'm gonna, you know, see if my partner wants to have sex. That's not them. And the spontaneous desire partner then feels like they, in their world, if my partner never initiates, they don't desire me, which is not true.

Yeah, yeah.

So understanding that, like, I do a lot of normalizing. One of you is going to be the initiator and one of you is not. And if you're the initiator, don't take it personally and don't expect your partner to behave the way you behave. That's not how it works for everybody. So understanding that, like, and that can be quite playful, you know, you can sort of manage your differences in that way. Without it becoming loaded up with the sort of psychodrama of the, of the, you know, relationships and all those lovely core wounds from childhood that we bring to each other to work out, you know?

Yeah, I think it's hard.

I mean, for me, that was really hard. And I, yeah, there wasn't like a huge amount of communication that went on around that. And I also, you know, a lot of what I hear from people is that they'll suggest to their partner something of a sexual, you know, like, oh, I really miss us having sex or whatever. And the response will be, you're a pervert. Now, I normally, when you think about that, you might think that it's actually a man saying that to a woman.

But in my case, it was me.

And so again, going back to the hypersexual woman, older woman, younger woman, I don't care.

Sometimes men can be quite— find those type of women quite challenging at the beginning of a relationship, especially a long-term relationship. You met in your 20s, you're super horny, you're, you know, everything's on fire, right? 30 years down the line, if one of those people is still quite sexual and it just happens to be the woman and the guy's libido is taken off, gone off a cliff. Maybe he's lost his job. Maybe, as you said, he's not got reliable erections. Maybe he's having some issues around depression. Like, a lot of stuff that I see with older men, a lot of this stuff, it can be really hard for them to take that in because, as you said, there's a sense of shame, like, I'm not good enough anymore. I used to be this super stud and now I'm just not feeling up for it. So the easiest way to kind of to bat that away is just to say, oh, you're a pervert, or you shouldn't— we're too old for that now, right? We're too old for that now. That goes back to your identity issue. Yeah, it's easy to use old as a pejorative to dismiss sexual desire.

Yes.

Um, I don't know how to deal with that one, frankly.

Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I think that it, it, you know, it's a little bit of a process, but what, what essentially needs to happen is, you know, you need to explore, um, sex outside of the cultural narrative of it looking like pornography or, or looking like two young, you know, beautiful people, women, uh, people, you know, like, um, or, or, or whatever. I mean, I think that we, if we were to just, here's an idea, put a blindfold on and explore all the sensations and all the feelings and forget, you know, what you look like.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, you know, that sort of goes back to my little cover-ups and things. And yeah, you know, I'm a big fan of blindfolds, frankly, because for a number of reasons, but I think also because they do release you from having to engage with all those, you know, with some of your discomfort perhaps around some areas of your body, and just think of your body as a pleasure zone.

Yeah.

And just kind of free your mind to just go into that space where that's all you are is just a recip—

you know, a receptacle. Is that the word?

For, yeah, for pleasure and for giving pleasure, right? And, and that's— yeah, I, I think that's a really— I think that's a really, really, really great tip. Really great tip. Yeah, yeah, but, but I, you know, I do, I do see that there's quite a lot of people who use old as a get-out clause when it doesn't have to be. Really?

Yeah. And listen, there are plenty of couples who don't have sex very much, or very much sex, or, you know, and that's fine. Like, I'm not here to say there's anything wrong with that if it's working for both partners, but if one partner is namely the woman in this topic of conversation today, is wanting more sex, then if, you know, then let— then I think let's arrive— let's, as if I'm inserting myself in their relationship— but yeah, um, let's arrive at some sort of playful, experimental way of being sexual together and explore that.

Yeah, I think that's a really good tip. And I just end with, you know, one of the things that I've noticed in the alternative lifestyle scene is that it's often the woman in, in, you know, group sex and all that kind of stuff. It's often the woman that drives those, you know, scenarios. And it's often the men that are sitting back and watching their partner being pleasured and really getting off on that. And there is something Again, if you, if you can open your mind to the fact that, you know, maybe you're just not enough, and that's not to say you're not enough, but just that the desire to be playful with lots of other people is something that's in their, you know, in, in their character, that it can be, it can be a bit of a get-out clause.

I mean, for a lot of guys I know who aren't that sexual, watching their partner be sexual with somebody else is actually really great because it's like, I don't need to worry about this because she's getting seen to by somebody else. And we've still got a strong, emotional, deep, meaningful relationship. And it just so happens that every once in a while she wants to have a bit more fun.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

And there's lots of older people that do that. And so everybody out there who thinks, oh, this is something that only goes on in like Eyes Wide Shut stupid, stupid movies. No, no, it goes on with people that are older, like lots of older people who have the emotional maturity to deal with this stuff are actually out there being playful in ways that they probably never could have imagined in their 20s.

And you know what? I'm going to tell you something. For those of you who are listening, who are somewhat intrigued but can't imagine what this might mean about you, or you're making it complicated. One of the things that stops us, right, from being more experimental or being more open or being more flexible or allowing sex and sexual activity to take on a sort of certain role in our lives, what stops us so often is what will people think? This isn't the way I was raised. I was taught that this is taboo. I was taught that it needs to be between a man and a wife. And, you know, all of those stories at this age in your 60s or older, how is that working for you and what might be possible if you decide that you're going to let some of those restrictions in your life go? You know?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's plenty of time left to have all the fun that you want. And that is how I'm going to end this. There's plenty of time to have all the fun that you want. Zoe, it has been lovely as always to see you.

Yes, likewise.

Have a wonderful, wonderful day in Los Angeles, and I am going to my brother's, uh, very expensive birthday dinner in London, who has just turned 60 today. So, oh, very excited to say to your brother Thank you, Suzanne Noble.

And I would like for you to send a picture or post a picture of you in all dressed up pretty.

I will too. All right.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.