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Believe Me When I Say I Don’t Miss Sex
When I was 37, I had a story in the July 1995 issue of Cosmopolitan, complete with a cover line, chronicling in detail my sexual exploits up to that point.
“Just a couple of weeks ago, in a room overlooking the Caribbean Sea on the French island of Guadeloupe, I had one of the most magnificent orgasms of my life.” So begins the raptures of “A Nymphomaniac Grows Up.” Although it wasn’t me who came up with the headline and the term now reads retrograde, I had no problem with it—in those days, it just meant much sex was had. On the other hand, it was a very embarrassing month for my mother.
In the piece, I describe in enthusiastic detail my early experiences with masturbation, my first sexual relationship at 15, and the many characters who had passed through my life. “There were men with long hair, men who cut hair; some were reckless, others smart or artistic. There was a taxi driver, a yoga teacher, a jeweler, a pianist, the orderly in the hospital where I got my nose job.” I wrote about the little book in which I kept a list of conquests in careful chronological order—58 by the time I was in my mid-20s. But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, I confessed. “I’d been hurt, I’d been used, and I’d been pregnant, but somehow these ordeals didn’t stop the hypnotic trance of physical attraction from taking over my body and brain on a regular basis.”
By the time I was having the orgasm that “shook me like a hurricane” in Guadeloupe, I had taken a long break from sexual adventure through a decade-long marriage that culminated in being widowed in my 30s. The fact that I’d had very little sex through this period may have contributed to the ecstasy on my seaside vacation with my new boyfriend. The urge was still clearly there, even if it had been lying dormant.
“Maybe I’m a sex addict, maybe I’m a love junkie, but I prefer to think of myself as a pilgrim,” I reflected, claiming that “the combination of passionate sex and romantic love is, to me, the most incredible thrill life has to offer...the closest thing I know to a spiritual awakening.”
Boy, when I get new relationship energy, I really get new relationship energy.
“At 65, I am single, widowed, and divorced—but more than that, I’m over it.”
Reading these long-ago gushings is a bit surreal, because I’ve been more or less retired from the world of sex and romantic love for over a decade. At 65, I am single, widowed, and divorced—but more than that, I’m over it. Since menopause, sex barely crosses my mind. When I do think about it, it’s less about the possibility of pleasure than about how dark it would have to be for me to feel comfortable taking my clothes off. As far as I can see, I’m perfectly happy without it, and I suspect many single older women might agree. While I gather some people in our age group are having a big time with lube, Viagra, and candlelight, it would take a lot for me to make the leap. Some nice old man and I would have to be very close. And that would take finding an available nice old man. Which seems like too much work, if not all-out impossible.
So how did I get from there to here? What became of our little sex pilgrim?
After being partnered from my mid-20s until I turned 50, I know enough about the challenges of coupledom and my own just-let-me-drive personality to cherish my independence. I know something about heartbreak too: My first husband passed away of AIDS in 1994 (I met him in a gay bar, so, yes, I knew he was gay, but we thought our magical love would conquer all. Not quite “all,” it turned out). After that, I dated Mr. Guadeloupe for several years. When I turned down his marriage proposal, sure I was done with all that, he left me to find someone more willing. Then I went on a book tour to promote my memoir about being a single mom, met a blonde philosopher in a bookstore, and got hit by another tsunami of new relationship energy. Before I knew it, I was married again, pregnant, and living in rural Pennsylvania. We split up when our daughter was 8, and I’ve been single ever since.
Nowadays, although my sweet dachshund, Wally, really does fill a lot of the empty space, observing the deep connection between happy couples sometimes pierces me. The emotional intimacy. The easy affection. The trust. Wally can be a lot of things, but he can’t be a person.
While I am close to my three wonderful adult children, their partners, their kids, and a beloved trove of friends, I don’t have “a person,” in the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ sense of the term. That’s what I think of, rather than sex, when I wonder if something is missing from my life. I have to admit it’s hard for me to imagine it would be any nicer to sleep with a man than with Wally, as warm, velvety, quiet, and undemanding as he is.
Of course, I’ve tried online dating—I’m no good at it. In fact, during a fit of loneliness earlier this year, I somehow managed to get banned from Bumble. I wish I could tell you why, but I have no idea. I was right in the middle of typing an answer to “Christopher” about whether I have any pets when the app shut down and locked me out. Maybe Bumble had heard about me and Wally.
Among the appalling options that presented themselves during my weeks online were a fair number of guys in their late teens and 20s, who claimed to be into sex with older women. Much older women. Far be it for me to judge, but I find the thought of this for myself...chilling. Boys, I am old enough to be your grandmother! Does anyone actually do this?
The last time I had sex, I was still in my 50s. After a long-simmering, mostly online relationship with an out-of-state sailing enthusiast I met in the Craigslist personals section a few years after my divorce, I opened the door one morning at 8 a.m. to find him standing on the stoop, unexpected and unannounced. My daughter had left for school just minutes earlier. What to do?
Still crystalline and sparkling in my memory is a long, passionate kiss we shared on a park bench during the single date we’d had back in the day. With that in mind, I tossed back a shot of tequila for courage and took him upstairs. Indeed, he was all I had imagined and more. But not long afterward, a person who identified herself as his wife called me to tell me he had herpes and at least one other girlfriend. Fortunately, I didn’t get herpes and never heard from either of them again.
Before that incident, we have to go back to 2013, when I was 55 and had a hot but brief affair with a biker. So much fun, zooming around the hills of Central Pennsylvania and going back to his janky little shack near the paper mill where he had worked since he was a teenager. Unfortunately, it became clear that he was struggling with some serious mental health challenges and was nowhere near ready for a stable relationship, two facts which could be ignored for about…six weeks. Then it was best to go our separate ways.
While I say I don’t miss sex, it’s possible I’m just not remembering it correctly. After all, as my old Cosmo article reminds me, I used to believe it was absolute nirvana. I guess it’s safe to say there are rooms in the house of my psyche I haven’t visited in a long time. Some have naked men in them. Eek.
“There are rooms in the house of my psyche I haven’t visited in a long time. Some have naked men in them. Eek.”
I was discussing all this with my lifelong best friend Sandye, who has always had a way with the fellas and continues to have a hot sex life with an adorable, age-appropriate man. “Do you think I could ever be like that again?” I asked her, referring to the exhibitionist “nymphomaniac” of yesteryear.
She didn’t have to think for even a minute. “Of course!”
But the question is…do I want to be? It’s hard to imagine what could happen if I get hit with another wave of new relationship energy. I could take up fishing, write a book of elder erotica, or get a new tattoo. I could end up married! I don’t quite trust that version of myself. I’m a lot safer with me, myself, and Wally than I will be if it turns out I still have a sex drive.
It’s interesting to realize that “safety” is now a priority for me. As a young woman, recklessness was my brand. Now I spend hours every day on yoga and flossing and taking biotin gummies, and somehow it all adds up to contentment. If I let the sex genie out of the bottle, I hope she still makes me take my blood-pressure medication. And I hope she is a little more careful with my heart than she used to be.
For all the disappointment and losses along the way, I’ve been very lucky to have had so many exhilarating experiences. To feel so much. Although I’ve gotten used to a quieter emotional landscape, if it turns out destiny has a third act in store for me (fourth? fifth? sixty-seventh?), I guess I’ll just have to buckle my seat belt and brace for impact.
“If I let the sex genie out of the bottle, I hope she still makes me take my blood-pressure medication.”
Author headshot: Jane Sartwell. Old Cosmo article: Ariel Skelley. All other images: Getty Images.
