sex after 50 - A Look At Human Sexuality

Men and sex after fifty

Most men in their fifties experience a gradual decline in fertility. In other words, their semen does not contain sufficient sperm or sufficiently healthy sperm to ensure that every time they make love to a woman in conditions otherwise favorable for conception, they would get her pregnant. Nevertheless, a lot of men in their sixties and seventies become fathers.

But even if a man produces no sperm at all, his sexual desire and his sexual ability to have satisfying orgasms do not disappear. The latter, however, is dependent upon his being able to have an erection. Unfortunately there are many possible problems: erectile dysfunction, weak erections that do not allow the penis to enter the vagina, delayed ejaculation, and oddly a reversion to a condition of the ardent days of youth, namely, premature ejaculation; all these are the troubles that beset the middle-aged male – or, more generally, the man seeking to enjoy sex after he is fifty or older.

There is a slowing-down in the frequency of sexual desire as well. If the man who made love four times a week in his peak years can, at fifty or sixty, make love satisfactorily both for himself and for his partner twice a week he is doing well: he is not the approaching the end of sexual activity.

However, he may feel emasculated by this reduction in sexual activity, and this can further undermine his sexual desire, his physical responses and his sexual performance.

A lot of men’s partial or complete impotence and of weak erections is due to anxiety – for example, anxiety about becoming impotent. In other words, a vicious circle develops, in which fear of becoming impotent actually creates impotence.

There’s also a need for good general health to ensure normal, healthy middle-aged sexual functioning. If a man’s general health is not so great, his sexual health is bound to suffer too. This, in its turn, adds to the psychological effects.

A Case History – the Story Of John and Katy

Some of these issues of sex after fifty occurred in the case of John & Katy. John was fifty-seven. He had been married for thirty-one years, and though the marriage had not been wildly romantic, his relationship with his wife had been a happy one. She was two years younger than he, and was completely over her menopause by fifty-one. She was also an intelligent woman, and had decided that she was going to respond to the changes with a new lease of life, gaining new qualifications and new employment.

When they’d married in their middle twenties, John and Katy had sex three or four times a week. John had been a capable lover: Katy had no complaints on that score, though she later admitted to me there had been times when she had wished for more exciting lovemaking, though not often.

After her menopause she gradually began to realize that she was becoming more preoccupied with thoughts of sex than she had been at any time during her earlier life, and her sexual desire was also increasing.

She was aroused more often, wanted to make love more often, and also wanted a deeper sexual experience than she had had before. John, on the other hand, had fallen into the habit of making love to her only on Saturdays or Sundays, perhaps every two weeks or so.

Video – sex after 50

Katy would have made love every other day if she’d had the opportunity, but she did not criticize John for his lack of desire, accepting that his greatly increased responsibilities at work made him too tired for lovemaking during the week. However, this did not solve the problem of her increased desire, and after a time, she made one or two tentative approaches.

To her delight John responded, but on a couple of occasions rebuffed her gently but firmly. Her successes, however, encouraged her to a strong desire for oral sex. John was surprised, but delighted. On the other hand, he suddenly realized that Katy had changed.

For the first time for a long time, he really noticed how attractive she was, and it struck him that she was much more sexually active after fifty than she had ever been before. His work was tiring and he often had to bring a case full of papers home with him, and by bedtime all he wanted to do was sleep. That is what he had been doing: but now he was aware that he ought to pay more attention to the new Katy.

But he could not readjust to her increased desire for sex straightaway, and, in fact, though he kept telling himself he really ought to do something about it, he never did. Then another incident occurred. He went to bed very tired one night, and when Katy wanted to make love to him, he refused, turned over on his side and went to sleep.

A little later he awoke, and became conscious that Katy was masturbating. As a result of this incident he was shaken out of his rut. He really would do something about it. But almost immediately the increase in Katy’s desire for lovemaking struck him even more forcibly than before, and in a moment of panic he thought, “What if I can’t keep pace with her?”

Instead of telling himself that he would have no problem, he let the idea begin to get to him, and when he finally did take the opportunity to make love to her, he had some difficulty in getting a really firm erection, and this added to his anxiety.

Sex After Fifty – Video

Then the sex was a failure in his eyes, because, for the first time in thirty years, he ejaculated as she touched his penis to guide it into her vagina. This was a fatal experience. Almost every time, for several months when they made love, he either ejaculated prematurely or he could not get a firm enough erection to penetrate her. He did not even get an erection from fellatio. For a time both were depressed, but as it turned out, there was no need for him to consult a counselor. He was able to get back to normal when he got his confidence back. Fear of failure really does breed failure.

Viagra can help enormously!

One or two experiences of getting an erection with the help of Viagra can really boost a man’s confidence and make it possible for him to make love with confidence after a spell with erectile problems that are psychologically based.

Male hormone deficiency

In cases where a man is impotent, or has weak erections or retarded or premature ejaculation, and there is no traceable psychological origin, there may also be a definite absence of sexual desire. This stems from the fact that the testosterone output of the testicles which control sexual desire has greatly depreciated or ceased altogether.

This lack of hormone production can be corrected by testosterone replacement therapy. So there is really no need for a man or a woman to consider themselves incapable of sex in their later decades after their fifties. To sum up, both the man and the woman do undergo physical changes, the woman apparently on a much greater scale than the man. The hormonal changes may, however, be similar in scale in each of them. But whatever the changes, whether it’s the complete menopause of the woman, or the andropause in the man, both sexes are normally quite capable of having great sex after 50 years of age, though perhaps slightly less often.

Where there are clear issues – thinning of the lining of the vagina, failure or partial failure of vaginal lubrication, hormone deficiency, and so on – there are many ways to correct them.

The best way of avoiding sexual failure of almost any kind is to maintain regular sexual activity throughout life. The more often a couple make love between twenty and forty, the longer they will remain sexually active after fifty and on into their middle and later years.

And if you are already 50 or over, then regular and fairly frequent lovemaking – sometimes even when you are not prompted by desire, when you have to start from scratch and get aroused – plus a new adventurousness in sexual techniques, is one of the surest ways of maintaining a satisfactory sex-life for most, if not all, of the rest of your life.

Sex After Fifty: Men and Women

As the story of John and Katy demonstrates, a great deal of the cause of sexual failure has its roots in people’s minds. Many men and women use the changes in their bodies during midlife as an excuse to stop having sex after 50. They seize on the pretext of feeling ill, of hot flushes or headaches, of increasing fatness or tiredness, of business responsibilities, or work, for rejecting any sexual approach that may be made to them or for refusing to make any sexual response that is expected of them.

What they are really saying is that they are so bored with sex that it no longer has any attraction for them. Or rather I should say, they are so bored with sex with their partner after fifty years of age that it has no attraction for them any more.