3 Important Ways Men’s Sexuality Changes as They Age
Andrew Smiler says changes in male sexuality in mid-life aren’t just about things going downhill.
One of my favorite questions to ask college students is “when do you plan to stop having sex?” None of them ever plans to stop; the only answers that even allow the possibility are things like “when I can’t walk anymore” or “when my partner of 50 years passes away.”
My classes are usually full of middle class American teens or 20s. They can’t imagine their parents — or anyone they really consider “old” — having sex, even though they expect to do it. I don’t know if that’s a personal-level example of American Exceptionalism or not, but it does say a lot about the younger generation’s expectations that adults, and especially seniors, not be “Naked at Our Age.”
Most men don’t stop having at midlife, but many heterosexual men experience a change in the way they do sex as they get older. I’ve not seen any research on gay men, so I don’t know if it’s the same or different for them. I’d guess a little of both, because that’s usually the case.
In many ways, men have a fundamental shift in how they approach and experience sex that effects many different aspects of their sex life. Here…
