When Harry Met Sally 35 years later: that iconic scene still resonates, but is anyone my age (50+) having sex like that? With someone else, I mean?
Don't get me wrong, I adore my husband, but let's be real — with the never-ending exhaustion, body aches, and perpetual bloat, I'm all about fast-tracking to THAT level of Sally's passion and intensity.
No judgment here, just genuine curiosity — how have your thoughts on intimacy shifted as the years roll by? Is spontaneity a “heck yeah” or a “hard pass?” And the burning question: How do you keep the bedroom vibes exciting and fun?
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
Ugh. Sex has been painful due to a tissue paper thin cervical lining. My dear husband ( and I mean that in all sincerity) also snores so I often sleep upstairs.
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
Darcey Steinke, in "Flash Count Diary," quotes psychologist Lisa M. Diamond: " ... relationship context appears to be particularly important to women, so much so that some clinicians have suggested reframing the term 'low sexual desire' as a 'desire discrepancy' between partners. After all ... maybe a woman's sex drive seems low only when her partner wants sex more often than she does. If that is the case, who has the problem?" So yeah, we have a 'desire discrepancy' and, honestly, who has the problem? I'm tired of the cultural expectation that my desire must match his. I'm fine with my chill libido after all those busy years.
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
I'm also curious about this: Is the undeniable drop in libido purely about biology—perimenopause, hormonal fluctuations, exhaustion, midlife brain fog, etc.?—or is it also a response, at the cellular level, to the glorious moment in which we truly stop caring about the male gaze? This is a sense of liberation that can be bittersweet, of course; but the deep freedom and joy and exuberance that comes from no longer thinking about how one is perceived/desired/contemplated has been a surprising gift.
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
Single here, but having regular sex with a friend with benefits. I think it has less to do with excitement and fun and more as a coping mechanism for a sort of proto-grief I have in response to the state of the world.
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
I can’t keep my hands off my boyfriend of three years! Sex ends up being maybe 1-2x a week because we don’t live together and we aren’t always alone when we do see each other. Having testosterone pellets and estradiol helps, as does the fact that because we don’t live together, I’m not upset by undone chores, little irritants, etc. I had a huge sexual resurgence after my divorce, during the tail end of perimenopause. My libido decrease must have been 100% situational with my ex
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
To the question, 'How do you keep the bedroom vibes exciting and fun?', obviously I'm biased :) but I highly, highly recommend my business MakeLoveNotPorn - 'Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference': https://makelovenotporn.tv/ In the eleven years we've been operating as the world's only window on to the funny messy loving wonderful sex we all have in the real world (if porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, MakeLoveNotPorn is the badly-needed documentary), we've saved countless marriages and relationships, per this email from a woman we received: "This was our first month renting videos from MLNP & it was the best $10 ever spent. We've been married 20 years but our relationship and sex life had been suffering for a long time. We used to only have sex, on average, once month. This month, with the help of MLNP, we had sex 8 times! This experience has been amazing. The videos are so fun to watch, and the couples are so genuine. It's like we learned how to make love all over again. Besides just the sex, we began to truly enjoy each other's company again. We're feeling so much more in love & comfortable around each other...maybe more so than ever before. Sincerely, thanks for saving our marriage." Please do check us out - and you might even like to consider becoming MakeLoveNotPornstars :)
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
We schedule it now! If you've always thought that was taboo or a sign that you're forcing it, rethink that. At 58, it's worked out to be the best solution for both of us--for me, who could really take it or leave it (I just really like the closeness and connection) and for him, who's still got the same libido as he did when he was 30. I didn't feel like it was fair for me to make that decision for both of us. But at the same time, I hated having the elephant in the room of wondering when it was going to happen, was he going to make a move when I really just wanted to relax and watch TV, etc., etc....
Menopause totally threw us off in this department, and we struggled for a few years. No one prepared me for the changes, and my sweet husband could not understand how it had nothing to do with anything he was doing or not doing, as much as my hormones and things out of my control. We had to talk and talk and talk about it, but I think he's finally understanding and not feeling like it's only us struggling, after I share stories from other women and couples who are also going through it. I've started HRT in the past few months, and that has definitely helped with the vaginal dryness, although hasn't done much for the libido. And my response is kind of all over the place. We are like 20 year olds relearning this whole thing! But that's okay. We continue to communicate and work through it all.
I also think some my issue is, that with our 3 kids grown and married and on their own, the years and years of taking care of everything and everyone has finally allowed me the chance to do what I want to do for ME, and part of that is knowing that I don't have to worry about it, that I "have the week off" from the expectation that we are going to have sex outside of Saturday or Sunday. It's been the best thing ever--we look forward to our "time together" on the weekend, and during the week we can still be affectionate and demonstrative with each other without feeling the pressure. Everyone has to do what feels right for them.
Thanks for opening up this thread. This is definitely something we should be talking about!
Dec 14, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
Sex? Is that a verb? No one is having sex in my food group. Or at least I'm not. First and foremost I call menopausal sex ....sandpaper sex. Of course there are the shelves filled with lubrication but not the same as those crazy sex hormones that Mother Nature jerked away. Secondly if you're single and can find a man over sixty you'd like to fuck it's like walking miracle. MIracle I say. And if you know anyone call me. I just ponder whether I"ll ever have it again and will I need a gallon on WD40 next to the bed.
For us it's less Netflix and Chill and more Netflix and Netflix and Netflix. But seriously folks... I also want to add that we talk so much about women in menopause losing sex drive but it's men too. And so much of it feels like the natural ebb and flow of aging — there's intimacy in a gentle kiss and even in those Netflix couch moments. So many ways to be intimate with someone. Still.... it's worth checking out what dear Cindy is suggesting! 🥰
It was Caroline from Between a Rock and a Card Place (you should subscribe) who shared the quote (and I forget the poet's name, sorry!): "I will only have you if you are sweeter than my solitude." That dude nailed what I was always trying to put into words. I'm a sort-of-serial monogamist...just with long breaks in between. When my last relationship ended, it took me a while to feel ready to date again...and then the pandemic hit. I'm still a NOVID so it's not only my solitude you're competing with. I don't even want to reignite my friends-with-benefits sitch because there are too many cooties out there right now. LOL. So it's not thoughts on intimacy that have changed. I've never had a desire to date just for the sake of dating. I also have to kind of know you to want to see you naked. It's just a longer, slower process now to find/get to know someone, and not get sick in the process (I have asthma and other autoimmune fun, so I am a wee bit cautious on the whole COVID thing). xo
So I’m 44 and not in menopause yet, but I had a double mastectomy this summer (with reconstruction), and was put on hormone-blocking medication this fall, so I have some of the menopausal side effects, on top of some body image issues from the surgery. FUN!! I actually broke up with one boyfriend over the summer because I really couldn’t deal with physical intimacy at all in the immediate aftermath of my surgery and its complications (and there were some major red flags with him that I’d been watching but not acting on before this that sped the process along and made me feel better about it). Spent three or four months happily alone getting my head back together, focusing on my own physical and mental well-being, and basically ignoring my sexuality entirely. Just recently, I reconnected with a friend with whom I’ve had a FWB situation in the past, and we’ve had amazing sex a few times. The newness/rediscovery of the situation helps to make it hot, but it’s also really nice to be with someone who I know and trust, who knows what I’ve been through this year and is patient and not demanding with my physical hangups right now. That goes a long way.
I think as we age we have to accept the realities of aging bodies. Parts don’t always work as they used to. If you’re hetero, men can’t always get it up, or keep it up in certain positions or do more than X length of time. It’s a good age to get comfortable with the other ways we can provide pleasure to our own/our partner’s bodies. Orally, manually, with toys, etc.
A few things have surprised me: Learning that I've probably always been demisexual and experience responsive desire, not spontaneous desire (see the book Come As You Are) changed everything for me. Gave me the language to honor myself and ask directly for what I need. I can get on a dating/kink/ENM site like Feeld, spell out in detail what I desire, and nobody blinks an eye :-)
And establishing a passionate LDR with a man who just opened his marriage up has been the hottest relationship I've ever had. Esther Perel talks about eroticism thriving in the arc of energy between two people, in the distance, and that you actually need space to feel passion. I'm having the hottest sex of my life, and it's online...
I'd heard about Linda Evangelista not wanting to listen to a man breathe and thought... yup, I get that. Then, I was watching a guy in my demo drinking water the other day and the way his lips curled around the glass...like a greedy fish-vacuum... I'm sorry but he was just too phenomenally gross. No, thank you! 😂
I'm 57, my husband is 50. My sex drive TANKED when I hit menopause five or six years ago. I think the last time we did it was.....last year? We cuddle. And that's ok.
I would love to hear more about this from the male perspective. As a woman in my mid 50s, my libido has definitely, and sadly, dropped. But my husband, who is a few years older, also seems to have almost no interest and we seem to have a difficult time even talking about it. I would like to want it more and I think what would help turn me on, even if I need a gallon of lube to get there, is for him to show that he wants and desires me.
Absolutely! Apparently hubby loves the Elf sweater dress we grabbed from Kohl's. He's quite playful in the bedroom, even if it doesn't always work out. We can tell our days start to fall apart when it's been a while since we "connected".
Nada, but I’ve been single for 9 years 🥲
Ugh. I was not prepared for the plummet of my sex drive after menopause and I’m not even sure how to fix it. I’m not even sure I feel bad about it
The shop is closed 💫
I’m single but even I don’t have the desire to masturbate.
Ugh. Sex has been painful due to a tissue paper thin cervical lining. My dear husband ( and I mean that in all sincerity) also snores so I often sleep upstairs.
Darcey Steinke, in "Flash Count Diary," quotes psychologist Lisa M. Diamond: " ... relationship context appears to be particularly important to women, so much so that some clinicians have suggested reframing the term 'low sexual desire' as a 'desire discrepancy' between partners. After all ... maybe a woman's sex drive seems low only when her partner wants sex more often than she does. If that is the case, who has the problem?" So yeah, we have a 'desire discrepancy' and, honestly, who has the problem? I'm tired of the cultural expectation that my desire must match his. I'm fine with my chill libido after all those busy years.
I'm also curious about this: Is the undeniable drop in libido purely about biology—perimenopause, hormonal fluctuations, exhaustion, midlife brain fog, etc.?—or is it also a response, at the cellular level, to the glorious moment in which we truly stop caring about the male gaze? This is a sense of liberation that can be bittersweet, of course; but the deep freedom and joy and exuberance that comes from no longer thinking about how one is perceived/desired/contemplated has been a surprising gift.
Single here, but having regular sex with a friend with benefits. I think it has less to do with excitement and fun and more as a coping mechanism for a sort of proto-grief I have in response to the state of the world.
I can’t keep my hands off my boyfriend of three years! Sex ends up being maybe 1-2x a week because we don’t live together and we aren’t always alone when we do see each other. Having testosterone pellets and estradiol helps, as does the fact that because we don’t live together, I’m not upset by undone chores, little irritants, etc. I had a huge sexual resurgence after my divorce, during the tail end of perimenopause. My libido decrease must have been 100% situational with my ex
Womanhood has ebbed
Replaced by a bag of sand
Husband is so sad.
To the question, 'How do you keep the bedroom vibes exciting and fun?', obviously I'm biased :) but I highly, highly recommend my business MakeLoveNotPorn - 'Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference': https://makelovenotporn.tv/ In the eleven years we've been operating as the world's only window on to the funny messy loving wonderful sex we all have in the real world (if porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, MakeLoveNotPorn is the badly-needed documentary), we've saved countless marriages and relationships, per this email from a woman we received: "This was our first month renting videos from MLNP & it was the best $10 ever spent. We've been married 20 years but our relationship and sex life had been suffering for a long time. We used to only have sex, on average, once month. This month, with the help of MLNP, we had sex 8 times! This experience has been amazing. The videos are so fun to watch, and the couples are so genuine. It's like we learned how to make love all over again. Besides just the sex, we began to truly enjoy each other's company again. We're feeling so much more in love & comfortable around each other...maybe more so than ever before. Sincerely, thanks for saving our marriage." Please do check us out - and you might even like to consider becoming MakeLoveNotPornstars :)
We schedule it now! If you've always thought that was taboo or a sign that you're forcing it, rethink that. At 58, it's worked out to be the best solution for both of us--for me, who could really take it or leave it (I just really like the closeness and connection) and for him, who's still got the same libido as he did when he was 30. I didn't feel like it was fair for me to make that decision for both of us. But at the same time, I hated having the elephant in the room of wondering when it was going to happen, was he going to make a move when I really just wanted to relax and watch TV, etc., etc....
Menopause totally threw us off in this department, and we struggled for a few years. No one prepared me for the changes, and my sweet husband could not understand how it had nothing to do with anything he was doing or not doing, as much as my hormones and things out of my control. We had to talk and talk and talk about it, but I think he's finally understanding and not feeling like it's only us struggling, after I share stories from other women and couples who are also going through it. I've started HRT in the past few months, and that has definitely helped with the vaginal dryness, although hasn't done much for the libido. And my response is kind of all over the place. We are like 20 year olds relearning this whole thing! But that's okay. We continue to communicate and work through it all.
I also think some my issue is, that with our 3 kids grown and married and on their own, the years and years of taking care of everything and everyone has finally allowed me the chance to do what I want to do for ME, and part of that is knowing that I don't have to worry about it, that I "have the week off" from the expectation that we are going to have sex outside of Saturday or Sunday. It's been the best thing ever--we look forward to our "time together" on the weekend, and during the week we can still be affectionate and demonstrative with each other without feeling the pressure. Everyone has to do what feels right for them.
Thanks for opening up this thread. This is definitely something we should be talking about!
Sex? Is that a verb? No one is having sex in my food group. Or at least I'm not. First and foremost I call menopausal sex ....sandpaper sex. Of course there are the shelves filled with lubrication but not the same as those crazy sex hormones that Mother Nature jerked away. Secondly if you're single and can find a man over sixty you'd like to fuck it's like walking miracle. MIracle I say. And if you know anyone call me. I just ponder whether I"ll ever have it again and will I need a gallon on WD40 next to the bed.
My husband and I opened up our relationship 8 years ago. 53 and having the best sex of my life.
We joke around and call it senior sex. It's the physical and psychological adjustments we finally had to face.
For us it's less Netflix and Chill and more Netflix and Netflix and Netflix. But seriously folks... I also want to add that we talk so much about women in menopause losing sex drive but it's men too. And so much of it feels like the natural ebb and flow of aging — there's intimacy in a gentle kiss and even in those Netflix couch moments. So many ways to be intimate with someone. Still.... it's worth checking out what dear Cindy is suggesting! 🥰
It was Caroline from Between a Rock and a Card Place (you should subscribe) who shared the quote (and I forget the poet's name, sorry!): "I will only have you if you are sweeter than my solitude." That dude nailed what I was always trying to put into words. I'm a sort-of-serial monogamist...just with long breaks in between. When my last relationship ended, it took me a while to feel ready to date again...and then the pandemic hit. I'm still a NOVID so it's not only my solitude you're competing with. I don't even want to reignite my friends-with-benefits sitch because there are too many cooties out there right now. LOL. So it's not thoughts on intimacy that have changed. I've never had a desire to date just for the sake of dating. I also have to kind of know you to want to see you naked. It's just a longer, slower process now to find/get to know someone, and not get sick in the process (I have asthma and other autoimmune fun, so I am a wee bit cautious on the whole COVID thing). xo
So I’m 44 and not in menopause yet, but I had a double mastectomy this summer (with reconstruction), and was put on hormone-blocking medication this fall, so I have some of the menopausal side effects, on top of some body image issues from the surgery. FUN!! I actually broke up with one boyfriend over the summer because I really couldn’t deal with physical intimacy at all in the immediate aftermath of my surgery and its complications (and there were some major red flags with him that I’d been watching but not acting on before this that sped the process along and made me feel better about it). Spent three or four months happily alone getting my head back together, focusing on my own physical and mental well-being, and basically ignoring my sexuality entirely. Just recently, I reconnected with a friend with whom I’ve had a FWB situation in the past, and we’ve had amazing sex a few times. The newness/rediscovery of the situation helps to make it hot, but it’s also really nice to be with someone who I know and trust, who knows what I’ve been through this year and is patient and not demanding with my physical hangups right now. That goes a long way.
I think as we age we have to accept the realities of aging bodies. Parts don’t always work as they used to. If you’re hetero, men can’t always get it up, or keep it up in certain positions or do more than X length of time. It’s a good age to get comfortable with the other ways we can provide pleasure to our own/our partner’s bodies. Orally, manually, with toys, etc.
A few things have surprised me: Learning that I've probably always been demisexual and experience responsive desire, not spontaneous desire (see the book Come As You Are) changed everything for me. Gave me the language to honor myself and ask directly for what I need. I can get on a dating/kink/ENM site like Feeld, spell out in detail what I desire, and nobody blinks an eye :-)
And establishing a passionate LDR with a man who just opened his marriage up has been the hottest relationship I've ever had. Esther Perel talks about eroticism thriving in the arc of energy between two people, in the distance, and that you actually need space to feel passion. I'm having the hottest sex of my life, and it's online...
https://www.estherperel.com/blog/eroticism-self-care-plan
I'd heard about Linda Evangelista not wanting to listen to a man breathe and thought... yup, I get that. Then, I was watching a guy in my demo drinking water the other day and the way his lips curled around the glass...like a greedy fish-vacuum... I'm sorry but he was just too phenomenally gross. No, thank you! 😂
I'm 57, my husband is 50. My sex drive TANKED when I hit menopause five or six years ago. I think the last time we did it was.....last year? We cuddle. And that's ok.
I would love to hear more about this from the male perspective. As a woman in my mid 50s, my libido has definitely, and sadly, dropped. But my husband, who is a few years older, also seems to have almost no interest and we seem to have a difficult time even talking about it. I would like to want it more and I think what would help turn me on, even if I need a gallon of lube to get there, is for him to show that he wants and desires me.
Absolutely! Apparently hubby loves the Elf sweater dress we grabbed from Kohl's. He's quite playful in the bedroom, even if it doesn't always work out. We can tell our days start to fall apart when it's been a while since we "connected".