Improving Your Sex Life After 50

Being nude together in a situation that is not explicitly sexual can be very helpful in teaching you to accept how your body looks and how your partner’s body looks.

Why is the human body the object of such shame? Fortunately, simply by looking at, touching, and enjoying the sight and feel of your partner’s body you can begin to enhance your sexual life. This is because the pleasure of naked intimacy leads to sexual contact. and so reduces shame.

The other certainty is that the more you touch your partner, clothed or not, the more likely you are to feel good about each other’s bodies. Better still, the more likely you are to feel good about your relationship, and the more likely you are to have sex. It’s a small step from “regular” touching to sexual touching. But it’s a big step from no touching to sexual touching.

So at this point I’d like to suggest that you regress to childhood, and you play a game of “doctors and nurses”. Uh-ho, I can almost hear your negative reaction already! But why not? Any activity between consenting adults that doesn’t cause harm or offence to either partner is a worthwhile way to pass your time.

All you have to do is just go to bed and establish a degree of intimacy by touching, stroking, caressing, and kissing each other, and then move slowly into a more sexual game. That’s a game of looking, with curiosity and innocence, at both the sexual and nonsexual parts of your own and your partner’s body.

Video- touching for a better sex life

Simply touch each other’s genitals, breasts and faces, and lovingly explore them, with the innocence of a child discovering for the first time. You’ll be reminded of what it is that makes the body so exciting!

You can also learn a lot about your attitude to your body with this exercise. If, for instance, suppose you discover that you believe the penis and vulva are “dirty” and you don’t want to touch them because they’re dirty?

You can overcome this by washing each other while sharing a bath or shower and then returning to the game. Nothing between two consenting adults in a committed relationship should be taboo or embarrassing….

….And you may even find you get carried away with silliness and excitement when you start exploring each other’s bodies in this way! So much the better!

Intimacy and sexual play

There’s no harm in establishing intimacy through sexual play. In fact the more intimacy you establish through sexual play, the better, because the more this bonds your relationship!

And while we’re on the subject of the body and what it looks like, let’s briefly turn our attention to the subject of what it tastes like. Or, more specifically, what the genitals and their secretions taste like.

Actually that’s too formal, so let’s put the real words in place and get down to earth. Spend some time tasting each other’s vulva, vagina and penis, and their secretions. Does that suggestion shock you? If so, maybe you need to get over some inhibition about your body or your partner’s body.

Video – sexual pleasure after 50

When there’s a spirit of playful exploration and abandonment, there’s the potential for truly rewarding sexual pleasure. And while you may not like the taste of the vagina OR your partner’s semen, at least give yourself the chance to try them (and perhaps enjoy them) before you reject them.

As Shakespeare said, nothing is but “thinking makes it so”. If you still feel inhibited about trying this, then do it when you’re sexually aroused – you may find it more acceptable.

The problem of sexual aversion for men – that is to say, aversion to the vagina or the female body – is a very specific one. If you feel that you have such an issue then you can read a lot more about vaginal aversion and sexual aversion here.

About Loss Of Erection

Many men experience a big transition around sexuality between the heady days of their youth where erections spring to life apparently of their own accord (often without any physical stimulation), and the days of middle age.

Suddenly, spontaneous erections may become a rarity (and a helping hand or mouth becomes almost always necessary to get an erection).

And yet this change can be a very good thing: at the same time the rapid ejaculation of youth gives way to an ability to make love for much longer, thereby potentially offering one’s partner greater satisfaction. The key thing to understand is that erections will always be around when true intimacy leads to sexual desire. (However, if you need help from a good book on erectile problems, check this out.)

It also allows a man in a long-term sexual relationship the chance to explore his softness, the more sensuous, gentle side of himself. This is a fascinating aspect of aging for men: how what we might call their Warrior archetype gives way to what we can call their Lover archetype. You can read about those archetypes here.

Another aspect of middle age is that your erection probably waxes and wanes during sexual activity. Instead of standing upright and proud for as long as you are making love, you may find that your erection disappears on occasions when you wouldn’t expect it to – such as when you are giving your partner oral sex.

video – erections after 50

The natural reality of sex is that erections come and go throughout the flow of sexual activity. In mid life you can’t expect to keep an unflagging erection for as long as you’re making love. It just doesn’t work that way.

For many men, simply learning this fact can be reassuring enough to alleviate their fears about losing their erection in the middle of sex. And it’s almost always regained with physical stimulation by yourself or your partner.

But what about those men who really do have a problem with erectile dysfunction? If the cause of the problem lies in low testosterone then the solution is to seek help from a doctor qualified to offer hormonal therapy to men.

Other men who have normal testosterone levels but begin to experience erectile dysfunction may need to relearn a way of being sexual that does not depend on the things that sustained their sexual drive in their younger days.

By this I chiefly mean the fantasy which many men use to keep their sexual drive going. A lot of youngish men rely on fantasy to maintain their sexual drive even while they make love with their partner.

But the problem for a man whose sexual drive comes from his head, in other words from his fantasies, is that in midlife a fantasy is often not enough to sustain an erection. Men need to switch to a greater ability to become aroused through body stimulation.

The work of organisations such as Body Electric has all been about showing men and women how they can achieve much greater sensitivity to sexual stimuli through sensuous awareness and touch rather than fantasy and “being in your head.”

Often the first step to re-establishing reliable erections is to become more body centred. See our page on Sensate Focus for more on that.

And, having said all that, it may be that at the end of the day you need to take Viagra or one of its later successors such as Cialis to give yourself a good erection with which you can confidently make love. I am a great supporter of Viagra because it has revolutionised the sex lives of many couples where the man was previously in difficulties, feeling shame and low sexual self-esteem because he was not able to become erect.

Let’s be pragmatic about this: Viagra works for a lot of men, and Viagra plus testosterone works for a great many more. Read more  here.