Cecile Richards died on Monday, January 20, 2025. She was the courageous President of Planned Parenthood from 2006-2018, when the organization...
Sex and the Older Woman
I’ve Closed Up Shop Down There
When she turned 80, Jane Fonda told a Vanity Fair interviewer, “”I’ve closed up shop down there.” She was referring to her decision to forgo sex, elaborating that she had a full, contended single life without sexual relations. Fonda isn’t alone. Many older single women have joined her chorus of living into the sunset without [...]
Pat Taub
Sex in the Lives of Older Women
For several years I taught the course, “Women and Aging” at Portland, Maine’s senior college. Without fail, every time we came to the segment on sex, previously verbal classes suddenly shut down. Their discomfort was palpable. Why are so many older women, among both married and single women, uncomfortable discussing sex? I [...]
Pat Taub
We’re All Done with Sex!
Over a recent Sunday brunch with two single women friends both, like me, in their ‘70’s, the conversation turned to sex, but not in the same way it did when we were decades younger, sharing juicy tidbits about our sex lives. This time the conversation centered on how sex had lost its appeal. One friend, B confessed to having lost interest [...]
Pat Taub
No Sex for Me
During a recent Sunday brunch with two single women friends both, like me, in their ‘70’s the conversation turned to sex, but not in the same way it did when we were decades younger, sharing juicy tidbits about our sex lives. This time the conversation centered on how sex had lost its appeal. One friend, B confessed to losing interest [...]
Pat Taub
REKINDLING SEXUAL DESIRE Guest Post by Walker Thornton
When a woman tells me that her sexual desire has decreased I want to know more. What’s behind that statement? What’s going on in her life, or her body that causes her to feel little interest in sex? I don’t believe you wake up one day to find that sexual desire has suddenly disappeared. It happens gradually. Some of the factors that [...]
Pat Taub
Why Are So Many Older Women Not Having Sex?
Talking to older women, in groups I’ve led and among friends, I’ve discovered a disconnect between what women tell me and what the popular culture reports about the sex life of older women. A Huffington Post survey conducted last July found that 59% of the partnered women over 60 had an active sex life with a third of the women over 70 [...]
Pat Taub