Prime Time - Jane Fonda [82]
CHAPTER 13
The Changing Landscape of Sex When You’re Over the Hill
On seeing a beautiful woman, a ninety-something Oliver Wendell Holmes is said to have commented, “Oh, to be seventy again!”
I DON’T THINK THAT 101-YEAR-OLD, BANJO-PLAYING BEN BURKE, whom I wrote about in Chapter 11, lamented over not being seventy anymore. When I interviewed him at an attractive condominium for seniors in Atlanta, Georgia, he told me about his girlfriend, Jocelyn.
“She’s got to be ninety-five and a half years old,” Ben said. “We were friends while she was living independent, like me, but one day she fell and wound up upstairs in the assisted living department of my condominium.”
“Ahh. I knew there was another reason you were going up there besides playing music,” I said, gently poking him in the ribs.
“You bet. I’ve known this lady for, I guess, over three years. As soon as I saw her, I thought, I know my beautiful (late) wife will forgive me, but I got to have a little friendship and she looks like she might supply it. I got her phone number up there and called her. I asked, ‘Do you mind if I come by again and share some animal crackers with milk and have a wild time?’ She was a little hesitant, but she said, ‘Okay, you can come on up.’ First time we met, I was a totally perfect gentleman. I cut a banana, two-thirds for me, one-third for her, and we just talked about our background, our life. Her background was Columbia, Alabama. My background was the ghetto of Manhattan. It is like a million miles apart. But it shows you if folks care about each other’s company, it don’t matter where you come from.”
Ben and I had been talking about sex, so I asked him if they had a physical relationship.
“After I had seen her a few times up there, I say, ‘You know, Jocelyn, I wonder if we could get a little more intimate.’ Was that the right thing to say, Jane?”
“Sure.”
“Instead of undressing her like a madman?”
“I’m real proud of you, Ben. That was the right move.”
“You know what she says? ‘I think it is a little too late.’ So I say, ‘Well, let’s give it a shot.’ Now, this is the God’s honest truth. The next time I came by to visit her, she was in her pajamas. I said, ‘Ask no more.’ We got kind of friendly. I says, ‘So you’re wearing your pajamas?’ She was kind of shy. I just started to undress her inch by inch. The first thing is we wound up in the bedroom. We got into bed as is. Like you mentioned before, you can have a great time without penetration. It was like cementing us together as good friends.”
“That is so beautiful, Ben.” I’d been talking with him about what a shame that all the emphasis is on penetration when there are so many other ways to give and receive pleasure later in life.
“Yeah. She liked it, just the whole experience.”
“Skin on skin,” I added.
“Yeah.”
Ben’s not alone in experiencing late-life sensuality. Evelyn Freeman was a licensed therapist, artist, and jewelry maker when, in 1980, she started the Peer Counselor Program at the Senior Health and Peer Counseling Center for Healthy Aging. In 2007, the center merged with WISE Services to become WISE & Healthy Aging, an agency that provides a variety of support services for people fifty-five years and older.
Retired at eighty-nine, Evelyn was a remarkably beautiful ninety-one when I interviewed her.
“I never expected to be ninety-one,” she told me. “So many things I didn’t expect. I never expected to be turned on at this age. My husband walks in now, from the pool, nude, and I get sexually turned on. That’s such a bonus.”
“And can he respond?” I ask.
“Well, not in the way we responded fifty years ago, but he responds with feelings and we touch a lot. But we’re not able to be as fully sexual as we were.”
I loved hearing these stories from Ben and Evelyn. They fill me with the hope that with any luck, a modicum of health, and a willingness to remain open