Prime Time - Jane Fonda [83]
Interviewing Evelyn Freeman at the WISE & Healthy Aging center.
MARLENA ROSS, WISE & HEALTHY AGING
Collecting Dividends
Dr. Johnnetta Cole, president emerita of Spelman College and Bennett College for Women, the two historical black colleges for women, was seventy-one when I interviewed her in her Atlanta home, and she vibrated with joy and energy. She married her third husband, James David Staton, Jr., at seventy; he is seventeen years younger than she. “In the Third Act sex can be very special,” she told me. “While it will probably not be as energetic, as experimental, or as frequent as in the Second Act, it has the possibility of being an important and satisfying part of life now.”
Dr. Johnnetta Cole.
“Why?” I asked.
“You can collect dividends from what you’ve learned in the First and Second Acts to use in the Third. A woman may well know her body better, and she may be at greater peace with her body. In fact, in the Third Act, a woman may become more assertive about sex because she knows what she needs, she knows what she wants, and she is not shy about asking for it. And if a woman in Act III is fortunate enough to have a partner who is also at ease with his or her body, then intimacy, if not sex, can be very special. In my case, how fortunate I am to have a husband who has a deep, nurturing way about him. The way he is no doubt comes from years of being a caretaker for his younger siblings and from being a single parent. I was listening to an NPR story the other day,” Johnnetta continued, “and it was talking about aging and sex and how difficult it is for children to imagine their parents in a sexual act. The older the parents are, the more trouble children have with this. The person doing this particular story talked about a woman who was in her late eighties, not in good health, and when asked who should be contacted in a circumstance where somebody needed to be there and be there quickly, she lied. What she really wanted to say was the name of her lover. But she was afraid that her children would find this disgusting, immoral, or bizarre. I think it’s really unfortunate that we have so distorted the aging process that we insist on separating growing old from sex … something wonderful that many folks in the Third Act can and do enjoy.”
I know, of course, that many Third Acters have chosen to pack it in sexually a while ago—for some women, maybe after menopause. For women with low libidos, sex was never an important part of their lives. Chances are, that won’t change in this last act. In fact, some women are undoubtedly relieved when, either because of widowhood or a lessening of their own or their partners’ sexual drive, they can close the book on that chapter of their lives. In such cases, the man’s decision to use sex-enhancing drugs just when his partner thought she’d seen the last of that demanding protuberance can cause anger and resentment. The painful ending of a love affair can also make us want to close up shop. Many widows who had loving, satisfying marriages feel no need or desire to crank it all up again with someone new. There’s the story of the elderly couple who had begun dating, really enjoyed each other, and decided it was time to move in together. They discussed finances, their adult children, their living arrangements, and finally the man asked, “How do you feel about sex?” She responded, “Well, I’d have to say I like it infrequently.” He paused and then, ever hopeful, said, “Was that one word or two?”
Clearly, a life of stimulating friends, interesting travel, work (paid or volunteer), grandchildren, and hobbies can be wonder-ful—with or without sex; and none of us should feel we’re copping out if this is our choice. This chapter, however, is mainly for those who are still sexually active or would like to be. If you’ve loved before, you can love again, and the same is true for sex. If there was a time in your life when you enjoyed sex, you can recover that pleasure—if you want to—because Cupid