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Sex After September: Build Now, Play Later by R. C. W. Davis
Sex at 70 is as great for me and for my wife as it was back in the June days, and it gives no evidence of falling into a winter chill. But this happiness and satisfaction is no lucky accident: it rests on a warm structure of love, affection, and respect carefully nurtured over many years. I look around among my acquaintances and see men banished by complaining wives to a twin bed or to another room (like England's Prince Philip), vengeful nags viciously chewing out their spouses, men being twitted by their partners about their flagging virility, women being insulted or even slapped around in a male show of contempt, frustration, pent-up bitterness. It's late-probably too late-for them, but not for you! Start today, though. . . That old American success slogan, "Look out for Number 1," is a cold key to failure in human relations. If you will always put your partner's pleasure ahead of your own, the next time you have sex on your mind, you'll be more likely to get action rather than delaying tactics. Everyone likes to think of themselves as a naturally great lover. When you cheat on your mate, what can they possibly think except that you are looking for something better? Something better than the best? How absurd; how insulting! You will pay for your philandering, irresponsible love, I promise you. Not necessarily right away, for you may now hold the balance of power, economic or otherwise. But later, in the middle years and beyond, you will discover you are married to a fire-breathing dragon awaiting every opportunity to cut you low, humiliate you, and rub your nose in your diminishing sexuality. You will learn the hard way that the "forsaking all others" of the Marriage Vow constitutes the wisdom of a coterie of sages and a canon of saints. I personally know, just within my limited circle of acquaintances, of a half dozen women who treat their aging husbands like pariahs. Every one of the half dozen macho-men have had their brief moments of triumph in the byways of sex. But what a painful price they are presently paying for the brief pleasure of their amorous adventures! Maybe by now you are thinking, "Sex with the same old partner year-in and year-out! How boring!" To this I can only say, "Shame on you! Your weakness, your limited vision, your lack of creative imagination is showing." "Boring" is inside your own head, not out here in objective reality. If your relationship lacks richness, it's probably the poverty of effort you are putting into that relationship. Do you kiss, fondle, caress, hug, pat, pleasure and excite that spouse of yours, in bed and out, even when you don't have going-all-the-way on your mind? No? So try it, often, and see how stored-up desire makes entering into the sexual act that much more easy and exciting and pleasurable the next time you are serious about sex. The psychologist William James has a theory that action precedes emotion: Go through the motions of an action and you will kindle and feel the emotions appropriate to that action. James' ideas have probably, by now, been discredited by a new generation of theorists, but his old wisdom makes sense-sensual, sexual sense-to me. After-September sex is a matter of state-of-mind even more than physical ability. If you can depend on your partner to augment your self-confidence, to stimulate and edify you to peak performance-as you do in return-you are one of the fortunate ones of this earth. If you are one of the glamour peafowls who laid your finest eggs in other nests, you will probably find that the support you now need comes through as sneers and cut-lows about your faltering potency, further eroding that all-important self-confidence. Speaking of self-confidence, herbalists may have something for you. There are many natural aphrodisiacs in the herbal pharmacopoeia. Against the argument that there is no such thing as an aphrodisiac, you can balance your own reaction and feeling tone. If you can find an herb that seems to do things stimulative for you, up goes that self-confidence quotient. I personally am partial to damiana leaf tea. Perhaps by now the down-to-earth realists are wondering, "But how can a limp imitation of a damp noodle evoke sublime music in a dry resistant cavity?" For the latter there are lubricants; for the former the perfect cure is a generous dose of manana. No results today or tonight? Wait until tomorrow or next week. And of course, Mr. McNoodle, if you can't rise to the occasion this time around, that doesn't mean you're hors de combat for the night. If your partner is still primed for action, you should find that the resemblance between a finger and a penis is more than coincidental. Too, a collection of five fingers can constitute an effective cavity. Also in this connection, have you learned the pleasures of oral sex? You should! The market is a-glut with good sex books that can open this door to you and to a vivid, up-beat sex life. If someone were to ask me the No. 1 ingredient of a happy, full, consummate sex life, my answer might surprise. It's this: RESPECT. Over the long haul sex is embedded in love, and love rests on respect and admiration. It's difficult to establish a satisfying, loving, long-time relationship with someone you scorn and condemn on either intellectual, moral, or personal grounds. Respect is generative, organic, self-actuating like its twin, Love. Treat your partner with the respect and human dignity that you like for yourself, and the chances are overwhelming that you will get what you deserve in return. Nor is post-September success built only on monumental strengths of character or eventful achievements. Entering into it, also, are such mundane ingredients as washing your hands at bedtime or indulging in an effective mouthwash or dentifrice. In short, human sexuality is really pretty much like any other form of human happiness: the more you give away, the more you have left. The more intensely one invests love, affection, excitement, and respect, the more richly they are rewarded in those post- September years, the doldrum years of life-if you allow them to be so.
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