Great Sex Starts at 50 Says Sexpert Tracey Cox
Show Snapshot:
Meet Tracey Cox, one of the world’s foremost writers on sex and relationships. With 16 best-selling books, she is back with a buzzy new podcast and the midlife must-read, Great Sex Starts at 50: Age-Proof Your Libido & Transform Your Sex Life, which offers reassuring, nuts-and-bolts advice for keeping your sex life humming.
We dive into the toe-curling fun of great sex and uncover midlife speedbumps—menopause and bottomed-out libidos, painful sex, wobbly erections, lack of desire, and midlife body changes that can add up to feeling deeply unsexy. Plus, grown-up hand jobs, why lube is your midlife BFF, and how “great” sex falls on a continuum ranging from seldom to spicy. Whatever works for you works!
In This Episode We Cover:
1. Why a sex book for midlife is so needed.
2. Holy midlife hormone disruption! — and libido boosters to help.
3. Four things that will revolutionize your sex life. (Yes, please!)
4. Why great sex after 50 may require a mindset shift.
5. Young sex versus older sex.
6. The most common sex issue affecting people in midlife (it’s not what you think).
7. Use it or lose it.
8. How to have honest conversations with your sex partner.
9. Sex toys, lubes, sexless marriages, and strokers aka “sex mittens.”
10. Tracey’s buzzy new podcast with Zibby Owens’ Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Sex.
Quotable:
Pre-fifty, I thought I knew it all and I thought, ‘It’s not going to happen to me any of this menopause stuff, and none of this drop in libido or anything because it’s me, I know everything.’ And then I hit 50 and then it was like, ‘Oh my God what happened?’
Love and sex are not happy bedfellows that we think they are. We think they exist side by side. They actually cancel each other out in terms of hormones. What we need for love is safety, security, we want to feel protected, you know, we love feeling comfortable. Lust hates that, lust does not thrive in that scenario. Lust likes forbidden things: uncertainty, anxiety, danger, eroticism.
Look for a flicker, not a flame. We tend to think like we’ve got to be overwhelmed with desire before we want to have sex and before we go to seek out our partner to initiate sex. Well, again, because of hormones, that feeling isn’t as intense. So, you might get a funny little thing in your stomach or just think, “Oooh, that’s right, I remember what that feels like.” Act on that.
Word of Mouth. Tracey recommends:
Post-50, I don’t know how anyone could even contemplate sex as a woman without lubricant. So, a good quality lube is your friend. And vaginal pessaries, vaginal estrogen pessaries. If you can take them if you can use them, and most women can, they will get rid of all those problems with dryness, soreness, all that sort of stuff.
More Resources:
Tracey’s Latest Book
Great Sex Starts at 50: Age-Proof Your Libido & Transform Your Sex Life
Tracey’s buzzy new podcast with Zibby Owens Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Sex
Find Tracey’s Other Books and Sex Toys Here
Plus:
10 new ideas to get the most out of your stroker
Follow Tracey
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (00:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud. I’m your host, Katie Fogarty.
Fifty plus in midlife looks nothing like it used to. As a generation, we’re fitter, healthier, and we hit the half a century mark with little sign of slowing down. I mean, J. Lo and Jennifer Aniston are fifty plus and they are total smoke shows. And yet, there’s no denying that something happens to us sexually at 50; between menopause, which can bring bottomed out libidos to painful sex, midlife body changes like waking and bad backs, to the medicines that we take for midlife health issues, our sex life can suffer. So, I am thrilled to welcome a guest today who knows that great sex can start at 50. Tracey Cox is one of the world’s foremost writers on sex and relationships and has been writing, researching, and talking about sex for thirty years. She is a co-host of a new weekly podcast with award-winning literary podcaster, Zibby Owens called Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Sex. She’s written 17 books which include the best sellers Hot Sex and Super Sex. Her latest book is Great Sex Starts at 50: How to age-proof your libido. Welcome, Tracey.
Tracey Cox (01:21):
Thank you, yes, I’m really looking forward to this.
Katie (01:24):
I am too and I was up late last night reading your book. But my first question is 17 books, that’s a lot of books. What made you write this last one, Great Sex Starts at 50?
Tracey (01:37):
It is a lot of books isn’t it [Katie laughs] and the thing about publishers is they always want a general sex book, they never want niche books because they want something that’s going to appeal to everybody. And now after having written 16 books, I honestly thought, especially with the internet and everything, I thought I’d never be writing another sex book. But then an Australian publisher said, “Right, we do want to tackle this because 50 is the new 40 and you know, there are so many people.” We live until we’re 100 and odd, why would we stop having sex at the age of 50? So, suddenly there was a market for it. And also it was because what happened to me at 50 was… Pre-50 I kinda thought I knew it all and I kinda thought, it’s not gonna happen to me any of this menopause stuff, and none of this drop in libido or anything because it’s me, I know everything. And then I hit 50 and then it was like, "Oh my God what happened? [Katie laughs] No, honestly. I used to cut off my arms to want sex and after that, I wouldn’t have even loped off a little toe, I was just not interested. [Katie laughs] And I thought to myself if I’m struggling with this, and I was really perplexed about it all, I thought if I’m struggling with this and I’ve had all these years, thirty years of writing about sex, that other people are going to be feeling this as well. So, I was thinking about this, writing the book and then my publisher came to me and said, “How about writing a book about this?” And it was like, well, if ever I was ever going to write another sex book, this would be the one I want to write. So, it was really good writing it. And I loved writing all of my books, but I especially loved doing my first book which was Hot Sex, and this one feels just as important.
Katie (03:12):
I agree, I agree. Because you say in your book that low desire is the most common sex issue affecting older people and that it’s twice as common in women. And you just shared with us that you, even a well-educated sex expert who knows everything about how to make it work and work well, were impacted. So, what are some of the fixes if somebody wants to kind of reinvigorate their libido?
Tracey (03:39):
Well, I think one of the first things that you have to remember is that we are just hormones. Everything, you have no idea how much we are governed by hormones, especially with sex. So, the low sex drive and all the other sex problems that you hit post-50 are just those lovely hormones like, progesterone, estrogen all just slipping away, testosterone, all just slipping away under the floorboards [Katie laughs] as you get older. That is what’s stopping the desire. The main point that you need to, you can have great sex after 50 but it is an attitude change. And think one of the main things you have to accept is that desire hasn’t gone, the only thing that’s gone is spontaneous desire. When you’re young, the desire for sex just taps you on the shoulder and that’s because you’ve got loads of these hormones racing around making you respond to things and look at somebody and go, “Wow they look hot I want to have sex with them.” Because those hormones aren’t there anymore, that whole spontaneous desire of just suddenly out of nowhere wanting sex goes. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t feel like sex or get just as aroused or turned on, it just means that you have to create desire. And that is the biggest thing to understand about sex when you’re young and sex when you’re older, is that all you’re trying to beat is hormones basically, in terms of that desire thing. So, if you can get that right, that might mean HRT, it might mean just changing your mindset, there’s lots of practical stuff in the book about how to get it going again. But most of all is understanding why it’s gone and understanding that that doesn’t mean sex is going to be any different, you’re not going to get as turned on or aroused or want it as much, you’re just gonna get there by a different route.
Katie (05:20):
I love that. So, we’re gonna cover libido boosters in just a minute. But your first chapter is titled “Four Things That Will Revolutionize Your Sex Life” which of course I was like, “Oh my God what are they?” And you say in that chapter that you, I think your book has twelve chapters and you say that I hope that people focus on this one if you only read one. So, what are those four things? Let’s do a little stage setting.
Tracey (05:44):
Okay. Number one is to manage your expectations and that’s because people moan on and on, “Oh, it’s not like the way it used to be.” And it’s like, “No, because you’re not 20.” We don’t go expecting that we’re gonna be able to run a marathon like we did when we were 20 but for some reason, we don’t allow our bodies to age or our sex organs to age along with the rest of us. We have two things that we do in sex, we think of sex as a sort of like A) young people and B) people having frenetic, passionate intercourse. Well, you’re gonna have to move away from both of those things because you’re not young anymore. And young sex isn’t necessarily better it’s just different sex. Older sex is less intercourse focused, less penetration focused because you’ve got him with his getting wobbly erections, [Katie laughs] you’ve got her with…
Katie (06:32):
Wobbly knees. [laughs]
Tracey (06:33):
Wobbly knees, bad back. The funny thing is, we’ll talk about all the other stuff. We don’t mind saying, “My back’s not like what it used to,” or, “I can’t get down on my knees." But when it comes to admitting that a penis has aged, well that’s a different story. [Katie laughs] And women don’t like to say, “Well, I get really dry, sex is sometimes painful but it’s just like there are things that you can do, there are lots of practical things you can do that help to combat all of these symptoms of post menopause or perimenopause. But it’s just a mindset, it really is. It’s just like, rethink everything, okay, you might not be having the big pounding intercourse sessions that you were having when you were 20 but you will be having some lovely, slow, erotic sex that’s far less penetration based and more…foreplay gets a promotion basically. You get much more foreplay-based sex which is, of course, for women, a very good thing.
Katie (07:23):
That is a good thing.
Tracey (07:24):
Number one.
Katie (07:25):
So number one, expectations, what’s number two, three, and four?
Tracey (07:28):
Two, three, four. Number two is: use it or lose it. The more regular sex you have the better. That is the best way to keep your genitals in good shape and to keep everything else going because there’s lots of benefits we get from great sex and the more sex you have the more sex you want. So, if you can, have regular sex. If you haven’t got someone to have regular sex with, have sex with yourself. So just make sure you’re having lots of orgasms, to keep everything in good order.
Talk about sex, is one of them. Because you can solve anything if you can talk to your partner about sex but you will be tripped up by the smallest, smallest hurdle if you can’t talk to your partner about sex, particularly as you get older, so that is one thing that you really do need to sort out. I’m trying frantically to think about what the fourth one is. [Katie laughs] I think it’s that young sex isn’t better, it’s just different, which I think I’ve already talked about before. Rethink sex, yeah.
Katie (08:22):
Yes, I think rethinking it is great and being generous with yourself and not assuming it has to be one way to be fun and meaningful and special, which I think is a great mindset for anything post 50. Life changes a little bit and that’s okay. I do want to talk about some specific libido boosters because you have wonderful, sort of tactical and practical advice. You talk about HRT, sex toys, lube, foreplay, which you mentioned. Let’s hear a little bit more about how these can combine to help add some mojo to a libido that might be bottoming out.
Tracey (09:02):
I think another thing to remember is that we tend to think… One of the points is to look for a flicker, not a flame. We tend to think like we’ve got to be overwhelmed with desire before we want to have sex and before we go to seek out our partner to initiate sex. Well, again, because of hormones, that feeling isn’t as intense. So, you might get a funny little thing in your stomach or just think, “Ooo, that’s right, I remember what that feels like.” Act on that. Don’t think, “Oh it’s gonna get bigger and I’ll wait until it really, really gets bigger before I go and find my partner,” like, act on the flicker, expect a flicker, not a flame, especially if you’re in a longterm relationship that’s been going on for ages.
The other thing is we need to move away from the thing that it’s our partner’s job to turn us on. And I think especially if you’ve been in a long-term relationship for a while, it’s kind of up to you to turn yourself on. Women are very good at doing this, with erotica, by reading sexy books, why waTraceyhing a sexy film, or just getting a fantasy in your head that you play in your head. We’re very good, we’ve got great imaginations and usually a very rich fantasy life, so use that to sort of makeup for not feeling spontaneously aroused all the time. So, there are two things I can think of.
Oh, the other thing is, just seize life. Like, I interviewed hundreds of women for this book and it’s so divided into the attitudes of two people. You had people who were like, “Okay I’m over 50, I may not look the way I did, but who cares? I’m having a lovely time. And menopause wasn’t something like, oh dear, I’ve ended up all old and barren. It was like fantastic, I don’t have periods anymore.” And it’s just this sort of… Women who go out there and go, “Great, now I’ve got time for me. Lots of them it has to be said left a boring stale relationship or marriage and just went, “Right, I’ve done my bit, I’ve had the kids, I’ve done the right thing by everybody and now I want to do what I wanna do.”” And they don’t have libido problems because of course, the magical thing about starting a new relationship is that your head and brain and hormones don’t care how old you are, you’ll still get a really big flood of all those things that really make you want to have sex lots.
Katie (11:07):
Yeah absolutely. So, we’re gonna take a very quick break but when we come back I want to ask you about this. Because many of my listeners are in long-term relationships and I wanna explore how you can put the sexy back into a relationship that you’ve had for a number of years.
[Ad break]
Katie (12:35):
Tracey, we’re back. You’d mentioned right before we headed into our commercial break that it can be hard in a long-term relationship to keep it feeling sexy. And you talk about how there’s something called the overfamiliarity or the sibling effect where couples sort of slide into being a best friend or a sibling-like a relationship. And this caught my eye because I’m in a long-term relationship. Quick mental math, I’ve been married for 26 years, I do think of my husband as my best friend. We are still having sex, and we want to have more and better. What do you recommend to couples who can’t you know, tap into novelty with a new partner to keep their relationship sexy and active?
Tracey (13:22):
Do you know, this is the biggest, hardest question to answer?
Katie (13:27):
[laughs] Well take your time then because we are here for your answer. We are curious.
Tracey (13:32):
I know. Every sex therapist in the world gets asked, how do I keep desire going? The reason why it’s so difficult is that you’ve got two forces that are fighting together. Love and sex are not happy bedfellows that we think they are. We think they exist side by side, well they don’t. They actually cancel each other out in terms of hormones. What we need for love is safety, security, we want to feel protected, you know, we love feeling comfortable. Lust hates that, lust does not thrive in that scenario, lust likes forbidden things: uncertainty, anxiety, you know, danger, eroticism. Now, because we don’t have sex all the time but you are with your partner all the time, most of us tend to want the nicer feeling emotion, so we fall more and more in love, feel lovely and even cozier and more, let’s just chill on the sofa with our track pants on, et cetera, et cetera. [Katie laughs] Which makes you feel great but it kills sex, it absolutely kills sex.
So, it’s very, very difficult to know how to keep both going. I think part of it again is realizing you haven’t fallen out of love with your partner, it doesn’t mean that you don’t fancy them if you don’t want to rip their clothes off all the time, this is normal. And ignore all those things which really get up my nose actually when you see TV and movies betraying long-term couples who have been together 20 years, waking up on a Sunday morning and just looking at each other and next minute smashing each other up against a wall. It doesn’t happen like that. It can happen like that if you create it and you’ve done something really sexy or made an effort to come up with something new to try, but it just doesn’t happen out of the blue. I think if we stop feeling guilty about that and think, “Oh God, I do think of my partner as my best friend and maybe it does feel a little bit like brother-sister sex sometimes.” If you think, “Okay this is normal, I just need to acknowledge that feeling and then move forward.”
Katie (15:30):
I am gonna jump in there right now and say it does not feel like brother-sisters sex [laughs] but when you do have a long-term relationship, you’re right, you have to work harder. I like what you’ve flagged and what my guest last week talked about, Laura Williams when she talked about dating in midlife after a marriage ends. That sometimes sex needs to be scheduled, it needs to be prioritized, and that culture and movies will tell you it’s just this wellspring of emotion that overcomes you but you know, when you’re living a life, you prioritize other things like exercise and nutrition and that sex doesn’t simply just have to be romantic. And that’s one of the wonderful things about your book and I’m going to encourage everyone who’s listening to this show to go buy it because I was blown away by all the really practical, tactical advice you give. It’s not just big picture stuff although that’s there. I mean, you share things like if you’re at a certain age and your back hurts and your knees hurt, we were joking about it earlier, but you can actually exercise or stretch out, or do different things. And you have one section that’s actually called “Hand Jobs for Grown-Ups,” where you give very specific advice, and I was like, “Woah, I wouldn’t have thought of that.” But you also do focus on big picture thinking. You’ve got a whole chapter that says, “but I don’t feel sexy anymore.” I would love to just do a little bit of tactical stuff and then maybe do some big picture. So, what is a hand job for a grown-up? What does that mean?
Tracey (17:00):
The difference between a hand job for a grown-up and a hand job for when you’re younger is that you’re looking at two different things. When a man is very young, his problem is that he is going to ejaculate too quickly, when he’s older, he needs a firmer touch and more stimulation. So, it’s almost like the opposite way. So, if I was writing about hand jobs for younger people I’d be saying: interject stimulation, hold off, stop now and then. When it’s for older people it’s all about a different kind of stimulation, adding stimulation rather than stopping it. There are all sorts of things you can do. And also, there’s a lot in there that’s all about risk-taking, very careful risk-taking—I’m not promoting sleeping about other people, though if you want to do that’s fine—but little risks. Like for instance, a very quick way to promote, to increase his erection, to make it more intense and harder, is to introduce anal play. And anal play is something that a lot of older couples do enjoy, because often, like say if you’re vagina is really dry and sex isn’t that uncomfortable for you, there are other ways to experience orgasms, including using sex toys and just discovering new areas.
Katie (18:13):
That’s one of the things that you talked about with the hand job too, I think it was like, some kind of special mitten [Tracey laughs] that you could wear that has, what do you call it? I’m probably mischaracterizing it, I don’t know if it was a mitten…[laughs]
Tracey (18:24):
That’s hilarious. I’m going to always call it a mitten from now on. [both laugh]
Katie (18:29):
That sounds too innocent, maybe that’s like a sibling mitten but we need something else. What is it actually called? I can’t remember.
Tracey (18:35):
They’re called strokers. They’re literally like a sleeve made of silicon that have little nodules over them that you sleep over the penis then you move it up and down. Like you know the middle of a hairbrush but without the spikes on it [Katie laughs] And it feels amazing. I do a couple of ranges of sex toys and when the people gave me one to test I said, “This is just ridiculous.” And they gave me about three actually, I handed them out to my male friends which I also use as human…what do you call it?
Katie (19:08):
Focus groups or guinea pigs.
Tracey (19:09):
Yeah, basically. And they were like, "You’ve got to be kidding me.” This is in the beginning before they were really commonplace. And they just said, “I can’t believe how different that feels,” they are blown away. And something like that, it costs about 10 pounds or 20 dollars at the most and it just adds something that you’ve never done before. And people often of our age group haven’t experimented as much with sex toys as anyone else so they are a prime easy, very easy instant way to jazz up your sex life and give you something new to do and talk about.
Katie (19:40):
Yeah, your book is full of like I said, very practical ideas that I thought like, “Wow, some of these really can be incorporated to make your routines better.” Sex toys is obviously one. Before we move on to kind of the big picture, I don’t feel sexy anymore, I would like to keep talking about sex toys. Am I correct that you have two lines of sex toys, or you work with companies that create them? Tell me more.
Tracey (20:05):
Yeah, I do have two lines of sex toys. Both with Lovehoney which are in the US and doing very well there. One is aimed at men and one is aimed at couples and women. The reason I did it is that when I started this off which was about 20 years ago, most sex toys were really tacky. Most of them were not made by women, so every single vibrator was penis-shaped, which is ridiculous because I think only 20% of women insert vibrators. So, I came at it with a female eye of looking, and I thought okay, the other thing I would like to see in nicer packaging and also instructions. I mean Lovehoney used to send me stuff and say, “Would you like this in the range?” And I have to ring them up and say, “I don’t even know what it is, [Katie laughs] what am I looking at?” I had no idea. That was a really interesting experience about designing sex toys because you want something that looks amazing and beautiful and stylish, and then you realize when you’re designing them that in fact, there’s a reason why those horrible old black hard plastic things are so popular is because they really carry vibration well. So, there were so many lessons in that. But sex toys are amazing.
They’re especially good if you are having any problems because lots of women post-menopause have sensitivity problems, they either get over-sensitive or under-sensitive. Your vibrator doesn’t mind if you turn it up or down, it won’t get offended. [Katie laughs] So, they’re really good. They can also help you start having sex more which is something I talk about a lot in the book which is getting semi aroused before you get into bed with your partner, so you’re not going cold into the situation. Because sometimes, again, because of hormones, it can now mean that you take a little bit longer to get aroused. So, lots of women buy little bullet vibrators which look like a big tampon and they’re really small and really discreet and incredibly effective. And just pop off to the bathroom, fine if you want to use it as couple play with your partner, but if you are a bit embarrassed or you don’t feel comfortable with that, just pop off to the bathroom beforehand, use that on your clitoris and you’ll be getting into bed with your partner and you’ll be feeling a lot more aroused than you would have been.
Katie (22:14):
You’re ready to go. I was actually surprised too by some of the devices you talked about in this chapter or throughout the book that can help with sexual issues that stem from things like medications, perhaps if you’ve had surgeries or other things have happened and penetration for whatever reason is uncomfortable, there’s a ring that prevents complete penetration but allows for pleasure. There was just a range of devices I’d never even heard of that people are using for a variety of reasons.
Tracey (22:45):
Yes, the buffer thing that you’re talking about is called an Ohnut—I actually do one in my range and here I am advertising another one—but the Ohnut was the original, I know it’s really big in America and it’s brilliant, it’s like a thick sort of wedge thing that you wear at the bottom of the penis, so it’s like a big thick squidgy ring and it literally stops him penetrating too deeply. Because you can say, “I won’t go in too deep” and then people get carried away. It’s been incredibly successful because for women for who sex is painful, they know that if their partner is wearing that, they can’t get carried away so they relax and therefore sex is better. So, there are some amazing inventions out there.
Katie (23:28):
Yeah, absolutely. For use for couples, like you were saying, men and women, but also the vibrators if you’re in a couple with a woman…
Tracey (23:36):
They’re great for all kinds of sexualities.
Katie (23:39):
Wonderful tools. So this book is chock full of really tactical, practical stuff. But I wanna now move into the big picture because you have a whole chapter too, “But I Don’t Feel Sexy Anymore” I feel that every single person, this is not a gender issue, has moments of time in your midlife where you’re not feeling yourself. So, what would be your recommendation around mindset, tools, one to two tips when you don’t feel sexy anymore that people can incorporate?
Tracey (24:10):
I think the really interesting thing about this because I loved writing this chapter because I’ve always been a bit body dimorphic and I found from all the research on how to make yourself more comfortable in bed—if you do feel body-conscious and if you don’t particularly like your body or if you just think your body’s not good enough—the two things that really worked, two very practical things: have more sex, and improve your sex skills. And when you say that to people you’re like, “What? How is that gonna help?” Well, having more sex is the best way to make you feel better about your body because your self-consciousness does the work for you, it skips past all those inner negative thoughts and goes, “You know what? If this person wants to have sex with you all the time then you’re not half bad.” And the more good sex you have, the more your brain goes, “Hey, I can’t be that bad because this person’s continuing to want to have sex with me.” So that’s the first thing.
The second thing is, women who are really good lovers, who are very confident of their technique in bed, very rarely feel body conscious in bed. They might feel body conscious out of it, but they don’t usually feel conscious in bed. And it’s logical when you think about it. If you think you’re pretty hot stuff, and you’re so used to people, ex-lovers, or your current lover going “Wow that was amazing,” you’re not gonna spend your whole session thinking about your cellulite [Katie laughs] you’re just going to be better in the moment. So that’s two quick tips for that, and they really do work by the way.
Katie (25:30):
I love those, those are great tips. Okay, tips for navigating affairs. Because you also have a chapter in the book about this. About when your partner has an affair, when you have an affair, kind of recovering, navigating, or managing. This is tricky.
Tracey (25:47):
It is tricky. And the thing about affairs, I mean I come from a background where my dad had an affair for 10 years and I ended up the most jealous person you’ve ever met. And I remember like writing about affairs in the beginning of my twenties and it was basically if I could castrate anyone even thinking [both laugh] I remember one of my shrink friends saying to me, and I was happily married the first time around, and him saying to me saying, “If you caught your partner, you were at a party, a barbecue and you walked down the back and there’s your partner with his first love, that happens to be also at the same party, you see them exchanging a really simple kiss, would you leave him? And you’ve got two kids.” I don’t have two kids but he was giving me a scenario. I was absolutely, “Of course I would leave. Are you crazy, why on earth?” He said it just could have been just a nice little, had a lovely time, nothing sexual in it, nothing. No, I was absolutely adamant that I would leave.
Now at the age of 59, my second marriage, and I’m so happy and I adore him, would I leave if I stumbled upon something like that? Probably not. I wouldn’t want to stumble on it and I would be horrified but of course, people make mistakes. I know so many cases of couples who I know very, very well and one of them has made a mistake. And I’m not talking about affairs like my dad’s where it went on and on and on. A one-night thing or a two-night thing, or just one moment that got out of hand. And none of us want to have those moments, or see those moments, or have our partners have them. But I think people do recover from affairs and sometimes affairs can be a wake-up call, I’d never suggest it, but I think we need to stop saying, “Happy people have affairs.” There’s a book called that and I think it’s true. Happy people have affairs.
Katie (27:37):
I think you’ve put your finger on something too. As we age, it’s not that our morality shifts, but we become more attuned to the nuances of relationships and why things occur and that could be more understanding, or around a period of unhappiness or something that caused somebody to stray. But you’re right. I think the idea of seeking these out as novelty, there’s so much emotional turmoil. I’ve seen people in my life go through this experience and there’s a lot of emotional turmoil and fall out and it's not the best idea. The novelty should be coming from those fun sex toys you talked about. [both laugh]
Tracey (28:19):
Exactly, the thing that most, if you are somebody who had an affair..the one thing that counts is did you see it, did you feel like you can spot it again? Because I think the worst affairs and the ones that never really get forgiven is if everything is happy, you didn’t see anything wrong with the relationship, you didn’t spot any clues, how do you recover from that? Because you will never see it again if it happens because they’ve got away with it. I think the affairs that people get over are ones that happen if you’re going through a rough patch, if you can sort of think, okay, I kind of get why that happened. You’ve got to understand it. But if everything was just perfect, I think it’s very difficult to recover.
Katie (28:55):
It’s such a blow. So talk about sexless marriage, because you talk about that in an entire chapter as well, and we just discussed that people in midlife and as you age start to bring perhaps more nuance or empathy of understanding to their relationships. So, what is your take on a sexless marriage? They occur obviously because you’ve written a whole chapter about it. Should people stay in sexless marriages? Are there benefits? Are there negatives? Tell us your thinking.
Tracey (29:25):
I think that there are many, many people who have been married for more than 20 years who are in sexless relationships and perfectly happy. But what you have to do is you must have a conversation about it. And I was quite shocked actually when I was researching the book and talking to lots of the people that I know really well at how many of the couple that I know, who get on really well and tell each other everything, who’ve just quietly stopped having sex, and they haven’t had the conversation. I was absolutely horrified about it and I made all of them have the conversation and they are all, without exception, really glad that they did. The reason why you have to have the conversation, even if you’re both happy to stop having sex, and people who maybe, a lot of these couples got together when they were very young, I guess, I’m just guessing that neither of them were that into sex anyway, and it’s something they enjoyed perfectly well for a number of years and now they just think, “We’ve had enough and we’re more than happy to kiss that goodbye.” In a lot of the cases, and it nearly always is the case if you’ve got a man over 40 who stops having sex and won’t talk about it, it’s because of erection difficulties. There’s a whole chapter on that in the book, how the man losing his erection is the biggest psychological catastrophe that he could ever have. So, that’s often why these older couples stop having sex, it’s because the man would rather never have sex again than admit to having a less than perfect erection.
Katie (30:50):
If that’s something that’s happening for any of our listeners if that’s happening in their lives, how would you encourage them to support their partner or their husband, if that’s the man in their life?
Tracey (30:59):
You need to say something along the lines of, again, if you can go back to the first thing, talk about sex. If you’re with somebody that you’ve always been talking about sex to, this isn’t a problem, because then you say, “Hey I noticed you’re having problems with your erections, I’m also not as lubricated as I was, or sometimes sex hurts and it didn’t. Getting old is fun, isn’t it? Haha.” [Katie laughs] That’s how we get around this and it’s an easy conversation if you talk about sex. If you don’t talk about sex then it’s difficult but there is no other way around it other than to just say, “I’ve notice we’re not having sex as much, I really miss having sex with you, can we talk about why we’re not having it.” And he will be defensive and get funny about it and probably stomp out, but then you’ve put it out there then and from then on it’s like, “Can we talk about it now because I really would like to continue having sex and you know, how are you feeling about sex? Is there a reason why you’re not having sex anymore?” And if he’s still not talking about it then just normalize it. Say, “Hey, look I know that a lot of men over the age of 45,” 40% of men or more, higher actually, up to about 60, "have problems getting erections, is this happening to you? Is this what’s making you embarrassed?” And there are lots of conversation starters in the book because people, I’ve noticed over the years, really want me to say, exactly what do I say. So there are things like, “Say this.”
Katie (32:24):
Yes, this is such a great primer for having conversations with your partner, with your doctor, with the women in your life, with yourself about how do you… Each chapter gives you a nugget that you can use to move your sex life forward if it’s non-existent or if it’s good but you want it to be great, so this is such a wonderful book.
I want to ask one last question before we move on to talking about your podcast. So you mentioned that you were surprised, you had hundreds of conversations, you were surprised to learn that some couples were in sexless marriages. During your hundreds of conversations, was there anything else that you were surprised about that you learned about sex in midlife and post-50?
Tracey (33:09):
I wasn’t surprised, but I was absolutely reinforced what I always thought, is that age is an attitude, sex is an attitude. The couple or the women, particularly, who were really happy with themselves, really happy with their bodies and willing, really enjoyed sex, and they would have found a way around anything to keep having sex; if you want to keep having sex until you’re 108, [Katie laughs] you will, and you can. And there are ways around it. And the people who were miserable and bitter about the way they looked or not having sex and hated sex, they were having a miserable time. It’s all attitude. Our brains control everything including our bodies.
Katie (33:52):
I love it, that is so true. So tell me more about this podcast because it’s got such a great title, Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Sex, but clearly, you’re a mom, I’m a mom, we’re having sex. Tell us a little bit about the podcast, who you’ll be talking to, what listeners can expect and learn.
Tracey (34:07):
Okay, I’m not actually a mom, I’m a stepmom.
Katie (34:09):
You’re a stepmom, okay.
Tracey (34:10):
So, this all came about with me doing publicity for my book. Zibby Owens does a very successful podcast called Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books. So, the “Moms don’t have time to…” is her brand. On the podcast, when she’s interviewing me, she sort of pauses and says, “Do you know what? I think you should host a podcast called Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Sex, you’d be brilliant.” And I actually thought we were off air by that point so I’m chatting away going “Oh yeah, how would that work?” And then at the end of it, she was like, “I’m serious,” and it was on the podcast, it was quite funny to listen to. So we recorded, I think there are four that are live, and they, we’re sort of feeling our way, but what it is Zibby is quite hilarious…she blushes and I do the straight-talking and she even whispers, it’s hilarious. So if she has to say something like [whispers] “Oral sex” in case the kids are in the next room, and it works because you’ve got somebody who’s innocent…
Katie (35:08):
If she has to say “sex mitten,” you know. [Both laugh]
Tracey (35:11):
That’s right, we’re gonna call it that from now on, I love it. So, we take three questions that people can leave either through my social media or through her website and there are loads and loads of them and we try to cover a variety of topics. She asks the question and I answer it and we have a bit of chatting in between. And so it’s a very simple format but it’s good and it’s quite funny and we thoroughly enjoy doing it, so I think that shows on the podcast. But it’s only in the early stages now, it’s only up to show four, but hopefully, people will listen to it.
Katie (35:41):
And can listeners submit questions anonymously?
Tracey (35:46):
Yes, absolutely. The podcast is available on Apple, it’s on Spotify, all the usual places, PodMe. It says on the show notes, you just go into zibbyowens.com/sex and you can submit your question there, obviously all anonymous, and yeah, we’re getting loads of them actually and they’re all very interesting.
Katie (36:10):
I’m sure. Are any of them about midlife or are they younger?
Tracey (36:15):
Any age, any age at all. I think the main audience for our podcast is about anything from 30 maybe older, maybe even younger. I’d say it’s probably about 30 to any age really. Questions have been of the age group and they’ve been all over… Actually, older than that because one question came from a 70-year-old woman who wanted to know oral sex tips. [laughs]
Katie (36:48):
I love it. You’re never too old, and it’s never too late.
Tracey (36:51):
Exactly, that’s exactly what it is. So any age really. And also about the book. It’s pitched at 50-year-olds and under, but really I would say, it’s useful for anyone over the age of 40.
Katie (37:05):
Such a fantastic resource and so wonderful that you’re taking listener questions because there’s so much to learn. So, if you were to share another product or a resource, you’ve had so many great ideas, I’m gonna link to the sex mitten, I’m gonna link to your books, I will be linking to the podcast, and linking to some of the other sex toys that you’ve referenced. But is there something that could really make a difference to people’s lives on this sort of midlife great sex journey, that you want to share with our listeners?
Tracey (37:32):
Gosh, that’s put me on the spot.
Katie (37:34):
[laughs] I am putting you on the spot. You have 17 books to flip through, what’s the one thing you want to surface?
Tracey (37:40):
All right. Post-050 I don’t know how anyone could even contemplate sex as a woman without lubricant. So, a good quality lube is your friend. And vaginal pessaries, vaginal estrogen pessaries. If you can take them if you can use them, and most women can, they will change the whole yeah, they get rid of all those problems with dryness, soreness, all that sort of stuff.
Katie (38:03):
I don’t even think I can spell that, what is that? Tell me, a vagina what?
Tracey (38:07):
Pessary, pessary. So it’s P-E-S-S-A-R-Y, maybe it’s an English term. A pessary is just a way of putting cream or tablet inside of you, so it’s like an applicator… It’s a pessary topical thing, so it’s a topical cream and it just really works to give you the vagina of your youth.
Katie (38:31):
All right, sign us up, lubes and creams, the vagina of your youth, this has been so much fun, Tracey. Where can our listeners keep following you, your podcast, and your work?
Tracey (38:42):
Okay, well it’s all on my website actually, all the social media handles are on there which is traceycox.com, so everything is on there.
Katie (38:53):
Thank you, Tracey. This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50 who are aging without apology. If you enjoyed this week’s show, please stop what you’re doing and take a minute to click-clack over to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the pod to rate and review the show. Reviews really matter, I’d love yours.
Join me next week when we continue to explore relationships in midlife from a variety of angles. My guest is naval aviator, Nancy Lacore, a rear admiral and mother of 6 who joins me to talk love of country, patriotism, and life as a military family.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.