SEXTING after 50

OMG. KATHY LEE and HODA are talking about SEXTING. AFTER 50. And "selfies" those pictures . . .
I haven't seen my own ass in twenty years and frankly I don't want anyone else to see it. It's candles (waxless from QVC) by the bedside for me. It's laying flat then bunching my arms by my side so my boobs stay out of my armpits. He needs bifocals so thank God he can't see the sprouting hairs under my nose.
OK- I admit I have sent messages to David while he's working upstairs and I'm working downstairs.

"Honey can you walk the dog?"
Ten minutes- No answer.
"Honey PLEASEEEEE walk the dog."
Ten minutes- No answer. So I walk the dog.
We're back. I type,"Honey, I'm downstairs NAKED- I neeeeeddd you. I need you to check out my body. . . all the parts I can't see." My panties drop to the ground.

I hear the rumble of his feet.There I am naked, with the couch throw over my shoulders.
He looks longingly at me.
"I walked the dog. Now check me for ticks."

What Do Men Want?

Today I met a friend for lunch with a copy of my book on men—a book jammed packed with their love stories.  For one hour we discussed my ideas.  The woman at the next table felt my very words were an insult to her ears.

She went militant on me.  I tried to calm her.  But when she called me a crazy religious zealot and an affront to all women who fought for women's rights I went "Gloria" on her.  I lived in a women's commune in the mid-seventies!  Burn my bra?  I cut a huge hole in the ass of my jeans and let my checks spill out.  I fought idiots at Planned Parenthood.  This wasn't the first time I got that reaction and it won't be the last.  I love men and because I love it doesn't negate the fact I love women.  SO I'm reposting Dr. Helen Fisher's blog that gets to the meat.

For centuries Americans and people just about everywhere else, have believed a lot of things about women that we now realize aren’t true.  Among them, the credos that a woman’s place is in the home and that aging single women—long called spinsters—are sad misfits.  Decades of marches, articles, books, law suits and national, regional and local discussions have finally uprooted these and many more wrong beliefs about women.  This national survey furthers that cause.   Indeed, it shows that women seek more independence in a partnership than men do.

But I have long wanted to bust myriad myths about the other half of the human race–men.  Single in America does it in spades.   This national survey clearly shows that men are just as eager to marry as women are; 33% of both sexes want to say “I do.”  Moreover, men in every age group are more eager than women to have children.  Even young men.  Among those between ages 21 and 34, 51% of men want kids, while 46% of women yearn for young.  Men are less picky too.  Fewer men say it is  important to find a partner of their own ethnic background (20% of men vs 29%  of women said this is a “must have” or “very important”); and fewer say they want someone of their own religion (17% of men vs 28% of women said this is a “must have” or “very important”).   Men are also more likely to have experienced love at first sight, as well as open to introducing a date to their parents sooner.

Perhaps most impressive:  In a committed relationship, men are less likely to say they need personal space (58% vs 77% of women); less likely to want nights out with friends (23% vs 35% of women); less eager to own their own bank account (47% vs 66% of women); and less likely to want to take a vacation on their own (8% vs 12%).  Remarkably, men under age 45 are also more willing  than older men and women to enter a committed relationship with someone who has everything they were looking for in a partner, but whom they do not find sexually attractive.  And just as many men under 35 believe you can stay married to the same person forever (84%). http://blog.match.com/2011/02/04/the-forgotten-sex-men/

Sorry, we are not from other planets.  Dr. Dawn Hopper

Grandma, grandpa, parents, young and old ..What do they have in common?

The word love- as in lovers. There are more lovers in this world than not.  It's a uniting force that has sustained humanity.  Do you love some one?  Research tells us we say nicer things to stranger than the person we love, because we count on their unconditional love.  Today, tell that person how much they matter to you. Say something to rock their world.  Today I have summoned a paragraph for my love. . . How 'bout you?    

In Case you Didn’t Know, We Baby Boomer’s Invented Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll

In Case you Didn’t Know, We Baby Boomer’s Invented Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll 

When I said that to my college class, they applauded.  I know I invented the first two.

I could roll a joint with my toes when I was 16.  I perfected the art of sex with my first husband in his mother’s basement. Although he got carded when he bought condoms, we managed to make a love nest in an old coal bin.  We bought a kerosene heater for the cold winters and of course, a cot.  Little did we know that the fumes went upstairs and his mother ended up calling the fire department who busted through the tiny window above our heads—finding us naked under a moth-eaten army blanket.  I was grounded for a year and sent to a shrink.

It didn’t stop me from growing pot, a need that grew from my grounding and the weirdo I was forced to meet with once a week.  So, in between my mother’s tomatoes the tall plants thrived.  After I ripped out all the males (you can tell them by their tiny balls at the crotch of a stem) I harvested the five pounds of heavenly weed, with Krissy, my best friend.  We hung the plants in my basement, in the closet that my mother’s wedding gown and honeymoon ensemble were in.  They never smelled the same again.  Krissy ended up getting busted at a concert when Stewie Savolinsky narc-ed her out.  I buried my stash in my grandmother’s yard and then I drove to the jail with her father and we bailed her out.  In the car she pointed to the tiny vest pocket where she revealed a rolled joint.  It’s amazing how clever we were.

Do any of you have those memories?   

We were the Woodstock generation, primed by the mantra “if it feels good do it.” We protested and rocked.  We made love and fought to end the war that took our young men to Vietnam,  battled to end segregation and spread the seeds of tolerance for gay rights.  I even stopped shaving my legs—for about three years, then I burned my bra in Philadelphia with a woman who wrote Sisterhood is Powerful.  I’ve often wondered where she is now.  However, I can hardly think of another generation that did as much.  Tell me if I’m wrong. 

Of course if you’re younger you might not believe your parents did these things.  Perhaps they weren’t as wild as I was but the air of the era was contagious.  If they had a Bob Marley album in their vinyl collection, or if they know who he is, they rocked.  But time rolled on and most of us left those lives behind when we faced babies, mortgages and car payments. I shaved my legs, bought a support bra when I saw what my grandmother (who never wore one) looked like in the nude.

  

I never told my own children what we did—at least not until they got through all their adolescent temptations.  I stopped the smoking—you can hardly get a PhD being stoned all the time.  My attitudes towards sex have changed too—we are having way too much with too many people and for all the wrong reasons.  Who ever thought you would be able to flip a switch on the computer and have streaming porn.  In our time my bothers thought the Sears catalogue was the deal.  After it arrived, the bra ads would be missing.  They swore they could see though the fabric. 

I live in Woodstock now, a community with one of the largest aging in place boomers.  My kids are grown and I find my life in a sort of pleasant retrograde.   I’m having fun.  I’m not the only one.  Our generation is not taking to retiring in a rocker.  We’re beginning our second act; new careers, new lifestyles and breaking the rules—again. 

Oh no! It’s Grandma and Grandpa Gone Wild!

I wrote this blog half a year ago.  Now I want to capture my generations attention. 

               There are two words that we don’t like to hear in one sentence— “grandparents” and “sex.”  I remember quite clearly when my grandmother and I watched an episode of Dr. Ruth and she told me she wished someone had told her about orgasms. I was mortified, by both the fact that she had no clue and that the word came out of her mouth—with a Yiddish accent, too.    
            Well, it’s not your grandparents’ world anymore.  The University of Chicago's National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), presented in the New England Journal of Medicine, tells a different story about grandma and grandpa; they are sexually active, engaging in intercourse, oral sex and masturbation—well into their 70s and 80s. The boomer generation is having record sex; enjoying sex as much or more than when they were younger, and to prove it they are acquiring sexually transmitted diseases in record numbers.

          Sex may decline only slightly between ages 50 to 70 and those between 70 to 85 seem to be affected only by health problems or the availability of a partner, not desire. Boomers and seniors biggest complaint about sex is that they lack information; about sexually transmitted diseases, performance issues such as erectile dysfunction, vaginal dryness or lubrication.  

“I have no one to ask about these things,” said Marion S. at the Boomer Health Fair in Albany, New York.  “My doctor rushes me out and other than the internet I suppose I’m alone on this.”

            Marion is not alone.  According to the NSHAP study, nearly one in seven men or 14% interviewed, reported taking medication to improve sexual function, and 38% reported they discussed sex with their doctor.  Much fewer women, 22%, reported discussing sex with a physician after age 50.  The researchers concluded that physicians have reasons and opportunities to open up dialogue with men because of the availability of drugs on the market to treat male sexual issues. But that appears to be changing; women are demanding treatments for libido loss, vaginal dryness and appear to coax their husbands to medical offices so they can find solutions to his problems.  Of course not everyone wants their husband amped up on testosterone or drugs that might restore his erection, but a lot more women than we might think do. The truth is we are living longer and healthier lives and we still want to be sexually active.