Alicia: Exploring Eroticism after Divorce
“Am I normal?” During interviews, women often ask me for such reassurance. Usually, they want to know that others also experience a diminished desire for sex as they age. But Alicia is different. She is enjoying amazing sex. “I think there is something wrong with me medically,” she laughs. “No, really. Have you met anyone else like me?”
Alicia is an attractive, 60-year-old heterosexual woman. She exudes a personable warmth and easily settles in to telling her story. She shares that she has recently discovered that her sexual pleasure is fueled “by the verbal stuff and by erotica, fantasy, and power play.” Her story tells us how she has embraced these interests.
I am curious to learn about her discovery process. So, we start at the beginning. Alicia stepped into her sexuality at a young age. She describes an adolescence with an unusual amount of independence and a dearth of adult supervision. By age thirteen, she was having sex with a peer. “The relationship was a very positive experience. To be clear, the sex wasn't so good, but we were serious about each other, and he was a really sweet guy.” From an early age, she garnered attention from guys. “All the attention I received gave me a very positive feeling about my body.” She remained sexually active throughout high school while reading about sex in Our Bodies, Ourselves and exploring masturbation and the use of vibrators, introduced to her by a female friend from Sweden.
Even with her confidence and the ability to orgasm on her own, however, she did not have an orgasm with a partner until college. “In college, having an orgasm wasn't as frequent or as easy as it is now. And, I wasn't as savvy about asking for what I wanted. You could say I was empowered, I guess. I enjoyed sex. Still, I think it was more about the guy. Sex was about being attractive to the guy and having him be your boyfriend. I wasn’t educated, nor were most women for that matter, about how we can be as equally sexual as men.”
She married in her late 20’s, worked and raised kids. “Sex with my husband was pretty traditional. He was very attentive and wanted to do a good job. Sex during the good years of our marriage was romantic, intimate and about the love. But it wasn’t erotic and charged in the way that I’ve recently discovered it can be. It was kind-of mechanical.” In time, the marriage deteriorated, and the sex declined as well. By age 52, Alicia was newly menopausal, divorced and single.
Here is where Alicia’s story diverges from that of many menopausal women newly exploring the world of dating. Rather than choosing eHarmony or Match.com, Alicia put her profile on Tinder, an app known for facilitating hook-up sex, often among younger people. Given her professional presence in the community, she worried about posting personal information. Tinder gave her the ability to put herself out there in a fairly anonymous fashion. “I posted only appropriate pictures, no words.”
She vetted potential partners by texting and talking on the phone. “I liked texting through Tinder because I discovered that I flirt well with words. I could have that banter without any commitment. It was an awakening. It gave me the freedom to explore fantasies and new things.”
Alicia’s first relationship lasted eight months. “He was sexually adventurous and very take-charge, but also respectful. And he was verbal like I am. He met me where I was.” They saw each other on weekends with no commitment from one encounter to the next. “That relationship opened up a new world into my sexuality. Like, ‘Wow, this is the way it could be!’”
Her next partner lived 90 minutes away. She talked with him on the phone for about three weeks before meeting him. Then, she drove to his house and spent the night. “I wasn’t going to drive an hour and a half and simply have a couple of coffees. I think I'm a pretty good judge of people. I grew up being followed by men from a pretty young age. I learned to take care of myself in terms of men being too aggressive. I’m not saying I'm always right, but I don't have rose-colored glasses on.” Still, her girlfriends made her check in, and she let them track her phone.
After a few years, she met her current partner. “It was an awakening - not that I wasn’t woke before. I fell madly in love, and he did, too. The sex has been kind of out of control. It’s almost obsessive in a beautiful, loving way.”
Their relationship began with texting. “I was so taken with his verbal acuity and completely overconfident texting - very sexual but not in a creepy way. He was very interested and very open.” As it would turn out, she had met a man who not only shared her desire for “word play” but also took it to another level.
“He talks a lot during sex. He might be very adoring, or he might say, ‘You’re so fucking hot,’ in the midst of a passionate moment. The words are a turn-on, just like when I’m texting and feeling excited about how one will respond. He is even more verbal than I am. He does more dirty talking. But I do it, too. It’s a turn on. It’s fun and doesn’t feel dirty. It feels super intimate not to have any fear about anything you say.”
“He has talked about fantasies as if there is a third person with us. I had never experienced something like that before. The first time I just ran with it because I felt really safe with him. I thought, ‘Well, if this turns him on, I will elaborate on the fantasy.’ I was not taken aback because, by then, I had had a lot of sexual experiences, and I was pretty savvy. Also, I’ve read a lot of erotica. Each time that he has talked about someone watching us or about another woman with us, he has said afterwards, ‘All I want is you.’ He has been very thoughtful about that. ‘You’re all I need. You’re all I want.’ He has been clear on the boundaries of the fantasy material.”
“The first time he verbalized fantasies during sex, he was taking a risk. For me, it solidified the physical and sexual chemistry that we had, which has only gotten better over a year and half. Sometimes our sex is jaw-dropping, like, ‘That was crazy, just crazy.’ And yet, it has also established this intimacy and safety between the two of us. To be authentic and to communicate makes everything more intimate. In my experience with my partner, I feel like I have a voice. Obviously, love has a lot to do with that, too.”
Alicia has made the pursuit of good sex her priority. Since her divorce, she has been looking less for a long-term relationship and more for “fun and intimacy.” And, her risk-taking and exploration has paid off; she is having mind-blowing sex.
Now, she finds herself, like a person with new-found religious faith, wanting to share her journey with her friends. Unfortunately, few want to hear about her exciting adventures. “I have two friends with whom I can share, but it’s still hard. I keep myself reined in and don’t get into any details. A lot of my friends are just not super sexual people. For example, one friend and her husband don’t have sex at all. When I asked if she wanted to be having sex, the question was too threatening. I’m like a mirror, and they have to look at their own sex lives. Maybe they think, ’My friend got divorced – could I get divorced?’ I think a few have even worried I would steal their husbands. I feel badly for even suspecting that they might feel that way about me.”
“Part of my own awakening has been realizing that a lot of women whom I am close to, whom I love, are missing out on something. Why is that? Why haven’t we done a better job of putting women’s pleasure front and center? Why is the focus on our own individual pleasure still missing?”
Alicia goes on to describe the evolving focus on her own individual pleasure. “I think sex for me used to be about validation. It was about being the object of desire rather than feeling desirable. That’s the cultural messaging I had received, that I think we all have received. But, if you get your pleasure from being the object of desire, you’re not really taking care of your own pleasure, right?” Indeed, being the object of desire can be a relatively passive state. “I loved and still do love being the object of someone’s desire - for all the wrong and right reasons. It turns me on. It’s not that I am so focused on the male. Being desired makes me feel very sexual. Maybe it even gives me some kind of power.”
Then she describes the more active state of “feeling desirable.” “I think about being in my body as an older woman. I mean, I like my body, but it has had its share of wear and tear. Still, I like being sexual in my body, for myself and not for someone else. I feel sexy when I am by myself. I had lost that feeling after many years of marriage. Now, there is a sensuality in the way I live my life. I take pleasure in cooking, dancing and beautiful things. I read erotica. When I feel sexy, I feel really good.”
While few women may be eager to follow Alicia’s specific path to sexual awakening, her journey highlights many elements that enhance more satisfying sex, especially as we age. Researchers have identified these and other such factors and attitudes. Paramount among them is health, both mental and physical. Additionally, prioritizing sex, thinking about sex, and reading about sex has been shown to support increased sexual desire and activity. The use of vibrators often helps women reach orgasm more easily. Healthy body acceptance, body awareness and physical activity makes for more embodied sex. Feeling worthy of pleasurable sex cannot be underestimated in fueling the pursuit of pleasurable sex. Finally, exploring sex with another person requires communication. And whether verbally flirting through an app or talking about sex with a long-time partner, a sense of adventure helps get one through the scary, vulnerable feelings often evoked when communicating about sex.
Alicia has shown courage and has taken risks to explore new sexual territory. She has moved beyond loving-but-mechanical sex to loving-and-erotic sex.