Some of my favorite lines from today’s episode with Michael Castleman include, “There’s no expiration date for lovemaking and sexual enjoyment,” and “Discussing sexually transmitted infections is a wonderful way to ease into a love relationship with a new friend.” How about you? Do you still have questions, particularly related to women’s health? Coming up soon, I’m talking with Dr. Sharon Malone, a renowned women’s health expert and author of “Grown Woman Talk: Your Guide to Getting and Staying Healthy.” I’ve heard Sharon speak several times at Sibley Memorial Hospital’s annual Sex and Aging Conference, and I can’t wait for one-on-one time. Here’s a link to buy her book, if you’re so inclined … and send any questions you may have to laura@datingwhilegray.com.  I’ll be sure to pass them along! Note: Please send me your questions no later than Monday, Oct. 7.

LAURA STASSI

This is Dating While Gray: The Grown-Up’s Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships. I’m Laura Stassi. On today’s episode: Advice from a Sex Journalist.

Michael Castleman has spent almost 50 years covering sexuality, sex research, and sex therapy. His blog for Psychology Today has received more than 50 million views, And, he’s the author of several books including “Sizzling Sex for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Maximize Erotic Pleasure at Any Age.” Great title, don’t ya think?

I interviewed Michael in 2021 for the Dating While Gray episode “Sex Education.” There was so much more to cover, that Michael graciously agreed to continue our conversation at a Facebook Live event. Today, we’re bringing you excerpts of our talk. Heads up: Our conversation gets explicit. So you may want to be aware of who’s listening with you.

[CLIP FROM FACEBOOK LIVE EVENT]

LAURA STASSI So you write about sex for people of all ages. And I love that as your career has grown, you’ve aged along with your career. And so I’m wondering what the biggest surprise has been for you about sex when you’re in your 20s and 30s versus sex when you’re 50 or older.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

I think the biggest surprise is that sex can get better as you get older. The myth is —  particularly among young people is that sex is for the young and that at a certain point you’re just too old for it and you retire from sex like you retire with a gold watch from your job. Well, that’s all true if you substitute the word reproduction for sex. Reproduction is for the young, but sex is for everybody, and sexual pleasure, erotic pleasure, is — never fades. In fact, sex is really. When you’re young, you think sex is about joining genitals. When you get older, what you realize is that sex is really about loving touch all over the body. It eventually focuses on the genitals, but it’s really about whole-body touch and massage.

And you know, as you get older, your eyes go bad, your hearing goes bad, you can’t smell as well as you used to, you don’t taste as well as you used to. But the one sense that does not diminish with age is the sense of touch.

And so, as other senses start to fade out, the sense of touch remains extremely acute and some people say even becomes more acute with age. And since lovemaking is really about mutual loving touch, the older you get, the more fun you can have, as long as you let go of the idea that sex is about intercourse, because when you get older, intercourse becomes increasingly problematic. Older men have erection issues, older women have vaginal lubrication and dryness issues and at a certain point in the 50s and people’s 60s they just start thinking my God, you know, even with Viagra this is like a hassle trying to accomplish intercourse. Let’s not do that anymore. Let’s play in all the other ways that you can, and sex therapists even have a word for it — that you let go of intercourse and you embrace what they call outercourse, which is everything but, and there’s a whole lot of wonderfully marvelous fun things that are open to lovers who just give outercourse a chance.

LAURA STASSI

I want to get into that more, but first we have a question from Chris, and Chris wants to know can we expect libido to dramatically decline with age for men and for women?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Yes and no. First of all, the operant thing here is that everyone is sexually unique. So there are patterns to this. But how you feel about your sexuality and your libido as you age, that’s you and only you. There’s a lot of studies to show that women going into menopause, menopausal women from about age 45 to 55, often suffer a significant decline in libido, and that is for many reasons. You know the realization of the end of their reproductive years. You know getting older, losing their looks. This is very hard on a lot of women. It’s hard on men too, but it’s more hard for women because women are more judged by their appearance than men are.

But the research also shows that after about age 55, a lot of postmenopausal women recover a sense of joy in life and they recover their libidos, that their libidos can go up and at any age. If you fall in love, you’re going to have a real spike in your libido, whether you’re 22 or 82. Now, if you fall in love at 82, it’s not like you’re going to, it’s not like the Fourth of July with fireworks, and it’s not like sex at 22. But it can be just as deeply emotionally fulfilling. And as long as you keep a sense of humor about the physical aspects of trying to make love when people have arthritis and health problems, you can have a tremendous amount of fun, in bed or on the sofa or at the beach, wherever, at any age. There is no expiration date to lovemaking and sexual enjoyment.

LAURA STASSI

Yeah, somebody just commented that. It’s true, use it or lose it, because one person’s 67, another person’s 65, and they’re having a great time. So use it or lose it. It brings me back to something that you touched on, and we actually talked about it a little bit on the episode. But I think it bears repeating. And it’s almost how we define sex and sexual intimacy. That sex is not necessarily — it doesn’t necessarily involve a hard penis, whereas it might have used to involve a hard penis. You can have a fulfilling sex life absent a hard penis.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Yes, absolutely yes. Well, do you have more to say?

LAURA STASSI

No, no, I was going to say so. I want to talk about that a little bit because it’s not just penetration, because I do think a lot of older people we think of sex equals penetration.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Right.

LAURA STASSI

And you say what.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Well, like I said, older people who remain sexual generally evolve away from intercourse. It’s just too hard. You know, very few men use erection drugs. Many of the men who use erection drugs, they don’t work that well. Women have vaginal dryness You know, even with lubricant a lot of women find intercourse uncomfortable. And then people have health problems. You have arthritis and aches and pains.

It’s hard to you know, negotiate the postural elements of intercourse a lot of time. And so you know, the first thing is to have a sense of humor about it, that we can still have fun even if we can’t do X. But the other thing is to realize that lovemaking is really about mutual massage and touch. And if you’re touching each other, if you’re bathing each other, if you are just holding each other, cuddling, kissing, I mean kissing is one of the underappreciated elements of sex. In pornography, people almost never kiss. It’s all just genital connection. For a lot of people, kissing is really one of the most important elements of lovemaking, and they feel deeply dissatisfied if their lovemaking doesn’t involve a lot of kissing. And so I encourage people to enjoy what they enjoy together and just do more of it, the phrase use it or lose it, is literally true.

The vaginal tissue of older women experiences a phenomenon called atrophy, which means thinning. The tissue gets thinner. And as the tissue gets thinner, women can have more irritation when anything enters the vagina. So chances are erections aren’t going to be doing it, because after about 65, most men have significant erection problems issues and some of them use drugs, but most of them don’t. But other things can find their way inside women, for example fingers, tongues, sex toys. And women who use sex toys and insert them, it helps prevent vaginal atrophy.

LAURA STASSI

I was going to say let’s talk for a moment because you did make the point on the episode that statistically most women do not have orgasms from penetration. Is that correct?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Yes, and in fact the more that scientists study this issue, the fewer women — it turns out — have orgasms during intercourse. I mean, orgasms during intercourse for women are possible, but they are not common. It’s only a small percentage of women who are consistently orgasmic from intercourse, and men just don’t know this and don’t believe it. Because as far as men are concerned, if men slip an erection into a receptive erotic opening, around 95% of the time the guy’s going to have an orgasm. But with women, it’s fewer than 25%. And the latest research that I’ve seen is that it’s really only about 5% of women who are consistently orgasmic from intercourse. The vast majority of women need direct clitoral caresses to be orgasmic. And this can be accomplished during intercourse. The clitoris can be massaged during intercourse, but a lot of women, in surveys of women about how they enjoy having orgasms, the single most popular way that women like to have orgasms is from cunnilingus, from oral sex. Which pretty much excludes intercourse if you’re just two people. In a threesome you can do that, but intercourse plus cunnilingus. But if you’re just two lovers, oral sex is what most women say they prefer. And I hasten to add for the men listening here uh, don’t assume that. Ask your lover what she likes. Maybe she likes something different.

LAURA STASSI

It’s a very serious conversation. I just tend to giggle when it comes to sex talk, so I apologize.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Really, the key thing is to ask and, like I said, everyone is sexually unique. You can’t assume you know what someone’s going to like sexually, any more than you can assume that someone you’re dating you’re going to know what foods they like. You know, people have all kinds of food idiosyncrasies. They have the same thing about, you know, where they want to travel, the clothes they want to wear, the TV shows they want to watch — and the kind of lovemaking they enjoy. So the first thing is really, it’s important to ask and coach your lover about what you like and how you like it. And my book has a whole chapter on sexual coaching made easy. So it’s intimidating to say no, let’s not do that, or yes, let’s do that, but it doesn’t have to be. There are easy ways to coach your lover about what you want in your intimate moments in bed and that’s the key thing — to negotiate and find out what you both enjoy and then do more of it.

LAURA STASSI

So that brings up a good question from someone. So we need to talk about what we like and what we don’t like, and we’ll get to in a moment to how you figure out what you want so that you can communicate that to a partner. But someone asks, since STIs and COVID viruses are an issue, at what time should a dater get STI testing? How do you talk about STI testing? So we did talk in the episode that you’re more likely — you know, that the incidents are higher among younger people, but the incidents are growing among older people. So people listening to this are more likely than maybe other people to run into this issue because we’re dating. So how do we yeah, how do you, how do you talk about that, and what kind of testing should we get done?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Well, as I said last time, the incidence of sexually transmitted infections among people over 50 is less than 10% of the prevalence in people in their 20s, so older people do not have much risk. On the other hand, with more late-life divorce and widowhood and people thinking that they’re not going to retire from sex, there’s more interest in dating and sexuality among this generation of older people, and STI rates have increased slightly among older people, which gives us headlines with public health authorities saying oh my God, older people, you know, use condoms. Whatever. My attitude toward it is that discussing sexually transmitted infections is a wonderful way to ease into a lover relationship with a new friend. You know, you can say, you know young people, when they make love, the typical way they do it is they get smashed drunk and then they wind up in bed and that’s what happens, and there’s no real time to talk about contraception or sexual infections. Older people can say to each other without too much difficulty hey, you know, I like being with you, I would love to be sexual with you, I don’t have any sexual infections. But you know, why don’t we go get tested together and then we get our results. If they’re both negative, well then we can have a really good time together.

So I think it’s a way to ease into lovemaking with a new, older lover and, at the same time, it shows that you care about their health, you respect them, and isn’t that what you want from a lover. Do you want someone just to say, here, drink this bottle of tequila, and then we’re going to get it on? Or do you want someone to say look, I really care about you, I care about your health and safety, I hope you care about mine, and let’s do this like mature adults, and when we both test negative, I’m going to be so turned on I’m going to want to jump into bed with you. So that’s what I would suggest.

LAURA STASSI

So someone commented that people should get tested every year they are dating. Do you agree with that?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Well, yes, I mean people who are dating and meeting and being sexual with a series of new people. That’s what increases your risk. So periodically, I would suggest getting tested. I’m not going to say it should be every year. I mean, it could be every six months, it could be every nine months. Who cares. It’s just the idea that the more different partners you have, the greater your risk.

And think about it. I mean, do you want to have to make that phone call to a bunch of people you dated saying, oh gee, I’m sorry, but I turned up, I have chlamydia? I mean, it’s so much easier and so much happier just to get it tested in advance. And if you’re dating people, older people generally are not immediately jumping into bed with each other. There’s plenty of time to get tested and public health departments all over the country do this routinely. These tests are not hard to get. So I encourage people to be responsible, be safe, and then you know, lovemaking is really about mutual relaxation. And if you’re both clear that you’re both negative, you don’t have any STIs, it’s a lot easier to relax and have more fun in bed.

LAURA STASSI

Yeah, I also just want to mention that the CDC website has all kinds of information about sexually transmitted infections. And I think we all kind of are terrified about them, but they’re not necessarily dangerous. They’re rarely fatal. I mean, it’s like I think it behooves all of us, if we’re going to be sexually active, just to learn everything we can about our risks. Talk to our physicians, go to the website.

[EXCERPT ENDS]

 LAURA STASSI

Michael Castleman does not like “foreplay.” The word, not the actions. We’ll hear why, after the break.

BREAK

LAURA STASSI
Sex toys … and sex talk. Here’s more from Dating While Gray’s Facebook Live event with Michael Castleman. And a reminder that our conversation gets explicit.

 [CLIP FROM FACEBOOK LIVE EVENT]

LAURA STASSI You mentioned erectile dysfunction drugs and that they don’t often work. And then you also mentioned vibrators, and I know you have information in your book about statistics on women and vibrators and I know that men — typically we don’t think of men and vibrators but can men use vibrators and do they work on men?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Yes, yes, men can use vibrators. You know, more than half of American women, of adult American women, now own at least one vibrator, and so vibrators used to be a sort of fringe, you know item. Now they are entirely mainstream. The largest marketer of vibrators in the United States is Walmart. They are not in little boutiques on the wrong side of the tracks anymore. Vibrators are totally mainstream. Most women do not use them in partner sex. Most women use them solo for self-sexing, which is fine. Some women use them with men, and I’m all for it.

If you like playing with toys together, have at it, have fun. There are now special vibrators that are made for men, for example, vibrating penis sleeves that are artificial mouths or vaginas that can vibrate, and men can use other vibrators, pressing them against whatever part of their body they like. So you know, vibrators are just another way to play. Sex really is about adult play and, just like children in a playground, some kids like the swings, some kids like the slides, some kids like the sandbox. Does it say anything about them? No, it’s just how they like to play. The same thing about adults Some people like intercourse. Some people like oral sex. Some people get into kinky stuff. It’s just how they like to play. And if you like to play with a vibrator, there’s no limit to the number of vibrators you can get.

I mean, go to any sex toy catalog. I’m friendly with the people who run Adam and Eve, which is the biggest sex toy company in the United States. They sell hundreds of different kind of vibrators for every conceivable occasion, including waterproof, if you like it, in your bathtub or swimming pool. So if you’re attracted to vibrators, look at a catalog. I’m sure there are products for you.

LAURA STASSI

Great. Walmart, who knew? I thought you had to look at a catalog online or something.  I wanted to talk about — you mentioned in your book the 10 basic ingredients of sex. Can you talk about those real quick? What are they or what would those include?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Well, let’s see, see if I can remember them all. Well, the first is pleasure. Sex is really about pleasure. It’s not about scoring or conquering anybody. It’s not about it’s rarely about making children. I mean people who are sexual. They need to get to know themselves, and the teacher, what teaches people about how they respond sexually is solo sex, self-sexing the M word that I’m sure your listeners are familiar with, but many people feel threatened by that word, and so I usually go by self-sexing or self-pleasuring or solo sex. That is how people discover how they have orgasms and that’s how people discover how they like to be touched. And you’re never too old for it, it’s always available. It’s very relaxing. In fact, as far as men are concerned, men self-sex for stress management a great deal, a lot more than women, and there are studies to show that about 25% of women say they self-sex for stress management. About 85% of men say that.

And then, beyond self-sexing, there is consent. You want to — like I said, sex is not a conquest, sex is a mutual pleasure and it’s not pleasurable if people aren’t consenting. And I have a whole chapter in my book about sexual consent. You’ve got to hear the other person say yes, I would like to be sexual with you. In some way, shape or form, they have to say that. And, like I said earlier, young people that doesn’t happen a lot because young people generally make love drunk and so there’s not a lot of time for consent. And that’s when you get into problems with sexual assault, where one person says I thought she consented and she says I never did.

So consent is critical, and then touch Touch is — if self-sexing is the key to understanding how you respond, then mutual touch is the key to understanding how the other person responds. Lovemaking really fundamentally is gentle, playful, extended, mutual whole-body massage that eventually focuses on the genitals. And so a lot of people, men in particular, dismiss touch as oh, foreplay, who’s got time for that? Let’s just get to the real action. Actually, if you don’t engage in gentle, playful, whole-body massage, it’s just not going to be as much fun. And so if your goal is pleasure and I think — that’s my goal anyway –if your goal is pleasure, then mutual whole-body massage is very, very important.

LAURA STASSI

And didn’t you say you don’t like the expression foreplay.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Correct. I use the term love play,

LAURA STASSI

Love play.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN Love play. Foreplay says it’s something that happens before the main event, which is intercourse. And if you’re older, chances are intercourse isn’t happening at all. So foreplay, what does that mean? It’s just all about pleasure and touch and having fun together, skin to skin, body to body, lips to lips. And, as far as men are concerned, I always encourage men to kiss both sets of lips all the time.

LAURA STASSI

Yeah, every time. Yes, that was a great soundbite from the episode. I’ve just got a couple more things. You in your book, you talk about a couple things that we can do to sort of guarantee — not guarantee, but to make it more likely that we’ll have pleasurable sexual experiences more likely that we’ll have pleasurable sexual experiences. One is when we do it, can you talk about that real quick? Some tips for making sure that we have better encounters.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Well, for older adults, one of the key things is look at the time of day when you make love. Most people, when they’re young, make love late at night. And older people, that just doesn’t work for a lot of older people. A lot of older people, they’re tired, they’re achy, they’re cranky, they’re creaky, they, you know, and they just don’t have a whole lot of erotic energy. 10, 11 o’clock at night. But three in the afternoon or in the morning, a lot of older people have much more erotic energy earlier in the day. And, yes, it’s an adjustment if you’ve made love late at night for 50 years and then all of a sudden your new partner is saying well, how about? You know, how about after lunch? It’s an adjustment, but you know what? It’s fun, I think. In my opinion, I prefer to make love when I have more energy. So that’s one thing.

The other thing is that, as I mentioned, young people generally make love under the influence of alcohol and in fact, alcohol is used by lovers of all ages, and it is the number one drug that is associated with sex. A lot of older people, I mean. You know, if you want to have a glass of wine or two before you make love, it’s up to you. You know it’s not up to me, but I would look at your alcohol consumption, because the more alcohol you drink, the more difficult it is to be sexually responsive. Men are going to have much more trouble with erection if they have consumed alcohol. Women are going to have more trouble with sexual responsiveness. So take a look at your alcohol and make a decision.

I also think people who enjoy making love under the influence of some intoxicant might look into cannabis. Cannabis has been. There are numerous studies to show that about two thirds of people who mix cannabis and sex call it sex enhancing. Now that means one third of people don’t. One third of people — generally the people who don’t like to mix sex with cannabis generally say oh, when I use cannabis, I sort of withdraw into myself and it’s harder for me to make an erotic connection with my partner. If that’s the case for you, then don’t use cannabis with sex. But two-thirds of people in surveys — and some of these surveys are quite large and so they’re credible – two-thirds of people say that cannabis is sex-enhancing at any age. If you have legal access to cannabis, it’s worth a try. It’s worth experimenting to see if you like it.

LAURA STASSI

Okay, I’m just looking to see if there are any questions. Does anybody have any questions? Let me just look at this one — yeah, long-time married couples and sex. Are they having it, and does it play a role in marital happiness?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Again, everyone is sexually unique. There are many people who are in happy sexless marriages.

LAURA STASSI

Happy sexless marriages.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Happy, sexless marriage is quite possible. There are also many people who have happy marriages, who have very infrequent sex, you know, a couple times a year on their birthdays and anniversaries. But most people, most of the time in all ages, enjoy regular lovemaking. And for couples under 40, the most typical frequency is about once a week, and for couples over 40, the most typical frequency is two to three times a month. And that doesn’t mean you should do that. No, no, what you should do is talk to your partner and negotiate how often the two of you would like to make love at a frequency you can both live with happily and enjoy each other’s intimate company. But many, many older people are quite sexually active, and older people who are dating want to get to know their love interests in every way. They want to get to know who they are, and that includes getting to know who they are sexually. So you know, there’s a myth that duration of relationships, the longer that relationships go on, the more boring the sex becomes. And that is often true, not because sex is inherently boring after a while, but because people stop working on making it fun and interesting.

One of the key elements, one of the ingredients of great sex is novelty, because novelty stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is the neurotransmitter of pleasure. So when you’re doing new things, you feel pleasure, and so many couples anybody who’s ever been married or in a couple knows that sex is often more fun in hotel rooms than it is in your bedroom. Why is that? Well, because you’re traveling, you’re doing new things, the hotel is different, it’s novel, it’s a novel, new thing, and so novelty is a key element of sexual pleasure. And that’s why sex is often really fun when people are dating, because you’re getting to know someone by doing lots of new things with that person. So if you’re in an established couple, you can keep doing new things, you can keep dating your spouse for life, and if you keep that commitment to novelty, then the sex is going to feel better.

LAURA STASSI

There is one final comment from someone. I’ve been divorced 30 years, just turned 60. Obviously, I’ve been in a few relationships during this time. I have learned to express what works for me and I like to know and discover what turns them on. However, I have found in recent years, men don’t like this. They claim that I am quote more experienced than they are. She says it’s pretty disappointing they have that feeling, because it can end their relationship. So do you have any comment about that? I mean, can a woman knowing what she wants and asking a partner what he wants, can that be a turnoff for men?

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

Unfortunately, yes, yes, some men are turned off by women who seem more experienced than they are and women who are highly sexual — about 5% of women are highly sexual, which means they really like sex a whole lot, and a lot of men are very threatened by that. They, I can’t keep up with this gal. Ooh, you know how am I going to cope with this? And it’s, it goes against people’s general socialization.

People are generally socialized to believe that men are going to be the initiators, women are going to be the gatekeepers saying yes or no, and that’s how it works. Well, often it doesn’t work that way. I mean, when couples go to sex therapy for desire differences, about half the time it’s the woman who wants more sex and the guy who wants less. So to this gal who says that men are threatened when she talks about how much she enjoys sex, I’m very sorry that you are having this experience, but you have to own who you are and at some point, I hope you find a guy who says, oh, you really like sex. Hey, let’s check it out. I’m glad to hear it. Tell me all about yourself.

LAURA STASSI

Let’s read Michael’s book “Sizzling Sex for Life.”

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN

So I hope that to that person who asked that question, all I can say is, may all your dreams come true. I hope you find the guy who who isn’t threatened by your, your experience and your sexual inclinations.

[CLIP ENDS]

LAURA STASSI

Thanks to Michael Castleman, author most recently of, “Sizzling Sex for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Maximize Erotic Pleasure at Any Age.” Michael also answers questions on sex and intimacy at his website, greatsexguidance.com.

Speaking of sex and wellness … we’re talking to another expert. She’ll be sharing her knowledge on an upcoming episode. For more information, check out this week’s Bonus Content page on datingwhilegray.com.

END CREDITS

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I’m Laura Stassi. Thanks so much for listening.

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