A study from Baylor University suggests married couples have more and better sex after they’ve been together for half a century. So, basically your grandparents.
69-year-old actress Helen Mirren confirmed these results, blowing countless minds by announcing that her sex life is better now than in her youth. Better at nearly 70 than as a young 20-something.
Which is, to say the least, confounding. Everything in our culture suggests that hot sex is the domain of the young. Whether it’s by Hollywood or Porn Valley, we’re shown smooth, tight bodies—not elderly sagging ones—rolling around in the sheets. (OK, with the exception of niche granny porn.) We look to inexperienced Varsity students, not seasoned senior citizens, with sexual envy.
Related: The Surprising Truth About Your Sex Life After Age 40
But maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe it’s old folks that have sex figured out. It’s no wonder why: Many of them have had sex several thousand of times.
Not only that, but as their bodies have slowed down, they’ve had to get creative about getting and giving pleasure. (And no, I’m not referring to gum jobs. Shudder.) You learn a thing or two from trying to keep things hot for decades upon decades.
The good news is you don’t have to wait until you’re 80 to gain this sexual wisdom—because we’ve compiled a list of the best sex tips old folks have to offer.
Make like a geriatric and slow down
When you’re young, it’s all about getting a girl into bed and doing the damn deed. Once you’ve been around the block for half a century, there just isn’t the same rush— and, even if there was, your creaky bones would hardly comply.
The upside of being forced into slower sex is that it lets old folks luxuriate in sensations—and not just the arthritic variety, either. They can even discover entirely new turn-ons that they sped past in their youth. Something to look forward to!
Related: The 5 Main Reasons Couples Stop Having Sex
“You’ll learn that you have all sorts of erogenous zones that you may not even be aware of,” says Joan Price, an expert on senior sex and author of The Ultimate Guide to Sex After 50. “If you skip to the genitals right away, you don’t even discover them.”
Have sex that isn’t all about penetration
Past a certain age, your penis just isn’t as reliable as it once was. It often takes longer to get an erection and it lasts shorter. This may seem like one of the greater indignities of age, but it forces a lesson that men of all ages need to get hip to: sex isn’t all about the P in the V.
Not only can sex survive a less dependable dick, but it can get better. That is, if it drives you to get creative about turning your partner on—think fingers, tongue, and toys, just for starters.
Related: 9 Secret Erogenous Zones She’s Dying For You to Touch
So don’t wait until you’re faced with a dick that’s screaming for Viagra to try this out, Price suggests, “Even when erections are very dependable, learn about the kinds of sex you can have that don’t require a hard or dependable erection,” she says. “It takes the anxiety off the guy anyway. Even if he would usually have no problem with it, anxiety is an erection killer.”
Sex doesn’t have to last forever
Younger guys tend to think that good sex should look like a long, sweaty marathon—so much so that they sometimes fear they have a premature ejaculation problem when they can’t last for an hour during sex.
But as sexual educator Melanie Davis, co-president of the Sexuality and Aging Consortium, says, “When people get older, they generally know that sex doesn’t have to last for an hour and that most female partners get sore if you’re bumping away for an hour.”
Good looks don’t always make for hot sex
“Beauty is fleeting,” says Davis. “Sometimes the best romantic and sexual partners are not necessarily the most glamorous and beautiful.”
That’s something young people have a hard time understanding, especially in our swipe-left culture, she says. If you’re looking for a long-term relationship with an inexhaustible sex life, she says to first look for intellectual and physical compatibility. Usually, if you have those two things, attraction will come later—and so will loads of great sex that becomes the envy of your nursing home.
Imagine that you grew up without porn
All modern males have gotten the memo that porn is an absolutely terrible guide for how to have sex in real life, right? But today’s seniors get this on a much deeper level.
“When we older folks were young, there was no Internet, no DVDs, no easy way to access porn,” says Price. “Those who dared had to go to movie theatres, and even then, it was much less explicit than today.”
Try to imagine what it would have been like to grow up without YouJizz at your fingertips. How would you approach sex differently if you’d never seen a James Deen gang bang?
Consider it a role-play experiment: sex as though you’d never seen hardcore porn.
Ask your parents and grandparents about sex
Ew, gross, retch. I know, most people are way too freaked out to talk to their elders about sex—mainly because it requires thinking of them as sexual beings.
Well, allow me to break it to you: Your parents are probably having sex. Your grandparents are probably having sex. (Fun fact: My grandma once told me that sex only got better into her 80s.) There’s no reason to ask granny for her wisdom on child-rearing or honey baked ham, but not on sex.
Granted, it’s a tough topic to broach. Price recommends starting with questions about the sexual expectations and beliefs of their younger years.
“While your grandmother might not be eager to tell you about her sex life now,” says Price, “she probably would enjoy telling you about her almost-nonexistent sex education as a young person, her first love, maybe her first sexual experience.”
That will set the groundwork, you just have to show her you’re listening.
“If you’re warm and welcoming in the way you respond, this conversation could ease into a discussion of questions you might have about sex,” she says. “Most older people feel that younger people don’t want to know them or listen to them. It can be a delight for both of you to erase that divide.”
