March 23rd, 2009
When a person becomes too sick or weak to stay in their own home, a retirement village or nursing home might be the only practical alternative. Doctors who look after people in nursing homes are occasionally asked by nursing staff to see a resident who is causing them trouble because they are thought to be having sex with one of their visitors … ‘Could you fix it please Doctor?’ The problem is not so much the activity itself, but the perception that a need for sexual expression in the elderly is an abnormality that needs to be ‘fixed’. The problem has even more to do with architecture than attitudes. If you actually look at the layout of some of the older institutions you will see that they virtually ignore any right to privacy. A flimsy curtain suspended from the ceiling in a room with four beds occupied by strangers is hardly conducive to a quiet cuddle for two people who may have shared the same bed for over fifty years.
Elderly homosexual people have particular difficulties in this area. Retirement villages and nursing homes are just not geared for people who prefer same-sex partners, and so aging will make the prospect of social isolation even more likely. The problem is probably greater for men than for women because society has less trouble accepting close and loving relationships between women than between men. In either case it is clear that this group of people have special needs as they age that are not being met by the current system. Part of the reason for this is that this group in the community has been virtually invisible until this generation. So what are the solutions?
The first is to somehow integrate the needs of elderly homosexual people into the existing structures. Now this may sound simple enough on the surface, but when you consider the potential barriers it is not as easy as it sounds. To overcome those barriers there would need to be special training or selective employment of nursing and domestic staff. The heads of various government departments and administrators of the nursing homes or retirement villages would need to be supportive of the idea and willing to spend the money to put the changes in place, and the relevant politicians would need to see some political gain for themselves.
The other option is to develop special purpose retirement and nursing home facilities to cater specifically for the needs of the aging gay population. This concept is already in practice for some ethnic and religious groups. Some might say that this approach is separatist, far removed from the cosier notion of everyone accepting the individuality of others. But we are trying to deal with realities here. No single solution is going to be the right one, so what we are talking about is choice, freedom and right to privacy.
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March 23rd, 2009
If you think you are having sexual problems for whatever reason, then a sex therapist can help. Working out the nature of the problem is the first step and that’s not always straightforward.
Some men think they are ‘impotent’ because they lose their erections before or soon after penetration. However if the erection disappears because he has already ejaculated, that’s an entirely different matter. We call that premature ejaculation. It’s a bit hard to come up with a definition for premature ejaculation because, like many sexual problems, it’s largely a matter of perception. Many women who orgasm quite quickly (often during foreplay) are not rapt in the concept of being pumped for ages.
Over the years they’ve tried to define premature ejaculation by a variety of methods — not being able to last two minutes after penetration, or a certain number of thrusts and so on. The definition I like is that a man or his partner wishes he could last longer.
One of the myths about the best way to deal with premature ejaculation involved the man distracting himself by reciting some list, like the American presidents. ‘George Washington, John Adams … oops! What is it about Thomas Jefferson?’ or ‘That was great darling … at least a Woodrow Wilson!’ Sports fans could try lists like the batting averages of the cricket Tests since 1912 … ‘What do you mean “You’re out”? Don’t you think there is a certain irony about trying to enhance a mutually erotic experience by pretending you aren’t doing it?
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March 23rd, 2009
Coping with parenthood takes a tremendous ability to adapt. Another sort of relationship that is likely to be threatened by a baby is the one that is stable to the point of inflexibility. These people don’t like the unexpected, so strict routines are established and any disruption causes anxiety. Dinner is supposed to be on the table at six o’clock, shirts washed and ironed and hung in the wardrobe ready to wear, the house clean and tidy at all times, lights out at ten and sleep until the alarm goes off at six. Well, you can imagine the effect of night feeds and the huge additional workload of caring for an infant around the clock make it impossible to stick to those old routines.
Even the most adaptable relationships can take some adjusting and many people just don’t expect the degree of change, including the differences in their sexual needs. One mother told me, ‘We were very sexual before the baby arrived and it came as a great shock to me that I wasn’t the slightest bit interested for ages afterwards. My breasts were always a really important part of stimulation for me and it just wasn’t the same going to bed wearing a nursing bra. My libido didn’t come back until I’d stopped breastfeeding. Actually, I found feeding was almost a sexual experience in itself. It’s not like an orgasm you’d get with your partner, but it’s certainly incredibly sensual.’
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March 23rd, 2009
Repartnering or remarrying has its own set of sexual difficulties. There might be an ex-partner or two to consider and it can be difficult to avoid the comparisons of personality, size, shape and sexual performance.
When there are children involved it can get very complicated. One of the main problems for a new relationship is that there never seems enough time to be alone and that will be intensely frustrating. The system of jealousies can be incredibly complex. The reactions of children will depend a lot on their age but seeing your parent relating physically or sleeping with a person who is not your other parent can create confusion, resentment and even anger at any age. If your parents’ relationship was strained for some time you may never have seen the adults around you engaged in any sort of intimate behavior before and that can be particularly confronting. Children can be very protective of their parents and new partners may find themselves competing for attention, physical affection and personal space with their partner’s child. Stepparents may feel inhibited about showing affection in front of each other’s children for fear of setting off a reaction. So establishing a blended family raises a multiplicity of sexual issues that will take time, patience, understanding and a big dose of common sense to unravel.
The main answer to dealing with relationship problems and breakdowns is early preparation. Obviously the example set by your own parents is a vital element, but in any relationship the backgrounds of the two people will be different in some respects. Just because one of you knows how to communicate emotions, it takes two to tango. It would be like sending a message over the radio when your intended audience is tuned to another station. The missing link is relationship education by specially trained teachers in schools. In fact, understanding relationships is so integral to our emotional survival that it needs to be a cornerstone in the education system. To survive in the modern world we need the ‘four Rs’ … Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic and Relationships.
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March 23rd, 2009
Finding out about an STD can be a double whammy. A married woman in her forties found out she had trichomonas after she developed a vaginal discharge that smelt like old socks. As her only partner was her husband she put two and two together. ‘We had a huge scene at home. I told him there was no point denying it because there was only one way I could have picked this up. I was so furious that he could have put me at risk like this. He didn’t even have the sense to wear a condom with her. It took me months to get over my anger with him for the other woman … and the infection.’ This particular situation is one that needs a closer look. Obviously, apart from celibacy, the next safest situation is for both partners to be monogamous.
But it’s not enough to silently hope that your partner, no matter how committed they may be to the relationship, will never have a sexual encounter with another person. If you look at the statistics, the truth of the matter is that the majority of married men and women will have an extramarital liaison at some time. Denying this reality or just refusing to acknowledge it or talk about it leaves far too much to chance. Some therapists argue that it is not necessarily the affair itself, but the exposure of the affair or the fear of what it might do to the relationship that actually does the damage. The feeling of betrayal and loss of trust that follow can tear a relationship apart. Catching an STD and then having to tell your primary partner is a sure way of exposing an extracurricular relationship, and it can be devastating.
However, the discovery of an STD may have nothing to do with infidelity, so it’s essential to have your facts right before you pick up the phone to call your lawyer. (For that matter call a counsellor before you call a lawyer.) Find out all you can about the infection. Take chlamydia for example. By the 1980s it had become the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection in North America, Europe and Australia, so its impact has been widespread. Chlamydia is one infection that can lay dormant for years before it is detected, so even though it may be found on a test today it may have been the result of a sexual contact some years before. It can go on causing damage for all that time with no symptoms at all, until it ultimately leads to infertility in both men and women.
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