Roughly 40 percent of the female population in the United States is in those middle years when perimenopausal symptoms have already taken hold, or they are in the throes of menopause. Another 15 percent are defined medically as post-menopausal. In other words, the root word menopause sticks around as a descriptor for more than half a woman’s life and it currently is “stuck” to about 65 percent of the female population. That’s 102 million people. Menopause has long been a branding category used by everyone from physicians to People magazine. A normal human event such as maturing is talked about as a medical condition with warning signs of ill health. But it does come with some natural side effects, and those can cause problems with sexuality and intimacy surrounding it. Here, seasoned author Maryann Karinch tackles the subject head-on through real life stories, interviews with experts in the area, and common sense practices that will help readers enhance both the way their view themselves sexually and how they engage with romantic partners, both physically and emotionally.

Confronting taboos and misunderstandings about sexuality and aging, Couple Sexuality After 60: Intimate, Pleasurable, and Satisfying motivates couples to embrace sex and sexuality in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. The book busts two extreme myths—that people over 60 cannot and should not be sexual and that the best way to be sexual is to emphasize eroticism, using sex toys, and "kinky sex". Using a variable, flexible approach to couple sexuality based on the Good Enough Sex (GES) model, this book places the essence of sexuality in pleasure-oriented touching, not individual sex performance. Barry and Emily McCarthy introduce a new sexual mantra of "desire/pleasure/eroticism/satisfaction" with the goal of presenting a healthy model of sexuality to replace the traditional double standard that couples learn in young adulthood. Specific chapters focus on important areas like coming to terms with the new normal, female–male sexual equity, satisfaction being about more than intercourse and orgasm, valuing synchronous and asynchronous sexuality, psychobiosocial approaches to sexuality, and more. In addition to aging heterosexual couples, single individuals and queer couples will find this book interesting. Additionally, sexual health clinicians and sex therapists with clients over the age of 60 will find this a fascinating read.

Our ideas about the long histories of young couples' relationships and women's efforts to manage their reproductive health are often premised on the notion of a powerful sexual double standard. In Sex in an Old Regime City, Julie Hardwick offers a major reframing of the history of young people's intimacy. Based on legal records from the city of Lyon, Hardwick uncovers the relationships of young workers before marriage and after pregnancy occurred, even if marriage did not follow, and finds that communities treated these occurrences without stigmatizing or moralizing. She finds a hidden world of strategies young couples enacted when they faced an untimely pregnancy. If they could not or would not marry, they sometimes tried to terminate pregnancies, to make the newborn go away by a variety of measures, or to charge the infant to local welfare institutions. Far from being isolated, couples drew on the resources of local communities and networks. Clerics, midwives, wet nurses, landladies, lawyers, parents, and male partners in and outside the city offered pragmatic, sympathetic ways to help young, unmarried pregnant women deal with their situations and hold young men responsible for the reproductive consequences of their sexual activity. This was not merely emotional work; those involved were financially compensated. These support systems ensured that the women could resume their jobs and usually marry later, without long-term costs. In doing so, communities managed and minimized the disruptions and consequences even of cases of abandonment and unprosecuted infanticide. This richly textured study re-thinks the ways in which fundamental issues of intimacy and gendered power were entwined with families, communities, and religious and secular institutions at all levels from households to neighborhoods to the state.

Sex has been used to sell nearly everything in our modern culture, but almost no attention has been given to the personal importance of it in all of our lives, and most of us really know very little about it. Sex can and should be a major part of life for all adults and for all seniors thorough their golden years. In early chapters, the author challenges you to use the mirror of critical examination of yourself and your partner to identify areas of relationship and sexual technique weaknesses. In chapters VII and VIII, he is shockingly candid with very detailed specifics of sexual facts and techniques including little known topics such as first encounter sexual imprinting, micro body movements, female ejaculation, A-spot, G-spot, U-spot and other erogenous zones, the magic sexual frequency of .8 Hertz, hip scooping, why erectile dysfunction doesnt matter, anatomical variations, sexual fantasies, types of orgasms, effective sexual positions, sexual aids, and specific directions about how to make yourself sexual royalty. In SEX AFTER SEVENTY the author discusses specifics about the importance of understanding ourselves to get past false information that we have been subjected to our entire lives from well-meaning and not so well-meaning influences. He urges us to think for ourselves.

Better Than I Ever Expected is a warm, witty, and honest book that contends with the challenges and celebrates the delights of older-life sexuality. It asserts that women over sixty are at the top of their game when it comes to enjoying sex. Joan Price's woman-to-woman straight talk transcends the self-help style of other books in this field. Yes, there are challenges to sex after menopause and beyond, says Price, but there are also creative solutions. She is on a mission to let women her age and older know that they can, in fact, have the best sex of their lives. Price gets personal and stays positive, combining her own story with candid comments, tips, and sassy tales from sexually seasoned women. She acknowledges the gritty issues that older women confront in their sexual lives, noting that it's not easy, but it certainly isn't over. At age 61, Price is newly engaged to the man she's been looking for her whole life. Her discovery of how great "well-seasoned" sex can be was the inspiration for this book. Sidebars present candid and friendly sex tips; fitness, exercise, and lifestyle information; and women's erotic vignettes (both real-life experiences and fantasies).

Challenging stereotypes, this volume investigates the experiential and theoretical landscapes of older people's sexual intimacies, practices and pleasures. Contributors explore the impact of desexualisation and distinguish the challenges older people face from the prejudices imposed on them.

An intimate partnership has physical and psychological components, both of which often take a hit when cancer enters the union. The prospect, and then the process, of treatments tend to alter the way the two people relate to each other. When the diagnosis is one of gynecologic or reproductive cancer for a woman, questions of sexual intimacy and function often color relationships, confuse partners, and raise concerns that other cancers might not. With an estimated 83,000 women a year added to the roles of those battling gynecologic cancers and 300,000 women a year added to roles of those battling breast cancer, Sex and Cancer focuses on surviving and thriving—more than 70 percent of women with gynecologic cancers now survive!—and helps readers mitigate outcomes and overcome challenges of sexual dysfunction after a cancer diagnosis; reassess the priorities in an intimate relationship to support the patient’s struggle, healing, and libido; and learn to interact with the professionals tasked with saving lives and enhancing those areas affected by cancer diagnosis and treatment. Sex and Cancer features stories that illuminate insights about the impact of gynecologic and reproductive cancers on relationships. The stories give life to guidance that’s critical in shaping the effect that gynecologic cancer has on intimate relationships. And readers will find insight, comfort, and suggestions for addresses the questions about intimacy and sexual function that are often left unexpressed.