Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic
When I first read about Suzanne Somers‘ conversation on The Talk about her sex life with her husband and how they tried to “do it twice a day,” my first inclination was to clap my hands over my eyes while saying, “I didn’t read that. I didn’t read that. I didn’t read that…” for about five minutes. Besides her discussing what goes on behind closed doors, the other thought that sprang to mind was: “She’s 66 (Nearly 67)! We don’t need to hear that.”
I know that we live in a day and age where sex among the older generation is still pushed – look at all those Viagra and Cialis ads that seem to be practically screaming, “You don’t have to stop having those feelings once you turn a certain age!” Big Pharma wants us to keep going, folks.
Many of us remember learning that our parents were still *gasp* active under the sheets. No amount of brain bleach could scrub it out of our minds. Did we think it was icky? Sure. Many of us are now our parent’s age when that discovery was made. Is it still icky? No. So why does an extra 20 years seem so horrible to think about still having active libidos?
The subject of geriatric sex has been broached on TV shows like The Golden Girls. Yes, even Sophia Petrillo got lucky. We laughed at it though and it made it all seem somewhat normal. That was on TV though, where there was often a kiss, maybe a long embrace and then a transition to the morning or people were caught after the event had happened.
The other question this begs is: Do we only feel uncomfortable with older women having active sex lives? Male actors tend to have much younger love interests and with the exception of Cougar Town, that hasn’t been reciprocated for women. Personally, I remember also wanting to gouge my ears when Michael Douglas was talking about oral sex with his much younger then-wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Overall, Somers is entitled to having as much or as little of a sex life as she wants, since it might help us move past the pre-conceived biases we have. I’d prefer to just remember her from her Three’s Company days and her ThighMaster ads. Oh great. That just set off a whole new chain of thoughts…
