Sex in Your 50s… Has the Rise of Mid-Life Dating Triggered a New Epidemic of Post-Coital Problems in Older Women?

Sex in Your 50s… Has the Rise of Mid-Life Dating Triggered a New Epidemic of Post-Coital Problems in Older Women?

Has the Rise of Mid-Life Dating Triggered a New Epidemic of Sexual Problems?

The article below is sex British-based, so I am unsure if all the products listed are available to Americans or others outside of Britain.

I don’t necessarily endorse sex outside of marriage – the doctor who wrote this is fine and dandy with people committing fornication.

After reading articles like the following, which discuss all the possible (health) ways sex can go wrong (lead to pain, discomfort, physical injury, etc), I don’t think sex sounds like it’s worth it. Sex sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.

This is an extremely long article. If you’d like to read it all, please use the link below:

(Link): Sex in your 50s… Has the rise of mid-life dating triggered a new epidemic of post-coital problems with one-in-three older woman suffering pain related to intimate liaisons?

Excerpts:

By Dr. Philippa Kaye
February 15, 2023

[The article beings by discussing a woman in her 60s named Anne who had only ever had sex with her husband, but he and she divorced a few years before, her daughters got her to join a dating app, she met a new man via the app, had sex with that guy, which resulted in physical health issues]

…I had to break it to Anne that as we age, while the spirit might be willing, the body, so to speak, isn’t always so up for new romance.

Sex after the menopause can continue to be enjoyable.

But, to put it bluntly, changes to the vagina mean that, for some women, this doesn’t come as naturally as they may have hoped. Without a small amount of medical help, sex can lead to discomfort, bleeding and infections.

I’d like to say at this point that patients like Anne are not unusual.

As our surgery’s women’s health specialist, cases like this often come to me, and over the past five years or so they’ve been increasingly frequent.

Divorce, desertion or the death of a partner all mean the same thing: people in middle age find themselves newly single.

And the rise of online and app-based dating services, while fantastic in many respects, has meant problems such as Anne’s are increasingly common.

… And if you are having a tough time becoming sexually active again with a new partner – or even struggling with a not-so-new one – there’s actually a lot GPs can do to help. Painful sex is not something you have to put up with.

Is Sex Addiction a Real Thing? by Dave Ludden

Is Sex Addiction a Real Thing? by Dave Ludden

(Link): Is Sex Addiction a Real Thing? by Dave Ludden, hosted on “Real Clear Science”

Full copy here:

(Link): Is Sex Addiction a Real Thing? by Dave Ludden, Psychology Today 

Excerpts:

May 17, 2022

KEY POINTS

• • The concept of sex addiction is controversial in part because it is difficult to define.
  • Many people who engage in “excessive” sex—as defined by professionals—experience no distress on account of it.
  • Restrictive sexual attitudes underlie the definition and diagnosis of sex addiction.

Sex addiction is a proposed psychological disorder in which people engage in excessive sexual behaviors that lead to a negative impact on their lives.

Although it’s a commonly used concept among laypersons and professionals alike, not all psychologists agree that hypersexuality is a disorder.

The Insidious Reason Women Have Fewer Orgasms (2022 Study)

The Insidious Reason Women Have Fewer Orgasms (2022 Study)

Will male Christian Gender Complementarians care about this study or even pay attention to it? Nope, probably not, because they’re still stuck in Gender Stereotype Land, where only men want sex (and supposedly “need” it – but sex is not a need), where women only want their “emotional needs” met and would just like their husband to pour them the occasional bubble bath.

Any time I read about studies like this, it usually comes down to 1) Male Entitlement and 2) Internalized Stereotypes held by women that what a woman wants in the sack does not matter / women aren’t “supposed” to like sex.

(Link): The Insidious Reason Women Have Fewer Orgasms

That link above will take you to this page:

(Link): Orgasm gap: The insidious reason women have fewer orgasms than men

Excerpts:

It’s the clitoris, stupid!

May 13, 2022

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• • Heterosexual men have far more orgasms during partnered sex than heterosexual women, resulting in a significant pleasure disparity.
  • New research suggests that the explanation for the gap is simple: Men don’t take the time to stimulate women’s clitorises. The clitoris is the primary anatomical source of female sexual pleasure.
  • The reasons for this inattention are more complicated. It seems that cultural norms around gender place the focus on men’s pleasure and vaginal sex while downplaying women’s desire for their own pleasure.

There exists a significant “orgasm gap” between heterosexual women and heterosexual men. A 2005 study found that 39% of women usually or always experience an orgasm during partnered sex compared with 91% of men.

A more recent survey conducted in 2018 discovered that the gap had narrowed, but a sizable 30-point divide remained.

So what will it take for women to reach “pleasure parity” with men?

After 30 Years of Great Sex, My Husband’s New Look is a Total Turn-Off – Advice Column by P. Connolly

After 30 Years of Great Sex, My Husband’s New Look is a Total Turn-Off – Advice Column by P. Connolly 

And so much of secular culture, and goodness knows, complementarian Christians, are obsessed with the notion, which is false, that only “men are visual” or “men are visually stimulated,” when a lot of women are as well.

(Link): After 30 Years of Great Sex, My Husband’s New Look is a Total Turn-Off

He has grown his grey hair long and I don’t find it attractive. Am I being shallow – or is it the menopause?

April 5, 2022

My husband of more than 30 years decided to grow his hair long about three years ago. Sex has always been important to us and I have always felt strongly sexually attracted to him.

But he is 59, with thin, fine grey hair and, as far as I am concerned, this is not a good look. I’m struggling to maintain our previous spark.

Am I just completely shallow and unreasonable to allow a small visual difference get in the way of a previously active and loving intimacy?

Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women by David Ludden (Hint: Male Entitlement is Involved. Notify Every Christian Gender Complementarian, Christian Patriarchalist, MRA, and Incel Ever)

Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women by David Ludden (Hint: Male Entitlement is Involved. Notify Every Christian Gender Complementarian, Christian Patriarchalist, MRA, and Incel Ever)

The essay below, which references studies, mentions that male entitlement plays a role in why hetero men orgasm more in sex with women than women do.

This should be an eye-opener to every sexist, hetero man ever, including the sex-obsessed, marriage-obsessed, Christian gender complementarian and Christian Patriarchy rat bastards who already hold a lot of false beliefs about women and sex, such as,
“Only men want sex; women hate sex, women are not visually oriented and just want emotional connection, therefore, husbands unfortunately have to always nag their wives into having sex!”

(Link): Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women – Real Clear Science

Full article on…

(Link): Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women – Psychology Today

Some portions below in bold face added by me for emphasis:

by David Ludden –  Psychology Today
February 13, 2022

Key Points:

• • It’s commonly thought that men orgasm more easily than women due to biology, but research doesn’t support this contention.
  • Men are enculturated with a sense of entitlement, and this may play out in the bedroom as well.
  • Research shows that both men and women believe men are more entitled to have orgasms.

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It’s common knowledge that men are more likely than women to orgasm during a sexual encounter. This is true in both casual affairs and long-term relationships. But why this is the case is not clear.

…It’s Not About Biology
As University of Michigan psychologists Verena Klein and Terri Conley point out in an article they recently published (Link): in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, this argument doesn’t hold water. First, there’s nothing about the clitoris to suggest that it’s less likely to produce orgasms than the penis since both have the same concentration of nerve endings.

Furthermore, women are capable of having multiple orgasms in short secession. In contrast, men are limited in the number of orgasms they can have within a given time period.

For reasons that are still unknown but highly debated, men experience a refractory period after each ejaculation, so multiple orgasms are out of the question. Given these facts, it seems that women should be having way more orgasms than men, not the other way around.

Since they ruled out biological reasons, Klein and Conley considered whether the gendered sexual pleasure gap could be explained by social attitudes about sex. They note that in Western society, men are taught to feel more entitled, whereas women are trained to act more deferential.

Christlike or Pornlike? A Christian Woman’s Role in Marriage

Christlike or Pornlike?  A Christian Woman’s Role in Marriage by Andrew J. Bauman and Taylor May

(Link): Christlike or Pornlike?  A Christian Woman’s Role in Marriage

Excerpts:

by Andrew J. Bauman

I am proud to be writing this article in partnership with Taylor May, a survivor of emotional and spiritual abuse. She has boldly shared her own story about what it was like to be married to someone who had a Pornographic Style of Relating, (PSR) and what it felt like to be used by him with her Church’s consent.

*Trigger warning for those who have suffered this type of betrayal trauma.

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I’ve written about the pornographic style of relating here (PSR), but today we will hear from the perspective of a woman who has lived on the other side of this dynamic.

Many people have been talking about this with the release of this new book [Married Sex: A Christian Couple’s Guide to Reimagining Your Love Life by Gary Thomas] and some of its disturbing implications.

How can we talk about what these women are experiencing, and what can we learn from them?

Taylor May has offered her story and her experience below. My hope is that this can begin to clear up the muddy waters of what it means to live a Christlike marriage in a deeply pornified world.

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by Taylor May

I didn’t realize how a pornographic style of relating was so deeply embedded into my first marriage until I was firmly planted into my second marriage.

That’s when I began to see the impact my first husband’s issue with lust had on my new, much healthier relationship.

Let me tell you my story, and how I and countless other women feel when our significant others lust for other women, on-screen or off.

Those of us who grew up in the evangelical Church have been told that we are responsible for men’s lust issues. This lie has been perpetrated by the church for far too long.

Many men are leading our church conversations with 90% of pastors being men, and considering that nearly 50% of those pastors self-report having used pornography, it would make sense that they would try to gaslight women by minimizing the destructive nature of porn use.

One way they do this is by framing it as a women’s issue or a sex issue, rather than the objectification of women/sin issue–one that stems from the person doing the objectifying.

How Evangelical Teachings Ruin Sex and Marriage For Many Women by L. Blair

How Evangelical Teachings Ruin Sex and Marriage For Many Women by L. Blair

Some of the issues discussed in this article and in her book are ones I’ve brought up on this blog over the years.

There is so much hypocrisy in Christianity, usually hypocrisy that works out in favor of men and to the detriment of women, especially in “gender complementarian” teachings.

Some of these teachings about marital sex, or marriage generally, can be directly or indirectly derogatory towards single, celibate adults (e.g., some Christians teach that having sexual intercourse is “necessary to know God,” while some preachers teach that to fulfill your purpose in life, you must marry.)

Here is the article about the book:

(Link): How Evangelical Teachings Ruin Sex and Marriage For Many Women

Excerpts:

By Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter 

Evangelical blogger Sheila Wray Gregoire doesn’t care if her critics want to brand her a feminist. She wants the Church to know that “sex is for women too,” and ignoring that point can ruin sex, orgasms and marriages for women. 

New research shows that many evangelical women are unsatisfied in the bedroom due to some evangelical beliefs, and that’s the big takeaway Gregoire wants readers to get as she stages a scholarly intervention in her new book, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended. 

Batman, Catwoman Oral Sex Scene Blocked From Series: “Heroes Don’t Do That”

Batman, Catwoman Oral Sex Scene Blocked From Series: “Heroes Don’t Do That”

Who the hell wants, or asked for, sex scenes in comics about superheroes?

Now, if your complementarians insist on continuing to teach about sex, they need to acknowledge that some women do and would enjoy receiving oral sex from their male partner – but – complementarians never, ever want to acknowledge women’s sexual (or even often, their non-sexual) preferences.

Complementarians have to keep living in this delusion that only men enjoy sex to justify why they think it’s okay for men to be selfish in the bedroom and not even concern themselves with what women prefer.

(Link): DC stopped Batman from performing oral sex on Catwoman

“Heroes don’t do that,” DC apparently decided. The tweetstorm says otherwise.

(Link): Batman, Catwoman Oral Sex Scene Blocked From Series: “Heroes Don’t Do That”

by James Hibberd
June 15, 2021

Batman can beat criminals to a pulp, take on supervillains and live a double life as a billionaire playboy and caped crusader … but he can’t, apparently, go downtown — not downtown Gotham City, he can, obviously, certainly go there, but he can’t go to, you know … the other downtown.

Why Are Young Men So Afraid of Sex? by Zoe Stimpel

Why Are Young Men So Afraid of Sex? by Zoe Stimpel

(Link): Why Are Young Men So Afraid of Sex? by Zoe Stimpel – American Spectator site – partial copy here

Excerpts:

… [After having been single again for two years (unclear if due to divorce or breakup with a boyfriend), the author of this piece decided to try various dating sites and apps and to date men ages 20 – 25; she was 38 at the time. She discusses how her conversations with these younger men start out and then end.]

…In these conversations [with younger men on dating apps], messages veer from requests for info on what you did on the weekend to requests for your life story.

Without the prospect of a drink, the conversation then dies. Or they hang forever in the ether.

On Christmas Day, no fewer than eight twentysomething men got in touch, most of them men I had met on dating apps. I’d only met three.

The rest had been kicking around in my DMs, as they say, for up to a year and seemed suddenly keen for a chat.

The third path is sexting. This is the most depressing, and fast becoming the most uncontrollable and ubiquitous, aspect of dating young men.

The Obese, Overly Hairy ‘Erotic Eater’ Guy Should Be The Final Nail in the Coffin of Sexist Complementarian Teachings that Looks Matter Only To Men

The Obese, Overly Hairy ‘Erotic Eater’ Guy Should Be The Final Nail in the Coffin of Sexist Complementarian Teachings that Looks Matter Only To Men & That Women Are Oblivious To, or Don’t Care About, What Men Look Like

I am an ex-complementarian (yes, I am, read more about that (Link): here if you so choose).

I’m very aware of what complementarians teach and believe on many topics.

Many complementarians wrongly believe that women lack sexual drive, an interest in sex, and that women don’t care about what men look like.

Complementarians operate in this very strange worldview that only men are “visual.” The Bible does not teach that God created men to be visual or to have more of a sex drive than women, but Complementarians act as though it does. These views permeate their blogs, pod casts, books, sermons, and so on.

So, under complementarian teachings, women are often shamed and scolded about their physical appearance.

I’ve seldom heard complementarians tell male listeners or male readers to join a gym, work out, and get in shape so that they will be physically and visually appealing to women.

(Edit, Side Note:
Complementarians seem to assume that all single women are only interested in a man’s bank account. No, we’re not.

But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to marry a guy who has a steady job, steady pay check, who is financially responsible.

I was engaged to a man who took financial advantage of me for years. Most women I know were dating or married to men who refused to get jobs, so the women had to earn a pay check.

These women’s husbands would sit about the house all day in their underpants playing Playstation video games or watching sports.

I’ve never personally run across too many female gold diggers in my time, only one – the rest of the gold diggers I’ve met or known personally have been MEN who were leeching off their wives or girlfriends.

At any rate, complementarians wrongly assume that all women are obsessed with  looking for a husband or boyfriend with a very large income or expensive sports car, so they are always telling us women to “stop judging a man by his income or what kind of car he drives, and instead, focus on how much he loves Jesus.”

Well, I hate to break it to you complementarians, but some us ladies are busy checking out if the guy has great abs and muscular arms or not – we aren’t as obsessed with his credit score, car, or savings and investments as you may assume.)

No, the sexist complementarians reserve that rhetoric for women.

But women do notice and care about what men look like, as I’ve blogged about years ago in a series of posts, such as (Link): this one or (Link): this one.

(Even the (Link): Bible mentions women noticing hot looking men and getting turned on by them, but per usual, complementarians ignore or do not mention parts of the Bible that don’t fit their backwards views.)

All of that brings me to this…

The other day, I was scrolling down my Twitter page and saw this headline from The Daily Mail:

(Link): ‘Erotic weight gainer’ who tips the scales at 500lbs reveals he eats 10,000 calories a day to maintain his ‘ball gut’ and keep his OnlyFans followers entertained

Here are some excerpts:

A 500lb OnlyFans influencer who found a lucrative niche within the fat fetish community has revealed he has to eat around 10,000 calories a day to maintain his ‘ball gut’ and keep his followers entertained.

Study Finds Women Are Less Likely to Date Men Who Pose With Cats in Their Dating Profiles​

Study Finds Women Are Less Likely to Date Men Who Pose With Cats in Their Dating Profiles​

(Link): Single men with cats less likely to find love on dating apps, study finds 

(Link): Study Finds Women Are Less Likely to Date Men Who Pose With Cats in Their Dating Profiles​

“Men holding cats were viewed as less masculine; more neurotic, agreeable, and open; and less dateable,” the authors of the study wrote

By Claudia Harmata
June 22, 2020 03:55 PM

A new study conducted by researchers at Colorado State University has found that women are less likely to swipe right on men if they’re posing with a cat in their dating profiles.

The researchers showed a total of 708 women — aged between 18 and 24 — photos of two men, both posed in two separate photos. One showed them with a cat and the other had them posed without one.

Video Games, not Chastity, to Blame for Young Men Not Having Sex, Sociologist Says

(Link): Video Games, not Chastity, to Blame for Young Men Not Having Sex, Sociologist Says by Michael Foust

Excerpts:

April 9, 2019

A leading sociologist says video games – and not a sudden interest in chastity – may be to blame for a dramatic increase in the percentage of young men not having sex.