Sex after Sixty: a French guide to loving intimacy

In Sex After Sixty, Marie de Hennezel addresses the most taboo of subjects- the sexuality of seniors.Employing an equal measure of modesty and irreverence, she probes the mystery and depth of the enjoyment of physical love at a later stage of life. Through interviews, lectures, and her own analysis - including forays into areas such as tantric sex - she invites the reader on a journey to the heart of this unrecognised territory.It turns out that emotional intimacy plays a huge role in maintaining a sex life as you age. The quality of a relationship obviously matters a lot in being able to take your time, trust your partner, and explore a sexuality that's more sensual and more playful than that of earlier years. It's all about knowing how to take pleasure as it comes, rather than focussing on what could be ... This is what characterises a less impulsive, but more erotic, sexuality. And it's not less satisfying, either. Far from it.'Marie de Hennezel allows the reader to deliciously eavesdrop on ordinary elderly people talking about how they keep the fires of passion burning. Not only is sex possible, it's better. Who wouldn't want to read this book? I couldn't stop turning the pages- all these people, my age and older, speaking with such openness about the pleasures that age cannot erase.'-Lorna Crozier, author of The Book of Marvels and Small Beneath the Sky, and co-contributor of The Wild in You'Ageing ain't pretty, Hennezel admits. Yet for many of us, Eros lives, and Eros wants its due ... Feeling good through exercise and a healthy diet is paramount; looking younger through plastic surgery is mentioned not at all. Reading the stories of septuagenarians and octogenarians who are finding love or intimacy or sometimes just sex, one is reminded that the very French concept of joie de vivre - a sense of joy that comes from curiosity and playfulness, from looking outward instead of inward - is its own form of Botox.'-Judith Newman, The New York Times Book Review'French psychologist De Hennezel boldly yet sensitively explores a topic she says is still taboo- sex for seniors. De Hennezel conversationally recounts her interviews with various couples on their marital and extramarital relations, and discusses approaches that have worked well for some couples, including some ideas drawn from Tantra and other Eastern erotic arts. The book is not just about sex but delves deeply into intimacy and how to ignite and sustain it. De Hennezel interviews men who have found passion outside their marriages, women who have given up on sex, and older adults who have recently entered into same-sex relationships for the first time in their lives. The later years can be a challenging time to be sexual, she acknowledges, particularly in a culture fixed on youth, firm bodies, and intercourse resulting in climax. But she writes persuasively and inspiringly that by adjusting expectations and broadening concepts of intimacy, it is possible to stay sexually active after 60 and to have rich, mutually rewarding sex because "the heart does not age." The book is written for those over 60, but it offers many insights for readers of any age who are interested in improving their relationships.'-Publishers Weekly, starred review

Marie de Hennezel is an esteemed psychologist and psychotherapist entrusted with the mission of raising palliative-care awareness by the French ministry of health. She is the author of two ministerial reports about caring for those with terminal illnesses, and has written ten books about growing older, including The Warmth of the Heart Prevents Your Body from Rusting and Seize the Day. Her books have been translated into 22 languages.

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