PASSION: A Guide For Seniors and Their Significant Others

Question: When is Passion no longer possible for a senior citizen whose age seems to be a worrisome concern?

Answer: Never, so long as breathing is practiced with adequate regularity!

Do not expect here an in depth analysis of physical factors which discourage passion. I leave that to you and your physician to probe (forgive the pun!)

Do not anticipate a brief version of “The Joy of Sex,” which may not be a bad recommendation anyway.

Do not assume a review of Gail Sheehy’s various takes on “passages.”

What you may expect is an upbeat case for remaining in love, exercising that love through a variety of passionate attitudes, choices, frames of reference, practices, and continuing the good habits of caring and touching and staying in love.

Aging introduces all kinds of interferences with love and love making. To be sure, it is critical to understand that there is a difference. And, to be sure, love making requires energy, initiative, response, interest, and passion.

For some, in their later years, love making is not something easily engaged in, as once was the case. That’s okay. Love making does not have to include genitalia, nor does it mean creating the lust and passion of many years previous. Bodily functions change. Hormones that create physical passion dissipate. I am sure this is not new information. Emotions, however, are still possible to be expressed.

Some of the most endearing passions have to do with touching, kissing, whispering, sensing, expressing through other than traditional intercourse. This is not to discourage intercourse, if both parties are amenable. It is to create an ecstasy available to a couple who still experience passion and desire for each other.

Even holding hands, hugging, embracing, looking into one another’s eyes are ways to sustain passion, the emotional kind that is not dependent upon hormones. Some choose to read sonnets or poetry or paragraphs from selected books. Some sit before the fire or on floaters in the swimming pool, take walks, hike up mountains, lie down beside streams, looking for romance in unusual and provocative places.

Passion can and does disappear when pleasure and seduction disappear. Embracing first thing in the morning and last thing at night continues the energy and the spark. Passion is forever so long as love endures.