{"product_id":"the-new-love-and-sex-after-60-isbn-9780345442116","title":"The New Love and Sex After 60","description":"LIFE CAN BE RICH AND FULL--AT ANY AGE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou may be getting older but love and sex are still a vital part of your life. Here is the book that speaks to your concerns about sex beyond the middle years. Two leading experts have completely updated and revised the classic guide on the subject to address the needs of our changing world in the new millennium. Inside you'll find:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- The truth about aging and how it affects sexual desire and lovemaking\u003cbr\u003e- A thorough guide to common medical problems--and solutions\u003cbr\u003e- New drugs that can improve and enhance sexuality--including the latest on Viagra\u003cbr\u003e- Research on post-menopausal changes\u003cbr\u003e- A detailed look at the procedures for easing and solving sexual problems\u003cbr\u003e- Practical strategies for finding new relationships and staying sexually fit\u003cbr\u003e- Advice to help your adult children understand your new relationships\"Marvelous . . . [This book] helps women and men . . . attain what the authors brilliantly delineate as the second language of sex.\"\u003cbr\u003e--BETTY FRIEDAN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Everyone who is 60 (or older) should read this book.  Even I learned something!\"\u003cbr\u003e--ABIGAIL VAN BUREN\u003cb\u003eRobert N. Butler, MD,\u003c\/b\u003e (1927–2010) was the president and CEO of the International Longevity Centre–USA and a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. The author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning \u003ci\u003eWhy Survive?: Being Old in America\u003c\/i\u003e and chair of the Council on Ageing of the World Economic Forum, he was a frequent adviser to international agencies, including the World Health Organization, and served as the medical editor in chief of \u003ci\u003eGeriatrics\u003c\/i\u003e for more than a decade.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMyrna I. Lewis\u003c\/b\u003e (1938–2005) was a professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as well as a social worker, gerontologist, and writer. She had a special interest in the social and health issues faced by midlife and older women, which she wrote about often with fellow gerontologist Robert Butler. Their work has been published in many highly regarded books and academic journals.The best authorities on whether love and sex can exist in later life are older people themselves. Frank and Marianne have been together forty-six years. They've led unremarkable lives in terms of success and lucky breaks and have had more than their share of tragedies. Yet in their late seventies they are enthusiastic, optimistic, and in love. Frank says of Marianne, \"I love this woman more each day.\" Marianne replies, \"I couldn't have asked for a better partner--he's kind, sweet, funny . . . he is everything a woman could want.\" Both are quick to add that it is their relationship that has been the core of their sense of satisfaction in life--and their sexual closeness is an indispensable part of their affection for each other. These two are not alone in their point of view. Any of us who has worked professionally with older people (or is older himself) could cite scores of examples of similar attitudes among older men and women, married or single.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSound research data beyond the clinical observa-tions of those working\u003cbr\u003ewith older people is another story. The United States lacks a truly\u003cbr\u003ecomprehensive national survey of sexuality that encompasses the older\u003cbr\u003epopulation. The available information includes the important but now\u003cbr\u003eoutdated and limited Kinsey studies (first published in 1948), the\u003cbr\u003ephysiologic investigations of Masters and Johnson, and the findings of\u003cbr\u003eboth the Duke Longitudinal Studies and the Baltimore Longitudinal Study\u003cbr\u003eon Aging. Questionnaire surveys of self-reported sexual activity among\u003cbr\u003eolder people have been conducted by mail (for example, by Consumers\u003cbr\u003eUnion), but these provide information only on those who volunteer. Other\u003cbr\u003estudies have age cutoffs for their subjects, usually at sixty or\u003cbr\u003eseventy. The outcome is that facts and figures on the nature and\u003cbr\u003efrequency of sexual activity among older persons, including its\u003cbr\u003eassociation with marital and health status or any other variable in\u003cbr\u003epeople's lives, are unknown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne thing is certain, however. Our society is in the midst of an immense\u003cbr\u003edemographic change. Every day over six thousand Americans turn sixty.\u003cbr\u003eAltogether, forty-five million people or one out of every six of us are\u003cbr\u003esixty or older. By the year 2006 baby boomers will begin to dramatically\u003cbr\u003eexpand the ranks of the older population as they themselves start\u003cbr\u003eturning sixty. In about twenty five years, one in five Americans,\u003cbr\u003eincluding the boomers, will be over sixty-five--a historically\u003cbr\u003eunprecedented 20 percent of the population.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe definition of old age is changing. In June 2000, The New Yorker\u003cbr\u003eMagazine ran a cartoon showing a woman announcing to her husband,\u003cbr\u003e\"Good news, honey-- seventy is the new fifty.\" That same year a Harris\u003cbr\u003ePoll found that only 14 percent of respondents believed chronological\u003cbr\u003eage was the best marker of old age. Instead, 41 percent cited a \"decline\u003cbr\u003ein physical ability\"--a highly variable event--as the best evidence of\u003cbr\u003ethe beginning of old age. According to this definition, people in good\u003cbr\u003ehealth are younger longer, whereas anyone who gets sick becomes older\u003cbr\u003esooner. As for disability itself, studies show that there have been\u003cbr\u003esignificant declines in disability rates since 1982. Heart disease and\u003cbr\u003estroke alone have been reduced 60 percent since 1950.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn light of all this, what can we safely say about sexuality in later\u003cbr\u003elife? Our views on this topic have not yet caught up with the slowly\u003cbr\u003echanging character of aging. Many people--not only the young and\u003cbr\u003emiddle-aged but older people themselves--are quite uniformly negative\u003cbr\u003eabout the prospects of continued sexual interest and ability. Many\u003cbr\u003esimply assume that the game is over somewhere in late midlife or early\u003cbr\u003elater life. They couldn't be more wrong. In spite of the scarcity of\u003cbr\u003enationwide data, we turn to our own clinical and research work and the\u003cbr\u003ework of other gerontologists and researchers to demon-B strate that\u003cbr\u003erelatively healthy older people who enjoy sex are capable of\u003cbr\u003eexperiencing it--often until very late in life. Frequently those who do\u003cbr\u003ehave sexual problems can be helped.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe have written this book for those older men and women who are\u003cbr\u003epresently or potentially interested in sexuality and would like to know\u003cbr\u003emore about what is likely to happen to their sexuality over time.We will\u003cbr\u003eoffer solutions to sexual problems that may occur, and propose ways of\u003cbr\u003ecountering the negative attitudes that older people may\u003cbr\u003eexperience--within themselves, from family members, from the medical and\u003cbr\u003epsychotherapeutic professions, and from society at large. We especially\u003cbr\u003ewant older people to know that their concerns and problems are not\u003cbr\u003eunique, that they are not alone in their experience, and that many\u003cbr\u003eothers feel exactly as they do.Even those people who have had a lively\u003cbr\u003eenthusiasm and capacity for sex all their lives often need information,\u003cbr\u003esupport, and sometimes various kinds of treatment in order to continue\u003cbr\u003eengaging in sexual activity as the years go by. In addition, people for\u003cbr\u003ewhom sex may not have been especially satisfying in their younger days\u003cbr\u003emay find that it is now possible to improve the quality of the\u003cbr\u003eexperience despite their long-standing difficulties.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSex and sexuality are pleasurable, rewarding, and fulfilling experiences\u003cbr\u003ethat can enhance the middle and later years. But they are also--as\u003cbr\u003eeveryone knows-- enormously complex psychologically. Every one of us\u003cbr\u003ecarries with us throughout our lives a weight of attitudes related to\u003cbr\u003esexuality that have been shaped by our genes, our parents, our families,\u003cbr\u003eour teachers, and our society, some of which are positive and some\u003cbr\u003enegative, some of which we realize and many of which we are unaware.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause of this, it is useful to understand what underlies so many of\u003cbr\u003ethe attitudes and problems about sex that one encounters. If you are an\u003cbr\u003eolder person, be prepared for the likelihood of conflicting feelings\u003cbr\u003ewithin yourself and contradictory attitudes from the outside world.\u003cbr\u003eShould older people have sex lives? Are they even able to make love? Do\u003cbr\u003ethey really want to? Is it appropriate--that is, \"normal\" or\u003cbr\u003e\"decent\"--or is sexual interest a sign of \"senility\" and brain disease\u003cbr\u003e(he\/she has gone \"daft\"), poor judgment, or an embarrassing inability to\u003cbr\u003eadjust to aging with the proper restraint and resignation?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow much less troubling it would be to accept the folklore of\u003cbr\u003ecookie-baking grandmothers who bustle around the kitchen making goodies\u003cbr\u003efor their loved ones while rocking-chair grandfathers puff on their\u003cbr\u003epipes and reminisce. Idealized folk figures like these are not supposed\u003cbr\u003eto have sex lives of their own. After all, they represent the parents\u003cbr\u003eand grandparents we all remember from our childhood, rather than fellow\u003cbr\u003eadults with the same needs and desires that we have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs an older man or woman, you may find that love and sex in later life,\u003cbr\u003ewhen they are acknowledged at all, will be patronizingly thought of as\u003cbr\u003e\"cute\" or \"sweet,\" like the puppy love of teenagers; but even more\u003cbr\u003elikely, they will be ridiculed, a subject for jokes that have\u003cbr\u003eundercurrents of disdain and apprehensiveness at the prospect of growing\u003cbr\u003eolder. Our language is full of telltale phrases: older men become \"dirty\u003cbr\u003eold men,\" \"old fools,\" or \"old goats\" where sex is involved. Older women\u003cbr\u003eare depicted as uniformly sexless or sexually unattractive. Most of this\u003cbr\u003e\"humor\" implies the impotence of older men and the ugliness of older\u003cbr\u003ewomen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA mythology fed by misinformation surrounds late-life sexuality. The\u003cbr\u003epresumption is that sexual desire automatically ebbs with age--that it\u003cbr\u003ebegins to decline when you are in your forties or even earlier, proceeds\u003cbr\u003erelentlessly downward (you are \"losing it\"), and eventually hits bottom\u003cbr\u003e(you are \"over the hill\") at some time between sixty and sixty-five.\u003cbr\u003eThus an older woman who shows an evident, perhaps even a lusty, interest\u003cbr\u003ein sex is often assumed to be suffering from \"emotional\" problems; and\u003cbr\u003eif she is obviously in her right mind and sexually active, she runs the\u003cbr\u003erisk of being called \"oversexed\" or, more kindly, said to be clinging\u003cbr\u003epathetically to her lost youth.Completely Revised and Updated Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Why Survive?","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304114802917,"sku":"NP9780345442116","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345442116.jpg?v=1767740673","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-new-love-and-sex-after-60-isbn-9780345442116","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}