The Truth About Sex as a Senior
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The sexual revolution was in full force in the early 1970s.
I was in college, dating my high school sweetheart, and found it increasingly difficult to remain chaste, which may explain why we married while still in college. As she put it, “I was tired of being chased and was ready to get caught.”
For thirty-eight years, we had the joy of a marriage that could best be described as two becoming one, one day at a time. Spiritually, emotionally, and physically we grew as a single unit. Such a blessed union also explains why I felt like half of me died when I lost her to cancer.
In the years thereafter, I committed myself to live a life of sexual purity.
In a way, my new celibate status reflected a faithfulness to my late wife. The only memories of intimacy I had were those with her, and I wanted to keep it that way. Besides, I knew that sex outside of marriage was wrong, or more accurately, sinful.
Once I opened my heart to the idea of dating and possibly marriage, I found myself confronting a familiar challenge of decades before. Yes, you guessed it, sexual desire. One of the scary things about romance in your senior years are those questions surrounding that most intimate part of marriage. When I decided to start dating in my mid-sixties, my commitment to sexual purity did not change. That proved timely since temptations soon came knocking on my door.
I laughed at my new predicament.
For thirty-eight years of marriage, physical intimacy was never a question of morality as my wife and I were always faithful to one another. There was no need to put the brakes on unless we had mutually agreed to wait for another time.
Surprisingly, for several years as a widower, I found it relatively easy to be celibate. I did not date, had no desire to date, which conveniently kept temptation at arm’s length, so to speak. By the way, that also meant porn was off-limits too. Pornography makes true intimacy meaningless, creating desires that cannot righteously be fulfilled. But when I started dating again, and my romantic desires were eventually recharged, I had an epiphany—dating again meant I also had to find the brake pedal again and know when to push it!
For so long, within my marriage, I never had to tell myself “no.” It was always full speed ahead. But now, dating someone with whom I was falling in love, the romantic fires rekindled, and my testosterone (whatever I still had left) ignited, I had to deal with those romantic thoughts dancing in my head. Abstinence was no longer a topic I had preached to my teenage children years ago. Now I was my own audience. Practice what you preach, Buddy!
In my younger days, I had naively thought romance was a foreign concept for senior citizens.
Then I remembered a conversation I had with a work colleague before he retired. He and his wife had just bought a home in a large retirement community in Florida—a community so large that it became a city unto itself. He laughingly asked me if I could guess the #1 health issue of this new city of senior citizens. “Heart disease?” I asked. He soberly responded with, “Nope, STDs, as in sexually transmitted diseases.” His answer shattered my image of a retirement community. Apparently, golf, shuffleboard, and bridge are not the only games seniors play.
It wasn’t a game I wanted to play—I needed to remind myself about the purpose of sex.
God created us as sexual beings. And while sexual desire is a normal human reaction, it is not just an itch to be scratched but a holy mystery. God seeks union with us, and the marital embrace provides a foretaste of the eternal, a reflection of Christ the bridegroom and His bride the Church. Sex is God’s idea of welding two souls together.
By focusing primarily on the spiritual and the relational, sex becomes the celebration it is intended to be following the Sacrament of Marriage.
I felt like an awkward teenager when Patrice and I started dating.
When do I hold her hand? When do I kiss her goodnight? It was exciting and as scary as making a thirty-foot belly-flop off a diving board.
Patrice’s first marriage had been annulled, in part because of abuse. Knowing her history—she had been transparently honest about her past—I proceeded slowly. We focused on our developing friendship and soon realized a growing attraction. Still, our first kiss wasn’t until four months after our first date. That’s right, FOUR MONTHS! Why did I wait that long? Patrice laughed when I suggested I was a little shy. Ok, maybe it wasn’t shyness. Perhaps it was just that I knew if I kissed her, that meant I loved her, and that meant we were starting down the road to matrimony. I know others do not take kissing so seriously. I did. And still do.
My first wife was a woman who helped me grow as a husband and a child of God. I sensed in Patrice, another woman who would call forth the best in me—and I in her. Living out the marriage mystery requires one to think more highly of our mates than ourselves. It requires a sacrifice of love, service, and giving as your spousal role is to help your mate get to heaven.
Keeping our sexuality in its proper place before and after marriage is a crucial step heavenward.
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