Lovely piece in the NYTimes about how older people feel desire.
Couched in the language of a year’s passing, Margaret Renkel admits her desire, her love of touch, and the pleasure in the feelings.
What I loved the most about it were these lines:
“For a female human, unlike females of almost all other species, desire, too, persists for decades past the time when it serves as a spur to reproduction. Its persistence is one of the great blessings of being human.”
It speaks to two of the most important ideas woven through Elderbloom:
- Desire continues on throughout life
- Elder desire and sex are free from reproduction and so are even more powerful and connected to our deep sense of selves
Of course these are obvious to any of you who hang out here. But it’s nice when the Newspaper of Record, the so-called “old gray lady” confirms it.
To read more, check it out:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/opinion/summer-desire-age.html
