This 'Sexpert' Wants Seniors to Talk Dirty

When Joan Price hit menopause, she said she became invisible to men. That's because they were looking for someone younger, she says.

Price was the most accomplished and sure of herself she’d ever been, and the prospect that her sex and love life were over was devastating. Then, a stranger walked into her line dancing class one day. His name was Robert Rice and he was a 64-year-old artist, with blue eyes and white hair.

“I was smitten. I was in lust,” she said. “When he started to dance, and started rolling his hips, I kept losing my place in the dance I was teaching.”

That line dancing class sparked a happy seven-year marriage — and a sexual epiphany that changed the course of Price’s life. "We were so vibrant and sexy and strong,” she said. “And I thought, it’s time to write a book about this.”

And she did, but she didn't stop at one: Price has authored several books aiming to demystify seniors’ sex drives and destigmatize their sexuality, earning her nicknames like "senior sexpert" and — her favorite — "wrinkly sex kitten." She wants her peers to be able to talk about their sexual needs so they have a shot at the happiness that long-lasting intimacy brings.

'We Learned Not to Talk about Sex'

Price published her latest book about ageless sexuality in August. She travels internationally — most recently to The Netherlands and Montenegro — to lecture about senior sex, and she recently co-produced an explicit instructional sex video for seniors with an adult film star.

Sitting in the living room of her cottage in Freestone, a community near Sebastopol, Price has a flirty frankness, husky voice and flippy hairdo that make it hard not to want to compare her to Jane Fonda. She doesn’t have her own workout video dynasty, but she did become an aerobics devotee in her 30s, and has been teaching line dancing for three decades.

Price said she sees a through line between the off-limits attitudes about sex that she and her peers grew up with in the 1950s and the stunted communication habits she recognizes among seniors today.

“The problem with the way we learned to talk about sex is we learned not to talk about sex,” Price said. “My sex education consisted of how girls get pregnant and why we shouldn't do it.”

Despite the black-and-white introduction she had to sex as an adolescent, Price said, the '60s and '70s brought more variety. But the communication barriers instilled by earlier generations didn’t disappear.

“We were the foot soldiers of the sexual revolution, but even there we didn’t really know how to ask for what we wanted, what we needed,” she said.

But Price persevered and formed a sexual identity that has helped give her the satisfying sex life she still enjoys today.

She believes staying active sexually can be a game changer for seniors. And research backs her up: A recent study from the journal Sexual Medicine found that seniors who experience intimacy more regularly are significantly more content than those who don't.

“We need to be able to talk out loud about, ‘Hey, I know we generally just talk about grandchildren when we're together but let's talk about something more personal and more interesting: Let's talk about sex," Price said. “We don’t even talk to our friends like that in most cases.”

And it's not just seniors' emotional well-being that stands to benefit from more transparency around sex. Price also wants them to know about the sexual health risks they’re facing. The CDC reported a 20% increase in gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia among Americans 45 and older between 2015 and 2016. And, Americans ages 50 and older accounted for 17% of new HIV diagnoses in 2016.

These numbers emphasize the need for open dialogue between seniors and their doctors about sexual health — one Price says isn’t happening enough.

“Unless we as a generation go to our doctors and say — ‘Doctor, my sex life is important to me, and here's what's interfering with it and I need your help to resolve this' — nothing's going to change," she said.

But it’s not just up to seniors.

Dr. Anna Chodos, who specializes in geriatrics at UCSF, said often doctors take seniors’ sex lives for granted — especially in cases where patients have other, more pressing health issues.

“A lot of times we don't ask and it's just like an ageist problem. And I have many ... times been surprised” by how sexually active they are, she said.

Living Single: Senior Edition

Price’s new book, "Sex After Grief," charts her path from losing her husband, Robert Rice — who succumbed to cancer eight years after they met in Price’s line dancing class — to finding new love again in her 70s (she met her current partner online a few years ago).

Price wants to help her readers work through the survivor’s guilt and feelings of disloyalty that they might struggle with as they explore companionship and intimacy with a new partner. As seniors continue to age and lose partners, she wants them to know they’re not alone in these feelings, and also give them permission to start over like she has.

And she knows, as they start testing the waters in the dating pool again, they’re going to find a climate with new norms they’ll need to adjust to: like standards born out of the #MeToo era.

Price said that some straight men have said to her: "I don't know how to talk to women anymore. Used to be I’d have this line, I’d compliment them on their appearance and I could test out whether they like being hugged. Now you're supposed to get permission for every damn thing."

“And I say, ‘Well, get used to it ... Always get consent. Get enthusiastic consent,' ” Price said.

Price is going to keep practicing what she preaches, but her commitment to reframing expectations around aging and sex has broader meaning.

"We need to know that we can value ourselves through all the stages of our lives, not just think it's now or never when we're young. Not just think, 'Oh my gosh, if I don't get the right partner now while I'm wrinkle-free and desirable, I never will.' That's just not true,” she said.

“Chances are even if you do have the right partner for now, it may be a different partner later,” she added. “We need ... to look forward to the experience and the wisdom that aging brings."