Don't give up! — Ines Peyret

Forget the myths about no sex in old age: getting older does not mean having less of it. Libido rages at any age and now more than ever.

One of the reasons for this surge of enthusiasm for matters of the flesh is that yesterday’s hippies, now in their seventies and eighties, are not willing to let go of their erotic privileges. For the first time in history, they demand the right to continue their sexual activity for as long as they feel like it. Sex, drugs and rock and roll are more than ever the order of the day.

Between a hip and a knee operation, they actively participate in the second and still on-going sexual revolution.

After “Peace and Love and the pill”, the “Pacemaker and Love and the erectile pill” revolution is shaking the seniors’ planet and destroying the last taboo. In its trail, upheavals as important as those made by the contraceptive pill. It is also changing the way we see this stage of life, forcing us to rethink sexuality. “I have so much energy......which is probably the result of all the sex I've been having” says Jane in the film It’s Complicated, to her friends overexcited at the news.

American sociologist Beth Montemurro writes that “older men and women have probably always been far more sexually active than media lead us to believe.” What is different today is that research corroborates the notion that many people do stay interested in sex throughout their lives. And that many are happy and satisfied with it.

At long last, people are starting to accept that libido does not have an expiry date, and that it is an in undeniable right till death, including in nursing homes. Even Hollywood is acknowledging the fact with steamy senior romances.Once again, like in the sixties, boomers are dictating their rules. In this case, it is to carry on frolicking at any age. “They think they invented sex” says Jane Fonda. “Their knees and hips will go before their sex drive will.”