by Betty Dodson
For patients who are prone to UTIs, most urologists recommend taking an antibiotic before and after vaginal or anal intercourse, but I find this unacceptable. Antibiotics destroy the ecology of the vagina and can result in a yeast overgrowth that creates more problems. However, there were several times I ended up taking an antibiotic while exploring alternative healing methods.
I began urinating right after analsex. I drank more water and tried the age-old natural remedy of drinking cranberry juice concentrate. I began eating yogurt and taking lactobacilli capsules and adding a teaspoon of powdered lactobacillus to warm water and douching occasionally. Any pH imbalance is known to be a major contributor to lowering resistance to infections and lactobacilli are the beneficial bacteria that increase the acidic environment in the urinary and genital tract.
While all of these natural remedies helped, for me the only totally safe solution so far is having analsex on my back. In this position, gravity pulls the anal lube away from the urethral and vaginal opening. Since analsex is one of our favorites, we are now looking into different kinds of sex slings or swings that attach to the ceiling. That way Eric can stand while I am comfortably lying on my back, facilitating effective analsex for both of us.
In the meantime, we came up with a safe alternative to analsex we call “Double Pen,” which is short for double penetration. While I kneel on the edge of the bed with my butt up in the air, I use the electric vibrator on my clit while he slowly inserts a pink-fleshlike, realistic dildo with a flared base into rosebud. The dildo is close to the size of Eric’s penis and feels very similar. Since the dildo remains in place instead of moving in and out, the lubrication doesn’t get pushed out and seep down into my urinary tract.
Standing behind me, Eric slowly enters my vagina. The sensation of having both my anus and vagina filled extends my boundaries to the utmost—a place that focuses me completely on pure physical sensation. As he begins to move back and forth with his usual care, the anal dildo moves just enough to feel good as his body presses into its base. With the washcloth-covered Magic Wand humming softly over or near my clit, the ascent to high arousal is breathtakingly fast and I can stay there for some time. The orgasm that follows consumes my entire being. He enjoys riding the energy and feeling my muscles contract powerfully when I blast off with a big O.
Over the years I’ve always enjoyed seeing photos of double penetration in magazines and watching videos that feature it. However, there’s a big difference between what’s done on screen as opposed to real life. Many seasoned porn stars refuse to do double penetration with two guys, and the ones who do charge extra for it. Penetration by two cocks without adequate knowledge and considerate partners can result in pain as well as be damaging.
This advanced kind of fucking requires an experienced woman who knows how to control the action. She also needs to understand her body, know how to use her pelvic floor muscles and to enjoy intense physical sensations. The two men also need to know what they’re doing. Anyone who has seen double pen in porn will tell you the men neither know nor care about anything resembling finesse. So if you do have the desire to take it all, make sure your male partners can be trusted.
For the man who wants to do analsex with a woman, I suggest he master anal penetration on himself first so he knows what it feels like. Then he’s ready to propose some buttloving with his girlfriend or wife. Unfortunately, too many straight men think that any enjoyment of anal penetration makes them gay. Believe me, anal stimulation will heighten any “real man’s” orgasm during masturbation.
Mark is a heterosexual friend in his early sixties who developed a love affair with his anus. Throughout his sex life, he always enjoyed a woman’s finger in his ass while receiving oral sex, but it never dawned on him to do it to himself while masturbating. When he included anal penetration with a small buttplug, he soon discovered that his orgasms were becoming more intense. He’s now using such a large buttplug that he can easily understand how gay men can take big cocks and dildos up their butts. Consistently good anal loving creates a hungry buttyhole with the same appetite as a voracious cunt.
After I fully embraced analsex, every so often I found myself regretting all the years I’d been in so much conflict over it, denying myself all those pleasures. When that happens, I stop myself. Instead of dwelling on feeling sad, I remind myself to be grateful I finally got around to it. The same as I tell others to do, I give myself a lecture about staying in the moment, enjoying what I have right now.
Eric and I take turns doing anal penetration for each other during partner-assisted masturbation sessions. We also share analingus on special occasions. He loves it when I massage his entire pup rump, including his peter and balls, while making passes back and forth over his buttyhole. When he’s ready, I slowly penetrate him with either Betty’s Barbell or the pink dildo, moving it back and forth. He also enjoys pressure on his prostate gland with two of my fingers while he jacks off. With my other hand I can press my knuckles into his perineum or massage his testicles. The concept of a woman taking charge of penetration is as erotic to him as the sensations themselves. We both enjoy doing anal penetration to ourselves when we have our private sessions of self-loving. Anal eroticism is alive and well at our house.
Providing the idea of past lives is true, one of my recent fantasies is that when Eric turns sixty-nine, my age when we met, I’ll come back as a hunky blonde California surfer. My dick will be every bit as handsome and functional as Eric’s, which keeps on going like the Energizer bunny. When we meet at a party, I will seduce him and become his first male lover. Then I’ll move in with him and we’ll take turns rump-pumping each other day and night with abandon. You’ll have to excuse me now while I go masturbate with my favorite orange buttplug.
15
SEXUAL SENIORS
The Beat Goes On
From the cradle to the grave, sex is part of our lives whether we love, hate, or deny it. We are seldom taught that partner sex is age-related and that we will go through different phases, but how we practice sex over the span of a lifetime will differ greatly. Most commercial images of sex revolve around people in their twenties and thirties, so many young adults believe the sex they are currently having will last “forever” while older couples reminisce about how good sex used to be. A few seniors feel partner sex grows better with age. Others begin to enjoy leisurely sessions of sex with themselves to their hearts content.
While we might have some sexually active seventy- and eighty-year-old men, there are fewer examples of older women who continue to enjoy sex with themselves or with a partner. This is due in part to the sexual repression women receive and their lack of orgasm. When Oprah Winfrey asked the question on her website whether women were enjoying their sex lives, more than 80 percent said they were dissatisfied. Women can let go of partner sex because it’s rarely about pleasure in the first place.
The decade of our fifties begins quite differently for women and men. Many older, successful men divorce and remarry young, attractive women who are called “trophy wives.” Some men in their fifties and sixties start second families. Others are having extramarital affairs or keeping a mistress on the side. A few men remain monogamous and sexually active with their wives. However, far more husbands rely on masturbation than society cares to acknowledge. One study showed that over 60 percent of menopausal women in the United States lose interest in sex.
Each of us is unique, so there is no best way to deal with the physical, mental, and emotional changes brought about by menopause. Most doctors will automatically prescribe synthetic HRT, hormone replacement therapy. However, there are alternatives, such as hormones made from the soybean plant. Some women find relief from menopausal symptoms with dietary changes, exercise, herbal remedies, massage therapy, and acupuncture. When it comes to handling this major life transition, each woman must find her own way.
When I went through menopause at fifty, I actually enjoyed my hot flashes and didn’t suffer any extreme discomforts. After
reading the dire warnings that came with synthetic estrogen replacement, I didn’t trust the pharmaceutical companies to have my body’s best interests at heart. I decided to make this transition naturally. Growing old seemed to be way off in the distant future. I was feeling vital and happy running my masturbation workshops, exploring fantasy role-playing with women and enjoying friends. My creative project was going through old diaries writing a sexual memoir and taking orgasm breaks when a hot memory turned me on.
The most common complaint from heterosexual women not taking HRT is painful intercourse due to a thinning of the vaginal lining. Midway through my fifties, I became aware of vaginal discomfort during any kind of penetration with a partner or myself. I knew it was due to a drop in my hormone levels. Being penetrated by a penis, a finger, or a dildo was phased out because it produced pain instead of pleasure, but I continued to enjoy partner sex with women friends while we used our electric vibrators for clitoral stimulation and, of course, sex with myself. As long as I didn’t need or want vaginal penetration, I was having a wonderful orgasmic sex life.
The phase of our sixties can present some serious breakdowns in physical health that signals the end of partner sex for some. A lucky few sail right on through in good health. For me, turning sixty meant it was time to re-create myself. After reading Passages by Gail Sheehy, I had become aware of the importance of making major changes at the beginning of each decade. After giving it much thought, I decided that my sixties would be devoted to creating videotapes that documented my direct style of teaching. I wanted to leave some kind of legacy for future sex educators.
After nearly ten years of being sexual with women almost exclusively, I began to miss the testosterone-driven energy of men. The idea of entering the straight world in my sixties was very challenging. Lesbians and bisexual women rarely judge one another by our looks or age, so dating within the women’s community didn’t have the same pressure I felt in the heterosexual world. My advantage was having a reputation, through my books and public appearances, as a woman who liked sex. This gave me dating opportunities the average woman doesn’t have.
Still, it took dedication and a fine sense of humor to become heterosexually active, especially as a woman who was not interested in fucking. My first straight affair was having Andy as a JO buddy. I was sixty-one and he was sixty-seven and also single. He lived in a spacious loft above the restaurant he owned. After reading my book, he’d asked a mutual friend to introduce us. When we first met, we discovered we had friends in common from the good old group sex days. Right off he said my book made him feel better about having so much sex with himself.
Andy described his self-loving sessions as something for all his senses—porn for the visual, chocolate for taste, incense to smell, jazz for sound, hands for touching, and a buttplug for anal penetration. I laughed and said he was my kind of guy. When I proposed we masturbate together, he enthusiastically agreed.
We spent many an evening together lying side by side happily doing ourselves while watching porn on a TV that sat at the foot of his king-size bed. Some nights we’d give each other a hand and share some hot talk. This kind of lighthearted sex allowed both of us to have fun on our own terms. We thoroughly enjoyed our low-maintenance relationship, which lasted a few years.
TAKING TURNS. Partner-assisted masturbation works well for many seniors who need more direct genital stimulation for sexual arousal. Aging bodies can be comfortably supported with an assortment of pillows. Also the use of electric vibrators for both older women and men has become quite commonplace.
In 1990, I also got a fan letter from a man who’d seen me on television. Heinz was in his late sixties, but looked much younger. He was a great dresser with elegant manners and considerable wealth. He was quite unique in that he preferred women who were over fifty because he found them more interesting. One of his favorite forms of sex was a threesome, which had also been one of mine. After we had enjoyed a couple of three-way romps, it turned out he was into verbalizing fantasies that didn’t turn me on and my fantasies didn’t work for him. Although we were fantasy incompatible, we stayed friends.
Throughout the decade of the nineties, I spent many weekends with Heinz, his current girlfriend that summer, and his girl Friday, Ellen. My private room and bath overlooked a beautiful swimming pool and bay. As the resident sexologist, I had a lot of fun socializing with his friends, who were my contemporaries. Since I usually hung out with younger people, it was encouraging to see so many straight and gay couples in their sixties and seventies still enjoying life and sex, especially his older gay men friends, who always had much younger lovers. Heinz was convinced that partner sex had never been better than in his seventies. He enjoyed being king and I loved the role of the court jester who defied his golden rule—he who makes the gold makes the rule.
Not long after I finished the videotape of my workshop, I begin fazing them out because of painful hip joints. This began a period of trying different alternative healing methods so I could remain physically active. My sixty-fifth birthday was spent in “enema camp” eating raw food at a health resort in San Diego.
From there I went to finish my second videotape with Samantha, my editor. She had heard about an endocrinologist in Santa Barbara on the cutting edge of the latest in natural hormones. Since Samantha was going through a difficult time with menopause, we made an appointment. The young woman doctor assured us that hormones made from the soybean plant were identical to the molecules formed in the human body. There was no need to worry about the disclaimer that came with synthetic hormones and the long list of warnings about breast and uterine cancer.
At sixty-five I decided to start hormone replacement and revitalize my vagina. When I returned to the East Coast, I found a doctor in my neighborhood. While I told her of my preference for plant-based hormones she listened with interest. Although she routinely put women on synthetic hormones because they had been used successfully for so long, she was willing to work with my request. The plant-based hormones are only available through a gynecologist and a compounding pharmacy. The Women’s International Pharmacy in Wisconsin at 800-279-5143 will send you a list of doctors in your area who have prescribed natural hormones. Or get your present gynecologist to work with you.
Within a month of taking all three hormones—estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone—my vaginal lining plumped up and I actually felt horny. Vaginal penetration with a dildo spiced up my masturbation and I began to fantasize a young man’s firm cock moving sweetly inside my vagina while I vibrated my clit. After nearly a ten-year hiatus from heterosexual fucking, I had my first penis/vagina sex, and although it was fun, the pain in my hip joints was now making it difficult to open my legs for partner sex. Just when my vagina was back, my hip joints were on their way out.
Two years later I was having a problem even walking. I was immersed in the relentless aging process that showed no mercy as my body turned against me. My world became smaller with each passing day until at sixty-seven I was desperate enough to get bilateral hip-replacement surgery. Within a year, I was a bionic woman with two stainless-steel hip joints and a fresh supply of hormones ready to explore some hot partner sex with men again, until I ran into the next roadblock—body image.
Each new affair required an enormous amount of energy to push through my resistance based on every woman’s self-image problem that intensifies with aging. I’d gained weight and the surgical scars made me look like the bride of Frankenstein. There was another deterrent to pursuing heterosexuality. The quality of sex I was having with contemporary men wasn’t all that rewarding. One man in his late forties was a good sex partner, but he had so many problems with an ex-wife and sharing custody with their two children that spending time with him was usually a bit depressing.
Once again I was prepared to live out the remainder of my life teaching sex, enjoying my friends, savoring a wealth of sexual memories, and refining my fantasies to keep my self-loving hot and orgasmic.
All of this chang
ed at the age of sixty-nine when Eric entered my life. After our first weekend together, filled with marathon sex that had me in a very good mood, I found myself laughing at the statement made by so many men about angry feminists: “All those women need is a good fuck.” Yes, but where are we to find men with the sexual skills to deliver one, especially as we grow older? It’s very doubtful I’d be having the quality of sex I’m having now with a man who is my contemporary.
Today I encourage older women not to buy into society’s negative messages about sex fading as we grow older. More and more of us need to push aside all of those self-image problems with the monster of vanity whispering, “You’re too fat, too wrinkled, or too old to be having sex with a vital young man.” As long as older women are willing to initiate sex and they don’t operate with romantic expectations of everlasting love, it’s a great experience to be sharing our wisdom with a young, energetic man or woman. Many other independent thinkers have followed in the footsteps of the great Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who prized the love that existed between older and younger men. Oscar Wilde, Picasso, and Georgia O’Keeffe all had young lovers, wives, or assistants.
By the time most Americans reach seventy, our agist society expects us to write our wills and get ready to die. This is in spite of recent statistics that show that many seniors live in relatively good health well into their eighties. It’s not surprising to find that less stress and more time improves the sex lives of those who remain sexually active. However, many women in this age group outlive the men they married, and they can’t imagine finding another partner. While masturbation is a valid sexual outlet, many older women have long since abandoned self-pleasuring—only a handful continue to enjoy their orgasms to the end.