Queer Late/r Life Sex: Nika Looman’s Layman Talk

Below you can read the English translation of Nika Looman’s layman talk during their public defense on 3 December 2024 (16.00h).

The research for my dissertation “Queer late/r life sex: women and non-binary people’s unruly stories” was conducted as part of the project “Later-in-Life Intimacies,” led by Katrien De Graeve. In this project we looked for ways to rethink ageing and sex later in life. We focus on women, because they are still considered sexually less attractive sooner than men, or they are considered sexually too active (e.g. when a woman looks “too sexy,” has a lot of sex, or has sex with younger people).

Looking for “unruly” stories, I started interviewing old/er lesbians, bisexual women, trans women, and queer women, and later on non-binary people too. First exclusively in Belgium, but later on in the Netherlands as well.

Thirty-three people participated in my research. Almost all of them were over fifty years old (some were almost fifty). Our conversations were about a lot of things, including their life course, queer identity, sex, and intimacy, but also skin hunger, loneliness, the importance of friendship, and activism.

Each conversation has touched me deeply. It was difficult to pick something that I wanted to highlight today. The stories of people that participated in this research almost seemed contradictory at times. It was impossible to categorize them based on age, their identity labels, or relationship status. In my dissertation, keeping those contradictions intact was very important to me.

Unruly stories

Some participants shared stories that seemed to go directly against the stereotypes of the no longer sexual old/er woman. These were stories of an increased desire for sex after menopause, instead of a decreased desire (as suggested in dominant narratives). Or stories of new relationships late/r in life, or trying different ways of having sex, or trying BDSM – with new partners, with young/er partners, or several partners.

These were stories of relief and an increased self-confidence. Often participants explained that sex became much more fun late/r in life, even if their bodies were no longer able to have sex in the ways they had sex before. Sex became much more fun precisely as a result of growing old/er, of gaining sexual experience, and an increased sense of self.

These stories contained a lot of complexities. Straying away from normative paths was not all fun, but also caused negative reactions in these people’s social circles. Having a lot of sex late/r in life, or having a young/er partner, was sometimes described by others as a midlife crisis. Thus showing that the possibilities for thinking of old/er women and sex together are very limited.

Complex stories of resistance

There were several stories that I initially found more difficult to think of as unruly. For example the stories of no longer having sex. This came up in Karin’s story.

Karin was born at the end of the 1940s, so she was in her seventies when we met. Just like many other, but not all, participants, Karin had been married to a man in the past. They got married in the late 1960s and they had a child together. Karin named the end of the 1960s as a time full of

possibilities. The feminist movement was growing stronger, which made it possible for her to divorce after a couple of years of being married and raise her child alone.

Because she was surrounded by lesbians in the feminist movement, Karin soon realized her sexual desires for women. For Karin, her identity as a lesbian was connected to the time in which she grew up, which also made her wonder how she would identify if she had grown up in this day and age.

In the local feminist groups she attended, she met her current partner, with whom she has now been together for decades.

Sex had been very important in their relationship. But when I asked Karin what role sex took in her life at the moment, she spread her arms wide to show how big the intimacy was. After that she brought her fingers close together to show how big (or how small) the sexuality was.

At the moment in Karin’s life that we met, a lot of things were playing up, including several surgeries, new joints, and chronic illnesses that became heavier to bear as Karin grew older. Her body hurt and she called her body impaired.

Because she used a lot of medication of which it was known to affect sexual arousal, Karin said, “I can’t say if this is my normal state, because I wouldn’t even know anymore.”

It was impossible for Karin to say whether the changes in her sexual arousal had to do with growing older, medication, the duration of the relationship with her partner, or possibly other factors.

Karin described that because of all of these changes, she did not experience sexual arousal like she did before. While sexual arousal had been something physical for her earlier in her life, she now described it as something more in her head, related to memories, smells, and sounds.

That sex was presented to her and other women as something important to maintain and to desire was difficult for Karin to believe or accept. As her body was hurting and her energy was less, sex played an increasingly smaller role.

It seemed difficult to me to tell Karin’s story in a society in which women late/r in life are portrayed as non-sexual, because Karin’s story seemed to confirm dominant narratives of an old/er woman’s relationship to sex, namely that it does not exist.

Queer sex late/r in life

It made me think about what can be unruly or liberatory relations to sex late/r in life. Several participants’ understanding of sex changed late/r in life, and it became much broader as they grew old/er. They mentioned genital stimulation, role play, caressing, and skin contact. Touch, intimate conversations, massages. These all started to be part of their understanding of sex, or what they considered to be sexual.

It took me a while to really realize that people that said to no longer have sex had good reasons to do so. Including pain, loss of partners, or relief after life time full of sex.

As I had more conversations with people, I realized that for several people, even if they said that sex no longer took place, it did have an important place in their lives. Karin, too, brought her fingers close together, which showed that sex had a place in her life, even if it was different than

earlier in her life. Other people described how sex could be the foundation of a relationship, even if it did not take place. They mentioned that memories of sex were important in getting sexually aroused, or to reach an orgasm when they masturbated.

Sex came up in unexpected parts of their stories. And from thinking about sex differently, possibilities emerged to think differently about labels such as monogamy and non-monogamy, about intimacy, and about relationships with partners, friends, and even care workers.

While old/er women and sex are rarely discussed together, not having sex must be part of the complexities of rethinking of queer late/r life sex to go against the oppressive stereotypes. Especially in neoliberal societies that make people personally responsible for ageing “successfully,” which is closely related to maintaining sexual attractiveness and availability and appearing “young” or “ageless.”

Just like how I found it difficult to choose which aspect of my research to highlight in this talk, I find it difficult to end here. I would like to treat the end of this talk as more of an opening to talk more about ageing and ageism. And to look for ways to intergenerationally strengthen ourselves against the different social expectations, norms, violence, and social inequalities that prevail.

To see their talk in Dutch: join the live stream by simply clicking the link below, no registration required.