"Shades of Grey": Exploring Public Opinion about Later-Life Sexuality

Public opinion on later-life sexuality affects older people's sexual health, behaviour, and satisfaction. In this study, we explored public opinion on later-life sexuality by participants' responding to an open-ended question rather than rank their level of agreement or disagreement with different statements about older people's sexuality. Responses from 135 men and women reflecting on how sexuality changes in older age were thematically analysed. Five themes emerged, varying from positive to negative perceptions of later-life sexuality. Older people's sexuality was described as declining, non-existent, conservative, narrow, tedious, and boring, but also as encompassing more emotions and feelings; being better and more "complete". This study provides qualitative data and an opportunity to gain insights on valuable opinions on what young and middle-aged people think about later-life sexuality. Assessing what people think about later-life sexuality is the first stage in instilling more liberating views about the diversity of sexual expressions in old age.

Unruly temporalities: Older queer women and non-binary people narrating later-life sexuality

In this paper, we explore queer temporalities in relation to queer women and non-binary people's sexuality later in life. Drawing on 30 interviews with 32 queer women and non-binary people aged 49-72 about sexuality and intimacy in later life, we highlight the participants' stories about the instability and non-linearity of sexuality across the life course. First, we examine how our participants narrated later-life changes in their sexual subjectivity and how the assumption of compulsory (hetero)sexuality manifests in the participants' stories about the unfolding of their sexual identities over the life course. We then analyze the compulsory non-sexuality imposed on women as they grow older. Finally, we explore the potential of reinterpreting sexuality in later life to destabilize pervasive normative notions of sexuality by analyzing the bodily changes the participants described. Rather than eradicating difference, such an analysis of later-life sexuality and queer temporality opens up the possibility of affirming changing desires and pleasures and acknowledging the body's agency in shaping later-life sexuality.

Aging women in Russia: Between sexless and sexy oldies

Women's sexuality as a dimension of embodied identity is shaped and constrained by social norms of gender and age and negotiated by women in complex ways. Discourses of hegemonic bodily normativity ascribe a sexless subjectivity to Russian women in their post-reproductive years, contributing to their social exclusion. At the same time, in modern Russian society a neoliberal concept of "successful active aging" is gradually changing understandings of aging, making later-life sexuality more visible and legitimate. Older women's sexual activity is often part of a lifestyle involving active care of their appearance and health, allowing them to maintain social inclusion in their post-reproductive years. This article considers how women's sexuality shifts over time and what alternative (if any) form of sexuality exists besides the "sexless older woman" and the "sexy older woman" in the post-Soviet Russian context. Based on Russian data from the project "Aging and sexuality: transformation of intimacy in a transnational perspective" (The project "Aging and sexuality: transformation of intimacy in a transnational perspective" (under supervision of professor Anna Temkina, EUSPb).), this article discusses growing recognition of the diversity of experiences of later-life sexuality and the vulnerable social position of women in their post-reproductive years outside Western societies.