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Sex at 73: low libido, an unhelpful doctor, and the comparison game
Searching for the secret to feeling hot again and to more frequent sex in my 70s (and no, I'm not hiring a sex worker)
“When did you last have intercourse?” the doctor asked, fixing me with a slightly accusing look and leaning forward as she spoke, her long gray hair falling around her face. She looks like a middle-age hippie; maybe she has a great sex life??
I was taken aback; it was the first time in my 73 years I’d attempted to talk to a doctor about my “sex life.” I was nervous, and I was expecting a sympathetic conversation, not an inquisition.
A few feet away stood a 20-something female medical student, frozen and uncomfortable. I imagined what she might be thinking: Do 70-something-year-old women even have a sex life?
But I was even more uncomfortable; and now I was humiliated. Surely this wasn’t the right way to initiate a conversation with a new patient. Dr. M had zeroed in on the precise thing I was feeling bad about… not having frequent enough sex the old-fashioned way.
It felt as if she were deliberately shaming me.
This is one of my more personal essays, which are for paid subscribers. Recently, I’ve also published an essay on the six pounds I didn’t lose this summer, as well as how ChatGPT tricked me into finally feeling understood. For full access to these posts and today’s essay on low libido in your 70s, upgrade at the current low rate of $40/year or $6/month.