What to know
- A new survey found 45 per cent of Ashley Madison members said they reached their sexual prime at age 40 or older.
- Sex and relationship expert Dr. Tammy Nelson says sexual confidence can grow with age as women become less focused on how their bodies are perceived.
- The concept of “spectatoring” — mentally observing and judging your body during sex — can interfere with pleasure, she says.
- Survey respondents also reported challenges within long-term relationships, with half saying their pleasure is not prioritized by their committed partner.
- Nelson says familiarity and security in a long-term relationship don’t necessarily translate to eroticism, and that some people may find it easier to explore their sexuality in newer relationships.
- The broader shift, she argues, isn’t necessarily about women becoming “more sexual” with age, but about having more freedom to define what sexuality and pleasure mean to them.
Heads up, women: A study has revealed that the older you are, the more likely you are to have a satisfying sex life.
For decades, popular culture has tied women’s sexual peak to youth. Films, shows and books often depict a woman’s sexual prime as happening earlier in her life, long before she reaches middle age. Meanwhile, conversations about older women’s sex lives and relationships tend to centre on marriage, motherhood and partnership, as opposed to what women actually desire.
But it looks like that is starting to change, with female desire later in life increasingly becoming a subject of cultural conversation. The sexuality, sensuality and desire of older women take centre stage in books like Miranda July’s All Fours and movies like Nicole Kidman’s Babygirl and J Lo’s The Boy Next Door. At the same time, growing awareness around perimenopause and menopause has pushed more conversations about women’s bodies, sexuality and pleasure into the mainstream.
New survey data from Ashley Madison and YouGov suggests that the shift may also be showing up in people’s real-life experiences. According to the survey, 45 per cent of Ashley Madison members said they reached their sexual prime at age 40 or older.
Challenging the idea that sexual prime happens in youth
For Dr. Tammy Nelson, a California-based sex and relationship expert who consults with Ashley Madison, the findings challenge the longstanding idea that sexual confidence and desire are inherently connected to youth. But she says sexual prime can mean a lot of different things. She points to the cultural pressure women face to associate being sexually desirable with looking young and conventionally attractive. She believes these factors can obscure the more complicated ways people experience sexuality as they age.
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“We still are faced with this media pressure that when you’re young, you look hot and sexy, and that means you’re in your prime,” she explained. “But I think you can still look hot and sexy in your 60s. I think I’m a good example.
But what you worry about when you’re getting down also changes, Nelson says.
“As you get older, you stop prioritizing other people’s pleasure,” she explained. “And you stop focusing on being the object of someone else’s gaze or desire.”
She explained that as we age, many women start to shift that focus inward. That often looks like women asking themselves whether they are actually experiencing desire, arousal and pleasure, rather than concentrating primarily on whether they are pleasing their partner.
However, Nelson explained that this shift doesn’t necessarily mean becoming less interested in a partner’s experience. Rather, it can mean recognizing that one’s own pleasure deserves equal consideration.
“If the party’s not fun, you stop wanting to go,” she explained.
Getting out of your own head = Better sex
In addition to finding a greater focus on their own pleasure, Nelson says that part of this shift may also have to do with the way women experience their bodies. Nelson describes a phenomenon she calls “spectatoring,” in which people mentally step outside their bodies and observe themselves during sex, worrying about how they look or how they are being perceived. As women get older, she says, some may become less concerned with scrutinizing their bodies and more interested in how their bodies actually feel during intimacy and sex.
“‘Oh my God, my thighs are so big,’ becomes less important than ‘What does it feel like when I’m touching my thighs or when someone else is touching me?’” she explained.
That can create more room for sexual exploration, including understanding fantasies, discovering what brings pleasure and becoming more comfortable communicating those desires. The survey also found that most women become more likely to communicate their desires and fantasies as they age.
For Nelson, that makes sense: sexual confidence starts with knowing what you actually want.
“You start to feel more empowered, and it starts with knowing what you want,” she says. “How do I express what I want, or act out what I want, or explore what I want if I don’t know what I want?”
The complicated relationship between familiarity and desire
Meanwhile, data also showed that relationships are often a barrier to sexual satisfaction. Half of respondents said their pleasure is not prioritized in their committed relationships, while one in five said they had never explored their sexuality within their primary relationship.
It might seem intuitive that people would find it easier to communicate their sexual desires to a long-term partner, but Nelson says that’s not always the case. After decades working with couples and people in various types of relationships, she says she’s found that it can sometimes be harder to reveal fantasies to someone you’ve been intimate with for a long time.
“You would think that the longer you’re together, the ‘safer’ you are to share,” she shared, explaining that as long-term partners become deeply familiar with one another, it can sometimes create a relationship dynamic that feels more familial and secure, which can complicate eroticism.
Alternatively, Nelson says that for some, it may actually feel easier to explore their wants, needs, and desires in a newer or less familiar relationship, where there is less fear of judgment and fewer expectations attached to who they are supposed to be.
That doesn’t mean long-term relationships can’t remain sexually fulfilling. Rather, it suggests that intimacy and eroticism aren’t always the same thing, and that maintaining one doesn’t automatically guarantee the other.
Turning around the conversation about aging
While trends related to how women experience sex are changing, perhaps the biggest shift is the growing rejection of the idea that women’s sexuality has an expiration date. For previous generations, menopause was often portrayed as the point when sexual desire naturally disappeared, leaving women “dried up.” But Nelson explained that the cultural conversation around women’s sexual health is changing, as people live longer and remain interested in sexuality well beyond middle age.
“I love that women are coming out and admitting that they are more sexual as they get older,” she says.
But the expert explains that this doesn’t mean every woman will experience increased desire with age, or that sex needs to become a priority at all. Nelson emphasized that sexuality looks different from person to person, and some people may identify as asexual or move through periods of life when sex is less important to them.
The broader cultural shift may be less about women becoming “more sexual” with age and more about women having greater permission to define sexuality for themselves. As Nelson puts it, the conversation is beginning to challenge the idea that women’s sexuality has an expiration date, and she has a message for women who think their best sexual experiences are behind them:
“Look, it only gets better. Regardless of how hot you think it is now, oh, honey, hold on, because it’s gonna keep getting better.”
