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Yes, We Do. Even At Our Age. | With Lois Smith

2018-01-10 | 🔗

Lois Smith ("Marjorie Prime," "Lady Bird") reads an essay about passion in the golden years.

This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Modern love. The pod cast a supported by before the work messages begin to pour in let's gift ourselves a good morning, a good morning as a moment to pause and ease into the day. It's a moment to run and chased the sunrise or its gently settle into Europe in a good morning as a moment to be present, to find clarity and be grounded for the day had good days start with good mornings and good mornings start with Yogi T Yogi T tease me to do more than just scared good produced by the Island W B, you are Boston.
from the New York Times and W B. You are Boston. This is modern stories of love, loss and redemption. I'm your host leg after body the it can be challenging to talk about sex, and it can be really challenging to talk about the sex that people have later in life, but writer, Nancy Price Friedman wants to change that Lois Smith stars in the films Marjorie Prime and Lady bird. She reads: Nancy's essay! Yes, we do even at our age.
I sat on the examining table in my urologists office and tried to cover myself with a ridiculous blue paper gown that has become the standard patient uniform in our throwaway society. Surely this wasn't designed with an adult in mind? I put it on with the opening in the front the nurse mumbled, probably for the twentieth time that day as she raced out of the room, or did she say to put the opening in the back either way it was never going to cover my thighs. I hug the two halves of the
Down together, as I waited for the doctor, the urologist to most likely saw a similar scene in every examining room, ignored my open in the the gown and began to ask about my symptoms. When did I first notice? The problem? Do I need to get up more than two times a night? Do I eat spicy foods, drink caffeinated drinks He's a man of my generation a card carrying member of P, using like me, into the golden years. So I was surprised when his next question was Are you and your husband still sexually active, my impulse was to say none of your business, but I knew that would not be an acceptable medical response. I looked him straight in the eye and said.
Yes, we are, I don't know what annoyed me more. His question, or his implied expectation that we weren't active or perhaps shouldn't be, but later I found myself thinking more about his question. What constitutes sexually active for a wife and husband who are seventy and seventy? Eight years old, a certain number of times a week a month a year and seen any statistics on what people our age do or attempt to do behind closed doors. We are not of a generation that openly discusses our sex lives with our friends, so I had no markers to go by here. The sexually active necessarily suggest wild passion.
Or does rolling over in bed and kissing my husband good night count? It doesn't. I know not long ago, right after kissing my husband good night, I turned back and asked: did I kiss you good night yet that does that sound like a person who would remember how many times she's made love in a then period. We placed too much emphasis on long term physical passion, several years ago when I was still working a younger friend at work. Confided in a fellow colleagues me that she had doubts about our current boyfriend. I colleague and I represented twenty five and thirty five years of marriage, respect. Fifthly, and we considered ourselves experts on the subject. the young woman, was in a quandary about whether or not the end the relationship of many years with a man we all adored. He was caring and dope.
regularly sending her flowers to mark special occasions and all nice and loving human being, what's not to like or love, she explained that, after about five years together, the passion had gone out of their relationship, not the love. She assured us just the intense passion that used to be part of their lovemaking patiently, like the two mother hands that we were we size explained that over the years, love mellows, a marriage is made up of a lot more than just the physical. It's more about friendship and genuine caring. It consists of shared experiences and memories that cheering each other on and holding each other up. Ideally, we counseled you come to respect each other
strengths and to overlook the weaknesses proud of our marriage lecture. My colleague and I exchange smug smiles. Our friend, however, looked skeptical, and ultimately she broke it off with him, or perhaps we didn't know the whole story, but it seemed like such a waste of a promising relationship in such a high bar to have to maintain to remain physically passionate for years and years, though afterward we left about the passion part with barely concealed envy, oh boy, who has the energy my friend said with a laugh who has the flexible joints. I added
Does anyone actually remember sex of posts, puzzle? Colleagues, chimed in shrieks of laughter sex at our age is something we're evidently more comfortable joking about than talking about honestly, but that doesn't mean it's not happening despite our declining energy joints and memory, Recently, a friend told me a story about the nursing home where his mother in law lives. He had heard from the nurses, some older residents were sneaking into one another's rooms in the middle of the night. Isn't that disgusting? He asked he sure what was really going on, but he was clear about his discomfort
with the thought of elderly men and women wanting to get into bed with each other disgusting, not to me not by a long shot. Yet the whole issue of sex among older people distracts us from a deeper truth. That simple tender intimacy is very important as we age.
The sort of thing our highly sexual ized biographer. She culture tends to minimize or ignore. I told him about the experience of another friend during her recent hospital stay. Her room mate was an elderly woman who looked forward to her husband's daily visits at night after he left the elderly woman cried quietly in her bed because she missed him so much especially at night. When her hospital bed seemed cold at home, she said tearfully, we always cuddle costing either and hug each other. While we sleep without him, I just
it get warm the next day when the husband returned for his visit. My friend announced that she was going to the visitor's lounge to read on her way out. He whispered to the husband that he should get under the covers with his wife and she pulled the curtain around the woman's bed and shut the door behind her. That's passion and love, but not sex. Yet sex still seems to be the barometer with which we measure an enduring marriage, and increasingly those of us in our golden years are being told that without little chemical enhancement, we can go on having passionate sex for years and DEC,
recently. My husband came across an advertisement in a magazine for retirees for three dvds that guarantee to teach creative, lovemaking and new. I did for you and your spouse to enhance your marriage. I had seen the add two. Apparently plenty of industries are banking on the fact that retired couples want to pursue sex as actively as they pursue gulf and tennis, and such advertising clearly works. We set for the Dvds and waited there a rival. Meanwhile, shortly after my visit to the earliest, I saw my gun ecologist, a woman who is about a decade younger than my son. She expressed surprise when I asked if the surgery she recommended would have any impact on my sex life. Oh, you are still sexually active. She asked in a voice at just barely masked her surprise.
the prevailing attitude about sexuality among older people often strikes me as a throwback to the victorian era not to be discussed in polite society. Fine, don't ask, and I won't tell but a warning to those who do don't ride off my generation, we're not done yet physically.
Cuddling is high on our list. Back rubs are important. Holding hands on walks in the movie. Theater is automatic. Yes, we are active actively involved in each other and in our love of our life together. But what about those dvds that promise to enhance our marriage through created lovemaking? They arrived as promised in an unmarked package and one night we sat down pop the first dvd into the player and began watching. We laugh, some parts. I fell asleep in the middle of the second one and I'm not sure if we ever looked at the third as he packed them away. My husband smiled and said maybe someday when were younger, The
Lois Smith. Reading Nancy Price Friedman, essay, yes, we do even at our age, will hear more from Nancy after the break car max gives you the freedom to shop. However, you, like you, can shop for a car on mine and on the lot
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me and my dad. We like this Sunday together and I wish weather out it. See K, P, o t. yeah right nice. I'm same as earth's sky. The digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee and all our games at N Y Times dot com, Slash games, Nancy Price Friedman says she wanted to write this essay because she was frustrated at how people around her viewed scene There's I was feeling rather dismayed and and someone angry about people's attitudes, whether it was doctors or comments. I heard people make and so I did write it in a light. Hearted vein, I didn't want to be too heavy
I was really getting angry at the attitudes towards seniors and being petted on the head, like I was a simple child or something so I want to tell our side of the story per piece was published in two thousand and nine, and since then she seen some progress and how people treat the elderly I think people are more aware now than they were eight years ago about seniors feelings, particularly in king homes, I really concerns, may that people are put in a wheelchair so side their door and they sit there all day and nobody touches them or hugs them does. Does anything, and I think that I've seen the few times I've been in nursing homes that people make more of an effort to make contact with the seniors and just just touching and hugging is so important. Nancy heard from a lot of seniors. After her peace came out
That was one of the things that people had written to me, but when they responded to my article was it? Yes, we have a life and we appreciate the people realise that we're not a bunch of dirty old people, because we think about love making that that's an important part in nursing homes where people are really lonely, they used to get very angry, had poor going in and out of each other's rooms, but people do establish relationships and people do want to cut altogether at night, and that's not so frowned on any more. The importance of touch is something that's been clear to Nancy throughout her fifty seven years of marriage, and she has little advice for young people who are thinking about relationships and how to make them last. There are a lot of stresses coming down the road and just have to talk them through or accept them. In fact,
ways to work around them. I just sometimes read articles to pet young people, stressing so overdue. I love them. I don't. I love him. Is this a good idea, just let it go and cope with it and don't be so serious about analyzing everything, Nancy Price Friedman, she's, a writer and artist living with her husband in New Jersey after the Break Daniel Jones, on what he took from Nancy's piece? the this podcast.
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Me and my dad, we like this funny together and I wish Heather out it K, p, o t I panicked yeah, nice I'm same is risky. The digital possessed her for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee and all our games at an why times, dot com, flash games, the engine, and editor of the model of column for the New York Times says that this essay gets at a time in our love lives that we don't talk about enough. There's always this cloud of. Should you know what what should we be doing at this age and what should love be at seventy, and
Should it involves sex, there's a hunger among the older portion of our audience for stories that feel familiar to them about how people are navigating long term marriage there suppose it golden years. It is somehow feels invisible, I think, to allow the population but isn't, and you shouldn't be, and here's way lowest Smith wanted to read northeast peace. I think the fact that its all important to get here is what I like the best: nothing, the matter with physical passion, nothing, the matter with long term. Loving tender as she puts it, tender intimacy
think the fact that it's all the subject of discussion in the same essay. I, like that Lois Smith, you can see her in Marjorie, Prime and lady Bird, the next week, Richard Jenkins, who stars in the show of water reads an essay about a man going to the gym to cope with loss. My family was gone, running, wouldn't bring them back still if I could catch up run along beside them for a moment close my eyes and hope. Maybe I would find myself in a place where perhaps there would be another chance. I was chasing hope, but hope was running faster than I could go
modern love. Is the production of the New York Times and we be? You are Boston, NPR station, its produced, directed and edited by Jessica Albert John Parody, Emory see written and Caitlin O Keefe additional sound design by Matt read the idea for the modern love. Podcast was conceived by LISA Tobin. Iris Adler's, our executive producer Daniel Jones is the editor of modern love for the New York Times and adviser to the show music for the podcast, courtesy of a p dot m. I might see you next week.
Transcript generated on 2022-04-16.