I promised my new friend Jeanne Fury that I would file a blog post about old people having sex and masturbating.
I’m a girl of my word.
Last Saturday, I read at 2A in NYC as part of Manhattan Litcrawl. I got there a little early, with a rough and tumble entourage that included my friend Sydney:
Sydney
And John and Ken of the remarkable band August Wells:
John and Spike (Ken not pictured)
I didn’t know what to expect from this reading, figured there would be five drunk people and my three friends. I was surprised as we sat watching a very large crowd file into the bar. Here is a bad photo of part of the crowd:
Very bad picture of crowd, somebody buy me a camera already
The night started off with the host Harold Dean James reading a couple poems, followed by Susan Shapiro reading a funny/sad essay about re-meeting her first love 25 years down the line.
Then, I read two short bits from Book-In-Progress #2. The second short bit involves an octogenarian masturbating in a leather corset and thigh-high boots. And the boots getting stuck in the folds of flesh on her thigh.
Here’s the thing. The audience was gasping, groaning and tittering nervously at every mention of the poor 84-year-old character’s sex life. Like this was the most grotesque thing they’d ever heard. They laughed normally at other parts of the reading involving the exposed body parts of people who could still be considered young. But old people sexuality? GAK.
I’ve never found old people horrifying. I once had a job tending the elderly. This involved bathing them (NAKED OLD PEOPLE!) dressing them, sometimes wiping shit from their asses. I’m not particularly squeamish about this. I wiped my brother’s asses (sorry, you guys) when they were babies. The old people were no more or less gross than that.
After I read, Wanda Phipps read some poems that, blessedly for the delicate audience, did NOT involve old people having sex.
Then, the fetching Marie Sabatino read a first person piece about swingers. I don’t think she mentioned the age of these swingers but it was implied that they were at least young-ish and attractive. There were some audience gasps during Marie’s reading (she graphically described a very very large penis) but not the kind of shock my poor octogenarian jerker-offer had elicited.
After the reading, on the way back to Brooklyn, my friend Ken mused aloud that I had read about one of the few things he had never fantasized about. Namely, old lady sex. He thanked me for giving him future fodder.
Maybe it’s because Ken is Irish. We Americans are a culture of squeamish Old People Haters.
We don’t honor (or apparently have sex with) the elderly. We stuff them away somewhere and hope that, if they are being sexual, we NEVER have to know about it.
Yet, all of us are either going to drop dead or GET OLD.
I think old people should have sex and masturbate. A lot.
Also, I hope to be an old person.
What else is left
It doesn’t surprise me that people were “grossed out”. Most people binge on the constant media fodder of seminaked late teens to mid twenties celebrities in full body make up and wouldn’t know a real wrinkle if they were covered in them! I’ve worked home care jobs as well, I think it gives you an uncommon perspective on the human body. Its a work of art – however it looks – because its this amazing functional biological system. Most people don’t want that, they want airbrushing and fresh young clones. Thanks for writing about something interesting… and thanks for challenging the crowd in NYC to go beyond their comfort zone.
I think most of them will get over it when they get old (IF they are lucky enough to get old) and the only way they CAN do it is by masturbating. My dad was 96 years old and in a nursing home and he would be very disappointed if I showed up without the lovely Danusia. “Where’s the girl?” He would ask. Nice piece, thanks for thinking of us old folk.