I've been reading Flings, Frolics, and Forever Afters: A Single Woman's Guide to Romance after Fifty by Katherine E. Chaddock & Emilie Chaddock Egan (Ten Speed Press, 2005). This self-help action plan for finding romance gives advice applicable to singles of any age who want to enter (or re-enter) the dating scene, with just a few tips specifically targeted to our age group, such as getting your adult children to accept that you're dating again.

Though the section on sex is only one chapter, it's a long chapter, and very specific, including the need for safer sex. Most of the advice is okay—though of course not as splendid as in Better Than I Ever Expected—but I really didn't like the command to "have an orgasm: real or fake" and the explanation that it's harmless and "it will make him feel great." I don't think so! What man would feel great knowing his partner just faked an orgasm? Oh, I forgot—the point is that he wouldn't know. That's so manipulative that I shudder. And how would it help your future sex life, if he thinks he's figured out how to set off your personal fireworks and will keep repeating a technique that actually didn't do it for you?

I also didn't like the suggestion to sneak off to the bathroom to apply a lubricant. "You want him to think you are juiced because of him, not because of a gel in a tube." Boo. There's nothing to be ashamed of if we no longer lubricate freely, if our hormonally deprived bodies don't match our emotional juiciness. Make applying a lubricant part of the love play and ask your partner to do it for you, and it can be very sexy. Each time one of you reaches for the bottle of Liquid Silk (my personal favorite), you both know what's about to happen. So much sexier than running into the bathroom and returning suddenly (and artificially) moist!

Here's the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned: If you can't communicate honestly with a partner what you need for comfortable, pleasurable sex and what you need to reach orgasm, what are you doing in bed with this person?

What do you think?

–Joan Price is the author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex after Sixty. Visit her website at joanprice.com and her sex and aging blog at betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com.

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posted at 08:16:23 AM