Swinging As An AARP Member???

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and been surprised? Believe me, if you’re young enough that this hasn’t happened, it will. The face looking back at you with its wrinkles, glasses, and ear hair just isn’t who you see in your minds eye. It’s not delusion, it’s reality. The reality being your physical body has aged, but you are not your body. You are your consciousness, and that is a separate thing from your body. Your body ages, your consciousness does not.

I remember having a conversation with my mom when I was in my mid 30’s. I asked her when I’d grow up, when I’d become an adult, when I’d change. Of course, I already was. I had been wearing the uniform for probably 16–17 years at that point, married with children, bills paid, all the things.

She told me what has become the single most comforting (and terrifying) thing anyone’s ever told me. I am who I am, there’s no big change coming. Sure, I had to cross the bridges that my being an alcoholic had in front of me to cross, but the core of who I am was established already. The bottom I hit as a drunk came when my behavior while drinking passed below the minimum acceptable threshold for who I am as a person. Changes had to be made, and they were.

If you’re reading us for the first time……Kate and I are a married couple in our 50’s whose relationship is Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM). We’re swingers, our marriage is open; we have sex with other people. We’re in a committed relationship, and somewhere on the polyamorous spectrum; Kate has a boyfriend (or two) and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met in a 12 step meeting; we’re each more than a decade sober now. If you’re curious about how this all works, we talk about our relationship in varying degrees of depth in other posts. We have an email address listed in our “about” page if you would like to contact us.

Kate and I wonder from time to time when we’re going to age out of the lifestyle. When we’re going to be too old to swing and do the ENM things we do. At this point, I don’t know that there is an upper limit. Sure, the crowd thins out as you age, but that’s true of every crowd as you age.

We’re on the high side of the lifestyle sweet spot now, and that’s not going to reverse. From what we’ve seen, 40–55 or so is the sweet spot.

A couple of things converge to enable the younger side of the sweet spot. Kids are old enough to be left to their own devices. There’s a little bit more time and space to engage in different things. Money is maybe a little less of a crisis then it was in your 30’s.

On the higher side of the age sweet spot there’s some less exciting things that thin the crowd, and some pretty awesome things. Death, disease, the ails of aging would be in the former group; grandkids drive the latter.

What hasn’t changed at least so far (knock on wood) for Kate and I is that upstairs, we’re still in our 20’s. I still can’t all the way wrap my head around the simple fact that I’m an adult.

We’ve noticed as our sex life has evolved, our level of intimacy with each other has remained steady. It is about maintaining a baseline and not letting it atrophy.

I’m referring to maintenance not like you do with your car, more like how you do with your digital life. I doubt many of us are still using our first (or fifth, or tenth) phones or computers. It’s a constant evolution, a constant putting to the side things that are no longer doing for you what you need them to do. You’re still using a phone, just differently.

Intimacy is more than just sex; it’s spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and experiencial. Kate and I are engaging in probably 2 or more of those constantly. They each enable the rest, and are always evolving.

Our sex life is probably like most peoples, it ebbs and flows. There are periods of time where life happens, and sex is just on the back burner. There are times where one of our sex drives is on vacation for a day or several. And there’s periods where we’re fucking like bunnies for a couple weeks. The lifestyle weaves in and around our sex life together.

I’ve noticed a couple of things around age and sex over the last 5 years. While I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, I have found myself in circumstances that provided me with the opportunity to observe (and participate) in a variety of sexual situations.

Our primary dynamic is still Kate being a Hotwife. If anything, that’s becoming clearer and clearer. Last weekend at the hotel takeover put that into fairly sharp relief. We’ll probably go into a deep dive down the road once we have it all unpacked. For now, suffice to say we felt hamstrung between Hotwife targets of opportunity and the weight of past play partner’s expectations. This interplay ground Kate’s libido to a nub. I saw that her headspace was off and I wasn’t sure why, so my headspace got wonky. We bounced off of each other for several hours before figuring it out. We’re fairly emotionally literate, especially with each other, and it still took a bit of time to sort out. Don’t let anyone tell ya humaning isn’t hard.

The age gap angle in Hotwife land is 100% in Kates favor; she’s a cougar and damn proud of it. There’s no shortage of guys in their 30’s or 40’s (younger and older too) who are knocking on her door. I’m confident, should she so choose, even in our population density challenged area, she could have a different guy every night for months on end. Much as I love Kate, and as striking as she is, she’s far from the only woman who could have this experience.

We’ve been to our share of hotel takeovers. Most have been non age specific, open to one and all. Last weekend was our first age limited takeover; 50+ only. There was no change in the attendance number wise, it was a sell out and even with speed dating there was no way to talk with everyone. We did talk with multiple people and couples in their 70’s.

In a surprise to no one, people like to fuck. Perhaps a bit of a surprise is age itself isn’t a limiting factor.

I think the organizers of last weekends takeover, Silver and Spicy, have tapped into a market ripe for tapping. My sense is that given our cultures (and our eyes) preference for young hardbodies with perfect hair and teeth, a good chunk of the over 50 crowd isn’t comfortable going to events that aren’t age filtered. Honestly, from what I’ve seen in the lifestyle, age isn’t all that significant a predictor of anyone’s appearance.

This era of “old” folks is wired different, as will the next one be. The boomers may have been ready to slide into canasta at the home in their silver years, Gen X not so much.

The single biggest factor in Kate and I experiencing the sex life we do has been change in mid life. I think in one way or another, that’s a common denominator for the majority of lifestyle couples that are in our age bracket. For some couples the change has been as natural as kids growing up and moving out of the house. Ours has been rather extreme I guess; we’ve each gotten sober over the last 15 years, and each divorced in the last 6–7.

Another HUGE factor is the big biological imperative to reproduce has left the building. No one is looking to continue the species when they’re 55. Sex in your 50’s and beyond is kindof like gay sex….you’re doing it for no reason other than the pure fun and joy of it. Pregnancy is either not a concern or no where near the worry it was 10 or more years ago.

Speaking of biology….one of my biggest soapboxes in this blog has been to have the talk with your doc, and if doable, get the boner pills. Period. Full stop.

For me, the pills have been a God send; I don’t go into a swing potential situation without one in my system. My experience with the pills (a generic Viagra) has been that one 20 mg pill is all I need. More that that and I get the headache and stuffy nose that’s all too common with them; more stuffy nose than headache. Also, with 2 or 3 pills I’ve found myself regressing back to 5th grade and having to manage unintended boners; damn thing has a mind of it’s own with more than one pill. I’ve found that mixing boner pills and caffeine isn’t a great thing, nor is having a full full stomach. I can’t comment on how booze interacts. Watch the coffee, and don’t eat as full a meal, and low dose. That’s the recipe that works for me.

Like so many things in the age of the internet, sex in the AARP years is just more visible now.

Kate and I had a talk last night about how our sex life is changing. Testosterone is a word I’m going to mention when I see my doc in a couple weeks. Kate has been on hormone replacements for about a year. I wear glasses, manage gout, and have tired back. I’ve said it before, and will again now; nothing fucks you harder than time.

Here’s the good news…

You’re alive. Remember that girl from high school who died in a car wreck? That acquaintance who AIDS took in the ‘80’s? The kid from down the street who stuck a needle in his arm and didn’t remove it? The family member who didn’t survive Covid? How about the friend who went to Iraq and didn’t return. The guy your age who never took care of himself at all and had a massive heart attack in his garage? You’re here. Ok, you’re 45 or 58 or 63, you’re older than you were yesterday; we all know people who didn’t get that privilege.

Sex is one of the supreme benefits of being alive, I’d argue that it only gets better with time, so don’t sweat the grey hair and wrinkles….

Thanks for reading!! Be kind to yourself and others,

Sam & Kate

PS….If you’ve made it this far, please take a moment and clap (once, or up to 50 times) for this post. It’s feedback for Kate and me, (comments and highlites are always welcome too!) and helps push the story up algorithmically. Thanks!!!