Award-winning erotic writer Desiree Holt shares her secrets for better sex in marriage in this candid interview.
Dr. Seibel: In this article I’m sharing my interview with Desiree Holt, a 76-year old award winning erotic romance author with more than 130 titles. She’s going to share her views on sex as we age.
Desiree: This is a subject that’s really very special to me so I’m really glad to have the opportunity to chat about it.
Dr. Seibel: I think sex is special to a lot of people and it becomes even more special if it goes away or ceases to become as pleasurable as it was. Many people think that with menopause and the transition into aging in general that sex is just something that no longer happens, there’s no interest in it. What do you think?
Desiree: I think that sex only gets better as you get older because as the body ages, you have to become a lot more inventive to enjoy it the way you would like to. First of all, sex is healthy. It keeps the body healthy. It keeps the mind healthy. I married my second husband when I was 48 years old and he was 52 and I have to tell you, he passed away three years ago but the 28 years that we were married I had the best sex of my life. It’s how you approach it. It’s how you find ways to seduce and arouse each other. Your seduction scenes are a lot slower.
They’re a lot more intimate. You pay attention more closely to the responses of each other’s bodies. Just because you pass a certain age doesn’t mean that you have to put sex in the closet and lock the door.
Dr. Seibel: Exactly. Someone said to me one time, “You can’t run as fast when you’re over 50 as you could when you were 20, but you can go a little slower and enjoy the scenery a lot more.” Maybe that applies to sex as well.
Desiree: Absolutely. When we’re younger, sex is frantic and it’s hot and it’s sweaty and it’s exciting and that’s good too.
As you get older and you reach that certain point, you learn how to enjoy each other’s bodies. You learn what makes the other person respond with pleasure. You learn where their sensitive spots are, their erogenous zones. You try different things, different combinations of things. One of the things …
Just because you pass a certain age doesn’t mean that you have to put sex in the closet and lock the door
I did an article for Gal Time and one of the things I suggested is go out to dinner. There is something very sexy about eating dinner in a candlelit restaurant and watching your partner eat chocolate cake and licking the frosting off her lip.
It’s the little things that tantalize you and get the hormones working.
Dr. Seibel: What you’re really talking about is that with age comes wisdom and communication skills and what you’re saying, I think, is that sex is an intimate form of communication and that we can become much better communicators as we age and that can translate into fantastic sex.
Desiree: Absolutely. One of my most popular books that I’ve written is a book called Rodeo Heat. It’s about a woman in her 40s who’s been a widow for 22 years and has abstained for most of that time because she was focused on raising her children. She grew up in a very regimented, conservative environment and it isn’t until she’s 40 something years old and a friend takes her to the rodeo and she meets this really hot cowboy that life begins to unfold when he takes her on this incredible sexual journey. I have had people of all ages write to me about this book. I had a man write to me and say, “I read this to my wife.” As you age you can learn how to be more sophisticated, more inventive and more communicative.
Dr. Seibel: We live in a society that I feel it definitely caters to the young. When you look at an ad in a magazine, when you look at the beautiful bodies on the beaches, on television or in the movies, it’s always someone young that fits into a bathing suit beautifully; and a lot of people as they age don’t look quite as nice or as perfectly proportioned as they did at a younger age. I think this emphasis on appearance and youth affects and erodes a little bit of self-worth and self-confidence, particularly for women. I wonder if you could comment on that.
When we’re younger, sex is frantic and it’s hot and it’s sweaty and it’s exciting and that’s good too
Desiree: Absolutely. I think that advertising and society in general does real flesh and blood women a huge disservice by trying to portray them all as size two mini models. Women aren’t built that way and most of the models that you see on magazine covers, most of the actresses you see, people like that literally starve themselves into an image that they’re asked to portray. There are lots of things in life to enjoy: food, drink as well as sex and that doesn’t give you the possibility to fit into a size two dress. But if you exercise and you’re healthy and you eat well, nice curves can be very appealing. I have always been what you would call a well-rounded woman physically. I’ve never been skinny in my life, but not fat. I exercise;
I eat well. My husband had been married before to a very thin woman. I remember he said to me that he loved making love to me so much better than he did with his first wife because when they had sex their bones clanked and with me, he could sink into it and enjoy it. I just thought that was such a nice thing to say.
Dr. Seibel: I think that’s a beautiful thing to say. It addresses something very important; if the communication is good and it translates into the bedroom, then the sexual communications will be good and appearance has much less significance. I always am telling my patients that the real sex organ is in the brain.
Desiree: Yes.
Dr. Seibel: The way that you perceive things, the way you understand things, the way you feel those things from another person; their smell and their touch and all of those senses. We have five senses. That sound of their voice and all of these things add into an experience.
It’s all part of the communication that you talked about earlier.
Desiree: I very seldom have a heroine that fits what’s today’s image of the romantic heroine. They’re all real life flesh and blood women with the same flaws that everybody has. The things that I try to convey in my book are if you want to be appealing to your partner you have to take care of yourself.
That means personal grooming, that means finding a scent that appeals to him. It means a hairstyle that is flattering. Just because you past 50 years old doesn’t mean that you should stop taking care of yourself. You find new ways to enhance your appearance and new ways to make yourself attractive so that you are constantly reinventing yourself for your partner.
Dr. Seibel: It’s like in that song from the musical Promises, Promises about wives and lovers. “Wives must always be lovers too.” It’s the whole notion of keeping romance alive and not just letting everything become a habit that hasn’t changed in 20 years.
Desiree: Exactly. I think that society needs to wake up and understand that the people out there are flesh and blood people. They have imperfections but in their imperfections they are attractive. They need to portray images that are reality. Yes, the wives can be lovers too. Husbands can be lovers too. Things need to continue because the minute that you stop looking at each other as lovers, you’ve created a problem that you’re going to have to work to overcome.
This Podcast lives in full audio on Dr.Mache’s Blog- TalkRadio/My-MenopauseRadio Channel.