A long-term, gay couple are among the models to feature on a taboo-busting advertising campaign. Its aim is to highlight the fact seniors benefit from sex and intimacy just as much as younger people.
The campaign launched in the UK at the end of April. It was put together by the respected counseling charity Relate. The organization is well-known across the country for providing counseling to couples facing relationship problems.
Its ‘Let’s Talk The Joy of Later Life Sex’ campaign featured on billboards for two weeks before moving to print and online spaces. It featured a diverse range of older people enjoying moments of intimacy. The campaign was shot by the celebrated photographer, Rankin: better known for his fashion work.
Relate says it wanted to start a conversation about sex in later life. According to a recent study by 3Gem Market research, “two-thirds of over 65s (67%) say sex and intimacy for their age group is rarely (43%) or never (24%) represented in media compared with a fifth (20%) of 18 to 24-year-olds.”
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Furthermore, only “one-fifth of people across the UK think society is OK talking about sex and intimacy in people aged over 60.”
Related: Ian McKellen sets up new program to help other LGBTQ seniors
Gail Thorne, a Sex Therapist with Relate said in a press statement about the campaign, “It may seem as though it’s only young people with ‘perfect’ bodies having sex and being intimate but of course this isn’t true!
“In reality, ‘sex and intimacy in later life’ means different things to different people: for some it’s about exploring new and different sexual experiences, and for others it’s simply about feeling able to express emotion through a gentle touch or kiss on the cheek.
“What we’re trying to do today is open up a society-wide conversation about the fact that sex and intimacy – whatever that might mean – can be as important for older people as it is for anyone else.
“We see every day in our Sex Therapy services how not feeling able to talk openly about needs and desires can lead to a lack of fulfilment and be damaging for individuals’ self-confidence and couples’ relationships. This is what we want to change.”
Another of Relate’s therapists, Ammanda Major, told The Guardian, “Many couples drift into a place where sex and intimacy are difficult, and they might need help with talking about it.”
She added that sex in the media is often shown as something dynamic between young people: “We’re trying to show that people in later life with wobbly bits can feel good about sex. We’re trying to normalise sex among older people.”
The gay couple who feature in the campaign are Andrew and Mark, both in their 60s. The men have been together 31 years.
Their poster image was accompanied by the caption: “Some men discover they love golf. Some men discover they love men.”
In a campaign video, the men talked about their shared moments of intimacy, from their feet touching while they read in bed together to feeling like teenagers again if they have sex for the first time in a while.
“It might go infrequent but I think the older you get the better you get at it,” says Mark. “It’s quite normal now on television, on TV programmes to see older couples sort of showing intimacy. But it’s very rarely shown if the older couple is a gay couple.
“As well as being husbands we’re also like best friends. That side of it’s always been something that’s been a constant intimacy and it hits more physical sexual aspects that go up and down as you go through different times in life.”
Related: LGBTQ seniors celebrated in photo exhibition opening in New York
Andrew told The Guardian that he was normally more reserved than his partner, but shooting the campaign, “was a wonderful experience – and a privilege to be photographed by Rankin.”
Photographer Rankin added about the campaign, “The simple fact is that we all need intimacy now more than ever – and age, of course, really is just a number. The greatness of love and affection – the very things we can’t stop writing books, films, and pop songs about – doesn’t need to change as we find our later years.”
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Kangol2
What a great idea!
Cam
Nice to see that the idea of LGBTQ couples were automatically included, not an afterthought.
The bigots are losing.
Oranos
This will certainly assist those with fears about growing older, and the idea that genuine (emotional) intimacy disappears as one gets older. And it’s about time that we remember we will ALL grow old (if we are lucky enough to live to BE old!), and that Love does not diminish with age. I loved seeing that they show the guys’ bodies and not just confine the images to the face. Older bodies can look extremely hot (and they don’t have to be muscular!).
Great campaign!
Fahd
This is an innovative campaign.
From my perspective, more and more people are aging as singles – I think the statistic for the LGBT community is that nearly 50% age alone. It seems that increasingly people just don’t stay together or lose interest in finding a new relationship, or just prefer to be single. Just from what I notice, the trend is to more single households not fewer. I guess living alone doesn’t preclude one from having a FB, regardless of age.
Tim44309
I would agree with your assessment that large numbers of people age as singlet, but I would like to add the negative effects of ageism as a cause….I am an older man, but most of my contemporaries are only interested in pretty boys for sexual encounters, and it seems that most men use their own age as their “upper limit” for meeting someone, so even men 5 – 10 years younger are not interested. Gay culture has little appreciation or respect for aging gracefully….
Chrisk
That’s very true Tim. I live in Los Angeles so I can’t speak for the rest of the country. However, most men that are single in the mature category just don’t want anything to do with anyone older much less anyone even in their own age category.
Those pictures are shocking to me because I’m not used to seeing guys at that age showing any interest in each other. I love it when I see pictures like that though. Not some middle aged or older Peter Pan walking down the street holding hands with his twink bf. In West Hollywood it’s all you see.
I don’t blame gay men for their extreme fear of getting older though. Especially if you’re single. The very thing that defined you as a gay man ie your sexuality has been replaced with invisibility. As Betty Davis once said. Old age sure ain’t for sissies.
henare
Umm, aging as single is *not* at all “aging alone.” Part of the beauty of the LGBT* world is that we get to run our own lives as we see fit without being tied to this sort of thing. “Chosen family” actually does mean something.
LumpyPillows
Unfortunately, being an older gay man is no fun. Ageism is alive and well. So many of my peers died of AIDS and the emotional scars run deceptively deep. The pool of appropriate age, single gay men, who are not nuts or who haven’t given up is very shallow.
TomG
How nice, so now I know how it SHOULD BE when I get old.
Night
I agree. Roll models of how life for us can look are so important, even if its ‘just’ a billboard!
Bricklayer
I am 70, still active as real working constructionworker. I am single and do not think about to stop working and leave my mates at the worksite. I love my work, my mates even without sex with them although they know that i am gay. At the gay chat and gay romeo site, i can have sex every day if wanted with younger guys. But i keep it very low profile because most of them are fake or wanabees.
When i have sex it is with another workmate from a different contractor… and i still enjoy it very much.
Joe Dalmas
A lot of gay men “wake up” to their own sexuality after 50 when they no longer feel by pressured to live up to unrealistic expectations like a lot of young guys. However, I haven’t met many older couples or couples who have been together 20 or 30 years who still seem to enjoy sex with each other like the people in those photos. Nice inclusive campaign though.