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Written By: Meika LoeCMC 200February 7, 2013Presented by: Vivian Hoa

Sex and the Senior

Woman: Pleasure and Danger in the

Viagra Era

+Meika LoeBA University of California, San Diego 1995

MA, PhD University of California, Santa Barbara 1998, 2002

Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies and Director of the Women’s Studies Program at Colgate University in New York

Teaches courses on aging, gender, culture, and medicine

Books:

Aging Our Way: Lessons for Living from 85 and Beyond (Oxford University Press), October  2011.

Technogenarians: Studying Health and Illness Through an Aging, Science, and Technology Lens, Edited by Kelly Joyce and Meika Loe, Blackwell 2010.

The Rise of Viagra: How The Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America, New York University Press 2004.

+“senior women make sense of sexuality in light of the Viagra phenomenon” (Loe

2004, 305).

women’s sexual health and pleasure

sexual obligation in marriage

sexualized masculinity

sexualized culture

+Key Quotes

“Several senior women volunteered that they had been feeling ‘sexual urges’ in recent years. But for Bette and Nora, this desire is mitigated by concerns with appearing ‘oversexed’ or sexual in the context of widowhood, or by frustration with finding a willing and able sexual partner in one’s age group” (Loe 2004, 308).

+Key Quotes

“Viagra is the instigator of, or the scapegoat for, changing sexual norms. Nora links this cultural change to a generational shift in sexual discourse, which is ‘too open’ today, leaving no sexual mystique. Concurrently, Viagra is to blame for an increasingly sexualized culture that promotes promiscuity” (Loe 2004, 320).

+Key Quotes “This ‘messy’ side of sex and sexuality, for

both men and women, is repeatedly obscured, simplified, or ignored by scientists, journalists, an marketers. The women in this article want us to question such cultural expectations, and to question cultural phenomenon that ends up reinforcing ideas about sexuality conflated with manhood and make desires. At the same time, they remind us that everyone is a product of their culture, and all of us have complex and conflicting ideas and feelings about sexuality in the Viagra era…In addition, whether taking a pill or talking about our desires, all of us are sexual agents, actively defining sexuality in our own lives” (Loe 2004, 321-322).

+The “Big Five” Topic: Sex in the Viagra Era

Focus: Sexuality from the perspective of senior women

Methods: Surveys and in-depth interviews (and a mild discourse analysis)

Target Analysis: Agnus, Annette, Bette, Doris, Hilda, Nora, Pauline, and Sally (67-86 years old women)

Goals: Discover how women have been affected by erectile

dysfunction and Viagra Showing the female perspective on sexuality from an

era where it was uncommon for women to talk about sex

Question cultural phenomenon that reinforces sexuality with manhood and desires

+ Class Activity – Sexy vs. Sexual

Perceptions of sexuality in Media

+Sexy vs. Sexual

+Sexy vs. Sexual

+Sexy vs. Sexual

+Sexy vs. Sexual