Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Spirit and Body Willing: Sex Over Age 70

DOCUMENTARY TRANSCRIPT:

SFX: Music "Our Love Is Here To Stay" by Dizzy Gillespie from "Atlantic Jazz Bebop"

Frieda Santagrossi: Some people think that when you get old, you don't want to have sex or that you shouldn't have sex. And I think that as long as the spirit is there and body is willing, go to it.

Bill LeBlase: They ask me what do I think about sex, you know. Well I say if you don't use it you lose it.

Alice Dionne: I think he said something about, I don't know whether I can do it. Didn't you? Yea. And I said, Oh come on. You can do it. And he did.

Frieda: They talk about Viagra for men. Now they have medication for women also. Just think if a Viagra man and a medicated women get together, there has to be a real explosion. [laughs]

SFX: Music "Our Love Is Here To Stay" Dizzy Gillespie

Todd: Viagra started a whole new conversation about sex and has become the punchline of plenty of jokes.

Diane: But a lot of people still think there's no reason to talk to older people about sexuality. After all, there's no way they're still having sex.

Elijah Ward: There's been a construction of the older individual in American society, even today, as someone who's not very sexual. Sexuality is something that tapers off and dies as you get older. But we've found evidence to the contrary.

Diane: That's Elijah Ward, a sociologist at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He has spent the last five years studying the sexual activity of seniors living in public housing, and he reads from a list of the behaviors he found.

SFX: Ward returns, reading list of sexual behaviors

SFX: Music "Our Love Is Here To Stay" Dizzy Gillespie

Diane: Des Plaines is a suburb of Chicago, near O'Hare. It prides itself on being a "City of Destiny." At least, that's what the signs around here say.

Diane: Oakton Arms is a senior apartment building off a busy commercial street in dez PLAYns. About 100 people live in apartments here, and nearly a third of them are over the age of 90. The oldest is 99.

SFX: Nat sound from lobby, faint sound of easy listening music from speakers. Also occasional sound of man snoring.

Todd: We're sitting on a comfy sofa in the guest lounge. A fellow nearby has made himself right at home. We're waiting to talk to Jay Lewkowitz, executive director of Oakton Place, a complex that includes Oakton Arms and a nearby nursing home.

Todd: Lewkowitz is unusual in that he's also a sex therapist. For years he led workshops at Loyola University's sex clinic. So groups planning talks about senior sexuality often turn to him.

Jay: I was asked to speak at a local senior center. They wanted the topic but they didn't want the topic. Instead of calling it what it was, Sex and Aging, we used Relationships in Later Life. When we got to the question and answer period, the first hand raised was, "Where can I buy a vibrator?" Well maybe the seniors are ready to talk to about this.

Todd: That's certainly the case here at Oakton Arms. Although most residents choose to keep their private lives private, they know they can turn to Lewkowitz if they have questions or want to talk, explicity, about sexual concerns.

Jay: One of the residents, who I knew before she got quite ill, and was confined to bed. And she knew I was a sex therapist. One day, she asked to see me. She asked if she was going to hell. I said, That's really out of my area. [laughs] Very quickly she said she'd been masturbating. What she was masturbating to or about was really reminiscences. She'd had a great marriage, a lot of good sex in the marriage, and it was an important part in her life. I said, That sounds really beautiful. Then, OK. That decreases the anxiety. I don't know what it did for her spiritually, as far as whether or not she goes to hell. But it certainly made her feel more comfortable.

SFX: Nat sound: Ellen in dining room

Todd: It's 11:30 now at Oakton Arms. Lunchtime.

SFX: Nat sound of the lunch rush, woman saying "Good Morning" as residents file past.

Todd: People using walkers and riding in wheelchairs file past laGUYa maNALigod, the dining room manager. No one gets past her without a nice word.

SFX: More nat sound of woman saying, "Good morning."

Todd: For appetizers, there are miniature hot dogs with ketchup, and the main course is a choice between Hungarian goulash or salmon-stuffed baked potato.

SFX: Nat sound, lunch

Todd: After lunch, we gathered a group of people in their seventies and eighties to talk about sex. There's Millie, Florence, Si and Alice. And at the head of the table is Frieda Santagrossi. At 87, she is stout, blunt and feisty.

Frieda: The closest I ever came to learning anything about sex; the boys used to have ? and I don't know if they still have them ? they had a little booklet and they used to flip it real fast like a movie. Do you know what I'm talking about? And it would show action. And we would look and laugh but still not really know what we were laughing at. And that's the truth.

[Todd] And so what did that picture look like?

Frieda: Oh, it was dirty. It was either a nude man and a nude woman with their genitals exposed, and when you flipped it it showed...

Millie: You did it like this ... slow motion or fast motion. And you'd see it.

Frieda: I have to laugh. When I got married, I thought that as soon as you get married you immediately become pregnant, and Dummy thought the same thing I did. We were married two weeks and we went to Springfield to visit his parents. I was going down to the basement, there were three steps, and I lost my balance and I fell. I thought, Oh my, I'm going to have a miscarriage. Dummy thought the same thing I did, and I wasn?t even pregnant.

Florence: The whole reason for sexuality is to propagate the race, right? Well we?re too old for that. So naturally, the desire goes down. It's just a natural thing.

Frieda: But just a minute, I disagree with that a little bit. To me sexuality, sex in itself is a love act.

Florence: That?s why the race goes on, that's why you have children.

Frieda: But even when you can?t have children anymore, you still can enjoy sex because you love your partner.

Florence: In the long run, in the long, big picture, the reason for the sexuality is to keep on having children and keeping people going.

Frieda: OK.

[Diane] Do couples form here very often?

Frieda: No. There's only one couple that I know of, Nancy and Frank. And Joanne introduced me to Frank, she said, "Frank just moved in here, and he's already found a girlfriend. And maybe the same thing will happen to you." And I said, "Oh boy."

[Todd] What if a man showed interest?

Frieda: Well, maybe I?d feel flattered that anyone looked at this little short fat and found me interesting. And I really don?t know how I would respond, because it hasn?t happened yet. See how lucky I am?

[Diane] Do you think there is a maximum age at which one could have sex?

Si: I don't think so. It's the individual.

Frieda: That's right, I agree with that.

Si: We just got married 10 years ago.

Frieda: Wonderful.

Si: As far as sex was concerned, it was real good up to when we hit the 80s.

Frieda: But still, I want to ask you a question, even though you say you're not active in sex anymore, don't you still feel good that you can hold her in your arms...

Si: Oh yes!

Frieda: ... and that she can pet and stroke you? Isn't that a wonderful feeling?

Si: Yes. And that feeling hasn't gone away.

Frieda: That's good. That's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

Todd: The desire for warmth and closeness never fades. But there are plenty of things that work against seniors. Demographics, for one. At Oakton Arms, there are 10 women for every man. That doesn't leave much opportunity for women like Frieda. Jay Lewkowitz.

Jay: The women have the issue in terms of what happens if they do go after a man. There are men available. So they are subjected to various kinds of slams from friends of theirs, if they do start to overdress, put on more makeup, act in a certain kind of way.

Jay: If you want to say, well, what do the men do? They're scared to death of the women. It's overwhelming. It's hard for them to find a place for themselves. If they want to play bingo, they go into a room and there's three guys and 40 women. And so, maybe I don't belong here.

Todd: In a culture that prizes youth, seniors often don't feel like they belong. Some have a hard time seeing themselves as desirable.

Jay: Our society has got all these beautiful images of people all over the place. Britney Spears, not to slam poor Britney. But I don't look like Britney anymore, even if I did once, or I thought I did once. The evidence in the mirror is really working against me. That becomes a source of shame or unhappiness. And so that's sometimes an issue.

Todd: And so is illness. Physical problems like arthritis and heart disease, side effects from medications, and the natural decline of sex hormones ? all of these things can disrupt older sex lives. For men, it may take longer to get an erection. For women, there can be vaginal dryness.

Diane: And when one person in a relationship gets really sick, it can complicate, and even end, a sex life. Daniel Kuhn is an expert on dementia and sexuality at the Mather Institute on Aging in Evanston.

Kuhn: I think it's very difficult. Because the spouse who is well is taking on so many other responsibilities, regarding decisions, regarding finances, regarding driving. As they assume a caregiving role, I think it becomes more difficult for them to see themselves as an equal sexual partner, because they're so dominant in other areas of the relationship.

Diane: Richard Carroll is a sex therapist who works at Northwestern University Medical School, and he sees a lot of older couples. The successful ones don't expect things to be like they were, when they were 18.

Carroll: The sexual changes that come with age, as I always refer to and think about the line from that song by Willie Dixon, which goes "I'm built for comfort, not for speed."

Diane: It's common for a sexual relationship to slow down and maybe even stop at times. And yet when one partner dies, a surprising thing can happen.

Carroll: Most widowers, widows, after a period of mourning, grieving, rediscover sexual feelings. What's interesting is that those feelings can be awoken fairly quickly fairly strongly, after being dormant for quite a long time, in the context of a new relationship.

SFX: Music "Love Is Here To Stay" Ella Logan, from "From Gershwin's Time: The Original Sounds of George Gershwin"

Diane: We're in an elevator, going to see Si and Alice Dionne. Another resident rides up with us.

Diane: We knock on the door and hear a faint "Come in."

SFX: Todd and Diane enter room, sounds of phone off the hook as Diane talks to Si and Alice about phone. [fades under narration]

Diane: Si and Alice greet us from big cushioned chairs. Their apartment is cramped: a single room filled with the belongings of two lifetimes.

Diane: Si is in a white dress shirt with black suspenders. He's wearing big, square Larry King glasses. Alice has on a colorful sweatshirt, and her hair is a white corona around her face.

Diane: They met ten years ago, when they were both in their seventies.

Si: In church, if I turned my head a little bit I could see her on the other aisle. I said, Geez. I wonder who she is?

Alice: I was sitting in the back, and I see him about eight pews up. I thought, My golly, who is that? My friend introduced us. She was the one who had the hots for him.

Si: I went for communion and I was dressed with a suit. That turned the point, I guess. (laughs)

Si: I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride.

Alice: That?s right.

Si: She said yes. We went for a ride. That was the start of it.

Alice: Right after we met, he came over to my house. My son comes along and he didn?t know about him yet. So he was sort of, "Oh boy, look at my mother's doing." (laughs)

Si: And they were happy for us. There was no bickering about it. It's wonderful that they think that way. Because we would have done it anyway, no matter what they thought.

Diane: Si is 86 now, and Alice is 83. Both had long and happy first marriages, and both were widowed. They enjoyed this chance to be newlyweds again, together.

Si: In the period of 24 hours, we had intercourse three times. Not on the same day, but 24 hours.

Alice: I think he said something about, I don't know whether I can do it. Didn't you?

Si: Yes.

Alice: I said, Oh come on! You can do it. He did.

Si: It was as good as it was when we were young.

Alice: Yes it was. It was perfect.

Si: Up to year 80, we had sex whenever we felt like it. Then when I hit 80 the desire was there but it couldn?t happen.

[Diane] Have you talked to a doctor about whatever is keeping you from that?

Si: I think it's old age.

SFX: Music "Jersey Bounce" by Les & Larry Elgart from "Sentimental Swing" (Columbia)

Diane: Many seniors are perfectly happy to let their sex life end. But sex therapist Rosemary Hutchinson, who works with a lot of suburban Chicago seniors, says some of her clients still have sexual ambitions.

Hutchinson: I do occasionally get women in their seventies who want to have their first orgasm.

[Diane] How do you help them?

Hutchinson: The way I would help a 20 year old who's never had an orgasm. Which is to teach them about their own body, to encourage them to explore their own body, to prepare their body for achieving an orgasm. It's the same at 70 as at 20.

[Diane] How receptive are they to the advice?

Hutchinson: Very. They're very desperate to have them. I mean it really means a lot to them. They come in a lot of pain, that they have not had one. And they don't want to die without having one. And they're totally receptive, highly motivated.

[Diane] What do they report once they've achieved an orgasm?

Hutchinson: They're very delighted. [laughs] It's meant a lot to them.

SFX: bingo

Todd: Bingo always draws a crowd at Oakton Arms. Almost every seat is taken.

Todd: We pulled Bill LeBlase aside for a chat. Everyone said we should talk to Bill, the resident casanova at Oakton Arms.

Todd: At age 87, his hands are swollen with arthritis, the legacy of his career. For over 70 years, Bill cut hair.

Bill: I became a barber at 13 years old. Whatever education I got, I got from people coming into the barbershop. They ask me, what do I think about sex. Well I say, If you don't use it you lose it.

Bill: I know I almost lost it. I was married 42 years, my wife passed away. And I was just about all washed up. Then I met a young chick.

[Todd] What's your lady friend's name?

Bill: Maria. She's Russian. She wants to get married. She's looking for her green card. And she's been very, very good to me, very good. I've been sick, and she took care of me. She's bought me clothes, you know, she bought me winter clothes.

[Diane] Are you sexually active with her?

Bill: Yes, very much. A lot of men will tell me that I'm lying. I tell them, you put up a dollar, you bring the woman, and if I can't produce, you win a hundred bucks. Nobody takes me up on it.

[Diane] So you don't think there's an age that ends sexual feelings?

Bill: No. In fact, I have more women chasing me now than I ever had in my life.

[Diane] Do you think your kids are uncomfortable with you being sexually active?

Bill: My son he never says anything. My daughter, she's way against it. She says, Dad, do you realize you're going out with a woman my age?

[Todd] And what do you say?

Bill: What could I say? I just shut up.

[Diane] Do you think there's a discrimination against older people regarding their sexuality? If everyone's having such a hard time...

Bill: No. I'm proud of it. I am proud of it. To think, at this stage of the game, at my age, that I'm capable. Like my lady friend, she says, If it wasn't for me you'd be dead by now.

[Diane] Do you think that's true?

Bill: I think so.

[Diane] Does it worry you that you'll tax your heart?

Bill: No, actually if anything it stimulated your heart.

[Diane] What do you want to tell senior men who aren't sure if they can still do it, still use it?

Bill: What a way to die. [laughs] What a way to die. Could there be a better way to die? You know. [laughs] I tell it the way it is. Ahh, gee.

SFX: music "Oh Marie" by Louis Prima, from "Big Night" soundtrack

Diane: As people age, caretaking roles often switch and suddenly adult children find themselves responsible for their parents. This can make things uncomfortable, especially when sexual topics come up. Daniel Kuhn of the Mather Institute remembers a call he got from a woman who was distressed over her mother's behavior.

Kuhn: And within weeks of going into the nursing facility, the daughter got a disturbing call saying that your mother was found in bed, fully clothed, with a man, and they have grown very fond of each other very quickly, and it looks like it could evolve into a sexual relationship. And so the daughter called me and said, "Dan, What do you think I ought to say?" I said, what are your reservations? She said, I can accept my mother's dementia, but my mother's sexuality? This is just outrageous. I can make other decisions for her. But whether or not for her to be a sexual partner, that goes beyond my role as I see it. So we talked about this other man, and we talked about her mother. Eventually she came away feeling very good about her mother and this gentleman. And they had a very healthy, close relationship until this man died.

Diane: Dementia and Alzheimers can change older people's behavior and make them lose inhibitions. This can strain family relationships. Jay Lewkowitz.

Jay: It's not uncommon for a lot of dementia people to like to undress. We're not always sure what that means. Whether they think they want to take a shower and so they're doing that. Or their clothing is too tight or too loose, or they want to feel the air against their skin. Or they're hot. There's probably ten reasons why they could be undressing. But imagine if you're the daughter and you walk into mom's room and she's has her top off. And maybe she's always got her top off. Everytime you put it on, she takes it off. And she does that frequently. So even something as benign sexually as that can be upsetting.

Diane: Sexuality is an undiscussed topic at most nursing homes, partly because staff members receive little or no training and administrators don't get involved unless there's a problem. As a result, people working with seniors sometimes lack sensitivity. Daniel Kuhn says that will have to change before the boomers retire.

Kuhn: I must warn all nursing home providers out there, be on the lookout for people like me. Because we're not going to stand for it. We are going to demand that we be treated as individuals, that our privacy will be respected, that we will be free to have a partner. If our traditional partner is deceased or living at home, we are going to make sure that we have a companion that we share a life with.

Diane: Another challenge facing nursing homes is how to accommodate openly gay couples ? a relatively new phenomenon. Jay Lewkowitz.

Jay: People will be willing to say: Yea, the two of us are here, we live together, we've been together for all these years and we're going to retire together.

SFX: Music "Foggy Day in London Town," Fred Astaire & Ray Noble and His Orchestra, from "From Gershwin's Time: The Original Sounds of George Gershwin" under SFX: Bingo [mini scene]

Todd: Life at Oakton Arms may be what many aging Americans have to look forward to, health and wealth willing. Two meals a day. Activities in the afternoon. A concert at night. Excursions every now and then. And a pull cord in each room in case of falls.

Todd: And, maybe, they'll live in an atmosphere ? like the one at Oakton Arms ? where their sexuality is respected, encouraged, and where there's someone to talk to who will listen. That, says Jay Lewkowitz, is his hope.

Jay: It's a way of almost saying there's a vital force inside you that doesn't diminish as you go through the lifecycle. And that's sexuality. It's also lots of other things. Maybe sex is a concrete example of being positive, being true to yourself, knowing that there are pleasures out there and you can have them. And that can be yours for the rest of your life. You can have that in different forms and different ways in different settings but that's still there. Sex is a life force. It's life giving. It's certainly pleasure giving. So why would you stop that just because you're old?

SFX: music "Until I Met You" by Duke Ellington & Count Basie with their orchestras, from "Sentimental Swing"

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