Sex and
the Seasoned Woman
“Sheehy is fascinating, a genius at her craft.” – The Washington Post
“An anecdote-filled compendium of women living what Sheehy calls ‘fully and passionately’ … carr[ies] an optimistic message: Despite age, menopause and wrinkles, women can continue to enjoy sex.” – The New York Times
“For readers seeking reassurance that life can begin anew, [Sex and the Seasoned Woman] can serve as a balm and guide.” – San Francisco Chronicle
About the Book
In her most groundbreaking work since Passages and The Silent Passage, bestselling author Gail Sheehy reveals a hidden cultural phenomenon–increased vitality in women’s sex and love lives after fifty.
Boomer generation women in midlife are open to sex, love, dating, new dreams, exploring spirituality, and revitalizing their marriages as never before. This is a new universe of passionate, liberated women–married and single–who are unwilling to settle for the stereotypical roles of middle age and are now realizing they don’t have to. As life spans grow longer and as societal constraints continue to loosen, older women–once free of the exhausting demands of young children, needy husbands, and demanding careers–find themselves ready to pursue the passionate life. They embrace their “second adulthood” as a period of reawakening.
Written in Sheehy’s singularly compelling style, combining interviews and research, this book gives voice to more than a hundred fascinating and colorful women–married, divorced, widowed, lesbian, and long single. Sheehy delineates a crucial link between cultivating a new dream and reopening the pathway to intimacy and sexual pleasure, and examines the latest medical breakthroughs addressing symptoms that have unnecessarily curtailed women’s sex lives. In these portraits, Sheehy locates the universal patterns that enable us all to recognize and understand our own lives.
