Everything you always wanted to know about sex over 60
Saul Cooperman, former state education commissioner, produced "Sex Over Sixty," the definitive documentary on all sexual issues affecting older people.
The project was no lifetime goal. Some Florida tennis buddies asked a question about sex that none of them could answer. Back home in Bernardsville, Cooperman started reading. Which is when Paul Koether, a financial backer and fellow Lafayette College graduate, called.
"What are you reading about these days?" he asked.
"Sex," Cooperman replied.
"Great topic for people over 60," Koether replied. "Let's make a film about it."
Cooperman had two objections: He didn't know anything about filmmaking or, for that matter, sexuality.
"My generation was raised with all these stupid, crazy myths," said the tall, fit 73-year-old. "This was all new to me and I like to learn new things."
The first step, Cooperman said, was to find just the right host. He did. Dennis Sugrue, University of Michigan professor, past president of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, and author of "Sex Matters for Women."
The next step in the project, a production of Cooperman's Academy for Teaching and Leadership, was to find 15 men and women over 60 willing to talk on camera about their sex lives.
"Even after we'd sunk $30,000 in filming at NJN studios," Cooperman said, "I still wondered, will they talk?"
They sure did. For starters, more than 150 answered ads calling for participants. A lot of people had a lot to say.
The four-and-a-half-hour documentary, designed so people can click on the topics that interest them, dispels myths about sexuality over 60 and gets specific -- and personal -- about biology, spirituality and emotion. Sugrue leads the discussions among the 15, covering the male gold standard for sexual satisfaction (erections) and the female one (kissing); sex after surgery; sex during menopause; low desire, and loss and loneliness.
Mechanics are not left behind, as the group discusses penis pumps for him and vaginal suppositories for her and, for both of them, a discussion of outercourse as an end in itself, oral sex as the art of intimate talking and skin as the largest sex organ.
"We have social discussions about sex in our 20s and 30s and scientific discussions about sex in our 60s," said Bill Taylor of Clinton Township, a 63-year-old investment banker featured in the film.
The film is important, he said, because people need to understand their bodies to navigate their older years. Men need to know Type 2 diabetes is a leading cause of sexual dysfunction and women need to comprehend how loss of estrogen affects them.
"The film is very intellectual," he said, "which is what you need as you get older."
But the documentary also is filled with frank personal stories that fascinate. One woman tells of getting her first orgasm at age 50 -- with a vibrator.
One man talks about baby boomers expanding the paradigm of lovemaking to include more than intercourse. Said another, "I am looking for a woman who feels attractive, someone comfortable with herself and shows it."
Throughout the documentary the men and women appear as riveted by what they share as the statistics Sugrue presents, including the sobering news that 10 to 15 percent of newly diagnosed HIV patients in the U.S. every year are over 50.
On the air Cooperman surprised even himself, sharing a tender story of his late wife's final days in the hospital and the challenges of resuming dating.
The group agrees the slower, sensitive sex of their older years is more satisfying than the impassioned, performance-driven sex of their youths. They also say sexuality is worth the work it requires.
"Sex Over Sixty" is designed to light the way.