Sexuality & Aging

If you’re looking for answers to questions about sexuality for older adults, especially the unique challenges, opportunities and joys it presents, you’re in the right place.  I offer sexuality counseling and education to individuals and couples as well as supervision and training for human services professionals.

Help for Individuals and Couples

  • Increased knowledge about sexual anatomy and sexual function
  • Deeper intimacy
  • Increased desire and arousal
  • Enhanced pleasure
  • Improved communication
  • Adaptations to chronic illness, cancer, and disability
  • Boosting body image and confidence

Solutions for Professionals

  • Short-term supervision for therapists, educators and counselors seeking new ways to work with older clients
  • Webinars and in-person trainings on sexuality and aging
  • Sexuality policy and staff training for retirement communities, continuum of care communities, and assisted living facilities
  • Guest lectures for undergraduate and graduate courses
  • Networking and referrals

Let’s chat about how we might work together to answer your questions and meet your goals.

My Background in Sexuality and Aging

In 2007, with a Masters degree in Human Sexuality Education, I started learning about sexuality and aging through workshops and trainings. I joined forces with a handful of sexuality and gerontology professionals to establish the Consortium on Sexuality and Aging. By the time I earned my PhD in 2010, we had affiliated with Widener University’s Center for Human Sexuality Studies and renamed the organization the Sexuality and Aging Consortium at Widener University. We published white papers, were featured in major media, hosted conferences, led trainings for assisted living facilities, and were instrumental in bringing sexuality and aging into national consciousness. I’ve been co-president of the Consortium for more than a decade and am pleased we are now planning educational initiatives for students studying sexuality and aging at the university.

Over the years, I co-created a Sexuality and Aging graduate course, delivered programs on sexuality policies for long term care and assisted living facilities, have been interviewed for podcasts, articles, and cable TV programs, and wrote the first comprehensive curriculum on the topic, Our Whole Lives Sexuality Education for Older Adults, published by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ (2019).

Through it all, I’ve been aging, too! I’ve got my AARP membership card, and I qualify for the Tuesday senior discount at the local market. I’ve adapted to arthritis flareups, creaky knees, and my own aging body, which helps me empathize with clients who need help adapting to their own new normal.

“Through it all, I’ve been aging, too! I’ve got my AARP membership card, and I qualify for the Tuesday senior discount at the local market. I’ve adapted to arthritis flareups, creaky knees, and my own aging body, which helps me empathize with clients who need help adapting to their new normal.”

Safer Sex 4 Seniors: A Wealth of Resources for Seniors and Providers

In 2012, the Doyle, Dane & Bernbach advertising agency created a public service announcement (PSA) to promote condom use among sexually active older adults. They contacted me to request that the Sexuality and Aging Consortium provide an online “home” for their PSA, along with a directory of resources and experts. The Consortium wasn’t the right fit, so I created a website called SaferSex4Seniors populated with the PSA, a downloadable poster promoting condom use, sex advice, and fact sheets authored by sexuality educators, therapists, doctors, and researchers.

The website was flooded with visitors — the PSA was viewed one million times within one month! The fact sheets were downloaded, and countless seniors benefitted from expert answers to their questions. SaferSex4Seniors was the only repository for accurate, non-judgmental information about older adult sexuality, and it remained active for nearly a decade. While the website is no longer online, I preserved the fact sheets and PSA and offer them here, with the authors’ permission.

You’ll find a range of topics because we define “safer sex” as a range of issues including protection from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and pregnancy, for those in relationships where that option remains possible. We also address pleasure, communication skills, gender identity, and more.

I hope the Safer Sex 4 Seniors fact sheets, PSA and poster will become valuable resources for you. The authors and I are available to assist you, as well. 

⬇️ Download the poster