In Never Too Late: Your Guide to Safer Sex after Sixty, Dr. Shannon Dowler provides adult readers with the latest and greatest “sex ed” using relatable stories, rhymes, and more! No time to read but looking for something to listen to while you walk? The audio version is available as well.
The book starts with the story of Mary. “MARY WAS WIDOWED at a relatively young age—in her early 60s—following a decade of her husband’s chronic illness. Her sex life had long since ceased and, after his death, she assumed she was done with love and intimacy. She felt blessed for what she had experienced in her marriage and certainly did not expect another chapter like the first. After a period of grieving, Mary settled into a solitary life, being a support to her adult children and grandchildren, gardening, and volunteering, until her world was turned topsy-turvy. She had not imagined dating again after losing her lifelong love. Then, in her mid-70s, she was asked out on a date. She could not imagine being romantic with another man. Not at her age. She had not had a date in decades. How did dating even work anymore?
Horrified, she vehemently rejected her pursuer for almost a month. He was persistent. She was intrigued. And thus unfolded a tale of two septuagenarians, both widowed, both discovering an unexpected world of dating and intimacy well into their Golden Years.”
In Never Too Late, Dowler goes on to share some theories about the increasing incidence of sexually transmitted infections in older adults, “Sexual function is prolonged thanks to a class of highly effective pharmaceuticals as generics replace the historically cost-prohibitive brand names. More aging adults are living in closer proximity to each other in senior communities than at any other time in US history, and many are retiring at a younger age due to advances in financial planning, governmental incentives to save for retirement, as well as a generational shift in philosophy on work–life balance.” Advances in technology mean you can look for all kinds of partners, from a one-time meet-up to a companion to platonically share sunsets with–there is literally something for everybody. As our life expectancy increases, people are living longer and sexier.
“What could possibly go wrong?” Dowler asks.
Nationwide, seniors are testing positive for sexually transmitted infections at a higher rate than ever before, with no signs of slowing down. A perfect storm of converging risk factors means that sex today is really different than even 25 years ago, making a “sex ed refresher” critical to maintaining sexual health and turning the trend around of significantly increasing rates of infections.
It seems Baby Boomers are not using protection. According to a study published by Athena Health, seniors have the lowest condom use of any population. “This makes sense if the only reason you use a condom is to prevent pregnancy, but barrier methods (forms of contraception that create a physical barrier between the male’s sperm and the female’s egg) are also critical to preventing unwanted infections by blocking the exchange of body fluids, and all signs point to the reality that seniors aren’t using them.”
‘Is it really such a big deal?’ you may be asking. Here are some facts from Never Too Late: there are significantly more sexually transmitted infections circulating, it is increasingly difficult or impossible to treat the ones we have, and we are finding infections in more places in and on the body than ever before. One of the greatest dissatisfiers of a fully gratifying and satisfying sex life is the increasingly inevitable encounter with a virus, protozoa, or bacteria that can really turn that postcoital smile upside down.
Over the past two decades, chlamydia rates have gone from being essentially non-existent for seniors to having rates double a few times over. Half of the people in the United States living with HIV are aged fifty and older, and almost one in six new HIV diagnoses are in people over the age of fifty-five. HPV is responsible for almost all anal and cervical cancers and more than half vaginal, vulvar, and penile cancers.
As a physician with over 20 years of experience in an STD Clinic, Dowler shares, “I can tell you that many of my patients are over the age of 55 today, and despite the fact that all of them are
sexually active in one way or another, most of them don’t have the conversations about STD
prevention—with their partners or their family doctors—or know how to spot the signs and
symptoms. We need to shift our traditional focus of sexual education and STD prevention from the younger generation to the vital aging population and celebrate that future we all hope for one day.”
Read more about a healthy sex life while aging in Never Too Late: Your Guide to Safer Sex after Sixty, available wherever books are sold.
ABOUT DR. DOWLER:
Shannon Dowler, MD is a board-certified Family Physician and Certified Physician Executive (CPE) who treats patients at a sexually transmitted disease clinic. She is currently Chief Medical Officer for North Carolina Medicaid and an Adjunct Associate Professor with the UNC School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine. She has served as a Family Physician representative to commissions with the American College of OB-GYN and American Academy of Family Physicians. She regularly speaks at conferences and seminars across the country as an STD subject matter expert. Dr. Shannon Dowler achieved notoriety as the leading advocate of safe sex for the aged when her sensational YouTube video STD’s Never Get Old which quickly went viral and was mentioned in newspapers [The Wall Street Journal], magazines [Sports Illustrated], television shows [Comedy Central Midnight with Christ Hardwick], radio programs [Sirius XM Radio], podcasts [My Healthy Life] and local news stations [ABC].
