By Helen Rippier Wheeler, pen136@dslextreme.com
Saturday October 19, 2013 - 09:31:00 AM
“Of all the passions, the old man should avoid a foolish passion for women.”
Dr. John Hill (1716-1775)
According to The Old Man’s Guide to Health and Longer Life in 1764 England, Dr. Hill decreed that to marry was everyone’s duty except for the aged. Note that Samuel Johnson considered Hill "an ingenious man, but had no veracity."
There is still a certain amount of taboo attached to sex among older people. Another doctor, this one contemporary, when asked whether it is possible to maintain a sexual life responded with chapter 13 “Maintain your sexual life” in his new book, Winning Strategies for Successful Aging. Sex retards aging, if for no other reason than that it is also good exercise. Seventy-eight year old Eric Pfeiffer, M.D. writes that men continue to be interested in sex into their 70s. (Men, that is!). Sex in the nursing home? Yes… sez he, you are still a sexual being at any age. But he also provides “a cautionary note” regarding sexually transmitted diseases.
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