Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life [Hardcover]

Gail Sheehy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2006

A seasoned woman is spicy. She has been marinated in life experience. . . . She can be alternately sweet, tart, bubbly, mellow. She can be maternal and playful. Bossy and submissive. Strong and soft. . . . The seasoned woman knows who she is. She could be any one of us, as long as she is committed to living fully and passionately in the second half of life.
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. Sex and the Seasoned Woman is the story of an intimate revolution taking place under our very noses.
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. The inspiring stories tell of wives who reinvigorate their marriages after their children leave the nest as well as divorced, widowed, and long-single women who find new dreams and new loves. Sheehy delineates a crucial link between cultivating a new dream and reopening the pathway to intimacy and sexual pleasure. She also examines the latest medical breakthroughs addressing symptoms that have unnecessarily curtailed women’s sex lives.
From women who find their sexuality reawakened by a younger lover, to couples whose marriages survive health crises and grow stronger, to women who finally find a soulmate in their sixties, to stories from seasoned sirens in their seventies, eighties, and even nineties, these portraits cover an enormous range of experience. In them, Sheehy locates the universal patterns that enable us all to recognize and understand our own lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sheehy, a self-described seasoned woman, set off in search of others like herself. Her premise? There's "a new universe of lusty, liberated women, some married and some not, who are unwilling to settle for the stereotypical roles of middle age." Aside from the question whether the 200-odd women she contacts constitute a representative universe, her claim is hardly revelatory. Older women (especially Europeans) have known from time immemorial that age has nothing to do with desire and an urge to live passionately. What makes a difference these days is the opportunities afforded by online dating sites. Short on research, Sheehy, best known for Passages, makes do by stringing together colorful stories of the women she interviews, drawing inflated conclusions from their lives and claiming it all as part of yet another passage (will it ever end?) to Second Adulthood, with phases like "the Romantic Passage" and "Soul Seeking." The book's most chilling bit of information: you really do lose it if you don't use it. But take heart, ladies; Sheehy provides the name of a doctor who employs a nonsurgical method of rejuvenating the vagina, making it just as pink and open as it was when you were... that's right, young. (On sale Jan. 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Famous for her 1976 book Passages and her compelling portraits of political figures for Vanity Fair, Gail Sheehy sets out to take the temperature of the Baby Boom’s libido. Unfortunately, critics feel she has lost her grip on the zeitgeist. It seems that the author is the only one surprised that postmenopausal women are still having sex. The all-female cast of reviewers seems miffed that the book contains so little prurience on the part of Sheehy—further confirming her premise, if not her strategy. Maybe this is a useful book for those Sheehy classifies as WMDs (Women Married, Dammit) or LLs (Lowered Libidos), but the feeling is that most women have covered this turf already. Not that the critics are fooled; they begrudgingly admit that Sheehy will own the talk-show circuit for years to come on the back of this cunningly marketed book.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Random House (January 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400062632
• ISBN-13: 978-1400062638
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gail Sheehy is the world-renowned author of fifteen books, including Passages, which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than three years and has been reprinted in twenty-eight languages.

As a literary journalist, Sheehy was one of the original contributors to New York magazine. A contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 1984, she won the Washington Journalism Review Award for Best Magazine Writer in America for her in-depth character portraits of national and world leaders, including both President Bushes, Bill and Hillary Clinton, former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Sheehy is a seven-time recipient of the New York Newswomen's Club Front Page Award for distinguished journalism. She currently resides in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read and some wise insight, January 17, 2006

By 

MotherLodeBeth "MotherLodeBeth" (Sierras of California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life (Hardcover)

First off the author NEVER says this is a book for every woman. But it is a book for a select group of women who believe that sex is a right and that just because one ages, doesn't mean they aren't sexual.

One review notes that 'Young men don't want older women. That is a fallacy,' which itself is a fallacy. He may speak for himself but he doesnt speak for ALL men.But the author never says 'all' anything. And yes some younger men do like and love women who are older and the author is careful to give excellent examples.

And I especially appreciated her Chapter 15 Sex and the Seasoned Marriage. I was married for thirty eight years to a great man and loved reading page 175 where she lists her four pillars of what seem to hold up long and solid marriages. This is part of what I liked about the book. Same with her Chapter 23 titled Love Tested by Fire, since my husband was hit by a drunk driver and later died.

The author also seems to grasp the European mindset when it comes to love, sex, passion and that we are all different with different needs and wants, and that total honesty with oneself is where one needs to start if they have any chance at a successful union with someone else.

Sure there are some things I disagreed with in reading the book, but I cannot think of any author whom I have agreed with totally. But I do believe that for the educated, well traveled woman or the woman who wants to make some positive changes in her life after age fifty, that the book can be useful as well as fun.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book!, February 5, 2006

By 

Caroline Chamales (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life (Hardcover)

I loved this book. It seems to me the book is really about it's subtitle ... Pursuing the Passionate Life. This is not a book about sex ... it's a book about possibilities. Through her own observations and the stories of others, Gail Sheehy encourages women of all ages to take a risk ... to pursue a dream ... to live life fully. I found it very inspiring and a thorougly enjoyable read. Gail Sheehy has been described as a cultural observer. As a woman in my sixties, I like to think she's identified a revolution among older women who recognize the incredible opportunities they have in what Sheehy describes as their second adulthood. Read this book and be inspired!

28 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read Book for Woman 45+, January 18, 2006

By 

O. Brown "Ms. O. Khannah-Brown" (Twopeas, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life (Hardcover)

*****
Gail Sheehy's newest book "Sex and the Seasoned Woman" is truly a must-read for all women over 45. It covers sex and aging for those women who wish to live passionate lives. It is not for those women who are content to live their lives slogging on, simply surviving from day to day. It is for those of us who want more.

One of the great revelations of this book (for me) is that sex can continue well into the mature years. The author discusses approaches (including medical and scientific) women can now avail themselves of to keep themselves healthy and capable of sexual activity.

One thing I didn't realize is that "use it or lose it" applies to vaginal health. If you do not repeatedly ensure blood flow to the vagina, it will atrophy, and thus be less capable of functioning...the book goes into this in detail (which I won't do here). But I think that this is something every woman should study.

Certain women may have reservations about buying this book, thinking it to be a book about promiscuity. It is not. It covers faithful marital sex---all types of sex---so that it will apply to you no matter what your lifestyle. However, the one constant is that in order to enjoy it, you will need to want to be vital, sensual, alive, passionate, and active in order to find this book interesting.

The book covers the different passages women go through in their pre-50's, and each decade thereafter until they pass 100. It covers sex in the Bible Belt, including the phenomenon of Passion Parties in the small rural towns of the south---apparently there are women in all sociological groups who wish to have good sexual relationships with their mates.

It was empowering to me, because it describes how a woman can retain passion in her life---at the same time not male-bashing, but affirming men for their strengths and their abilities to appreciate a passionate woman.

This is NOT a book about sexual techniques. It is a book of empowering anecdotes about strong and active women in all walks of life and at all ages and levels of physical health who contribute to themselves and to their men in ways that are very life-affirming and life-enchancing!
*****