Medicalization and the Refashioning of Age-Related Limits on Sexuality

This article explores the convergence of sexual medicine and anti-aging medicine as they have refashioned standards of sexual functionality and reconstructed sexual life courses. Reversing the long-held stereotypes of asexual or post-sexual seniors, expectations of continued sexual functionality as an indicator of health in later life now underpin a growing medical and therapeutic industry. While more positive images of eldersex are certainly an improvement over past views that saw older people as both undesiring and undesirable, this article suggests that caution should be exercised regarding an overly celebratory reading of the medicalized construction of sexy seniors.