Love Beyond Limits: Adapting Intimacy Through Life’s Changes

Sexually active people sometimes must deal with physical limitations and have to be creative to get their erotic needs met.

For the past six weeks I’ve had some minor surgery followed by a tenuous stomach that kept me from having access to some of my usual sexual outlets. This got me to thinking about other people in similar situations.

It’s inevitable that people get sick, sometimes for long periods of time, and sometimes chronically. People have physical injuries or impairments that sideline them for a while. Some people have a short-term or permanent mental or physical disability. Then there is the normal wear and tear caused by the natural ravages of aging.

Add all that together and many people at some point in their lives, or ongoing, deal with challenges that make having sex or engaging in erotic play a tougher hill to climb.

Having a physical or cognitive disability doesn’t change your sexuality or your desire to express it. Assuming someone with one or more of those challenges has an interest in sex or erotic play, then figuring out how to address that need is important. Here are some thoughts I’ve had lately about this topic.

We need to normalize that people with any of those challenges might also want to have sex and play. Often, I think our culture wants to push such people to the back and not think much about them. That’s not good. We need to embrace people who deal with any of these physical or mental realities and help them figure out how to have a fun and fulfilling sex life.

This also means that venues and producers need to start taking such people into account when designing their events. There is a play space in San Francisco that impressed me so much when they gave me a tour. They had an entire three-station BDSM play section of the space dedicated to people with physical challenges. How cool is that? I was so impressed.

Communities need to collectively normalize people with physical or mental challenges being a part of their social and play circles. Helping an older person get to and from an event. Having wheelchair accessible spaces. Securing a staffer or volunteer should someone need help up and down stairs. Asking event attendees upfront if they require any special considerations and try earnestly to help them. Include accessibility guidance on websites and promotional materials. Most of all, model the kind of accepting attitude and behavior you hope others will demonstrate.

Sometimes we can get creative with our sex and play. During the Covid pandemic, many people adapted to having “cam sex” as a way to satisfy their needs. Kink play like remote control devices and chastity/keyholder play rose in prominence. People got creative and adjusted.

All that’s great in terms of accommodation and planning, but what about the individual? What about the person who is dealing with a broken leg, chronic fatigue, or simply getting older? What advice do I have for them?

A lot of my advice can be encapsulated in the directive to adjust expectations. I know. Easier said than done. I agree. But it’s the only way to effectively address such concerns.

I’m 70 years old. My body is the age it is and there’s nothing I can do about that. That means sometimes I adjust my energy expenditures and activities to accommodate my older body’s requirements.

That’s fine for the physical stuff, but what about adjusting our minds? Just recently I had a discussion with a friend who’s a few years older than me. He’s also gay and has navigated his entire out life within the highly sexually active sector of the gay men’s scene. He’s dealing with the natural realities of aging along with a relatively recent medical diagnosis that further complicates his sex life. This weighed on him heavily.

When you’re an attractive person like him who is used to easily cruising for and finding sex whenever they want it and suddenly the number of people responding to your advances potentially dwindles, that can be a difficult thing to accept. That’s just life. Yes, with the rise of “daddy” attractiveness within gay men’s culture, older gay guys today probably have an easier time of it that in the past. But still, the truth is not all younger people are attracted to older. I think that’s something one must accept if you’re to arrive at some peace of mind about all this.

My advice to my friend was simply me saying how I’ve adjusted to now “fishing in the right pond” if I’m looking to connect with someone sexually. I’m not going to attend a dance party of 20-somthings and assume lots of them will hand me their name and phone number. But I might walk into a leather bar I know is populated with a wide range of guys including older men and assume I’ll have more luck there. Fish in the right pond. To do otherwise can be massively frustrating. This applies to hookup apps too.

Another person in my intimate social sphere is dealing with some bad back problems lately. At one point he was playing with the man who is his submissive and told him “Tonight you’re going to top me because me topping you right now isn’t going to happen.” They adjusted. They had an amazing time. People adjust.

I know my examples here were of gay men because that’s the community in which I most commune and play, but I think my advice applies across the orientation and gender spectrum.

The philosophical school of Stoicism has something to teach us about all this. One of the cornerstone foundations of Stoicism is acceptance. It teaches us the art of acceptance, the ability to accept what we cannot control and focus on what we can.

That’s my best advice. Accept what is a short-term or long-term reality. Accept that others have certain challenges and do what you can to assist or accommodate them. Get creative. Think outside the proverbial sex activity box.

Remember also that your brain is your biggest sex organ. If you can keep an active fantasy life going on in your head, sometimes even something as simple as masturbation suffices. It’s nice if our bodies cooperate, but it’s our minds that ultimately react to anything we may be doing physically. If you can foster enough of the mental turn on, you can perhaps garner enough erotic satisfaction to be content.

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