On reflection, maybe I have on occasion overstepped the mark, but it’s so hard to know where that mark is anymore.
I’ve been called all of the above in my time and not for anything illegal, immoral or insensitive – but because I’m a 67-year-old man who likes to talk about sex, think about sex, joke about sex and have sex (sue me). At social occasions strangers are quick to dismiss us as dirty old men. Friends lecture us about not acting like an “old letch”. At the slightest squeak of our sexuality, our teenage children accuse us of being “creepy” or “yucky”. We think we’re being gallant the world thinks we’re being gross. We make people uncomfortable with our comments and compliments to women, young and old. Especially if, like me, you are over 60 and single. But this tolerance is sorely tested if you are a heterosexual male over the age of 60 and still keen on sex. You can be gay, lesbian, bisexual, polyamorous, in transition and non-binary you can have a fetish for feet, a passion for bondage or a love of leather, and no one bats an eye or passes judgment – at least not in public. When it comes to sex and sexuality, Britain has never been so open and so tolerant.
