Q. When placing the ad were you looking for love – or simply romance? Do you believe that sex, by definition, can be casual? It’s been reported that whether or not you were initially looking for love, you found it or perhaps it found you. Is that so?
A. When I placed the ad, I meant what it said: I wanted to have a lot of sex with a man I liked. I did not think that good sex need be accompanied by love; affection, friendship can do as well, perhaps even better. I do not think sex can be casual; it is an act with profound consequences. When people claim to have casual sex, they are saying they are having not particularly good sex or even bad sex and they don’t want to think about it. I fell in love almost immediately with a man who didn’t love me back; the sex was awful. The best sex I had was with a man I was not in love with but whom I liked enormously; and with a man I adored but who was 32 so love was out of the question, or so I thought.
Q. According to your books, one of your amours was in his mid 30s. Many women start to feel self-conscious about the affects of aging on their bodies – particularly when it comes to having sex with a younger man. What do you say to that?
A. I was as self-conscious as anyone about my body, especially with the man who was thirty-two. But he was persistent, gently so, and I didn’t want to get to be 90 and kick myself for having turned him down. So I hid under a lot of covers. He didn’t, though.
Q. You’ve stated that you don’t consider yourself an advocate for “senior sexuality”, but would you recommend your plan for others?
A. I would not recommend my plan to others; it is dangerous both physically and emotionally. I was willing to risk everything in my search for living fully which means you have to expect the hard parts as well as hope for the good. I got both. One has to know oneself pretty well to do what I did and survive as well as I have; what I do recommend is knowing oneself.
Jane Juska taught English in California for more than forty years–in high school, in college, and in prison. With the publication of her first book, A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance, Juska became a spokesperson for the romantically active senior set, and she appears frequently before book groups and women’s groups. Her most recent book is 2006’s Unaccompanied Women: Late-Life Adventures in Love, Sex and Real Estate. Both books are available in major bookstores across North America.
About ideaCity
ideaCity, also known as ‘Canada’s Premiere Meeting of the Minds’, is an eclectic gathering of artists, adventurers, authors, cosmologists, doctors, designers, entertainers, filmmakers, inventors, magicians, musicians, scientists and technologists. Fifty of the planet’s brightest minds converge on Toronto each June to speak to a highly engaged audience. For more information, visit www.ideacityonline.com
