Jane Seymour’s right: sex over 60 (and she’s 72!) can be the best of your life

Sex is wasted on the young, says Cosmo Landesman as he approaches his 70th (still up for it) birthday. And here’s why the fomer Bond girl is so right to break the taboo of the lust that dare not speak its name...

Actor Jane Seymour has said her sex life is better than ever (Getty)

The news that former Bond girl Jane Seymour is having the best and the most “passionate” sex of her life at the age of 72 – with her 73-year-old boyfriend no less – might come as a surprise to many people; but not me. I’ve been extolling the joys of bonking on after 60 ever since I turned 60 – nearly 10 years ago.

The idea that sex can be terrific after 60 – and yes even after 70 – is one that society still has trouble accepting. A quick survey amongst my young and older male and female friends regarding Seymour’s claim provoked the following responses: incredulity (“liar!”) disgust (“yuck!”) and envy (“lucky her/lucky him”.)

But why do we find it so hard to accept the idea that old people can have an exciting erotic life? One reason is that it’s a taboo topic; it’s the lust that dare not speak its name. For many older people sex is a wonderful thing to do, but an embarrassing thing to talk about.

Another reason has to do with ageism. After a certain age you’re meant to be all sweet and sensible and sexless. After 70 you give up hot sex for hot chocolate and a nice cuddle instead of coitus. The erotic life of the old makes us uncomfortable. As a young friend once said to me, “Who wants to think about their sweet old nan and kindly granddad sh****** the night away?”

In my experience, no one has a bigger problem with sex over 60 than the young – especially young men. They have a kind of visceral disgust at the idea of mature flesh connecting and finding erotic pleasure.

They don’t see how a) it’s technically possible and b) how’s it sexy with all those droopy, dangling, wobbling bits, saggy boobs and ancient and sad-looking scrotums. Many mistakenly think sex after 60 is bound to end in tears or tragedy: it won’t go up, they won’t go down, this won’t work, I/they won’t do it right and so on. I have discovered rather late in life that there’s no sexual problem that can’t be solved by Viagra, patience and a sense of humour.

And what you lose in looks you gain in liberation. I once had sex with a woman in her mid-60s who’d had three children. She had deflated buttocks, fallen breasts, cellulite, stretch marks – and she was sex on two legs! Why? Because she didn’t care a damn about how her body looked or what I thought of it. She was so cool and confident and strutted around naked and proud; it was a positive turn on. And a good lesson for me to learn.

Seymour with her boyfriend John Zambetti, 73, in Las Vegas last year (Getty)

When I was in my twenties and thirties – and quite good-looking, or so I was told – I always worried about my looks. I used to have sex in total darkness. Now I catch myself in the mirror and I see lines, wrinkles, wobbly chin, growing gut and I no longer care. This is me – love it or don’t sleep with it!

And that’s one of the reasons why sex gets better as you get older. You care less about all those things that cause the young mind such anxiety; things like your body shape and your sexual performance. After 70 life really is too short for those sorts of concerns.

You discover a wider range of pleasures – and I don’t just mean sexual practices, but a deeper intimacy and delight in each other’s company. You learn that it’s what you do after the sex bit that’s important too. Sex becomes less about feeding your ego and finding connection with another person. You learn to slow down, to listen, to feel what your partner is experiencing and what they desire and how to give it.

Sorry to say it but sex, like love, is wasted on the young. (Especially young men who have grown up on porn!) Even though attitudes to mature sex haven’t changed all that much – the prejudice is still there – actual sexual practice for the over-sixties has. They were the free-love generation of the 1960s and they have become the new love generation in their seventies and beyond.

On ship cruises and in retirement homes, older people are having more sex with more partners – or so the increasing number of STIs amongst the over-65s would suggest. A report on local health services in 2022 by the Local Government Association said this had gone up by 20 per cent.

And thanks to the booming sex aid market, older men and women are getting their confidence back and couples are getting their love life back. And what other activity on these cold January nights can keep your body so warm and your heart so happy?