Who was the hottest couple on TV this fall? Forget Scully and Mulder and their cold-fusion chemistry. No one captured the sultry smolder of eros better than the frisky sexagenarians smooching their way through the Fallon McElligott ad for Miller Lite, which managed to shake up more status quo in 30 seconds than a thousand slackers mealy-mouthing On the Road in a wash of acid jazz.
The spot's earnest, snowy-haired paramours would make great poster children for Loveseat, a Web resource dedicated to the frank discussion of seniors, sex, and intimacy, launching Monday at Third Age. With sex educator Suzi Landolphi as the resident expert, the ambition of Loveseat, says Third Age CEO Mary Furlong, is to give seniors "a safe place to listen, talk, and explore" their sex lives online, in a culture that "doesn't offer a lot of models" of vigorous sensuality in the later decades of life.
The current generation of seniors are naturally interested in exploring and extending their intimate relations, Furlong observes, for some of the same reasons that they're interested in getting online: with more time available to them, they're "discovering themselves anew. They have time to practice, to make love in the afternoon. At this life stage, people don't need things anymore.... What matters is how to nurture, grow, delight, and sustain the connections in your life, and tune into the people who are important to you."
Both Furlong and Loveseat producer Mary Tudor see the site as an expression of changing attitudes toward sex in a generation which came of age as innovators - and which is in better health than its predecessors. "The baby boomers," Furlong predicts, "are not going to be on the golf course as much as their parents were. They're going to be wired, they're going to be traveling, they're going to be exploring the frontiers of new relationships."
"Nothing influences sexual experiences more than attitude," Tudor explains. "There's an unrecognized need for factual information about sexuality among third-agers, and a need for insight about what sexuality is at that time of life."
Defining herself as either "a very funny sex expert or a comedian with a message," Landolphi she hopes that candid dialog on the site will help to challenge misconceptions in other media about seniors and sex. "The Internet is going to help change TV by telling the truth and showing real images, rather than myths," Landolphi says.
Landolphi, who is 47, sees efforts like Loveseat in a larger context of social advocacy, an outgrowth of movements toward self-determination like civil rights, feminism, and gay liberation. "This is about more self-confidence," she says. "I want my daughter to be in charge of her sex life. I don't want her to think that once she turns 40, her sex life is over."
Dr. Robert Butler, author of the authoritative guide Love and Sex After 60, thinks that "the comfort of anonymity" online will be a powerful incentive for seniors to air their concerns about sex. Many older people only feel comfortable discussing such matters with their physicians, Butler says, and "though they don't mean to be, a lot of doctors are part of the prejudice" against thinking of seniors as sexually passionate, adept lovers.
Even "children who can't stand the thought of Mom getting remarried" can contribute to the conspiracy of silence on this issue, Butler says, noting that a high number of copies of his book were sold through his publisher's 800 number, rather than by sales in stores. "A lot of older people have a hard time walking into a Barnes & Noble or a Wal-Mart and saying, 'Do you have a book called Love and Sex After 60?"
Laurie Schwartz, whose own site, Senior InfoSite of Maryland, will be adding a sexuality section in the next few months, thinks that one of the most important things the Third Age site could offer is the ability "for seniors to hear what each other are thinking."
In addition to discussion areas, Landolphi - a radio and TV talk-show host and amateur boxer who spars on Friday mornings with Emilio Estevez ("I kick his ass") - promises that Loveseat will feature guest lecturers from the Kinsey Institute, resources for gay and lesbian seniors, and will "do the Oprah thing - recommend the right books, the right products," as well as address current events in weekly "Loveseat Live" chats.
"I would have loved to had the site going when Marv Albert was going through his thing," she says. "Look at that horrible wig he wears. That was a self-worth issue."
