There you are at 61 years old. In bed with a new lover, a Match.com jewel. Who would have guessed after 28 years of marriage? You hardly feel ready, but the meter is ticking. Three dates and time for sex. Oh boy, there’s that big question to ask … who has the condom? WebMD and I nail the answer in their latest sex and aging publication, Safe Sex for Grown-ups. Serious stuff in the midst of seriously sexy stuff. A must read. Yep. It’s tough to ask if our potential sex partners are “clean of STI’s”, at our age. Welcome to dating in the 21st century. Put on your big girl/boy panties and deal with it head on. It’s a new ballgame, and if you don’t play by the rules, you can find yourself outside the ballpark completely – mighty sick and lonely, maybe even dead. Bleak? Doesn’t have to be. It’s a matter of changing our mindset.
This is not like the flight attendant asking us if we are capable of opening the emergency door during a water landing. That’s when we loosen our IPods just enough to say “Yeah, ok” and replug. This time, the threat is real for 2 big reasons:
1. We don’t think it’s going to happen to us because we’ve been good girls and boys, and we’ve only dated good girls and boys. We were cleanly in committed relationships when all this AIDS epidemic happened. Oops. Wrong. The big bad world is now on our front door step (or in our bed). Change your mindset and take a cue from the 20something world today. Always use a condom and get tested for HIV. Then, ask to see their test results.
2. We have no idea how to ask. Mama never taught us how to say, “Are you clean?”. Nor did the Nuns. Nor did the headmaster(mistress). Nor did our 8th grade biology/sex ed teacher. Nor did our minister/priest/rabbi. Nor did our shop buddies or our home economics classmates. And on and on. Think of it this way: it’s better to be asking than explaining. Ask any of the millions of STI sufferers (not just HIV – gonorrhea (yep, still around), chlamydia, and a whole host of others.) If you don’t take 15 seconds to ask, you very well may spend the rest of your life explaining, and that’s not fun. Learn to ask. Say, “Are you clean of any STI’s?”. How long did that take?
Need facts? Nationwide, an estimated 16% of new HIV/AIDS cases are among those age 50 and older and 25% of people living with HIV/AIDS are over 50, according to the CDC.
No time to be shy. This time, nice girls and boys really will finish last.
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