Sex and the Senior

Recently I had opportunity to celebrate with a friend on the occasion of her 50th birthday. (It is enjoyable to have such older friends at times like these.) Her married daughter decided it would be fun and appropriate to hold a surprise lingerie party, so she invited several of her mother’s friends and planned the gala affair. We all were able to enjoy shopping for another’s lingerie (did I say ‘enjoy’?! – well, it did bring me into some shops I hadn’t been in a long, long time to sputter in front of clerks pondering the ‘right’ response to, ‘what kind of item can I help you find tonight, ma’am?’ ---Have you ever tried to pick out someone else’s underwear?!!).
But as we sat that night enjoying the ‘birthday girl’s’ responses to each creative and thoughtful purchase (‘pom poms…what an interesting accessory on a nightwear item…”), I grew reflective and serious in my (private) thoughts: I was reminded in that room, in its appropriate ‘razzing’ of this discreet and personal part of life (which we did allow the birthday girl to keep personal), that:

#1 - God smiles at the sexual union and physical enjoyment of a man and woman joined in marriage. Absolutely, positively, without a blush. His design, his plan, his perfection. Even in the imperfections of aging bodies.
# 2 - #1 should not be a secret we keep from our daughters. Okay, our older, ready-to- handle-it mature daughters.

From the earliest years, our children should know in a progressive, age appropriate way, that marriage is a good thing (not a ball & chain, not servant & king, not “he wears the trousers but she wears the pants”, but good for both husband & wife), that mom and dad do kiss, and eventually, as they mature, that sex isn’t just a category that we check on a movie rating or that “bad girls’ get in trouble for, or that gives you diseases and unwanted pregnancies….
Sex (even for the seniors among us) is a gift that was first God’s idea, and thus, ever so good. It was mankind, both woman and man, who distorted and perverted it, so that we need such fierce warnings all around us to keep us from its evil use.
But that wasn’t God’s intent. Not then. Not now.
What a disservice we do to our kids and to God’s good design if we give the idea that sex for Christians is only
a) something married people do on their honeymoon, at least that’s the only time that both do it for enjoyment;
b) that married sex is merely obligatory, dutiful, dull & routine, but we do it because it’s necessary for having babies, or
c) enjoyment (even purposefully creating fun & pizazz) in sex is something only on TV or in sinful lifestyles.
Don’t forget to consider and give time to the positive. As appropriate. As opportunity presents itself. Give God the glory.

That night, “Birthday girl’s” daughter, just a couple years into her own marriage, explained the candid way her mom had shared with her the importance and pizazz of this part of marriage, and that her mom had actually stated at one time that older women needed a lingerie shower to replenish what had long been outgrown or gotten old (thus, she got what she asked for on this 50th birthday!!).
I smiled. She got the message her mom had passed on.
I pray I can pass on the message as clearly to my own daughters.

PS. I can buy my own lingerie, however; thank you very much.