Sex in your seventies: ‘We’ve tried sex toys and role play to spice things up’ 

Keith Leech wasn’t looking for love when it found him. Both newly separated, he and friend Heather had always shared an easy camaraderie in the circle they shared in Hastings in the 90s. But one afternoon in the pub, Keith, then in his forties, noticed something shift.

‘I felt a really strange feeling. Like some external force was pushing us together,’ he remembers. Heather, who was in her thirties at the time, felt the same. ‘It suddenly was like the fates were doing something.’

Neither of them had planned on starting something new; both were fresh out of marriages, with children to think about, but sparks were flying. That evening, they shared a passionate kiss on Keith’s sofa.

After trying, and failing, to keep things platonic, a thrilling private affair followed, which they tried to keep secret from friends. Not wishing to become a source of gossip, they arranged their liaisons in private for weeks. (Of course, everyone knew.)

Retired teacher and part-time actor Keith, felt very lucky. Plus, the sex was great.‘Heather’s an incredibly attractive woman. Every bloke I knew was chasing her,’ he tells Metro.

Fast forward 25 years, after getting married, having a child together and raising their other kids in close step families, Keith, now 71, and Heather, 62, are more in love than ever.

With shared interests and hobbies, they have a lot in common and are like ‘two sides of the same coin’, Keith says. But their happy marriage nearly hit the rocks when Heather entered the menopause in her fifties and their sex life dwindled.

At first, Keith thought her lack of libido was down to him. ‘There was just this physical inability to do it, which was very distressing. I felt demoralised and rejected,’ he admits.

‘For a time, it was a cause of tension. I thought: “Why don’t you just come straight out with it and admit you don’t like me anymore?” I was very upset. And I kept thinking – what’s wrong with me? I think a lot of people go through that.’

Around the same time, Keith was prescribed lifesaving blood pressure pills that caused erectile dysfunction, which hammered the final nail into their intercourse coffin.

However, rather than let it cause resentment, when their sex life slowed down, Keith and Heather kept talking, and the couple soon came to realise that none of it was personal; a combination of menopausal dryness and male biology were to blame.

‘People don’t want to talk about sex. Especially men. But intimacy is important in a relationship. And if it’s not quite right, you need to talk about it, Kieth explains. ‘We are very open and honest with communication – always have been – so Heather and I didn’t struggle to discuss our issues.

‘The menopause was making it very uncomfortable for Heather and therefore not much fun for either of us in the end.

‘We reached a point of resignation, because sex had been great. But then you realise that if you’ve been together for 25 years, there’s actually something much deeper in the relationship than how it started.

‘And the pills were keeping me alive, he adds. ‘I’d rather be alive and still enjoying being with Heather, than having brilliant sex for years.

Eager to keep the intimacy alive, they worked around the problem. Although the couple discovered lube didn’t work for them and Viagra wasn’t an option due to Keith’s medication, they found other ways to be just as close.

‘’Yes, there is a sense of grief over not being as physical as we once were. But intimacy can take many other forms,’ explains Keith. We’re still sexually active. Intimacy doesn’t have to rely on penetrative sex. There’s lots of touching, cuddling, foreplay, kissing – all of that. There are things you can do which are still a pleasure to each other, enjoying each other’s bodies.’

The couple have tried sex toys and scheduled sex with varying degrees of success. Dressing up and role play isn’t for them – as part time actors it feels too much like work.

And they keep their love alive through little acts of intimacy; holding hands and bags of compliments. Keith admires Heather every day while she’s getting dressed – and tells her so.

And they reinforce the relationship with daily rituals such as cooking meals for each other, making sure to eat together, and Keith making Heather lots of cups of tea. She calls him her ‘silver fox’ and he buys her flowers and chocolates.

Because they are so busy and often out in the evenings, a ‘date night’ simply involves sharing a bottle of wine, putting the phones away and watching a film snuggled up on the sofa.

In the absence of full sex, Keith came to realise that ‘something much deeper had developed that made us very solid as a thing’.

‘I found that there was a lot more to our relationship than what I was doing in the bedroom – a lot more,’ he says.

His advice for others in the same situation is: ‘just don’t worry about it. Enjoy each other for who you are. One of the great things about being over 70 is that we can be with each other all the time. You need to keep up the fun. Realise and accept that your body and your hormones aren’t the same, but just as you might have arthritis in your toe or whatever, just accept this is another aspect of your body changing with age.

‘This morning, I woke up before Heather. And I was just laying there looking at her while she was asleep, thinking what a lucky man I am,’ he adds. ‘It is a cliche, but love is just like a fine wine that gets better with age. There is so much more to a relationship than waving your willy around.’

●    Keith is talking about sex, magic and masculinity as part of Lovehoney’s ‘Menifesto’ campaign. You can find out more here.