Elizabeth Black writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica, erotic romance, horror, and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and her three cats. Visit her web site, her Facebook page, and her Amazon Author Page.

Her new m/m erotic medical thriller Roughing It is out! This book is a sexy cross between The X Files and The Andromeda Strain. Read her short erotic story Babes in Begging For It, published by
Cleis Press. Her novel No Restraint will be released by Xcite Books at summer’s end. Pre-order it today. Find these books at Amazon.

I took special interest in Lisabet Sarai’s essay from last month, entitled Life
Without Sex?, since I’m in the same boat. Sex is pretty much a part of my past, but eroticism isn’t.

I won’t say how long it’s been since I last had sex, but it’s longer than Lisabet’s experience.  I, like Lisabet, used to be a sex goddess, especially when I was in my 20s and 30s. I was a walking bundle of quaking hormones that needed constant release, and I enjoyed myself. It wasn’t always a pleasant experience. My choice in lovers sometimes left quite a bit to be desired, but for the most part I did have fun. I based my New Adult erotic romance novel Don’t Call Me Baby on those years in college. I had been loved and I had been used. I met men who satisfied me (and I satisfied them) as well as men who used me for sex without caring about me or my needs. I felt a strong attraction towards women but I didn’t understand that I was bi until years later.

The emotional pain was part of the picture as much as the soaring ecstasy. Some of the pain has lasted to this day. I recently discovered a memoir written by one of the men I based a character on in Don’t Call Me Baby. I had an affair with him for two years and he did not mention me once in his book, although everything else in the chapter where I should have been discussed was very familiar – and he embellished and lied about quite a bit of it. I was furious. He erased from his life what was very important to mine. I now know he used me and didn’t care as about me as much as I cared for him (he didn’t care at all – I was a cum receptacle to him), and it hurt. Despite that sad era in my life, I met men who taught me how to pleasure myself and how to give pleasure. The person who taught me how to masturbate was my female college roommate. She gave brief verbal instruction. When I asked, “How will I know I’ve had an orgasm?” She only said, “You’ll know.” She was right! LOL I read articles and books that aroused as well as taught. I met people I never would have met if it weren’t for some of these men. I reveled in my sexuality and enjoyed the exploration. If you want to know more about what I was like at this time, read Don’t Call Me Baby.

Now it’s my turn to confess. I’m in my mid-late 50s. Ever since menopause, I’ve lost a great deal of interest in sex. It isn’t an itch
that is in dire need to be scratched anymore. I know that part of the waning interest is biological, but I also understand that it needn’t be that way. Some of it is psychological. I am under the impression (wrong one, apparently) that women are supposed to lose interest in sex once their periods stop for good. While my libido has waned dramatically, it isn’t gone. I’m finding I, like Lisabet, am neither totally miserable nor crazy with unsatisfied lust. I feel as if I’ve mellowed.

Part of the problem is that my husband who is eight years older than me is impotent. It makes him (both of us) unhappy, but it doesn’t stop him from expressing affection or love. We just don’t have sex anymore. I used to miss it a great deal pre-menopause. Now, not so much. I still review sex toys and I love doing it. I use my JimmyJane Form 2 several times per week so I’m definitely not a monk. We talk about the problem on occasion but it isn’t a defining part of our relationship. We express our love for each other in many ways. Sex simply isn’t one of them.

With the urgent need for sex on the back burner, I’ve found I spend more time striving for other goals that are important to me. My writing, for instance, it now front and center. It always has been, but with age and maturity come discipline. I live my sexual fantasies through my writing. I rely on my past, my imagination, and my present when creating my characters and the situations they find themselves in whether the story is erotic, dark, humorous or horrific. Like Lisabet, the sex happens in my mind and is experienced through my imagination.

My body reacts to the sexy antics of my characters. What would I like to have done to me? I put it in my stories. What turns me on that I’ve never tried before? I put it in my stories. How would I have preferred a particular situation in my past have turned out? I put it in my stories. My body reacts to my own writing, which is what erotic writing is all about anyway. While I’m not having sex, I’m still a sexual being. No wonder I still review sex toys. I love using them. While I’m not a raging she devil in the sack anymore, I enjoy a mellow bout now and then, and my fiction drives me in that direction.

I look forward to my old age. I shall wear purple, like the woman in the poem. And I will continue to use my sex toys and write erotic fiction into my twilight years. I’m still a sexual being albeit in a different way than 50 years ago. And I’m enjoying every moment of it.