Midlife Sex and HIV/AIDS

Back in the '80s at the height--or should I say, nadir--of the blind hysteria about AIDS, there was no little concern among my group of girlfriends. We were single, slim and gallivanters. Loved going to bars and clubs--our own 20th century version of Lindsay Lohan's life. Okay, maybe not so much in terms of the drugs, but the alcohol? Whoohoo! And the partying? Yes indeedy. I remember one road trip from Texas to LA that should have taken two days but stretched to five or six because we just kept finding another little honkytonk in another little Texas town that had to be visited. Some of us, those of us with a little looser grip on our knees, were freaked (as we said then) by the thought of getting AIDS. As far as we knew, it was a death sentence and could be caught just by breathing polluted air or kissing the wrong boy. I mean, fluids are fluids we figured. I dealt with the whole thing by, first, keeping a firm grip on my knees and, second, leaving LA and getting married.

Whew! I was safe. My girlfriends had their own solutions and none of us, as best I know today, ever showed up HIV positive. And now, of course, we're all midlife women, well past the gallivanting stage. So we're still safe--right? Not so fast.

More magazine has a very scary article this month. It's called "Killer Sex," and writer Alexis Jetter has some sobering statistics. Today, one in three women newly infected with HIV is over the age of 40. We're at risk because we think we're safe. We're married. We don't gallivant. We only date nice men and we only sleep with clean guys. Ha!

Go read the article. It will sober you up--and maybe it will safe you as well.

Me, The Sex Expert

Did you know that I used to write about sex? Have I told you that already? That I was that person telling you how to have better orgasms or twiddle his diddle more efficiently in, oh name the woman's mag I didn't write for. Okay, Cosmo, I never wrote for them, but the rest? Yep, that was me (writing under my married name, Jane Patrick, or, when I got more liberated, Jane Gassner Patrick).

I thought of this today when I was reading one of my favorite daddy bloggers, Childs Play x2. He's got the most adorable fraternal twins (or dyzygotic, as we call them in the psych biz) who could be monozygotic for all that they look exactly alike. But (in my effort to show off), I digress. His post today was about being contacted by someone out there in the Great Wonderful World of Let's Make A Dollah Offa These Bloggas starting up a start-up and trolling for writers to create copy that would attract many reader hits to said start-up which would, in turn, make hay with the advertisers. [Another aside, this one worthy of brackets: I don't know why I've got my tongue so firmly in cheek about this practice when I recently bit on one such trolling myself (and may you, G-D willing, see the results some day)]. ChildsPlayx2 was marvelling in his post about being considered an expert on childrearing. And that, dear reader, reminded me of when I marvelled at being considered an expert on things sexual.

"Jane Gassner Patrick is an expert in psycho-sexual issues", read the bio blurb in one magazine. Ha! Better it should have read, Jane Gassner Patrick hasn't had sex in years. Because that was the funny, nay, the ironic part: during that period of time when I was doing my dance for the women's magazines, my shop was shuttered. Which just goes to prove that old adage: those of you who can, do and those of us who can't, teach.

I thought to write this in a comment to ChildsPlayx2, but why should he get all the love? It's my life, and I'm gonna own it. And if you want a copy of one of my articles, just ask....