All Shook Up: Sexuality of Mid‐ to Later Life Married Couples
Open accessAbstract
The authors integrate theoretical work on the performance of gender with a life course perspective to frame an analysis of in‐depth interviews with 17 long‐term married couples. The findings indicated that couples' sexual experiences are characterized by change over time, yet that change is shaped by the intersection of gender and age. Midlife couples (ages 50–69) were distressed by changes in their sex lives likely because they impede couples from performing gendered sexuality. The source of this distress stems from age‐related physical changes; however, it manifests in different ways for husbands and wives. In contrast, later life couples (ages 70–86) were more likely to emphasize the importance of emotional intimacy over sex as they age. Marital sex is a source of conflict for many midlife couples because of husbands' and wives' incongruent experiences, but later life husbands and wives tend to have more congruent experiences of marital sex.
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Critical gerontological research reveals numerous examples of performances seeking to avoid the label of old.
“Critical gerontological research, particularly the studies found in its feminist branch, reveals numerous examples of performances seeking to avoid the label of old, and thus evade the leastvalued status in the age hierarchy”
From Centering Age Inequality: Developing a Sociology-of-Age Framework (2022) · cites this paper as Lodge & Umberson 2012
The Abstract (page unavailable) describes the cultural devaluation of people deemed neither young nor youthful, and the Discussion (page unavailable) reports that midlife couples tried to perform age and gendered sexuality in culturally normative ways. These passages support the link between age-related performance and devaluation, but they do not establish numerous examples of people specifically seeking to avoid the label of old. (LLM, conf=0.82)
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Centering Age Inequality: Developing a Sociology-of-Age Framework
Barrett, A. E. (2022) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-083121-043741 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Jones, A. C., Johnson, N. C., Wenglein, S., & Elshershaby, S. T. (2019) · Journal of Marital and Family Therapy · doi:10.1111/jmft.12344 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lodge, A. C., & Umberson, D.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lodge, Amy C.
- Venue
- Journal of Marriage and Family
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2012-05-24
- Volume
- 74
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 428-443
- ISSN
- 0022-2445 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-3737
- PMC
- PMC3418692
- OpenAlex
- W2120697579
- Cited by
- 125
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 5
- FWCI
- 18.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Marriage and the Family (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (R01AG017455)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD042849)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Marriage and Sexual Relationships
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Sexual function and dysfunction studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
- Keywords
- marital sexuality, midlife couples, gender performance, life course perspective, sexual distress, emotional intimacy, marital conflict, gender congruence, older couples
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