Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/17330
Title: Old and desirable: older women's accounts of ageing bodies in intimate relationships
Contributor(s): Thorpe, Rachel (author); Fileborn, Bianca (author); Hawkes, Gail  (author)orcid ; Pitts, Marian (author); Minichiello, Victor  (author)
Publication Date: 2015
DOI: 10.1080/14681994.2014.959307
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/17330
Abstract: Despite the body being central to the experience of ageing, little attention has been paid to how relationships may mediate the experience of ageing bodies. This article considers older Australian women's accounts of their bodies and of embodied experiences in the context of both long-term and newly formed intimate relationships. Drawn from a broader study of ageing and sexuality, our analyses of semi-structured interviews with 20 women aged 55 to 72 revealed that while women were frequently unhappy with their appearance, this was less important to them in relationships. During sexual intimacy, embodied experience and the capacity for bodies to be sites of pleasure were emphasised. Overall, participants experienced their bodies as sites of negotiation between socially constructed meanings of older bodies and subjectively produced ones, in complex and sometimes contradictory ways that fell outside simple distinctions between social and individual.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 30(1), p. 156-166
Publisher: Routledge
Place of Publication: United Kingdom
ISSN: 1468-1749
1468-1994
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 200205 Culture, Gender, Sexuality
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 440504 Gender relations
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 970116 Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 280123 Expanding knowledge in human society
280114 Expanding knowledge in Indigenous studies
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article

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