Literature on sex, intimacy and sexuality in later life has been heavily influenced by perspectives from more affluent regions, perpetuating the belief that the West is more sexually progressive and liberal than other cultures.
This book challenges this belief by exploring diverse cultures and perspectives from the majority world, which are often overlooked. It highlights the importance of learning from cultures in the global South and East, dismantling stereotypes that frame them as sexually conservative or inferior.
Variously drawing on structuralist, postcolonial and decolonial theory as well as social anthropology, the book critically examines binaries related to culture, age, sex and intimacy, highlighting the need to decentre Western perspectives as the benchmark while other cultures and practices are misunderstood.
Table of Content
Foreword – Gayatri Reddy
1. Introduction to the Volume: Themes, Issues and Chapter Synopses – Paul Simpson, Krystal Nandini Ghisyawan, Debra A. Harley, Shanon Shah
Part 1: In/visibility and Ambivalence
2. Under the Orhni: Intimacy and Near-Invisibility among Older Indo-Trinidadian Queer Men – Krystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon
3. Older kinnars, ageism and Sexuality during the Covid-19 Outbreak – Anushkaa Arora
4. Doing Complex Intimacy in the Later Life of Chinese Gay Men in Hong Kong – Barry Lee and Travis Kong
Part 2: Women Questioning Age/ing Intergenerationally and Intragenerationally
5. Deep within the Eye of the Beheld: Exploring Hidden Accounts of Intimacy in the Lives of Older Indian Women in Urban Malaysia – Sally Anne Param
6. From Age of Despair to Window of Opportunity? Reframing Women’s Sexuality in Later Life in the Middle East and North Africa – Shereen El Feki and Dr Selma Hajri
7. Lost Voices of Partition: Carrying Gender, Nation and Femininity across the Life Course – Nafhesa Ali
Part 3: Agency through Fantasy, Erotic Tales and Pleasure
8. Sexual Fantasies and Older, Indigenous Purépecha Women: Socio-Cultural Constraints and Possibilities – Cuauhtémoc Sanchez Vega
9. Indigenous Elders as Sexual Agents Through Storytelling as a Queer and Decolonial Practice in ‘Canada’ – Madeline Burns
10. Sex, Intimacy and Older Life in Muslim Contexts – Shanon Shah
11. Reflections: Themes and Issues Emerging from the Volume – Debra A. Harley, Krystal Nandini Ghisyawan, Shanon Shah, Paul Simpson
About the author
Paul Simpson is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester.