Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it...oh and your grandmama.

August 16, 2011 6:04 AM

Old people have sex? Please help me find media representations of geriatric sexuality in various media such as in commercials, movies, posters, television, newspapers, and so on.

I am working on a psychology project that involves how the elderly are portrayed in global media. I am focusing on Korea and Asia, but am interested in all international media. I would like to add some visual components to spice up my project. I am looking for material such as old people getting it on in the Korean film Too Young to Die, positive portrayals such as Cacoon or advertisements such as Viagra. I am trying to find media that is funny or insulting, but also items that show how trends are either changing or not changing in the media.

Thank you, I appreciate your suggestions, advice, and help.

posted by Knigel to society & culture (30 answers total)

Okay, this might not help, but there was this artist I saw at the Armory shows in 2009 and 2010 (maybe at 2011, but I can't recall.) He created enormous paintings -- at least ten feet across -- and at least one of them was of an old couple having sex. Or, rather, not having sex. The content and title had something to do with erectile dysfunction.
posted by griphus at 6:08 AM on August 16, 2011

Lemon Party?
posted by cazoo at 6:11 AM on August 16, 2011 [3 favorites]

The short-lived HBO series Tell Me You Love Me featured several sex scenes with an older couple, played by Jane Alexander and David Selby. The series takes place in the US though.
posted by juliplease at 6:15 AM on August 16, 2011 [3 favorites]

A Billion Wicked Thoughts has many mentions of old folk sex -- but more about porn than mainstream media.

Also there is either an article or an article/mini-documentary on a Japanese man who worked in elder porn without his families knowledge. I distinctly remember video clips (generally SFW "lead up to the moment" clips).

In mainstream media - Something's Gotta Give (film) is likely more relevant about a relationship between an older(ish) couple. Geriatric, however, it's not but there are specific comedic references to age & body changes.
posted by countrymod at 6:24 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Seems like The Golden Girls would be a goldmine for this if you were interested in going back that far. The "Condom Skit" is the just first video that comes up on google when you search for the show.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 6:27 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I seem to recall the movie "Coocoon" had some old folks' sex in it.
posted by easily confused at 6:31 AM on August 16, 2011

Easily Confused, it seems that neither of us can spell that word properly. You have an excuse according to your eponysterical name. I, however, have no such excuse.
posted by Knigel at 6:39 AM on August 16, 2011

Depending on your target age range you may want to include Something's Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. Nicholson was 66 at the time.
posted by FlamingBore at 7:02 AM on August 16, 2011

Little Miss Sunshine:
Frank: I take it you didn't like it at Sunset Manor?
Sheryl: Frank...
Grandpa: Are you kidding me? It was a fucking paradise. They got pool... They got golf... Now I'm stuck with Mr. Happy here, sleeping on a fucking sofa. Look, I know you are a homo and all, but maybe you can appreciate this. You go to one of those places, there's four women for every guy. Can you imagine what that's like?
Frank: You must have been very busy.
Grandpa: Ho oh. I had second degree burns on my johnson, I kid you not.
Frank: Really?
Grandpa: Forget about it.
posted by Jorus at 7:10 AM on August 16, 2011

On the former U.S. series "Sisters" two of the sisters walked into their widowed mother's (in her 70s, I'd say) bedroom and found her in bed with her senior citizen boyfriend, who eventually became her second husband. The audience saw the couple from the sisters' viewpoint, with bare legs and arms sticking out from the sheets.

On "Dallas" Miss Ellie was going upstairs and said she was going to take a nap. Clayton, her second husband, patted her bottom and roguishly said he was coming along with her.
posted by jgirl at 7:14 AM on August 16, 2011

Oh! In "Roseanne" Bev (Roseanne's mother) injured herself after having sex in the shower with some guy at the retirement home. She then had to use a walker and stay with Roseanne, where her son-in-law Fred (Roseanne's BIL) ragged on her about it.
posted by jgirl at 7:16 AM on August 16, 2011

There's a scene in The Nanny (the episode "Everybody Needs a Bubby") in which Fran catches Grandma Yetta in bed with a guy.
posted by lwb at 7:18 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Renault Twingo ad shown (in English) on Dutch TV. Grandma is apparently... active.
posted by likeso at 7:22 AM on August 16, 2011

Cloud 9, a German film about an affair between a 65-year-old married woman and her 70-year-old lover. I haven't seen it but from the previews it doesn't look either funny or insulting so it might not serve your purpose.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:41 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

In "On Golden Pond", at one point Henry Fonda says "Wanna mash face?" to his wife, played by Katherine Hepburn. Basically an invitation to kissing.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:49 AM on August 16, 2011

Moonstruck has a very sweet scene between Cher's character's aunt and uncle (the Capomaggis).

In the episode "The Unbearable Blindness of Laying" from the second season of King Of the Hill, Hank goes blind after seeing his mother and her boyfriend in a clinch. I think this is streaming on Netflix.
posted by apparently at 7:58 AM on August 16, 2011

countrymod's referring to Shigeo Tokuda, and possibly this vice video.
posted by ilk at 8:03 AM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

They might not be quite elderly, but Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand's characters in Meet the Fockers are a sex-positive older couple. They're comically played over the top of course, but they actually wind up seeming the most realistic characters to me.
posted by jquinby at 8:22 AM on August 16, 2011

Harold and Maude I don't think it shows the actual sex act but iirc they talk about it and imply it.
posted by HMSSM at 8:40 AM on August 16, 2011

They aren't exactly old (although they are by Hollywood standards), but I thought that the relationship between Paul Childs and Julia Childs in Julie & Julia was sweet, funny, and sexy.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:22 AM on August 16, 2011

In Futurama, there are a couple of instances in which Professor Farnsworth gets rutty.

Mother's Day (S02E27) involves him having sex with an old flame as part of a caper; the foreplay is shown onscreen, as is his nude smug post-coital sigh of "Oh yes."

When Aliens Attack (S01E12) has a reference to the Professor getting it on, though not a display of it; he mentions that the invading aliens may force humans to mate continuously, following that with the same delighted "Oh yes." It's at about 7:20 in this.

Also, in Xmas Story (S02E04), Farnsworth explains that the 20th Century's "primitive notions of modesty" have disappeared altogether, illustrating this by suddenly disrobing. Not sex, but still a bit of unapologetic geriatric nudity played for laughs.
posted by Greg Nog at 9:59 AM on August 16, 2011

Watch some soaps! One Life to Live is filled with old people sexing it up, to the point of discomfort, occasionally. Robin Strasser, who plays Dorian Lord on that show, is 66, and she has a really lot of naked scenes.
posted by esmerelda_jenkins at 10:38 AM on August 16, 2011

The video for Boombox by The Lonely Island has some seniors getting busy near the end.
posted by ODiV at 10:41 AM on August 16, 2011

I can't find the ad now (hopefully someone savvier can), but there was a Diesel jeans ad in the '90s that I recall seeing in either Rolling Stone or Spin magazine. It was a two page layout of an elderly man and woman sitting on a couch. They may or may not be wearing leather. She is looking at porn and reaching suggestively for his crotch. It was rather outre at the time, and I still think about it. Can anyone find that ad?
posted by msali at 10:43 AM on August 16, 2011

I cannot find a link to it but Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson have a very funny and tender bed scene in Something's Gotta Give.
posted by Danf at 11:56 AM on August 16, 2011

Golden Girls!
posted by amodelcitizen at 12:07 PM on August 16, 2011

Juliet Anderson, aka Aunt Peg, was a porn actress who started in the adult film industry at the relatively late age of 39, and after a hiatus came back in late middle age and did a number of films before she died.

Speaking of Jack Nicholson, there's a scene in About Schmidt where Kathy Bates tries to seduce him, albeit without success, after disrobing and getting into the hot tub with him.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:09 PM on August 16, 2011

There was a documentary about swingers in the mid 90s that shocked, shocked! the college aged kids who viewed it with me, because some of the main people profiled were, like, 50 and older. Not geriatric by any stretch but middle-aged. Don't remember the name but I bet it wouldn't be too hard to find...
posted by Sublimity at 4:22 PM on August 16, 2011

Innocence, directed by Paul Cox, is a movie about a couple who meet up forty years after they had an affair and well, get it on. I haven't seen it but I remember it getting a lot of rave reviews when it came out.
posted by Wantok at 4:47 PM on August 16, 2011

I can't remember any specific episodes, but there were a few in Six Feet Under that dealt with Ruth (the mother) and her various relationships; no actual sex scenes that I recall, but the subject was discussed.
posted by ashirys at 7:47 AM on August 17, 2011