Rewriting desire: challenging ageist stereotypes about sexuality in later life

There’s a persistent cultural myth that sexual desirability has an expiration date. As people age, they are assumed to quietly exit the realm of attraction, intimacy, and desire. It’s a narrative so ingrained that it often goes unquestioned - yet it’s both inaccurate and deeply harmful.

Ageist stereotypes about sexuality in older life don’t just misrepresent reality, they shape it. They influence how older adults see themselves, how others treat them, how they can access services and even how media outlets portray them. It’s time to challenge these assumptions and replace them with a more honest, inclusive understanding of desire across the lifespan.

One of the most pervasive stereotypes is that older people simply stop being interested in sex or intimacy. This idea, sometimes framed as ‘ageing out’ of sexuality, ignores the diversity of experiences in later life. While desire may evolve, it rarely disappears altogether. When society assumes older adults are asexual, it creates silence. Conversations about sexual health, consent, pleasure, and identity are often excluded from services aimed at older populations. This invisibility can lead to unmet needs, misinformation, and even risk.

There is a worryingly consistent rise in STIs in over 65s, often people entering into new relationships, post-divorce and now the risk of pregnancy is gone there can be a lax attitude to sexual health. If sexual health brands aren’t marketing to older people and your sexual health classes at school were inadequate and a distant memory – who is going to refresh people’s education?

Advertising firm Ogilvy UK saw this gap, producing two powerful pro-bono campaigns with the relationship charity Relate, role-modelling the type of advertising work that plugs this gap. Their first campaign ‘Let’s Talk the Joy of Later Life Sex’ campaign with beautiful intimate photography and filmed content of older couples by celebrity photographer Rankin, in response to a lack of older generational intimacy in advertising. Followed by a sexual health awareness project with sexual wellness brand Hanx. Whilst widely lauded in the advertising industry, sadly the baton has not been taken forward by wider health and lifestyle brands – though we do love this iconic advert from Malteasers highlighting how awkward people can be around older people and new romantic relationships “Everyone, this is Grandma’s new ‘companion’”, “he calls him that, as he doesn’t want to imagine us ‘getting it on’”.

Mainstream media overwhelmingly centres youth as the benchmark of beauty and sexual appeal. Wrinkles, grey hair, and ageing bodies are either erased or framed as something to ‘fight against.’ This narrow lens doesn’t just exclude older people; it actively diminishes their sense of self-worth. When desirability is equated with youth, ageing becomes something to fear rather than a natural, meaningful stage of life.

But attractiveness is not a fixed standard. Many people report that confidence, humour, emotional intelligence, and authenticity become more important with age, qualities that often deepen over time.

Ageist stereotypes around sexuality don’t affect everyone equally. Women, in particular, face a sharp decline in how their desirability is perceived as they age. While older men may be framed as ‘distinguished’ or ‘silver foxes,’ older women are frequently rendered invisible.

This double standard reinforces harmful messages about whose desire matters and whose doesn’t. It also limits representation, making it harder for older women to see themselves reflected in narratives of romance, passion, and pleasure.

At the same time, older LGBTQ+ individuals often face compounded invisibility, with their identities and relationships overlooked entirely in discussions about ageing and sexuality.

Using their reputations and platforms as screen sex-symbols, actors Halle Berry and Gillian Anderson, both in their late 50s, have become campaigners for the visibility of female sexuality, Berry launching a Menopause brand focusing on sexual pleasure declaring that “Women my age deserve to have sex and be intimate” and Anderson’s latest book, More, collates women’s sexual fantasies: “We collectively deserve to want, and not just to want, but to want more and more, again and again."

From film and television to advertising, portrayals of older people’s sexuality are rare and when they do appear, they’re often played for humour or discomfort. These depictions reinforce the idea that desire in later life is unusual or inappropriate.

At its core, this issue is about more than sex. It’s about visibility, respect, and the right to be seen as a whole person at every stage of life.

When we challenge ageist stereotypes, we don’t just improve the lives of older adults, we reshape how all of us experience ageing. We move from a narrative of decline to one of continuity, growth, and connection.

Written by Clare Nightingale, former PR and Celebrity Manager at Centre for Ageing Better.