LAUSR

Sexual wellness is a part of the tapestry of mental health and confers psychological, cognitive, and physical benefits throughout older age. However, wellness is unattainable without first granting sexual rights that are integral to being a sexual citizen in this culture, defined as “control . . . over one’s body, feelings, relationships: access to representations, relationships, public and socially grounded choices” (Plummer, 1995, p. 151). Though many older adults experience sexual wellness and a full range of sexual rights, this is undoubtedly constrained for some due to societal privileging of younger bodies and cultural othering of older adults. This issue of Clinical Gerontologist features recent research on sexuality in late life that amplifies ignored voices deserved of sexual citizenship and adds to our understanding of promoting sexual wellness as mental health providers. The first three papers address sexual citizenship of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) older adults. A systematic review of 13 studies of inclusive healthcare practices to utilize with older LGBT persons (Lecompte, Ducharme, Beauchamp, & Couture, 2021) found organizations need to prepare staff to be knowledgeable of the specific needs unique to LGBT older adults, approach care with openness, and have skills to conduct conversations and subsequent treatment. A survey studied the sexual behaviors, concerns, and healthcare practices of self-identified LGB older adults (n = 128), to behaviorally defined LGB older adults (n = 112) and behaviorally defined heterosexual older adults (n = 2,893) found similarities except for a difference in sexual problems, reportedly higher among gay and bisexual older men (BrennanIng et al., 2021). This paper illustrates both the dearth of research and availability of information on how LGB sexuality is expressed and/or supported by providers (or rather not supported), but also that age and the intersection of sexual orientation can have additive disadvantages to sexual wellness. The third LGB focused paper in this issue compares a cross section of younger and middle aged/older adult sexuality minorities (N = 238), finding the relative importance of friendship into middle and older age in adapting to minority stress and mitigating depression (Vale & Bisconti, 2021). The next three papers add a gendered dimension to obtaining sexual citizenship and wellness. The first of these looks at the common assumption that as a woman gets older her sex life becomes significantly less satisfying. In fact, the authors found that holding conservative beliefs about sexuality mediated the effect of age on sexual satisfaction for older women, suggesting sexual satisfaction is more psychological and malleable than we are often led to believe (Vasconcelos, Ramos, Paul, & Nobre, 2021). Shen and Liu (2021) examined a gendered stereotype related to feeling obligated to engage in sex with your partner its association with perceived stress among older adults in a primarily heterosexual intimate partnership (N = 1477). The usual script often identifies women – in this case older women – as the obligated party, and thus the more stressed. However, the findings flipped the gender script a bit, suggesting the association between obligation and stress strengthened for older men over time but was relatively stable for older women. For both genders, the effect was significant and highly impacted by relationship quality. In a qualitative study with a sample of racial and ethnic minority older women