Paper Short Abstract:

This paper presents the qualitative segment of a mixed-methods study on sexuality in later life. While previous research on sexual aging has predominantly focused on losses, such as declines in sexual functioning and diminished sexual activity, this study aims to explore the underlying processes like adaptation and acceptance, empower older adults, and challenge these narratives by reframing aging and sexuality beyond conventional scientific paradigms.

Paper Abstract:

This paper presents the qualitative segment of a mixed-methods study on sexuality in later life. While previous research on sexual aging has predominantly focused on losses, such as declines in sexual functioning and diminished sexual activity, this study aims to explore the underlying processes like adaptation and acceptance, empower older adults, and challenge these narratives by reframing aging and sexuality beyond conventional scientific paradigms.

Drawing on qualitative research conducted with older adults in elderly people’s homes in Croatia, this study explores how participants perceive and articulate changes in their sexuality. Through open-ended questions in focus groups, older adults shared their personal visions and experiences, offering a counter-narrative to the framing of sexual changes as markers of “unsuccessful” aging. Instead, their accounts reveal acceptance, adaptation, change of focus on closeness and intimacy, and, sometimes, active sexuality despite physical declines. The study also examines gender differences and individual interpretations of sexual aging.

By unwriting entrenched hierarchies and positionalities, we aim to highlight alternative narratives of aging that center agency, resilience, and advocacy. Co-creative methodologies emerge as a way to challenge systemic ageism, and to engage older adults ethically in knowledge production, while enabling us to address complex issues such as later-life sexuality. Reflecting on processes of acceptance, adaptation, and growth, this paper proposes flexible and inclusive models of sexual aging that resonate with older adults’ realities. It advocates for unwriting methodological, theoretical, and social boundaries, positioning research as a collaborative and transformative endeavor.