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"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin. I'm ugly, shy and anachronistic. But by dint of not wanting to be those things I have pretended to be just the opposite. Until today, when I have resolved to tell of my own free will just what I'm like, if only to ease my conscience. The beginning of a new life at an age when most mortals have already died."



There is no subject in our society that is associated with more myths and misinformation than that of sexual intimacy and the elderly. This subject is often considered taboo and is relegated to derogatory humour. Some examples of the myths include:
- impotence is a natural consequence of ageing.
- sexual activity can be dangerous for the elderly.
- the sex drive or libido diminishes with advancing years for both men and women.

Sometimes, in the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are.

"Sex at 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope" -- George Burns

The media usually portrays the elderly as nonsexual beings who have traded in physical prowess for greater mental clarity and wisdom. Recent research shows that as we get older, our senses of taste, smell, and sight diminish, and our capacity for strenuous activities and exertion decline. Naturally, our sexual sensations and the ability to perform sexually will modestly decline. But decline is not the end, right?

"Human sexual response may be slowed by the aging process, but it is certainly not terminated."

Whew! Am I glad to hear that!

Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a tale about romance in old age, enticingly sensual yet often tragic and sad. It is about an unnamed second-rate reporter who on the eve of his 90th birthday decides to give himself "a night of mad love with a virgin adolescent". As much as that statement may hit some in the face, and potentially raise questions about why you decided to read this book, one is soon drawn in to the lonely and disconnected life of this old man.

On his 90th birthday, the old man awakes, as always, at 5am in the morning:

"My symptoms at dawn were perfect for not feeling happy: my bones had been aching since the small hours, my asshole burned, and thunder threatened a storm after three months of drought."

He settles down to write the day's column for the local newspaper and decides that the subject should indeed be his 90th birthday. He starts to think about his life and what it means to be old.

"The truth is that the first changes are so slow they pass almost unnoticed, and you go on seeing yourself as you always were, from the inside, but others observe you from the outside."

Old Age

The old man has never fallen in love. He was close to marrying once, but it was a loveless union that he could not commit to. He had never gone to bed with a woman he didn't pay and the few who weren't in the profession, he persuaded to take money. At 20 he began to keep a record of his liaisons, listing name, age, place, and a brief notation on the circumstances and style of lovemaking. By the time he was 50 there were 514 women with whom he had been with, at least once.

"I stopped making the list when my body no longer allowed me to have so many and I could keep track of them without paper."

He had the tool of a galley slave and he slept in the red-light district two or three times a week. His claim to fame is that he'd been with such a variety of companions that he was twice crowned client of the year! *rolling my eyes*

While thinking back over his life, he is overcome by irresistible excitement and he calls Rosa Camarcas, the madam of the local whorehouse. She informs him that she knows precisely his desires and requests that he visit the whorehouse later that evening.

Freshly washed, dressed and pressed, he visits the whorehouse and is presented with a 14 year old adolescent. She is a seamstress who desperately needs additional funds to support her impoverished family. She is so anxious by events that Rosa has to give the girl a mixture of bromide and valerian to drink, so that by the time the old man sees her, she is asleep in the enormous bed for hire.

"I sat down to contemplate her from the edge of the bed, my five senses under a spell. A warm current travelled up my veins, and my slow, retired animal woke from its long sleep."

But strangely, nothing happens.

"This was something new for me. I was ignorant of the arts of seduction and had always chosen my brides for a night at random, more for their price than their charms, and we made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were. That night I discovered the improbable pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty."

For a period of time the old man and the young girl meet. He calls her Delgadina, a girl in a song, and he brings her small gifts. Each time they meet they sleep side by side, with him mostly looking at and smelling her. Occasionally he kisses and caresses her tired young body as she snoozes. She doesn't speak with him; their intimacy is silent, tranquil.

The old man soon falls madly in love, that first time, intense, giddy kind of love. He simply becomes another man and his eyes and soul are opened to the invincible power of unrequited love. It drives him crazy and he pours his feelings out in his local column. Soon his readers are living this life with him, many conversant with the feeling of being completely, hopelessly, desperately in love with someone, all the while knowing that their feelings will never reach them. It's like drowning but you just won't fucking die.

He begins to realise that all of his previous years with prostitutes have been wasted years.

"Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love."

This is a sparsely written yet beautiful novel, told touchingly from a first person perspective, by a man who has lived his life in isolation and lacks human affection. When he finally finds a connection at 90, which most of us are lucky to experience in youth, the reader is left with no choice but to acknowledge the possibility that truth and beauty may be found in the strangest of places and times.

The power of love is limitless and does not fit neatly into a box. It transforms people regardless of the conditions under which it comes into existence.

One thing this book did make me think about was where I'd be, who I'd be with, and the type of person I would be at 90. I love life and live it to the full and I want to stick around on this earth for as long as I possibly can. I want to be just like Betty White...out there, living life, brain intact, and a wit as quick as ever.


Betty White clips

The secret to successful aging is never retiring from life, always having a mission or a reason for living. And hey, if I can still enjoy the sexual pleasures of life at that age, then bring it on! :-).

Be sure to enjoy each day GR friends by staying active doing what you love to do. And, you may just live long enough to find out that many things will naturally take care of themselves.

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