The Erotics of Aging. Pleasure and practice in women's later lives

Start - End 
2021 - 2026 (ongoing)
Type 
Department(s) 
Department of Languages and Cultures
Research Focus 
Research Period 
Research Region 
Research Methodology 
Additional tags 
Anthropology
Ageing Studies
Sexuality

Tabgroup

Abstract

This project explores how women seek, navigate and experience sensual pleasure in their transition into old age, and how these practices may help them make sense and navigate the physical, affective and social changes that come with aging. It follows the stories of intimacy professionals and their participants and clients in contemporary Belgium, in practices such as sensual massage, tantra workshops and intimacy care in nursing homes. The project foregrounds pleasure as a generative force, one capable of unsettling normative expectations of aging womanhood and opening space for reimagining how to live and relate in later life. In doing so, it illuminates how older women craft meaningful, unruly, and pleasurable lives within and against the constraints of aging.

People

Supervisor(s)

Phd Student(s)

External(s)

Rahil Roodsaz

Anthropology Department - Amsterdam University