THE SEXUAL DIVIDE
As a just-turned 66-year-old woman married for 38 years, I have to list the many things wrong with Alyssa Giacobbe’s story “The Complicated Sex Life of Boomers” (June 29). First, the title should be “The Sex Life of Boomer SINGLES,” as it almost exclusively deals with dating. Second, regarding the small section on married couples, Giacobbe writes, “Twenty years ago, there was a code of silence about sex.” Maybe that was true 40 or 50 years ago, but married couples in their 60s have been a lot more open about discussing sex and certainly don’t fit stereotypes about wives who feel they have to submit to sex (as if they don’t want to) and men who have to “remember that pleasing their partners” is important. Finally, there are plenty of complications in the sex lives of older women and men that Giacobbe doesn’t even touch on, given her fascination with dating, hookups, and how “exhausting” it is “to be dating different people all the time.” Great idea for a story — really dumb story.
Carol Hardy-Fanta / Newton
Eww.
Abner
posted at bostonglobe.com
From a humble journalistic background, the Globe has stooped to a new low.
PKLO
posted at bostonglobe.com
Someone actually gets paid to write this garbage?
vladjr
posted at bostonglobe.com
I was saddened by the overly negative response online to Giacobbe’s story about boomers and sex. I think people were upset about the idea of middle-aged women having casual sex with men much younger. Evidently the idea of middle-aged people having sexual pleasure was very distasteful to many of the readers. I wish people would be curious about why they are so negative. I have seen people’s sex lives transformed, so that they had the best sex of their life at age 60. Older bodies still feel pleasure, even if they don’t look young. You’d be surprised how many people have the guts to explore their own sexuality in their later years. There are a lot of unusual reasons why people never learned to like sex, and a lot of them can be changed. Keep writing about sex. It is an important topic. Maybe we can’t stop ISIS or global warming individually, but almost all of us can get more integrated with our sexuality. And that’s a good thing. (Apologies to Martha Stewart.)
Aline Zoldbrod, PhD / Lexington
CELEBRATING THEIR 65TH BIRTHDAYS
Great bunch of “boomers” [“Happy Birthday to Us” June 29]! Still active, interested, and involved. Politics will never be the same with this crew out there . . . all young 65ers. . . . Thanks for this article.
Sanctus-Botolphus
posted at bostonglobe.com
An old friend said, “Better to wear out than to rust out!” These folks are looking fine and appreciating every day they have on earth. Good for them!
ModerateSwede
posted at bostonglobe.com
Sixty-five is liberating and invigorating. To linger — with no train to catch, no meeting to attend — over the morning Globe and a second cup. Or to paint the house — not really caring how much one gets done that day. Now where did I put the car keys?
rickpat
posted at bostonglobe.com
LEARNING FROM RUBY
My new hero is 82-year-old Barbara Henry (Perspective, June 29). While the majority of people were blinded by narrow-minded bigotry in 1960, this lovely young woman stood for tolerance and inclusiveness when she kindly and purposefully taught and loved little (and very brave) Ruby Bridges, the first African-American student to desegregate one New Orleans elementary school. She truly sums it up when she says, “To make a difference in a person’s life and to shape their awareness and caring for other people — what can be better than that?” Imagine a world full of Barbara Henrys. What a loving, hate-free, gun-free, respectful world it would be. Thank you, Barbara Henry, for your caring and your kindness, and thank you, Globe Magazine, for printing such an uplifting, heartwarming essay.
Wendy Worell / Gloucester
As civil rights history was recalled in the Globe recently, I looked for articles on Ruby Bridges. I was glad to find one on her in the Globe Magazine. I was privileged to have had Barbara Henry’s son, Courtney, in kindergarten. I did not realize Barbara Henry’s connection to Bridges until my own daughter was in the early grades and the Medfield Public Schools had a unit on the issues surrounding segregation and Rosa Parks.
Patricia M. Bain / Needham
THE MEAN STREETS
I believe that advice seeker M.W. was more than a little disingenuous concerning the circumstances that led to a neighbor’s issues regarding M.W.’s parking behavior (Miss Conduct, June 22). The writer describes a single instance last winter in which she “inadvertently took up two parking spaces” and goes on to observe that “now there are plenty of spaces.” If M.W. was offering this assertion about Charlestown, then she’s delusional. The only time there are “plenty of spots” on a Charlestown street is on street cleaning day, or when a street is cleared for the Bunker Hill Day Parade. In either instance, M.W.’s car would be subject to towing. At any other time, it’s clear that M.W. is using two parking spots, removing from use a space her neighbors would value greatly. You missed an opportunity to offer M.W. and your other readers a simple etiquette lesson that has profound consequences for a neighborhood’s sense of well-being.
Mary Ellen Sinkiewicz /
South Boston
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