The Myth Of Sexual Loss is a fine art project based upon the photographic exploration of the ageing sexual body. The work explores and challenges the ideology surrounding sexuality and the fear of the ageing body that exists within our society. The overall approach is one of intimacy and sensitivity towards the subject, whilst aiming to develop an aesthetic style which does not sensationalize and respects the integrity and privacy of the subject.

We live in an increasingly receptive society, but one in which our attitude towards sex and ageing is still one of taboo and denial. When we reach a certain age we are put into a category of non-sexual beings. Love and sex are both physical and mental activities that should remain a healthy option, if not a more important part in later life as in youth.

The initial idea came from my time spent as a carer in which I realised that intimacy and sensuality is a very personal and individual affair. We all have our own passions and desires and they stay with us until the day we die. My past experiences as a nurse enabled me to communicate on an in-depth level with people aged 60-90, and provided me with an invaluable insight into later life. This has prepared me as an artist to visually challenge the mythology surrounding sex in the later years.

The body of work allows the composure of the aged body in some instances to seep through onto other levels of photographic representation, one that borders on the iconic. However, the visual structure of each image creates an integral element in the reading of the work. Using a tight frame, the subjects are made to become more intense, yet calm, and at some points disorientating to the viewer. Therefore, the onlooker is intrigued by the significance that the image presents, and then subjected to the implications of the outer margins that each piece considers.

“In her early thirties, Karen was mature enough to dismiss the 40-year age gap, and to acknowledge the validity of the virile thoughts of what younger people might describe as ‘a dirty old man.’ She herself was dismissive of such a silly phrase for older people, whose youthful thoughts and philosophies remain fundamentally the same for just as long as the libido remains intact. Thoughts which have been honed to perfection by the accumulated experience of trying to make sense of life’s mysterious journey to the grave, with its prescribed time table of a mere three-score-years-and-ten.”

“Sexuality is the driving force for all of nature’s wonders. There is nothing dirty about sexual motivation – it is what drives the world. There is nothing dirty in sexual reminiscence for it is merely a reflection of our youth when everything was socially clean. There is nothing dirty about desire in old age, for it is precisely the same desire we enjoyed in our youth – perhaps even better than our youthful desire in that it is honed by a lifetime of experience and thinking.”

“I feel a loving relationship in maturity aids harmonious living; it also makes you feel so much better about yourself. You have to love to be loved in return. This in return, brings sensuality, which makes you feel younger.”

“I was one of many people who responded to Karen’s advertisement for mature models to pose for an interesting photographic study on the sexuality of a sequence of older people – men & women – over 60 years of age. I accommodate the 70 years old male slot.

After reading Karen’s advertisement I made a somewhat nervous phone call, only to find myself completely at ease as she described her fascinating project. I agreed to meet her at her flat. Karen explained her need for some non-pornographic and unusual poses that were frank but less than aggressively explicit, to demonstrate the ageing sexual zones of which the world at large remains largely ignorant – and the thoughts that go with the process. She showed me some of her pictures – some of octogenarian women with remarkably youthful breasts in superb condition – and then she spread a sheet over her bed, which was to be used for the poses.

The encounter was extremely valuable to me. It proved that even as I approached 71 I can enjoy a new adventure into the unknown, and that my fundamental sexuality is the same as it always was, albeit so obviously waning in the physical practicalities of what my fantasies were suggesting.”